Music Videos: Music language: Prep

 PREP Explain how music videos use media language to promote their artists. Refer to the pair of music videos you have studied from the list below in your answer.

Our music videos are Wheatus Teenage Dirtbag Avril Lavigne Sk8ter Boi

HOW TO ANSWER: Media language points to consider:

the prioritising of the star / the group; the privileging of the star / the groups in the frame

authenticating the star's performance / the band's performance to show their skills

the use of close ups; lip syncing to camera; eye contact with the audience

Music videos can use media language to promote their artists through many ways such as when they focus around one person for the video or a group of people who are all intertwined somehow such as in Wheatus's Teenage Dirtbag we mainly see the life of a boy who has been mistreated and bullied his entire life and we see the other main character, a popular cool girl who doesn't know he exists. Through out the video we see the roles change for the girl as she dumps the cool guy and she is now another teenage dirtbag with him. Everyone is then invited to a school dance or prom, he does not have anyone to go with so he ends up there alone on a table with some "nerdy" people who also could not find a date. As the night is continuing the band which has been practising throughout the video are playing up on stage and as they start to get onto the chorus "im just a teenage dirtbag baby..." she is shown in the shot walking up to him and she starts singing "and im just a teenage dirtbag baby, just like you". The two main characters then embrace as they are shown as now becoming a couple. Another example of a way that music videos can use media language to promote their artists is through the way that the main characters are always lip syncing everything that the person is singing about in the background. This is the case in Teenage dirtbag when the girl gets up for the first time and starts to sing. Finally, another way that music videos use media language to promote their artists is through eye contact with the audience, this can be shown in Sk8ter Girl by Avril Lavigne when she is always watching the camera as the she sings and it almost simulates being in an audience and having the singer stare at you while you are dancing. 

 

Music magazines: Media language

 QUESTION: How far do MOJO and RNR use different media language to create different connotations? (CONNOTATION meaning: an idea or quality that a word makes you think about in addition to its meaning.)

Answer on your blog. This is a high-value question and should take all lesson to answer. You can use the class blog search engine for more examples of how to analyse music magazines.

In your answer you should have 2 paragraphs:

• analyse the media language in MOJO and RNR magazine. 'Media language' includes the placement of the main image, the type of photography, lighting, colours, fonts, how busy or restrained the cover is, the layout (such as alignment to the margins), how serious or playful 
• make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the media language is used differently in both extracts to create different connotations. Are there similarities in both covers? What sorts of audiences are they targeting? You could think about MOJO's rock aesthetic of living loud and dangerously compared to RNR's folk, rock, blues vibe. 

The FOO Fighter is presented as a scary, angry person as he is reaching out grabbing the title with his fingers wrapped around it. He is also lit in a very complimentary way from above showing that he has no wrinkles or anything of the sort. The FOO FIGHTER is also shown as a bit crazy because of the font, this is a very out of the page font which almost leaps at you, it is also all in italics and capitals. His background is also more crazy than Christy Moore's, this is because his is showing him as the central point of focus and this is because of the explosion sort of thing behind him. On the other hand, Christy Moore is presented as a man who is calm and collected. He is also lit from the side which shows that he is embracing his old age and accepting the fact that he is getting older. Christy Moore's font is very calming and fits well with the rest of the calming, soothing background which is a nice whole colour. I believe that the red outline of the text shows that he is dangerous and crazy whereas the white of Christy Moore's shows that he is calm. For the covermount on Mojos magazine it is crazy and is a skeleton rocking out which shows how cool the magazine is and how crazy it is whereas on the other hand on the RnR magazine the covermount has a nice calm pun which will make the readers laugh when they buy the magazine. The pun is Un-Herd of which is a joke because there is a picture of a Zebra in the top right of the covermount which travel in herds. 

In conclusion, I believe that both extracts use a there space very similarly, this is shown by the fact that for both of them they have no space left on the covers and how they overlap everything with something more crammed into the cover. All of this but both also still have line which keeps it away from edge of the magazine. But on the other hand they I also conclude that they also do have a lot of opposites considering how one uses a colour scheme which is very dramatic and really screams "im dangerous" whereas on the other hand RnR uses a colour which is almost boring compared to MOJO. I conclude that in some aspects they use very similar techniques to captivate the reader most aspects of the magazines are very different and not at all similar.

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03/03/2022 notes

 Representation in music videos

Music video producers use representations to: convey the meaning of the song; promote the artist by representing the artist in a way that matches or changes their public image; and promote social messages that reflect well on the artist.

Representation in set videos

This includes:

• how the producers have chose to conduct a version of reality that represents events, social groups and ideas to fit their purposes
• how and why stereotypes have been used (e.g. to enable quick interpretation by audiences)
• which social groups are under-represented or misrepresented.
• the messages are values conveyed and issues addressed.

CUFFS: REAL LIFE

In this question you will be rewarded for drawing together elements from your full course of study, including different areas of the theoretical framework and media contexts.

How far does the extract try to create a sense that it is portraying "real life"?

In your answer you should:

- analyse aspects of the extract, giving detailed examples

- judge how far these aspects create a sense of watching 'real life'

The asterisk (*) is there to signpost that this is an extended response answer (see p.86 for more details on extended response answers).

The extract tries to portray real life throughout the show in sections such as when they were having lunch and it takes ages for Jake to receive his food. This portrays real life in the fact that everyone has lunch and some places take ages for food to come and that there is no special treatment for police. This shows them having normal lives and living a normal part of society because they aren't getting food quickly and it is a daily part of life to have lunch. Also when they have to rush off and leave can be shown as "real life" as many people do not have the time to take out of there day to take a break and eat lunch.

Another way that this extract portrays "real life" is through the part when they rush off into action leaving whatever they're doing behind. This can be contrasted to real life because the police are often in a rush and don't get much time to focus on what they're doing. In this scene when they are chasing the digger drivers Josh, seems to do something which anyone can do, anyone that has not had the proper police training and it is just a normal thing to do. He misses the road sign and they place the car spikes on the wrong road meaning they have to continue the chase. 

CUFFS: MEDIA LANGUAGE, REPRESENTATION OF CHARACTERS, SOCIAL ISSUES AND CONTEXTS

 We watch Cuffs using ClickView and work from the OCR GCSE text book starting at page 5

- Arc pan: Circular shot around the people, can be used to show people in distress or just to show the main subject

- Diegetic sound: not happening in the sound

- Bloomer and Cats: Escapism, diversion, entertainment, surveillance 

- Two shot used so that Ryan can convey a message to Jake, then a focus pull is used when Jake realises that it was meant for him.

- Motivated edit, edit motivated by the scene before

Characters in Cuffs:

Jake, Ryan, Simon, Donna, Lino, Srg Vickers, Jo Moffat

Popcorn prep

 In what way is Cuffs a realistic police drama?

Cuffs is a realistic police drama in the way that before lunch Jake the new guy has been spat on, bled on and hurt all within his first morning. In this way it is realistic because it is very crazy and there are a lot more criminals compared to the amount of cops.

The Observer posts

 https://twitter.com/observeruk/status/1487728316538703872?s=21

https://twitter.com/observeruk/status/1487728308963868675?s=21

https://twitter.com/observeruk/status/1487708925604425728?s=21

https://twitter.com/observeruk/status/1487701629197455361?s=21

https://twitter.com/observeruk/status/1487699491293515779?s=21