Friday, 27 November 2009
Magazine workshop
Red Magazine Website
It’s this vanity that magazines like red exploit and reinforce effectively to sell their issues. They make it seem that they have all the answers to the reader’s questions that can help on the road to self actualisation.
For my cover I played on the insecurities that women are told to have in relationships. My stories on my cover include “Get Him: How to get your ideal man” and “Keep Him: How to stop him leaving,” though more blatant perhaps than the average header the content will have been repeated in countless issues. Women’s lifestyle magazines such as “cosmopolitan” and “Women at Home” fill their issues with quizzes on how to be a better partner, how to please their men sexually and gastronomically. Despite allegedly supporting the independent woman, these magazines portray a reliance upon having a man in their lives and being a part of a “healthy,” “normal” relationship.
My cover star is a young woman in her mid twenties. Magazines regularly use models younger than their demographic in order to increase the readers’ insecurities and sell more issues. Particularly effective when selling anti-ageing products or articles. I expressed this in my cover. “167 anti-age must haves.” 167 may seem like a random number but it lends itself to making the reader believe that the article is all encompassing. If it was 150, or 200, the reader may think that the writers reached that number and stopped. However 167 means that the writers must have really tried to write as many options as possible, they reached 150 then had a few more to include. It makes the reader feel that the magazines producers are trying their hardest to help.
Rule one is that media is a business, as a media producer Red magazine has to sell units. Its best way to do so is, through interpellation, connecting with its audience directly. To become its readers friend. Including stories that play on women’s insecurities and promising quick fixes (14-day exercise regimes) and answers (“how to keep your man?”) means that “Red” becomes the readers oracle, the magazine becomes the person who the reader turns to in times of crisis and can find comfort in reading other people’s problems.
To me these life style magazines are all about Maslow’s hierarchy. In men’s magazines you can read “how to pick up women” or “mix the perfect cocktail” in women’s magazines it’s “meet a good man” and “how to cook the perfect roast dinner.” Magazines reinforce the expected modes of speech, dress codes and behaviours that have been in place for generations. If you can perfect your cocktail stirring, fashion sense, chat up lines or culinary techniques you are that much closer to self actualisation and living nirvana.
This week in lesson time we had a chance to practise creating a magazine cover for a lifestyle magazine. All lifestyle magazines deal with what Foucault developed as the idea of “technologies of the self,” the tools that supposedly make you a better rounded person and working towards self actualisation, as expressed in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
I had a go at recreating a cover for “red” magazine.
“Red” is a lifestyle magazine aimed primarily at women in their thirties. Accordingly the magazines contents reflect the issues that are expected of women of that demographic. On the cover I used as a reference, from June 2005, there was a guide to a summer body. The picture that accompanied the headline was of a young woman in a bikini leaping in the air. This implies that if you follow the magazines 14-day guide you will have this models figure and confidence. I set my issue as the January issue, thus giving me the potential to use the self consciousness of my target audience in the post Christmas/ New Year resolutions season. At this time of year most people are aware that they have spent a fortnight over eating and drinking. It’s no coincidence that adverts for diets, gyms and exercise regimes are at an all time high in January, close second being may and June for the pre summer regimes.
“Red” is a lifestyle magazine aimed primarily at women in their thirties. Accordingly the magazines contents reflect the issues that are expected of women of that demographic. On the cover I used as a reference, from June 2005, there was a guide to a summer body. The picture that accompanied the headline was of a young woman in a bikini leaping in the air. This implies that if you follow the magazines 14-day guide you will have this models figure and confidence. I set my issue as the January issue, thus giving me the potential to use the self consciousness of my target audience in the post Christmas/ New Year resolutions season. At this time of year most people are aware that they have spent a fortnight over eating and drinking. It’s no coincidence that adverts for diets, gyms and exercise regimes are at an all time high in January, close second being may and June for the pre summer regimes.
It’s this vanity that magazines like red exploit and reinforce effectively to sell their issues. They make it seem that they have all the answers to the reader’s questions that can help on the road to self actualisation.
For my cover I played on the insecurities that women are told to have in relationships. My stories on my cover include “Get Him: How to get your ideal man” and “Keep Him: How to stop him leaving,” though more blatant perhaps than the average header the content will have been repeated in countless issues. Women’s lifestyle magazines such as “cosmopolitan” and “Women at Home” fill their issues with quizzes on how to be a better partner, how to please their men sexually and gastronomically. Despite allegedly supporting the independent woman, these magazines portray a reliance upon having a man in their lives and being a part of a “healthy,” “normal” relationship.
My cover star is a young woman in her mid twenties. Magazines regularly use models younger than their demographic in order to increase the readers’ insecurities and sell more issues. Particularly effective when selling anti-ageing products or articles. I expressed this in my cover. “167 anti-age must haves.” 167 may seem like a random number but it lends itself to making the reader believe that the article is all encompassing. If it was 150, or 200, the reader may think that the writers reached that number and stopped. However 167 means that the writers must have really tried to write as many options as possible, they reached 150 then had a few more to include. It makes the reader feel that the magazines producers are trying their hardest to help.
Rule one is that media is a business, as a media producer Red magazine has to sell units. Its best way to do so is, through interpellation, connecting with its audience directly. To become its readers friend. Including stories that play on women’s insecurities and promising quick fixes (14-day exercise regimes) and answers (“how to keep your man?”) means that “Red” becomes the readers oracle, the magazine becomes the person who the reader turns to in times of crisis and can find comfort in reading other people’s problems.
To me these life style magazines are all about Maslow’s hierarchy. In men’s magazines you can read “how to pick up women” or “mix the perfect cocktail” in women’s magazines it’s “meet a good man” and “how to cook the perfect roast dinner.” Magazines reinforce the expected modes of speech, dress codes and behaviours that have been in place for generations. If you can perfect your cocktail stirring, fashion sense, chat up lines or culinary techniques you are that much closer to self actualisation and living nirvana.
Friday, 13 November 2009
Further development of my creativity?
Since writing the content of my last blog my development using digital technologies has continued. The first thing i have done is, well this, the very words you are reading. I have posted my first ever blogs and now feel comfortable in the format. Using the technology at hand i can now post my coursework notes here on blogger for global consumption. Effectivly blogger becomes my coursework timeline, constantly updating as decisions are made and notes are taken will ensure that we do not forget anything.
Also, during time in our media lesson, we had a Adobe Photoshop workshop of the basics. Although i have a lot of experience using the program I am, for the most part, self taught. Being told a different ways of performing tasks as simple as using the marquee tool effectively can only broaden my skills. I found the workshop very helpful and the basic skills i was shown will be used in my coursework.
Also, during time in our media lesson, we had a Adobe Photoshop workshop of the basics. Although i have a lot of experience using the program I am, for the most part, self taught. Being told a different ways of performing tasks as simple as using the marquee tool effectively can only broaden my skills. I found the workshop very helpful and the basic skills i was shown will be used in my coursework.
How has my creativity developed through using digital technology to complete my coursework productions?
During the AS coursework it was necessary to expand and develop my working practises. Creativity is obviously a great help at the planning stages, be that writing a script or even just exchanging ideas within our group but also the ability to be creative in every facet of production results in a more fluid production.
The first digital technology we used was to research film openings within our chosen genre. Using YouTube we were able to search for specific scenes from films that we thought was useful, this process soon steamrolled and we had watched dozens of scenes, both on YouTube and on other video hosting sites that inspired us to write our own sequence. Using the digital technologies at the point of research helped us to be creative in our planning stages and to know how far we can take the expected representations of the genre within the sequence without it becoming a pastiche. We could view other directors and writers approach to the opening sequence. Who uses subtlety to subvert the tension within the scene? Who grabs their audience by the throat and shakes them to show the threat? And who simply sets up an enigma in a traditional sense? E.g. man with a briefcase sits down, another man joins him, exchanges the briefcase for an envelope, and they go their separate ways. What’s in the briefcase? What’s in the envelope? Who are they? Researching the huge range of differences within our chosen genre as well as others helps us to understand the language of film used in setting up the enigma.
During production the obvious use of digital technology is the camera itself. In planning the sequence we created story boards and planned the shots, but when it came to shooting it was obvious that some of the shots would not be possible to create. Instead we thought on our feet and created alternatives for ourselves. A prime example of my own creativity with the camera was when shooting an over the shoulder of our leading man, Lloyd, cleaning a car windscreen we had terrible solar glare in the lens. To solve this I flipped the shot from over the shoulder to a standard mid shot from the opposite side of the car eliminating the glare. Choices like that are where my own creativity and problem solving came into the forefront. Shooting multiple takes would enable us to be more creative and decisive at the point of edit. This also gave us leeway to shoot the take from a slightly altered angle or change the action slightly and be more creative during the editing process as a whole.
As a result of the choices made during filming my most creative exercise utilising digital technology was in the edit, be that a positive thing or not. As the sole person responsible for the edit it was up to me not just top to put the pieces together but to cover the cracks in our filming. In between glare, focusing issues shaky camera and wonky camera angles I had to find enough to work with. Luckily we had enough takes to choose from and for me to try and piece together a clear narrative and smooth edit. Smooth it wasn’t but I could be creative then with the media software to import typography. The use of text on screen helped to cover some of the jump cuts and lead them into one another helping them flow more smoothly. Unfortunately the choice of fonts on Windows Movie Maker isn’t massive and the effects are basic but I made the best of it and I think it worked. I used a font that had connotations for me of suspense; it looks pieced together from other print as is used commonly in films and TV for ransom notes thus evoking that response of tension and subverting the seemingly positive, suburban setting into something “not quite right.”
Considering myself, now, as a media producer I should always be expanding my skills and developing my creativity. Moving into the A2 I intend to further those techniques already used as well as attempting more. Be they practical or creative. Learning new techniques and using new technologies encourages creativity and versatility in production.
The first digital technology we used was to research film openings within our chosen genre. Using YouTube we were able to search for specific scenes from films that we thought was useful, this process soon steamrolled and we had watched dozens of scenes, both on YouTube and on other video hosting sites that inspired us to write our own sequence. Using the digital technologies at the point of research helped us to be creative in our planning stages and to know how far we can take the expected representations of the genre within the sequence without it becoming a pastiche. We could view other directors and writers approach to the opening sequence. Who uses subtlety to subvert the tension within the scene? Who grabs their audience by the throat and shakes them to show the threat? And who simply sets up an enigma in a traditional sense? E.g. man with a briefcase sits down, another man joins him, exchanges the briefcase for an envelope, and they go their separate ways. What’s in the briefcase? What’s in the envelope? Who are they? Researching the huge range of differences within our chosen genre as well as others helps us to understand the language of film used in setting up the enigma.
During production the obvious use of digital technology is the camera itself. In planning the sequence we created story boards and planned the shots, but when it came to shooting it was obvious that some of the shots would not be possible to create. Instead we thought on our feet and created alternatives for ourselves. A prime example of my own creativity with the camera was when shooting an over the shoulder of our leading man, Lloyd, cleaning a car windscreen we had terrible solar glare in the lens. To solve this I flipped the shot from over the shoulder to a standard mid shot from the opposite side of the car eliminating the glare. Choices like that are where my own creativity and problem solving came into the forefront. Shooting multiple takes would enable us to be more creative and decisive at the point of edit. This also gave us leeway to shoot the take from a slightly altered angle or change the action slightly and be more creative during the editing process as a whole.
As a result of the choices made during filming my most creative exercise utilising digital technology was in the edit, be that a positive thing or not. As the sole person responsible for the edit it was up to me not just top to put the pieces together but to cover the cracks in our filming. In between glare, focusing issues shaky camera and wonky camera angles I had to find enough to work with. Luckily we had enough takes to choose from and for me to try and piece together a clear narrative and smooth edit. Smooth it wasn’t but I could be creative then with the media software to import typography. The use of text on screen helped to cover some of the jump cuts and lead them into one another helping them flow more smoothly. Unfortunately the choice of fonts on Windows Movie Maker isn’t massive and the effects are basic but I made the best of it and I think it worked. I used a font that had connotations for me of suspense; it looks pieced together from other print as is used commonly in films and TV for ransom notes thus evoking that response of tension and subverting the seemingly positive, suburban setting into something “not quite right.”
Considering myself, now, as a media producer I should always be expanding my skills and developing my creativity. Moving into the A2 I intend to further those techniques already used as well as attempting more. Be they practical or creative. Learning new techniques and using new technologies encourages creativity and versatility in production.
Friday, 23 October 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
