Photo-shoot - Miss Georgiou

Photo-shoot

Introduction
The reason for my photo shoot is because it will mean I will be able to include my own pictures on my magazine advert and digipak. I have taken pictures in various locations which will allow me to have a wide range of photos and will mean I don't have to include the same photos repeatedly. Having a wide range of photos means I can choose what ones I like the most, and what ones I feel work best on each slide to my digipak.  Having my own photo's for my magazine advert and digipak means they would have been taken by myself and I will be the only person using them.

Main
The photo's above are a sample of the pictures i took in my photo shoot. The first 3 images are taken in the location of London, and where taken when me and my artist Amy travelled to London to record scenes for the music video. The music video includes similar images/recordings, showing a connection between the images i have used in my digipak to the actual music video itself. This is a positive thing, as it means the audience can understand the meaning easily and create a relationship with the artist as they can connect to the images they see in the album and the music video included from the song Hometown Glory. The first three images were taken specifically at Embankment in London. The first image of my artist Amy laughing leaning over the bridge is the back cover to my digipak, the second image is my front cover to my digipak. I have chosen these two as they show resemblance to each other as they were taken in the same place, although contrast two different emotions, one happy and one sad, both these images on my digipak will be in a black and white filter. The fourth image is a picture taken of Amy on the performance stage. This was taken when we was filming the performance element to our music video, and i felt this image related to me my music video a lot. This image shows my artist to be looking down singing, this shows her passion towards music and how much she enjoys it. The fifth picture shows Amy to be looking down away from the camera. This picture was taken at Amy's house, along with many other pictures that we took at the time. This is the picture i have included on my magazine advert.

I feel that all of the pictures i have taken for my photo-shoot are conventional in there own way. The pictures taken in London are conventional as they show a urban lifestyle and London represents the song Hometown Glory within the album itself. Also Amy is wearing black, which represents the depressing and sad mood. I made sure that Amy is wearing black in all of her photo shoot photo's as its a connotation of her mood, as well as showing it through her facial expressions. All of my photo's apart from one show Amy looking sad, and away from the camera not making eye contact with the audience, showing she does not want to share her emotions and feelings and wants her audience to try ad figure out how she is feeling. The picture that i have taken of Amy laughing shows her looking our over the river in London, this shows her reflecting over her past thinking about the good times she has with her family and friends.

I feel that i have taken all my photo's too a high standard and they represent my artist in different ways through the connotations of colours and emotions. I like my first picture because the background is blurred and my artist isn't. This was the way I took the photo, i focused the camera on Amy purposely so she would stand out and the background wouldn't. This is purposely showing of the artist as being happy as she is reflecting on her life looking out past London. I like the blurred background as you can see commuters walking past, representing London as a busy and hectic place. My second picture is very similar, although this time Amy is seen through a close-up, showing her facial expressions and emotions of sadness. This was taken in the same location as the previous picture. The third picture of Amy standing in front of tower bridge is also taken in a similar location. I feel one thing good about this picture is the background and the way the artist is looking. The background strongly shows London, as you can see the river and tower bridge. The background is a true representation to the album and the song Hometown Glory. I feel that the angle of this image is at a low angle, and capture's Amy looking over the river from a point below, which represents her feelings as sad and emotional as she is being captured from a shot beneath her. I think one good thing good about the fourth picture is the dark edges to the image. This image shows Amy on stage performing, the red curtains fall behind, although the edges to the picture gradually get darker due to the lighting, and i feel this works well as now this does not have to be edited in, and natural.

I feel that each of my pictures will create a relationship with my artist in different ways. For example, picture two, the close up of Amy in London. The audience will be abel to create a relationship with the artist due to the fact that she is not looking at her audience, and looking away hiding her emotions from the camera, so the audience have to look deeper into what she is feeling and the reasons why. Picture five also holds the same reason. Amy is looking down away from the camera, which means she wants her audience to try and understand what she is feeling, and why she is feeling so down, her looking down also represents her as feeling low and depressed. None of my five pictures i took within my photo-shoot show my artist Amy too be looking at the camera. I done this purposely to show to the audience my artist wants the audience to listen to her music/buy her album to know exactly how she is feeling as her emotions are sung through the lyrics of the songs, and shown through the pictures within the digipak and the magazine advert.
The first image shows Amy looking over the bridge smiling. This picture reflects on the music video and shows a great connection as the artist is doing something very similar in it. The connection between the two shows the audience will easily recognise the photo shoot and music video together. The fact that the artist is also looking away from the camera represents a convention of the soul genre, looking away to hide her emotions from the target audience. This is the same with all the images that I have used, showing the artist looking away from the audience to hide her emotions. The photo shoot photos link to the soul genre and my ancillaries as they all portray the same conventions for the target audience to see.

Conclusion
When taking pictures for my photo-shoot i found that it was easier in certain locations than others. I felt that i took each picture to a high standard, focusing on certain aspects of each image and learning how to focus on Amy herself. I found i struggled with the lighting within each picture, as some locations had darker lighting than i expected, and found it hard to see Amy in her full potential. These pictures give my artist a representation of being sad, lonely and emotional. Each picture of her looking down or away represents these feelings, and also the connotations of the colours i have included which is mainly black, represent the darker feelings of her emotions. Although they represent her as this, they also show her as strong, as the fourth picture shows her performing on stage, and this portraying determination. This is the reason i took the particularly image, as it shows Amy from a long shot, and the audience can see her full emotion to the song.

Individual magazine advert analysis - Miss Georgiou

Individual magazine advert analysis

Introduction

The reason why I have created an individual magazine advert is to promote my artist's song and album release. The magazine advert will promote the album, which the song is included on, and this song will be from the music video that we are creating. It will hold similar conventions to the music video itself so the audience can relate to both. This magazine advert will be a method of promotion and will help to reach a wider audience than her own target audience. A magazine advert helps show of the artist, and shows conventions and surprises of what is going to be held within the album itself.
Main

Within my magazine advert i have decided to use certain elements that will make my advert appeal to a wide audience, and promote my artist effectively. Firstly, the colours i have used are conventional my genre, soul. I have included the colours black, white and red, these are the main featured colours in my music video also. This running theme of the colours means the audience can relate to the audience easily, and understand the clear connection between the two. The colour red in the title, as well as the colour on her lips shows passion, love and also anger. This colour helps portray her emotions, and how she has strong emotions on missing her hometown, in connection with the title. The red reflects her love towards her family and friends, and how she misses them, and remembers her happy past. The black reflects on the darker time in her life and her depressed and sad emotions. This is shown through the black and white filter of the background, and the reviewers logo which is black with an outline or white. The black and white filter use in the background, shows her past behind her, and now she expresses sad and depressive emotions, this is portrayed through the connotations of the colours and Amy looking down. The conventions of the soul genre, include features of the artist being down because of family or a heartbreak. Dark and mysterious colours are conventionally used to portray the artist's feelings, and want the audience to create a relationship with the audience easily. Using conventions from the soul genre means the audience can quickly recognise that this is a soul album being promoted, and will be instant attracted by the conventions used, as they stand out to the audience, and means its easily attracted to people. The images i have included involve a picture of my artist, looking down away from her audience. The purpose of my artist looking down away from her audience, means she's hiding her emotions and showing a mysterious side of her personality. She wants her audience to listen to the album, so they can work out how she is feeling and why she is feeling like this. This helps the artist reach a wider audience as people will stop and read the magazine article, and think to buy the album promoted, people stop and think in the street about how this album may make them feel if they was to buy It and listen. The other image I have included is behind the artist, and shows big ben in London. The London picture, represents the song Hometown glory included on the album. Big Ben is the main attraction of London, and Amy's song hometown glory shows to the audience her now living in London, but missing her hometown where she used to live. The picture of Big Ben also being in black and white helps reflect her emotions of sadness to the audience and how her life now is dark and not a happy time/place. The picture of big ben helps reflect the song Hometown Glory and the context involving London, showing a clear connection between the two, meaning a clear understanding for the audience. The layout/design that I have chosen to use on my magazine advert shows a clear structure to it actually being a magazine advert as the typography is bold, and everything matches. The layout shows my images standing out at the top of my advert, and the writing overlapping at the bottom, showing the debut album and the name as well as added extras. The typography I have included shows the title of the album, the representation and the release date. The representation of the album states this is her debut album, and the layout shows the name of the album in larger font underneath. The colour of the debut album sentence is white, and in a simple font that stands out from the darker background. Whereas, the "Amy 18" title includes two different sentences which I have put together to create an effect from the white and red colours. The "A" and "18" are the colour red, with the background of white, and vis-versa with the other letters in the name. These two colours work well together on my magazine advert as they represent the innocence to my artist through the white and the passion through red, and in contrast they show Amy as a artist. The colour red also links in with London, which is also shown in the background. I have chosen to use a simple font for my typography as it stands out and is easy to read from a magazine point of view, if the text was to be smaller or more complicated it might put of people flicking past the page of the magazine, whereas using a simple font means anyone can understand it, and it being quick and easy to read. The logo I have chosen to include shows the iTunes logo, and 5 stars underneath to represent a rating from this company. This logo had its own font so i couldn't change it, although it does stand out from the background as I have added a white border to show contrast from the black colour that it is written in. The white stars underneath connect to the writing that is underneath them, as they are the same colour white and represent her innocence as she is looking down at them in the picture on the advert. The type of language I have used on my magazine advert is very minimal, as I have chosen to use simple language so I can aim for a wider audience. I haven't included any complicated vocabulary in my language, and kept it simple by simple stating the name of the album, the release date and that it's a debut album being released. Only using a small amount of language on a magazine advert means the audience have more reason to focus on just the artist herself, as well as not needing a lot of information in writing as they can see from the connotations used, and buy the album to see how good it is.
I used photoshop to create my magazine advert, although I had a few strengths and weaknesses on this programme. My strengths were shown through finding pictures of my own, and on the internet and adding them in by dragging and dropping from my documents. This was a simple task, as I then had to hold shift whilst dragging picture to the size I wanted, so the picture did not stretch or go fizzy once entering. Using photoshop helped me to create high standard ancillaries which allow the audience to see. One weakness I found was using the magic wand tool. The magic wand tool allows you to select certain images on the page. This tool helped me to either cut out the background or the main image, and edit either one. I used this tool a lot meaning I could change images when I wanted to, being able to reach a wider audience rather than my target audience. Using this tool meant I could delete certain aspects or put them into a new layer. I had to look for instructions on the internet and ask my peers how to use this tool properly, as I found that I would highlight more than one thing at a time and not know how to get the original copy back. After several attempts I found that I could use this tool properly, and managed to use it for both images shown on my magazine advert. I enjoyed using photoshop for my magazine advert as it allowed me to create the advert I wanted and too a high standard. Photoshop allowed me too use as many layers, images and editing effects that I wanted to create my magazine advert. The fonts I decided to use were times new roman, as they created a simple effect and also being easy to read. The double up of the times new roman font shows a clear picture of what it says, conventionally showing two different colours reflecting on the soul genre and the reoccurring colours on the magazine advert, music video and digipak meaning its easy to recognise. The time new roman font is used on most magazine adverts as it allows any audience to be able to read it.
Conclusion
I feel that my magazine advert does conform with my genre of soul. I have included conventional colours from the soul genre such as red, white and black, which are reoccurring themes throughout my whole song of Hometown Glory and the album. All of these colours work well to create the image of my artist being innocent, sad and angry. I have used a conventional layout to my advert, which shows simplicity and shows my artist fully as I have positioned my typography at the bottom of the page, although still easy to notice. My target audience is 16-30 year olds, and I feel that my magazine advert does appeal to that age, as well as a wider one too. Although I have included conventions of the soul genre which means it will be recognised for that genre easily, it will also appeal to a wider audience too as I haven't included any bright colours or images that will put off the audience, and make them turn the page of the magazine easily. I feel that using photo-shop has helped me reach my full potential to creating my magazine advert.