MAGAZINE COMPARISON

These two magazine covers both feature:

• A musician covering a bit of the mast-head
• Both artists look quite confident
• Multiple different side-stories
• The main attraction has large text
• The barcode is on the front
• Both musicians are put in the center of the cover.

The differences are:

• The Billboard magazine doesn't have a puff
• The Mojo magazine has loads of side-stories whereas Billboard doesn't
• Bruno Mars covers some of his title whilst Bowie goes behind his title
• Mojo has a pug and a pull whereas Billboard doesn't
• The picture of Bowie is a low-angle shot whilst the picture of Bruno is more of a midshot
• Bowie has a gradient in the background while Bruno only has what seems to be a solid colour

02 MUSIC MOJO MAGAZINE 2017

Question: 'How representations on magazine covers reflect the social and cultural contexts in which they were produced'.

From classic and modern rock, folk, soul, country to reggae, electronic and experimental. It prefers to celebrate quality over popularity

A music magazine that tells/informs you about the music world.

The 'Sex Pistols' fought back against the norm of society, making outrageous songs and swearing on TV. They shocked the establishment because swearing was looked down upon and was not accepted in society. 

SK8ER BOI MUSIC VIDEO CODES AND CONVENTIONS

1. Performance - the singer / band are seen to be singing and playing (including lip synching), to provide authenticity, so that followers believe in the talent and can see their star. Record labels sign stars and promote them  to ensure sales. Avril Lavigne sings throughout the video using a mike and draws a huge crowd of fans around her when she jumps onto a car roof in the street. She sings with great passion, energy and conviction, holding the mike close to her mouth. Close-ups show her every word (lip synching is a feature of music videos.) She performs for her fans and for her 'boyfriend' the sk8er boi who features in the narrative. Screens often feature in music video and the sk8er boi is videoing Avril Lavigne as he gazes adoringly up at her. She returns his gaze as she sings about 'we rock each other's world'. The performance element creates authenticity (fans have proof of her talent) because we see her sing.
2. Star - use of close-ups, sometimes direct eye contact with audience, to build relationship with audience. The close-ups almost seem like she's looking at you directly as she sings about this story, telling YOU the story about this girl and this 'Sk8er Boi'. At the end there is a close-up of Avril where she looks right at the camera, speaking to the Sk8er Boi directly.
3. The visuals (what the star and other characters are seen doing) illustrate, amplify or contradict the lyrics (the 'story in the words'). Illustration = the visuals play out the story more or less literally; amplify = the words in the lyrics are only the starting point and the story develops in other directions; contradiction / disjuncture = the visuals do not interpret the words of the lyrics and may even show something contradictory. When Avril sings about the girl who turned down the boy sitting at home with a baby all by herself in 'five years from now' we don't get shown what she's talking about, we get told. The story is about a girl who refuses to go out with Sk8er Boi and Avril sings about the girl growing up and finding out that Sk8er Boi is now a rockstar, yet we never see anything.
4. The narrative usually features the performer in 'real life' situations but often with experimental types of film making such as hand-held, dramatic camera angles, symbolic codes and lighting. There is a lot of hand-held camera angles giving the impression that they are actually being recorded for a skater-type video. 
5. The visuals are usually cut to the beat of the music; the editing is often fast-paced; there is often use of montage, ellipsis and intercutting, stylish effects. In the opening, the music gets straight to the beat, with Avril's gang making references and putting up advertisements for her next gig in 'seventh street & Spring' at noon. It is all very fast paced with people running around as if in time of the music because it's fast paced with fast percussion and guitar.
6. Refrain - repeated chorus, sometimes with variations. The chorus is repeated multiple times and at the end it sort of ties everything together, bringing a satisfying end to the song.
7. Intertextuality - references to other media, films, performances, events

LANGUAGE IN MUSIC VIDEOS

In Wheatus' song Teenage Dirtbag the main character seems to be a typical 'uncool loser' with a crush on a girl called Noelle. His clothes are significant as they are all different to what everyone else is wearing, symbolizing that he is different. Wherever he seems to go, people make an L-shape on their hand which means they're calling him a loser, and the boyfriend of Noelle is wearing a type of clothing often associated with 'Jocks' who are generally the cool kids, showing the large contrast between the cool kids and the main character.

EDITING IN CUFFS

Editing includes slow-motion, different types of cuts and transitions etc. In Cuffs, the editing ranges across most types.

There is a scene in Cuffs where Ryan, Jake, Jo, and Carl breach the racist's house, Ryan runs straight out, pursuing the criminal whilst Jo and Carl are trying to restrain the others, leaving only Jake left, not knowing what to do. During this confrontation between Jo and Carl against the racist's friends, the camera takes the form of a POV of Jake whilst the footage gets slowed down so we have a slow-motion shot of the action taking place, alongside the voices getting muffled, possibly showing that Jake is afraid and doesn't know what he's doing.

Afterwards, we cut to Felix trying to consult with the mother of an abducted child. The mother is really distressed and we keep getting shot-reverse shot between them. As the conversation goes on, Felix continues to not make eye contact, showing that he was embarrassed by what had happened. This is quite visible with the help of this type of edit. Later we see him reviewing the video he was shown, the camera holds his face in the frame as he realizes where the abducted child is. We then cut to the screen with a slow zoom-in that shows where the kidnapper and kidnapped are.

MISE-EN-SCENE

In the beginning, the first scene of the Superintendent has him standing on a little pedestal, apart from what I assume are people higher in the force. The clothes are very formal, clean and sharp, with white gloves that you wouldn't necessarily wear anywhere else.

Jake and Ryan later visit a drug addict's home where Jake needs to bandage the drug addict's arms because there wasn't an ambulance there yet. During this scene we get a pan of the room, beer bottles and dirty clothes litter the floor and shelves, the man himself had spots and blemishes around his face, possibly referring to the fact that he is a drug user and it's a sign of drug addiction.

Even further through the episode, we see a young Indian man wearing a nice clean, ironed shirt and a nice blue jacket talking joyfully to his mum. He enters the shop and as he is smiling to himself, looking at a product he would use, 'everyone's favourite racist' see's him and enters the shop. He's wearing a button-down polo shirt with his cronies in similar fashion. One wears a large necked top with a chain and grey hoodie and the others wearing things similar if not the same but in different colours to the first man.

CAMERAWORK IN CUFFS

The camerawork is a key feature in any T.V series and Cuffs uses it very effectively.

When Ryan and Jake take a girl into custody, she has to state some information about herself. The woman, agitated by everything that's happened, proceeds to say that her mum is a QC lawyer, of which Ryan replies with 'We don't care what peoples parents do' which is followed by a focus pull onto Jake's face where he smiles at the comment. However, the camera changes to Donna and Lino giggling at Jake because his dad is the Superintendent.

Jo later confronts the Superintendent, proposing they 'get a bite to eat' and the Superintendent declines the offer, leaving Jo to try to change the subject. There is a point of view shot where it shows an image of the Superintendent and his family (His wife and Jake) and cuts back to Jo looking at it just before she sharply resets her focus back to the Superintendent. This most likely shows that they were having an affair and he is starting to have second thoughts.

She briskly exits the room, where we have a slow zoom-in on her face to show how old she ends up looking and her reaction to the conversation. Her emotions are shown clearly here, letting people understand the situation and understand what just happened.

EXAM QUESTION 5

Social contexts influence television programmes by using recent events as a plot line for an episode or maybe a whole season/series. This is commonplace in The Avengers such as in the episode 'The Town of No Return' where the school is on an airfield and in the inn there are planes and ammunition on the walls and chandeliers. The war took place only twenty years before this came out so the war wounds were still fairly fresh and everyone was still recovering from the disaster. When Steede walks into an airfield bunk-house, the wall was destroyed and he finds out the real Piggy Warren was dead. The plot of the episode is based on a full-scale invasion by replacing every person in a village with one of their own. This is most likely caused by the fear of invasion by Nazi Germany.

HOW THE POLICE SEE THE WORLD AND HOW THE PUBLIC SEE THE POLICE

The police are being put up as a really good group of people but it sets it up for an ironic twist. 'Earning respect' says the Chief Superintendent when PC Ryan Draper gets insulted by the nudist. There is a difference between the voice-over and what's happening, adding a comedic effect to an otherwise serious situation. The scene is altogether quite comic, the police officer is outnumbered on a nudist beach, most people would find this hilarious as the voice over is talking about bravery and strength and having respect when Ryan faces a naked man and drunk stag-revelers.

Ryan acts softly to the drug addict rather than being aggressive like Jake where Ryan speaks calmly and acts like a friend and Jake just shouts at him and threatens him. The experienced officer shows the new officer how to act with people and turns him nicer before us. Close-ups are good for showing emotion in the face when they talk to people. An example of this is when there is a close-up of Jack's face when he's

Jo tries to be nice and draw the information out of the child but this proves to be ineffective. There is a close-up of her face which shows a small amount of frustration and shows her think.

EXAM QUESTION 1

The sound in the sample is diegetic as it has cars in the background whilst the main characters argue, all being the sound that you would hear if you were there, and there is a radio that is speaking in the background of which is non-diegetic where it has been added during the editing stage, which adds further realism. 

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE AVENGERS AND CUFFS

THE AVENGERS - Must See TV

The Avengers first aired in 1961 on the 7th of January and carried on till 1969 where they stopped.

The show is described as (on IMDb) 'A quirky spy show of the adventures of an eccentrically suave British agent and his predominately female partners.' and I think this describes it perfectly. 

It keeps true to its time and stays up-to-date with all the latest technology at the time and would've blown minds when it aired. It also had amazing at the time, including, Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman.

The first episode was the pilot called 'Hot Snow' which is about the main character's (Dr. David Keel, acted by Ian Hendry) fianncé and Surgery Receptionist is murdered by a drug-dealing gang and so Dr. Keel teams up with John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and with John's help, they attempt to catch the gang leader, Spicer, who gets away but caught in the second episode.

IMDb: 8.4/10
My rating: 8.5/10

BBC1 CRIME DRAMA CUFFS

Cuffs is a crime drama that aired on BBC1 mostly at 8:00 pm unless something was scheduled for then. It was received by the public quite well, and proof of this is when it got canceled, people made petitions to get it back. 

It was filmed in Brighton, noted in the title sequence at the end where it has the edge of the Brighton Pier sign. I believe that it is used to show the diversity of Brighton. This belief is backed up by the constant scenery of different ethnicities such as the shopkeeper and family. It has also got some stag nights and student parties.

Ofcom regulates what goes before and after watershed and people had often made the point that it should be in the watershed hours but it can be argued that the violence isn't explicit, the language seems to be at a lower level than thought, there is a small amount of nudity but it shouldn't be sexualized and self-harm isn't glorified but glamourized. 

IMDb rated it 7.4/10 (a very deserving rating) and has left some viewers highly satisfied.

TELEVISION SCHEDULING

BBC1 Monday 11 September 9 p.m. Rellik.

Long form narrative happens to be the most popular form