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.