Creating the Magazine Advert

To produce the magazine advert we used Adobe Photoshop to edit a picture on ourselves onto our chosen background. This editing package made it easier for use to cut, crop and manipulate the images in order to produce our final magazine advert.

Firstly we went online and downloaded a background cover from Google images. We wanted to make a portrait poster so we had to change the rotation of the image and we did this by changing the scale. We used the 'content-aware scale' tool as it got rid of any unwanted space without changing the picture size.

In a different window we cut the image of ourselves and changed the opacity. This was because we decided to include a watermark of an image so that we didn't look plain in the actual advert.

Next we took the image that we had previously cut out and placed it on top of the background. Lastly, we imported the 'Spotify', 'itunes' and 'Google play' logos and lined them up at the top to make the advert look official.

After looking at other magazine adverts we decided to add our website at the top underneath the media outlets. We kept the consistency with the text and made sure that we put the bands name in big font as well as the day we were performing our new album. The name of the album appears underneath the band name.

Audience Reception Theory

Audience reception is the way we react. The theory describes the way we receive and respond to texts differently and is a way to characterise and group together different consumer interpretations.

Encoding is the meaning and ideology that produces put into texts for audiences to decode. Audiences are can choose whether to accept or reject the message that the producer has encoded when they see the text. Different audiences interpret the meanings differently and can sometimes get the wrong message from some texts. Stuart Hall created the encoding model and it shows how audiences can interpret different texts. 

A preferred meaning of a text is what the author intended. A negotiated meaning is a mix between preferred and oppositional meaning. An oppositional meaning is when the viewer or reader has their own interpretation of the text.

An example of where three different interpretations can be used is in the "Deadpool" trailer. The trailer has a preferred meaning and the message that the author is trying to put across in the trailer is that Deadpool is a good character because he is helping to stop criminals and that he is a joker in the way that he does it. Other viewers may not get this interpretation from the trailer and they may think that he is a funny character, but he is a bad role model because he shots people to do good things. An oppositional meaning would be that he sets a bad example for people who are watching by using guns and that he looks silly in his red suit.

A model of the media

Sexism in Music Videos

Laura Mulvey's theory is that the cinematography used in film and music video denies women human identity. This is the male gaze and it suggests that women are objects to be admired for their physical appearance. The male gaze relegates women as they can only watch a film from a mans perspective. Often the female characters have no real importance and are only exist when in a relationship with the main male character. The presence of a woman in film is to make the male feel or act important.  

If we look at some music videos we can see that they deny women's identity. Lilly Allen's "Hard Out Here" music videos represents the male gaze, but the lyrics of the song address the issue. Watching the video can be confusing because she talks about the common stereotypes that society has on women. She suggests that men can get away with anything but when a female says the same thing they are looked down upon. She doesn't try to mask any issue or hide them in her lyrics. Instead she lets everything go and puts it all in one song. However, if we look at the video we can see that everything she says is not relevant. This is because the video is ironic and it is meant to spread a message.
 

Another song that denies women's identity is "Booty" by Jennifer Lopez and Iggy Azalea. This video represents women as objects and focuses mostly on their faces. Unlike "Hard Out Here" the song is not giving a message about women's inequality and injustice, but it is supporting it. The choreography in the music video and the cinematography of the video work in correlation as the features of the women are highlighted throughout the whole music video. Even though the video relegates women it is understandable. The lyrics of the song match with the type of music video that it is. It talks about sexy women and their features. It encourages women to feel good about how they look and their appearance. 

In conclusion, Laura Maulvey's theory still exists in modern day music videos. Although society knows that it happens people still choose not to opt-out of watching these videos and almost accept the sexism in pop videos. Sometimes the artists have to go with society because they want to give the audience what they want to see and if the artist is comfortable with the male gaze then they don't mind the producing the video.

Information on the Artist

The Plain White T's band were formed in 1997 in Lombard, San Francisco. The band originally started with three members with Tom Higgenson, Ken Fletcher and Dave Tirio. They gained some popularity and the fourth member, Steve Mast, was recruited to play the lead guitar and backing vocals.

In 2002 they released their first album called "Come on Over", but two of the members left. Steve Fletcger abd Steve Mast were replaced by Tim Lopez and Mike Retondo and in 2003 they recruited their fifth member De'Mar Hamilton. After they began gaining momentum they released an album in 2005 called "All That We Need". One of the songs on their album, "Hey There Delilah", became a huge hit and still remains as one of their best songs that they produced. Despite their history of performing in their home town, radio stations had their song on loop as it was such as success.

Plain White T's have been creating music ever since and they are still recognized. The band have had a few appearances on national television. They made a guest star appearance on "iCarly" in 2007. One of their songs is also used as ABC's "Geek" theme song. The band are still growing their audience and keep them updated via social media such as Twitter. 

Audience Feedback

To receive more feedback we decided to ask some students in our class what they thought about our video and we sent other people a link to a short survey. We created our survey on a free website called 'SurveyMonkey'. We included some simple questions about the video and how we could've improved the cinematography and editing.

All the people that answered the survey enjoyed watching the video, 66.67% of people liked the editing, but as for the others they said we could've improved this by putting in more shots from different locations. 

We were recommended to use other transitions such as dip to black and jump cuts. With the last question regarding visuals people thought the we should have improved the contrast to make the video look vibrant and use more shots in different locations.

The feedback that we got from some of our classmates were mostly concerned with the editing. Some students didn't really like the parts of the video where the speed of the clip is increased. They said that we should've used different clips to fill in the gaps. Also some of the clips last too long. They said that to avoid this we should include more random shots of the band to make the video look more professional.