Preliminary Task: Front cover coventions diagram

Preliminary Task: Front cover textual analysis

Denotation: This college magazine consists of a colour photograph of a man looking directly into the camera and smiling. Its a medium-shot, showing his head down to his shoulders. He seems to be standing, although the bottom half of his body cannot be seen. The background of the photo is a dark metallic grey/black, and the photograph takes up the whole of the magazine cover. Behind the mans head is the "college" masthead and infront of him are nine seperate cover-lines in white and black. The main subject of each cover-line is either bold yellow or white text, which is larger than the rest of that cover line. There is also a barcode in the bottom left corner.

Masthead: The "college" masthead is quite basic as it's just bold yellow text. The font used is.....! The wod college connotes that the magazine is has a basis of knowledge and learning. Also, it connotes that it would be helpful, and an interest to college students.


Character: The cover photograph is of an unknown subject wearing casual clothes and holding educational books. This, along with the masthead, connotes that he is a college student. Also the subject has a smile on his face which would suggest that he is happy and relaxed. This connotes that college life is fun and enjoyable, which breakes down the ideology that people have.


Composition: He is posed in a very casual and laid-back way, using one hand to hold his books, but the other is just hanging loose at his side. His posture, facial expression, and clothing suggest that he is a laidback and care-free college student, who somehow still seems to be responsible and commited to his study's.


Costume: His costume is a plain white v-neck t-shirt under a black khaki jacket, black denim jeans and a silver cross chain. This cosume has been cleverly selected to appeal to the target audience of this magazine (college students).


Cover-Lines: The main cover line is related to the subject in the picture jeffrey "assassin" campbell. It reads: "Dancehalls Bright Future: Jeffrey "assasin" campbell". This is making referance to jeffrey's recent success in the music industry with dance hall music. This is seen to most teens as a big accomplishment, and many teens look up to him as a role-model, especially those who are looking to go into the music industry. The other cover-lines on the front page show that this magazine is not only interested in music, but also a ride range of other topics that interest college students. Topics included in the cover-lines range from mobile phones to spring break holidays, which shows that this magazine is diverse in what articles it releases.


Target audience: I think that the target audience is teenagers that are attending sixth form college. I think this because the Mast head reades "college", yet the topics shown in the cover lines seem to relate to teen interests and not adults. Also the subject on the front cover seems to be a young man, wearing a "popular" style of teen clothes.

Induction: movie poster textual analysis

We where given the task to analyse the indiana jones (kingdom of the crystal skull) movie poster in media. We found a range of observations using the help of mise en scene. Our observations are as followed:

1.COSTUME:

The costume he is wearing would suggest that he is either an explorer or an archaeologist. You can tell this by the camal tone shirt and sun-hat, along with the khaki pants and boots which he wears. Also, he is wearing some sort of utility belt which is holstering a gun, this would suggest that the things he is looking for are either illegal to posses, or heavely gaurded. Although this wonders into the observation of his posture/body language, we noticed that his sleeves where rolled up, which gives him a strong and menacing look.

2. PROPS:

The props he has are a leather horse whip, which could be considered as his main weapon, and utility belt with a gun holster attached to it. The whip and gun connote a strong, hard and masculine character, as well as suggesting that he will resort to violence at some point during the film. They also suggest that there will be some sort of eveil which he will have to face in some part of the story line.

3. LIGHTING:

The lighting on the poster is quite interesting. There is an alien skull in the background which is giving off a golden glow. The glow gives off the feeling of warmth, safety and security which connotes that the skull could be the key to the mystery in the storyline. Also the brightness of the glow gives off a kind of mystery and sci fi theme.

4. NVC:
The subjects hands are clenched at his sides which would suggest that he is a dominent and powerfull character. Although the picture of the subject was taken as a long shot it seems that the camera was at a low angle, which makes the subject look menacing and feirce. Also the subjects legs are placed apart from each other and firmly on the ground, which suggests that the subject is ready for action/ready to move.


5. SETTING:
The picture seems to be set in a jungle cavern or cave, which would suggest that the subject is abroad in an exotic country. Also the skull in the background is glowing brightly whereas the rest of the jungle background is dark. This could mean that the skull is the way out of the cave/darkness.

Induction: Recreation of a movie magazine front cover

This is my first attempt at recreating a magazine cover with photoshop. The simularity is quite poor, as ime not experienced with photoshop editing and i didnt manage to finnish my recreation. I found it hard to manipulate chosen parts of the image between two diffrent layers, and to make my font look simular to the original. I am the kind of person that insists on perfection, so when i found difficulty in doing those simple manipulations i dedicated the time i had in to getting them done, instead of moving on to something else. Bearing that in mind, not all of my efforts went to waste. Copying the bar code over to my image (from the original mag) was quite simple, as all i had to do was cut it out using the rectangular marque tool. Also, i used the brush (and changed its style to oil pastel) to help recreate the effect the magazine had on its spacers inbetween vertical text. I attempted to find the same text that the magazine used as a subtitle but i didnt succeed, so instead i decided to substitute Gill Sans Ultra Bold instead.