I will be focusing on my NEA 4 production. I will create a music video to promote an artist. I will be filming in at least 2 locations, with one character. My genre of music will be orchestral alternative Hiphop. I have collected my non copyright music from Youtube.

In preparation for my music video, I collected ideas by looking at music videos. the main music videos i have taken inspiration from are from the artists, Harry Styles, BTS, and Christina Perri.

My idea will portray scenes where the protagonist is looking sad and disconsolate. I will have scenes using natural lighting, studio lighting and under water sequences. Furthermore, i will introduce most of my scenes in slo-motion, as i feel it gives a more ambient and dramatic effect.

I will use Lasswells Theory of the Hypodermic model to ensure the music videos message is directly received and accepted by the receiver. My video would be more for an audience of young individuals who enjoy alternative hip hop music.

I intend to create a 4 page music magazine of the artist where I will focus on the secrets and struggles of being an artist. For my front cover magazine, I plan to portray style similar to Billboard magazines. I will have one large image covering the whole page, with the title centered at the top and minimal complimentary writing around the photograph. I will be using the theory of preferred reading. I will make a media product (magazine) where i put ideas in the texts which i will expect my audience to understand. Stuart Hall calls this a preferred reading, as this is what the producers of the text wanted them to understand. However, each audience is different, so they might understand the text completely different to what was intended.

I will be using the theory of uses and gratification, that was developed by Katz, Gurevitch and Haas (1973). The audience will watch this as escapism from the real world, and also a way of understanding the world in which we live in. As the artist portrays her feelings through the narrative theory, this allows the audience to understand the way artists really feel behind all the media. This also links with the cultivation theory, as the story behind the music video is all about how the media can change the way people feel, as the idea that being a well known artist can be overwhelming and difficult, making their identity fragmented.

According to the Internet, children are 27% of the entire population and fall in the DE Social group. My magazine will serve as a source of escapism and will be cheap, so anyone of any social class can afford it. Before planning my front cover, I created multiple magazine covers of different styles, to see which one was the most effective at persuading the consumers to buy it and was suitable for my target audience. I aim for my magazine to be engaging and to be radical, in order to influence more females to get into gaming since that is stereo-typically a males activity.

Before planning my magazine contents and adverts, I looked at examples of famous gaming magazines and noticed that game characters are predominantly male. The main aim of my magazine is to promote more females into the gaming industry, in which Gramsci’s cultural hegemony is being contradicted as I am trying to influence gender equality as gaming is stereo-typically a boy’s activity. I have thought very carefully about the sizing of my magazine, and I have decided on an A4 size of magazine because it will be able to fit into the consumer’s bag.  

For my adverts, I intend to help people stay connected, especially during the current Corona virus pandemic. Therefore, I intend on creating an advert based around a game that has online features because Maslow’s hierarchy of need identifies that people have a need of belonging, so through creating friends from online gaming, this need can be satisfied. My other adverts will be on a new gaming console because, like the online game, satisfies the need of belonging. My final advert is a game store because for many teenagers, it is a necessity and using Katz and Blumler’s Uses and Gratifications theory, the need of escapism can be satisfied as well as the need of relationships, which can be achieved through going online on gaming devices. My adverts will include females in order to empower them and they are presented as powerful, which contradicts Jean Kilbourne’s speech “The Dangerous Ways Ads See Women”, where she explores how women are wrongly represented in the media.

I have created Marian (the central image of my front cover) to appear radical to create the interpretation that women can be like men, in the fact that they can take on the adventure and action as well. I’ve also designed Marian to have masculine features to remove her sexuality and make her like male characters, as usually female game characters have exaggerated features. This contradicts Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze, where women are seen as a sex symbol. I have put Marian in a masculine pose, to challenge the dominant ideology and emphasise how women should be equal to men. Marian is also wearing clothes strategically covering her bottom, challenging the concept of voyeurism. I’ve also included no makeup on Marian to challenge the dominant ideology and emphasise how women and men should be represented truthfully, as not all females are the same as what is represented by the dominant ideology.    

The cultivation theory says that by creating more media challenging the dominant ideology, you will be able to change people’s theories. Within my magazine, I am aiming to cultivate cultivating the idea of equality for both males and females. This is shown by the common occurrence of females doing more male orientated activities, such as Marian (a female) being a female rally car driver, challenging the dominant ideology that only men can participate in car racing. 

For my work, I intend to comply with Set Brief Four, the music video. For the Genre of music I intent to use Hip Hop to which will be copyright-free to which I intend to source from rather youtube or Sound cloud. For the Music Video, I am intending to follow the ideology of Steve Neale on Genre and will reflect on how they contain instances of repetition and difference to which I will follow as I repeat ideologies seen in Hip Hop such as the main character on streets which tend to symbolise the ideology that most Hip Hop artists and Rappers tend to try to portray the toughness, the hardness of their upbringing but yet the humility and love for the area they have been raised in despite the hardships but for the difference, a good example of this is DaBaby’s “BOP on Broadway”. I will be doing My own take on a music video so it will be original as it will be to my own style to which I will explore the idea of mainly focusing on the gloominess of the surroundings and the character. For the camera shot, I will have long and close shots of the characters in scenarios such as Plain white space, A empty street, A studio and outdoors with cold, “street” tone’s etc I also want my transitions to be on the tempo of the beat ie in NSG music video Porsche they have multiple transactions to which syncs to the beat to create synergy between audio and visual.

I intend to also produce four pages of a music magazine with original images to which I intend to find a person to dress appropriately for a UK Rapper role. I intend to keep a simplistic approach to my magazine front cover and just have my main image to be of the upper half, a close-up photo of the artist to which he will be bold looking at the camera or be looking away, which will be big and bold at the center. with my magazine, I want the text to complement the main image with complementary colors, themes, and appropriate texts ie if the main image is in all black a monochrome tone could be applied with bold white in the back or grey, with bold big black text.

I will also produce a double-page spread on an interview to which I will also keep a simplistic idea with bold colours, texts and image to which will be complimentary. I will have my own original text for the interview. The bold text will be eyecatching with appropriate size to make it look like there is no awkward empty space and will rather be far left, centre or making it flipped going up the side. I will have also have original photos of my artist where I will have him centre to have it evenly spread on both the pages and use of adobe for my writing to surround the image through their large range of text layouts and techniques.

Finally, I will produce an advert which will be a tour advert for my band/artist once again I will have appropriate text size, complementary colors, and a simplistic ideal with my own photos and text. I will have an appropriate realistic-looking tour advert which will seem appropriate to the bands/ artist following looking at other rap band tours such as NSG to which of whom had used their album photo as the main image to which I will have taken inspiration from.

The target demographic of my magazine would be teenage boys between 14 – 17 who play video games regularly, therefore middle class: they can afford it. The purpose of this magazine is to inform the target audience of what gaming used to be like which would provide entertainment as well as escapism. I want to base this off of the research I have done on the general layout of a games magazine cover and what sort of games are popular and how they are presented to persuade the public to buy it. This relates to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as it would fit into the ‘esteem’ level given that video games allow teenagers to achieve something when they may be lacking in everyday life, such as school, therefore, giving them a sense of confidence. 

For the cover, I imagine a person, real or animated, in the centre of the page to catch the audience’s eye. A male or female in the centre would be a reactionary sign due to the commonality of male protagonists in video games and a female being a ‘damsel in distress’ which relates to Todorov‘s narrative theory as he said that there are set, stock characters within texts that are recognisable to audiences. This visual impact should flatter the text surrounding it as well as the colours which I picture to be green and purple as they are associated with the concept of gaming. I want the title to be in a big, bold black font to stand out on the white and purple background. A purple concept is a symbolic sign which has connotations of power: protagonists usually pursue or destroy people in power. In addition, the colour red can be associated with anger and passion, assets which can be helpful in gaming, this can be shown on a sticker. This relates to audience theory as the shade could cement the fact that emotion is a useful tool in the gaming world. What’s more, strong emotions often aid in winning a game, therefore, colors allow the audience to believe that if they pick this magazine, they are more likely to succeed. I would like the contents page to feature similar photographs to the cover to link each in theme. If I use simple black and white text, it will flatter the image as it would juxtapose the bright colors. The addition of a white circle with curved text in it which flows with the shape in conjunction with use of arrows could bring attention to a word such as ‘WIN’ which would imply to the reader that if they buy this magazine they will win each video game they play, the ultimate goal. This relates to the idea of escapism as it virtually persuades the audience to play a game as if they have more of a chance at winning as opposed to people who have not read this magazine. The double page spread should have many visual aspects, like the same colors as the previous pages to evoke a motif which is clear to readers.

Language and representation

• masculinity
• suggesting you have to look like the dominant signifier and you HAVE to do those things to be like that ‘blast body fat!’, page 127 ‘ways to build a stronger crore’
• strong
• determined
• ‘you’re only limit is your self belief’

NOTE: NEA = Statement of intent

Designing Notes:

– pg 6 = Playbox AD

– p22 = Games shop AD

– p 29 = Video Game AD

For my coursework, I am going to follow NEA brief set 2. My aim is to create a radical piece which challenges the dominant ideology of the patriarchal society we live in linking to feminist critical thinking throughout to show that women aren’t inferior to men and they deserve to have hobbies which are typically thought of as ‘manly’. I intend, to encourage girls (aged 14-19) to also be confident and game if they want to and to not be scared to do so, this will help satisfy their enjoyment and social needs relating to uses and gratifications theory.  

For research, I have looked at PC GAMER magazines and other gaming magazine brands to analyse what professional products look like so I can make my magazine as convincing as possible. From this I discovered that girls are underrepresented in the gaming community and the ‘girl gamer’ magazines focus on female games characters or Nintendo DS gameplay rather than PC or console like the ‘typical male gamer uses’, which lead me to want to make a magazine in the style for typical gamers but for girls. My magazine will have an overall radical theme linked to feminist critical thinking. 

My cover will have a girl as the dominant signifier to give the connotation of an independent woman to act as a counter-type to dominant ideologies, with iconic and indexical signs within my magazine creating a paradigm which illustrates my aim. I intend to make my front cover eye catching to draw my intended audience’s attention. I Will use the rule of thirds to give my contents page a systematic layout clearly identifying each section in my magazine and make it easy to navigate for my intended audience. My double page spread will promote the game ‘HELL RESCUE: GLITH’, with an interview with the developers and the first gameplay. The description of the game will follow Todorov’s and Chatman’s narrative theories where the game will have a spike of interest and then level out to a resolution, and have every element working together so if one were taken out it changes the story entirely to create a new ending.  

I intend to create a diverse range of ADs across the 3. To do this I will focus on issues associated with gaming, (such as how gamers can maintain their health), an online character design competiton and quality gaming experience (computer cleaning tips or new internal part by GeForce).  

I recognise that people read things in different ways (Hall’s reception theory), which can be dominant, negotiated or oppostional, to combat this I will stick to my main target audience, whilst also aiming to appeal to the broader gaming community, to reinforce my aim to show people that anyone can game if they wish.