2. My main goal when taking the pictures was to try and make the volunteers
look as believable as possible as rock stars. Rock stars are typically
represented to be tough, cool, violent etc. For this reason I choose four male
volunteers over women. Men stereotyped as more aggressive than females and
if the people in the pictures looked aggressive then it would appeal more to the
target audience because they would appear more aggressive. Ethnicity and
age also helped my choose of these two individuals because its conventional for
the artists to be of white ethnicity and young. I used a mid-shot in all my
pictures as I realised to portray the guys as more violent I had to capture a
aggressive facial expression and body language. I had them wear to big coats to
give the impression that they were young and aggressive. Young hugs are often
stereotyped to be covered up therefore this helped me portray them as
rebellious. Furthermore, its stereotyped that rock artists come from lower
social classes, the coats also give this impression as the coats look rough and
cheap. In editing, I messed with the lightening of the background to try and
make the picture appear more dark. Darkness connotes aggression, rock music
is also aggressive so having the front cover convey aggression is conventional
and appeals to the target audience. The language used on the front cover such
as ‘gig’ and ‘foo fighters’ are colloquial language which only those of the target
audience might understand. Slang and informal language represents youth
and lower social class.
3. The images on the contents page where chosen for similar reasons as
the front cover. Two males are used to be portrayed as more violent
and more believable rock artists. And they are both are young and of
white ethnicity. It therefore, represents those that are young, white
and male to be violent. One thing that is different is that the image of
the editors message, the model appears more sophisticated, to give the
impression he has wrote a good magazine. I used a mid-shot in all my
pictures as I realised to portray the guys as more violent I had to
capture a aggressive facial expression and body language. I had them
wear to big coats to give the impression that they were young and
aggressive. The coat is also black and black connotes violence
therefore the artist is portrayed as violent. This is the same way the
lightening and colour was used to also create a sense of violence. The
location of the pictures was taken at a church/graveyard, again done
to portray them as fearless and rebellious. The language on this page
was again informal to make the content seem conventional to the
genre of rock.
4. The double page spread (dsp) is in black and
white. The colours black and white are just
tones this appeals to the target audience
because they are shown to be pessimistic and
black and white conveys a dull world. This
also gives the target audience more respect for
the rock artist because it forces them to
believe that he is like them. The leather jacket
conveys violence. Firstly, because it is black
and black conveys violence and secondly,
shows the artist to be young and rebellious.
This is because its often stereotyped in movies
that the guy with the leather jacket is the cool
student and usually the most violent. A mid-
shot was again used to capture his violent
pose and facial expression and once again the
model is of white ethnicity and male to be
portrayed as more aggressive. This represents
those that are white, young and male to be
violent. The language used is clearly
aggressive and relates back to my earlier point
of appealing to the target audience because
they too are stereotyped different and less
forgiving.
