Representation of Race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C60mtKUaBB0&feature=related

Representation of race:
Bradford Riots (2006)

The first visual camera shot we get is the fast paced of the camera panning out from a sign. The audience are not able to read the sign properly from the fast pace foreshadowing that there will be dark and sinister qualities to the extract. The non-digetic music is played in the background signifies that it is not a lighthearted drama but will be tense creating a mysterious and dangerous atmosphere. We then get to see an established shot being used, which, allows the audience to know where the action will be taking place. The mise-en-scene from the established shot shows that the place is a deserted field with no civilisation included. This signifies to the audience how lonely and isolated the place is and connotes dark meanings towards the setting. Additionally, the camera slightly tilts showing that there may not be normality shown in the extract.
The non-digetic music then continues to show a white male who is dressed in uniform suggesting that he has a dominance presence, power and security contrasting the mise-en-scene behind him, which is dark and gloomy. While the uniformed officer is walking a medium shot is then shown of him opening a door, which is blocked off by bars. Furthermore, indicating how secure he is and his power towards the audience juxtaposing the dangerous non-digetic music played in the background.
The uniformed officer then opens the door in where the camera pans straight away to another White character sitting on the top bunk, this is again outlining the importance of this White character racially, as below him on the bottom bunk is an Asian male character. The director has done this to show the audience how the White character who is also locked up in the same cell has power, is superior and has predominance over the other character already highlighting that there is racial issues and themes involved.
As the White inmate jumps down from the bed a medium shot is used to show the two White males in the scene looking down at the Asian character showing once again that they are more dominate race and significant than the other because of his race, which is evident when he calls him ‘Muslim boy’.
As the White male character walks out, reversed shots are used to show the conversation and emotion between the male officer and inmate. As the Asian male walks timidly to the uniform officer, the non-digetic sound of his heartbeat is used to show how scared he feels against this authoritive figure that seems not to like him and may be racist towards him. The camera angle towards the officer is tilted slightly higher than on the other character indicating his power to the audience.
The Asian character is shown as thought he is slightly bowing to the White officer and that he has no power and is not able to stand up for himself. Which is evident when medium shot of the officer, closes the door and the audience hear the digetic sounds (of the locks), in which indicates his loneliness and helplessness to the audience. Additionally, a long shot is then used next to highlight how lonely the character really is, followed on with a close-up shot of his finger shaking with a tilt of the camera upwards showing a close-up of his face. This indicates to the audience how vulnerable, isolated and alone the character is creating sympathy from the audience.
A cutaway is then used to show another established shot of an area where the plot will move on. There is then digetic sound of birds tweeting showing that time has passed, which is called an ellipsis.
The next scene is the camera panning into the couple awaking from the loud digetic sounds of police, as they get up to find what it is a cutaway is used to show the uniformed men arriving on the top of the stair case. There is then an action match used to show the next scene of the little boy waking up and walking towards the noise. The audience can see that the uniformed authoritive in the living room are the ones who have the power and dominance, as three of the police officers are holding the Asian (male) character in an aggressive manner. Reverse shot is used to show the emotion of both the female and male character in the room as crosscutting is used to show the audience the little child who is still walking towards the living room. However, the editing is in a fast paced and quite jumpy showing the audience how violent and aggressive this scene is.
When the child does enter the scene, he starts to shout out ‘Allah’, which refers back to his ethnicity and religion, pointing out the significance of it.
As the scene progresses, the shouting and aggressiveness continues as the younger Asian male is escorted violently out of his house by the polices, once again showing the domineering race of the two.
A cutaway is used next to move the plot of the story along to a gym where only two male characters that are Asian are working out. This shows clearly to the audience the segregation, discrimination and prejudice that are acting against they race and highlights how things were at that period of time.
When one of the male characters turn around, the medium shot revels a white uniformed guard who is standing and watching the other male characters, connoting his power that he had over these other characters.
A close-up is then showed of one of the Asian characters, showing his expression and how he feels of the racial discrimination. The camera is slightly titled allowing him for once in the clip to have the power and control which after a reverse shot is used to show the other character reaction.
Non-digetic music is then used to create a tense atmosphere; both White characters are questioning one of the male (Asian) characters. The audience can see that the table has been divided as their White characters on the other side and Asian characters on the other, highlighting the segregation between both races. Furthermore, the White male character seem to be talking while the Asian male does not comment, once again indicating the race which has the power.
The scene then cuts to a medium shot of a middle age Asian man talking to the phone to a young Asian man. There is a significant picture, which is in the mise-en-scene. It is a picture that signifies the people’s race, culture and his identity. When the scene crosses back to the younger character, we see from a medium shot that there are bars blocking us from getting in contact with him, suggesting that we are not allowed and that us as an audience should be segregated from him as well.
Subsequently, a high-angle shot I used to make the audience feel more superior to the Asian character, which is bending down and praying making him feel insignificant as a character.
A medium shot is then used to show the White male figure sitting on the top bunk, looking down at the other character and calling him a ‘Muslim terrorist’ which leads to the Asian character to go mad and to start smashing the place up. The camera shows his anger and frustration by the fast pace of the camera tilting up, down and sideways. The same non-digetic music of the heartbeat is used again to portray to the audience how this character is feeling inside, by the constant racial abuse and discrimination.
The non-digetic music begins to slow down and slowly fade as the character falls to pieces on the ground, which is shown by the obscured angle the camera is at.

Overall, the clip represents race throughout the extract by the use of sound, camera angle and shots. These elements are significant as it shows the audience each character’s power and dominance within the clip.

Magazine double page spread

Option 1:

Option 2:

Evalaution:
I have chosen to set out my double page magazine in a totally different way to other steryotypical magazine. As the genre that i am focusing on is Indie/Rock. The genre of Indie/Rock can be assocoited to being alternative to rock which is different and quirky.
Therefore, having my layout represent that will attract my target audience as they would want to see something totally different that is not already been made.

Analysis of Age

White Girl

The opening shot used for the extract is an established shot, which shows the audience where the setting and mise-en-scene. We can see that the grass (which is a bright green) and two buildings is the centre of attention indicating that families and children live here. The use of the non-digetic music indicates that the figure in the background will be a young character as the tone of the music is quite friendly and childish. The very bright green mise-en-scene exaggerates the young character Leah, as the environment looks child friendly and a place which holds happiness.
The extract the cuts to a close up shot of the girl pedalling on here bike in where the camera tilts side making an obscured effect. The camera focuses on her trainers suggesting how young she is and looks to be a playful child so far, the close-up also focuses on the little pink bike that Leah is riding, once again demonstrating how young she is. A high-angle shot is then used to show the clear blue sky and sun shining suggesting that this is how the child should be and that maybe she is naïve, innocent and is openly prone to vulnerability by how open and simple the sky looks.
As Leah places her bike against the wall, a close up is used to focus on the pink bike however, you can not see the whole bike as it is blocked off by a grey fence which could suggest that there are problems in her life that do not allow her to be a happy child that she should be.
A medium shot is then used to show Leah collecting ‘skunk’ off another male character showing that her life is not as normal as it could be and foreshadowing the upcoming events and showing how open she is to vulnerability, as she has been manipulated to buy drugs. Furthermore, this shows that her lifestyle is not normal and is missing the basic needs as a child.

(To be continued...)

Ideas of Font

Research - Initial Titles for the Magazine

Masthead - Title Ideas

Here are some ideas of magazine names that our group thought of that would fit the Indi/Rock genre:

Indieitis - This title came from the idea that 'Indie' is the focus of our magazine and 'itis' comes from the end of a word normally associated with a disease, however we found that this was a good thing, as we wanted to portray to the audience that the Indie/Rock genre lifestyle is like a disease and the music is like a drug. This was also liked by our target audience when asked, as out of the overall number of 10 people, 7 liked this for the magazine.


AIR - This is a simple anagram of the words 'Alternative' 'Indie' 'Rock' as these are the genres focussed on our magazine. It is a very simplistic idea, as there are other alternative magazines such as 'Q' and 'NME', which gives it a more alternative feel. Also, the word 'air' could also be associated with air guitar, also connoting the genre of the magazine. When asked, this was the 2nd most popular title, as 8 liked this idea.

Rapture - By definition could mean getting carried away by overwhelming emotion, often listening to music. This is a good title name for the magazine due to the fact that rapture seems quite rocky as it seems like quite an aggressive word. This was the most popular title, as all 10 people thought it would suit the indie/rock magazine.


Azure - Normally categorised as a blue/purple colour. It sounds pretty cool and modern for a magazine title, it would attract our target audience as the magazine is aimed at teenagers. The name is overall quite catchy and is memorable.

Research - Colour Schemes

I decided to ask my target audience of 16-18 year olds, what colours they were most attracted to, to use on the front cover of my magazine and throughout the magazine. I tried to use mostly gender neutral colours, as the magazine is aimed at both girls and boys. However, it is quite difficult to find gender neutral colours because the indie/rock/alternative genre generally use quite dark but vibrant colours

This colour scheme was the most popular when asked. It was described as "simple but effective" as these colours are quite dark, but also quite bold. In addition, these colours are quite neutral for both boys and girls, although the colours could be argued to be quite boyish as they are dark, but show the quite 'rocky' and edgy feel.

This colour scheme uses quite bold and bright colours to convey the rock and indie feel. In addition, the colour scheme looks quite like the colours the magazine NME would use, which is good as the magazine I want to make is an indie rock magazine. However, the colours are very simple and maybe too bright. As I asked my target audience what they thought, they thought it was too bright to be a consistent theme throughout the magazine.

This colour scheme is very neutral and has quite a soft feel, as they are pastel-y colours. Although they are not as 'rocky' as the other colour schemes have had, this could be quite a good colour scheme to use, as it connotes a more alternative and indie feel, just not as heavy as the other colours used before. This colour scheme was also quite popular throughout my target audience.

The colour scheme used here are very light, pastel colours which use the typical gender neutral colours of pink and blue to give the understanding that the magazine will be gender neutral. However, the colour scheme doesn't show the theme of the magazine well at all, as the theme and genre of the magazine is based on rock and indie. These colours would suit more on a pop magazine such as Smash Hits or Top of the Pops, but not on the magazine I want to create


Overall, the best colour scheme used here is number 1, as it connotes the indie rock feel for the magazine I want to make, as the colours used are mostly blacks, reds, blues and greys

Results from Magazine Questionnaire

Introduction
As a group we had to ask 10 people each. We had to make sure that it would be a fair questionnaire. So we had to get equal responses from both genders by asking 5 girls and 5 boys to fill out the questionnaire.
I chose to focus on asking students who were in my college instead of the general public unlike Lauren who wanted to find out what young adults outside our college thought. After collecting the responses from my target audience i found out that:


Boys:
The majority of boys are aged 16-18 and they hardly brought any magazine's and if so they would only buy it for a specific reason, such as a technology magazine. The majority of the boys said "If they were to buy a magazine they would be more interested in the picture and style of the magazine", instead of what is inside the magazine. Most of the males wanted to see Review on music,articals on concerts/events and interviews. This showed me what the males were intrested and what i'd have to include in my magazine for it to attract males, instead of producing a biase magazine.
All of the boys were attracted to bright colours that caught their attention and the fonts used on the magazine. When asking them what magazine they would be attracted to more, a majority of the boys picked an Indie/Rock magazine such as 'NME' and 'Kerrang¬!', which shows what kind of music magazine boys would be interested in and fits my chosen genre.

The second dominant genre of music picked was R&B, which was a similar result from another questionnaire from our group. There were harldy any 'other' boxes ticked, showing that they were the main music genres to be included in the magazine.
The average amount taken from the pie chart for how much they would like to pay for a magazine would be around £2.00 - £2.50 indicating how much i would sell my magazine, if i put a price on it.

Girls:
The age of girls was the same as boys, mostly 16-18 years old. Majority of the female brought magazine's 'very often' unlike the males, indicating that my magazine may slighlty appeal to females more.
Like the boys, the girls are also attracted to magazines with loads of images. Although they were more intrested in articals and issues that would be in the magazine. They wanted to see interviews with celebrities included and tips with fashion and 'new trends' surronded with bold colours. The genre they mostly picked was Indie/Rock and once again R&B, showing me that these two music genre were the most popular with young adults.
The girls mostly brought KERRANG,NME and Vibe, giving me an idea of what kind of magazine they are intrested in. KERRANG! and NME are two magazine that fit the Indie/Rock genre.
Most of the females said that they would pay £2.00-£2.50 for a magazine, however some said they would pay above £2.50.

Conclusion:
From looking at the results from the questionnaire, i found out that both of the genders were interested in the genre Indie/Rock, showing me what genre i should base my magazine on.
Furthermore, the magazine should include interviews with celebrities, posters, up and coming concerts and events and must use bright and bold colours as well as loads of images to attract my target audiences attention. Finally, i will sell my magazine for around £2.00-£2.50 so that my target audience will buy my magazine.