In this task, as groups of three we were allocated a genre of music from which to create a mood board to inspire the creation of our own tour posters for that genre. The genre I received was Indie; covering a wide range of music styles due to its meaning being simply “independently produced music”. From this definition we were then able to base the idea behind our look on the idea of somebody with a do-it-yourself ideology, who doesn’t want to fit into the norm. The colours of this genre tend to include warm, faded, low saturation tones to reflect their retro-like aesthetic.
We then did a practice photo shoot within this genre (with me allocated as the model). Based off the mood board and research we did, I was dressed in a orange/brown tartan jacket, white, illustrative graphic tee and dark skinny jeans with messy, uncouth hair. We used an acoustic guitar and a pair of sunglasses as props, and chose to take most photos with an uninterested, distant facial expression, matching many images from our mood board.
After the photo shoot we then asked the class to come up with adjectives to describe the vibe and feeling that our costumes inspired, testing whether we were able to convey to the audience our message through our mise-en-scene. Our resulting adjectives were as follows;
- Chill (non-formal, comfortable)
- Relaxed (non-formal, comfortable)
- Edgy (different from the norm, alternative)
- Lazy (non-formal, comfortable)
- Dull (doesn’t stand out too much, faded colours)
Finally, I needed to choose my favourite (unedited) photo from the shoot. I chose this photo due to it’s useful framing when considering the format for a poster, with good space around the left side of the image for text. It also well encapsulates the costume and appearance choices we made, focusing on the colour from the jacket but still clearly showing the illustrative style of the t-shirt, as well as allowing the natural light from the right side to bring out the messy, untamed style of hair.
Overall, this activity helped me and gave me a better idea of how to use and apply ideas if mise-en-scene when creating imagery and taking photos for my own music magazine, as well as general practice with photography and using natural lighting.