In this task, I’ve been given a brief where I have to research the jazz genre, looking at tour posters and what are conventional in these posters.

Jazz posters tend to have very bright colour pallet that pop out at the audience, helping to sell to the audience what they should expect from the tour. All of the posters have an image some sort of instrument on the front, reflecting the expectations of the jazz genre; the blues, calm and classical. The fonts used are either blockhead typefaces and jumping out at you or a script font, giving off a calming and vibey persona. The layout of jazz tour posters normally have the artist in the middle/ the biggest, maybe because many jazz artists are solo, portraying that they’re a solo artist.

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Focusing forward, I will take into consideration how basic things such as the colour scheme typeface, positioning of your magazine star and graphics have an impact on how well a genre is portrayed. From creating my own poster, it has made me more confident using photo shop and InDesign, preparing me for when i create my own music magazine.

InDesign is our top publishing software when it comes to creating our work. We were all given a magazine cover to recreate on InDesign, giving us some experience on using InDesign and understand how the sizing and placing of an image has an impact of the quality of your work.

As you can see, I had to improvise and use a different cover photo as I couldn’t find the original. From using InDesign, I have learnt how to create different aspects of a magazine, for instance I have learnt how to create:

• A pug
• Masthead
• Coverline
• Main cover star

What I found easy about InDesign;

• Replicating the different shapes/pugs
• Getting the layout of the magazine right

What I struggled with;

• Matching the colours with the original magazine cover
• Finding the exact fonts and typefaces to match the original magazine cover

Not only is it important to know how to layout a magazine, its also important to know what fonts/type fonts and colours to use so it catches your intended audience’s eye, mirroring the genre that you’ve picked. To get as close to the original magazine cover as possible, I changed the weight and height of the fonts I used, trying to match the original as much as possible and portray the conventions of a music magazine.

From using InDesign, I am more familiar with the technology that goes behind creating magazines. I will take into account the different elements of making a magazine cover, using what I have learnt to make my magazine cover catch the intended audience’s eye.

The original magazine cover

 My recreation of the original magazine

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Using a variety of angles, distance, facial expressions, body language, framing and MES proxemics all help convey a narrative and give each image a purpose and an idea.

In the nine images above, I’ve added denotations and connotations to each photo, demonstrating I understand the different type of camera shots and what the effect of each camera shot has on an image. For example, on the top right image, I’ve used the connotation ‘long shot’ and the denotation ‘overthinking’, portraying that I understand how different camera shots, body language and MES proxemics not only represent an image with a story, but it creates a poweful partnership between the two.

Reflecting on this task,I will take into consideration how the different angles,shots, the use of MES and body language help give an image a story, clearly portraying to my audience the idea behind my pictures on my music magazine.

As you can see in the mood board above, I was allocated a type of genre to research, jazz where I had to search the conventions about that genre.This mood board was made to show how all aspects of mise-en-scene is interpreted into media for it to be successful.

Mise-en-scene is essential when it comes to media, it helps tell a story through an image, conveying a purpose to the image. All elements of mise-en-scene are just as important as each other;

• Costume
• Lighting
• Acting & Proxemics
• Make-up & Hair
• Props
• Setting

For example, having amazing props but no makeup to emphasise your genre is pointless, all components of mise-en-scene need to be used to sell your work and make it clear to your consumer what genre of music you’ve followed.

Following on from my mood board, I brought my genre of jazz to life, dressing my partner up in the appropriate clothing, being a representation of what the genre is like based off of the research I did.

As shown above, I’ve interpreted mise-en-scene into my own work, demonstrating my understanding of the importance of including all components to be successful. I used the specific props and clothing (saxophone, hat, waist coat, glasses and bow tie) to emphasise my genre and demonstrate my understanding of mise-en-scene.

Even though I have demonstrated that I understand the importance of mise-en-scene, I need to ensure that my understanding reflects clear enough for my audience to be able to identify easily what genre my music magazine is. After I took these pictures of my partner, we added connotations to his outfit, reflecting my peers understanding of the different elements of different genres and my understanding of the use of mise-en-scene.

My Final Piece

This is the photo I chose as my final piece. I chose it because I think it represents my genre jazz the best, portraying how to importance of the different components of mise-en-scene have a big impact on the quality of media.

Focusing forward, when it comes to making my music magazine, I will take mise-en-scene into consideration, ensuring that all of the aspects are included in my work to help me achieve my best.

To be successful in media, all media texts have to have convey a narrative, giving meaning to an image and an idea.

As a media student, I need to be able to decode and deconstruct other pieces of work, adding connotations and highlighting what different aspects represent in a successful poster. For example I decoded a Justin Bieber poster as you can see above. Having destructed and decoded this poster, I’ve demonstrated that I understand how different fonts, colours and body language help convey a meaning to each individual poster, portraying the artists aim of their work. As media uses signs and symbols to create narrative, I need to take this into consideration for my own work, ensuring that my media magazine has a clear narrative, including all of the different aspects in media that make up a media magazine that conveys a clear representative of what my genre is.