Sophie Boston for AS Media Studies

The genre I was planning to base my magazine around was alternative indie rock. This means that my chosen band that I was going to create was meant to have a rock style – but not hard core, heavy metal rock, more of a „softer‟ rock. Indie rock uses similar instruments to heavy metal rock, e.g.drums, bass, keyboard, guitar, but instead of using heavy and harsh vocal tones, indie rock utilizes softer, quieter tones and acoustic guitars are most likely to favour over electric ones as they give off a more gentle vibe.

In my article, the language is informal, and I have included many

quotations from the artists themselves. I have tried to portray

the two boys, Zak and Connor, as the more gentle, initiative

ones, which contrasts with the characterisation of Karishma, the

female lead who I have tried to portray as a sort of fireball, the

„feisty‟ one. I have done this because I want to move away from

the stereotypical nice, gentle, quiet female and the aggressive,

strong male – I wanted the role to be reversed, and so the band

would be similar to well known artists with similar characteristics

such as Paramore (Hayley Williams is the „feisty‟ one, she stands

out with her shock of orange hair.)

In the article I used language that I thought would reflect these

personalities; Zak the more formal gentleman, Connor the

inbetween, formal but with a little more fire (e.g. The minor

swearing) and with Karishma expressing her strong personality,

mainly through her swearing and laid back comments. (e.g.

“Whatever keeps me awake from dusk till dawn mate.”

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here

insert

picture of

hayley

williams

here

For the photoshoot I asked my participants to bring two types of clothing: 1) casual, dark coloured clothing to show what their character looks like when they are just being themselves, 2) a more formal appearance, e.g. Using suits, dresses, high heels, more makeup to show to their audience that they can „dress up‟ as well. However, I asked them to „be themselves‟ through both changes of clothing, and kept the same blank expression to show that although the clothes on their backs have changed, they themselves have not, unlike some musical genres and „manufactured artists‟ that are in the music industry, that have „alter egos‟.

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photoshoot of causal

clothing

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image of

„smart

clothing‟

The theme of the photoshoot was meant to be quite dark and moody, to fit in with the alternative indie rock genre.

When taking photos I asked my models to remain quite passive and moody, almost even a little angry. This fitted

in well with the dark background, but when the white background was up, I asked them to „liven up‟ and joke

around with each other to say to the audience that they were acting moody purely for the photoshoot – viewers may be put off if they feel that the artists moods were quite pessimistic and especially if it reflects into their

music.

Body language was much the same as the facial expression – moody, with not a lot of movement. I had them sitting on

chairs, standing up, joking with each other, even at one point on a skateboard to show they are down to earth

people and like anyone else. I also had one of my models Connor to look as if he was slamming the acoustic guitar

into the camera lens to blend in more with the rock side of the genre.

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from

photoshoot of

close up

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from

photoshoot

of sitting

down,

standing up

I used a variety of different props for my photoshoot. These included:

White background (to show the happy, quirky personalities)

Black background (to show the dark and moody personalities)

Microphone (for Karishma, lead vocalist)

Acoustic guitar (for Connor, the guitarist)

Grand piano (for Zak, the pianist)

Skateboard (for differentiations in levels, height)

Chair (for differentiations in levels, height)

These are the props used, and although I would have liked to have used a smoke machine there was not one available, so I will try to create a smoke effect on a program like Photoshop. I liked the idea of using the instruments because they show the individual talent and how it all works well together. I thought it would effective and interesting if I could capture each musician playing their instruments whilst reflecting their individual personalities, e.gKarishma the lead vocalist, singing her heart out in fierce but not harsh tones, Connor the slightly more gentle but almost schizophrenic personality playing his guitar professional one minute, the next minute pretending to smash it to smithereens, and Zak, the „carer‟ of the group, the adult one, who I captured playing the grand piano in our assembly hall, hence the reason his is the only one that does not properly fit in with the dark theme that the rest follow, but I hope to edit this later on. The skateboard and the chair helped add height and levels, as I felt it would be boring to just keep them all on the same level.

Insert of props used