Scott Smith

The codes and conventions of a magazine advertisement of a digipak

The advert that I have chosen to focus on for this task is one that I have found from the back cover od a Q magazine. The advert is meant tot act as promotion for Janelle Monảe’s latest album.

Genre: I can identify the genre of this advertisement from the artists appearance and who she is collaborating. This shot uses high key lighting, this paired with the monochrome outfit and the stylish make-up that the artist is wearing gives the appearance of a very mainstream artist which at this point in time would mean that she falls into the genre of pop. Although tow of the artists songs are highlighted in bold, one of them being ‘dance apocalyptic’ showing that this artist may venture into the dance genre as well as targeting the mainstream pop audience.

Target audience: I believe that the target audience for this advert is young women. One of the main reasons for this is that Janelle herself is a young women; and in media fans like to subscribe to artists that they can see parts of themselves in as it allows them to relate to them and the music that they are producing . And as this advert very much focuses on Janelle it allows the audience to do the same thing. This is further backed by the stylized image as a lot of time has gone into making sure that she looks as best as she can for the image, which means a full face of make-up has been applied, her hair has been styled and her nails have been painted to continue the colour scheme of black white and red.

Camera codes:

Angle of shot: the shot has been taken at eye level to further allow a connection to be made between the artist and her target audience. The shot also allows a direct mode of address to be used so that Janelle is making as much eye contact as possible with her fans, enticing them to read the advert and at the same time read the advert and become aware of her album release.

Shot: this is a group shot but interestingly it is made up of only one person, Janelle in varying different positions, with one acting as the obvious lead in the group. This is presented by making sure the lead role has a different hair style than the other girls. By doing so we are drawn into this form of Janelle, this is also done by having her in the centre of the shot and being positioned closer to the audience than the other girls in the shot. The shot is also composed with a tight framing to fill the whole advert with the artist making sure that the subjects frame the title of the album ‘the electric lady’.

Subject: The clear subject of this shot is Janelle, as it is her album and people like to know the face of the artist that they are listening to. Although there are six copies of her there is a clear lead in the group

Mise-en-scene: This shot incorporates:: high key lighting; make-up and proxemics to make Janelle the focus of the shot. All three of the aspects are used to draw in the eyes of the audience to Janelle herself and her name that in place beneath her. The lighting gives her an angelic look creating highlights on her face that twinned with her make-up make her appear to be glowing. The positioning of her many forms help to draw they audiences eyes to the title of her new album but also to the centre model as we can see the most of her as a character.

Conventions: Titles/Text: The text on the advertisement also

follows the strict colour scheme of the image: red white and black. The text in this whole shot is serif giving the advertisement a sense of class, which is replicated by the subjects outfit as they are completely covered by apart from their forearms.

Endorsements: Unusually for an advertisement of a digipak there are no endorsements on this image. However instead of this the producer of this paper media has decided to drop several celebrities names and blown them up to a bigger font to effectively draw in the eyes of viewer and also help to elevate the status of the model in the image, in this case it is Janelle. These celebrities are: Prince, Miguel and Solange.

Size of the image: The image for this advertisement has been designed to fill the whole page as this follows the conventions of the advert. Meaning that the whole of the page draws the audiences eyes to the artists.

Industry details (recording co./ distributor): here we can see the logos of the music producers and distributors of this artist. By having these logos it makes the artist seem more professional as they are backed by a studio financially meaning that they are a artist they believe will do well and therefore can make them money.