Excellent work

Well done, Shazana!

NME front cover

Analysis of Music magazine!

Analysing the front cover of NME music magazine. The Masthead is called NME. The target audience for this magazine are males and the target audience being average males aged roughly 20's-30's. I can tell that this is aimed at boys because of the type of colours they have connotated and also because the main two images that are in the centre of the page are of two males. The red and yellow colours that are used are very good colours because they’re used on the front of the magazine which will straight away catch the audiences attention. Banners are also used in the centre of the magazine. The text is mainly in large print so this makes the text stand out more. The characters position on the front cover is that they aren’t stood up straight their heads are slightly tilted, this maybe to show that they’re serious and want the audience to look straight at them and be interested in the magazine and them and nothing else.

The type of camera composition/movement and shots that are used for the main image on the front cover is a close up medium shot. This shot represents the importance of the characters that are in the shot and their importnace of being there. Generally close up shots are done to show the significance of someone or something, so on the magazine the producer is automatically trying to illustrate who the main people are. The other small images that are included on the front cover are close up shots just of the individuals face. Like said before this will catch the attention of the target audience and they will want to buy it and read on about all the characters that have been pictured. The fact that they have chosen to include their face is good because it shows that they'll have to read on if they're intrigued. But on the other hand if a full shot was taken of these famous people then it would be giving all the information about that character away. Sometimes the audience stereotype individuals/groups just by lookin t their front image. So because of this it's better to just show their face and then let the audince decide for themselves if they would like to read further or not.

The ideal self partner of this front cover is the potentially successful women who are famous and who are actually included on this front cover. But on the other hand it’s also aimed at males who are in a band or would like to start a band of their own. The type of clothes that they are wearing are stereotypically old fashioned especially with the hat that one of the characters is wearing. Their hair is longer than an average males hair length. This was quite unique in the past and that’s what maybe their music is linked. That maybe the reason why they are dressing in that way to continue to put the message across about what type of music they’re promoting. At the top right hand corner there is a chunky red arrow the text that they have included in ithe arrow just tells the audience what more they can find inside. They've also included images along with names of the famous people who they have interviewed. No where on the front cover does it say anything about the by-lines. No name of the person who rote the article, no name given to the person who took the images etc.

Contents Page

On the contents page there is quite abit going on. Theres lots of text which mainly you'd think will be boring. But it's the opposite the reason why the text on the contents page doesn't look boring is because it's all in different sizes, coulours and fonts etc. The main colours included on the front cover are black, red,green,white and some yellow. The bit of text that caught my sight was more the fact of the shade of colour it was,and the font, instead of what actually was written. The way the text was structured was that it was placed diagonally in black bold print with a hint of lime green circles in the background. As you can see down the left side there is red small print writing alongside the text theres numbers because it is an index. Instead of it being somewhere else in the magazine like in the middle or towards the end, it's on the contents page which make the reader want to read more the reason for this might be that they've just read the band index with all famous names and they admire someone. So obviously they'll be intrigued to read onwards about that band and will want to buy the magazine every time it comes out.
Throughout the magazine the colours have a very important connatation behind them. Linking back to the target audience of the magazine, which are boys the colours quite match with the sexuality of the audience that is being targeted. The shot types/movement that are done on the contents page are that they're tiny images but they're not only showing the face of the characters but their location too. In one of the images one of the male band members is in a studion recording and playing on his guitar. For example if a random person who picked this up didn't look or show interest in the front cover but out of the blue saw the contents page then they would repeatedly know that this specific magazine was to do with music.

Double page spread (1)

A double spread is a story that takes up two pages in a magzaine, so for example the story will start on the left page and then will be continued over to the next page. The title of this double page spread is 'Kasabian'. As you can see the main picture on the left page it's showing four normal average aged men. Automatically i will know that these men pictured are representing the music band which is called the Kasabian. The type of shot that is took is an establishing shot becuase it's showing where abouts the location is where the shot is took. The shot of the characters is a full view shot because it's showing their full body image. So it's basically showing the mise en - scene, which in this case is the location they're in, the type of costume they're wearing which may however represent the type of music they play. The clothes that they're wearing are normal for a man, but the colours are very boring and dull.

All the four main characters shown have long hair this also shows that it's in the past and maybe that's what their music is based around heritage. An unusual thing i noticed on one of the men's waistcoat was that he had a red flower on it. Now today you would definately not got a middle aged male walking down the road with an accesory that is from the feminine range. Maybe that flower is trying to symbolise something and may have more of a connatation than the audience might think. Continuing with the same men on this double page spread, i also noticed that all of them are looking in different positions. Starting at the left side of the page with the male that's wearing the hat his eyesight is looking diagonally towards the ground. The second one who is slightly in front of the rest of them he's looking above, the third one is just looking normally ahead and the last male is looking straight and his eye sight is purely in line with the camera. The connatation behind this could be telling the audience that their music isn't all based on one sort of topic or genre. But it's always changed on several different topics and that they have different views on things too. This might make the target audience purchase the magazine even more because they'd like to listen and go a bit more into depth on how this band make music which has lots of feelings, views etc in.

Focusing on this shot in the background i can see a couple of vehicles in the back. At the beginning of this analysis when i was analysing the front cover, i explained that the type of music they do is old fashioned becuase of the way they're dressed and the style of clothes they're wearing. Keeping this in mind by looking at the cars in the scenery i can tell that the location is not set in the present day today. They're the types of cars that builder etc drive, becuase of the storage space they have in the back of them. At the bottom of the image it says where the shot is took and it's took in San Francisco Port on the second of October 2008.

Double page spread (2)

Starting with the text which says 'Kasabian', it's written in big, black bold letters that stand out and catch the readers attention very quickly. In the top righ corner in small print is says 'IN THE STUDIO', this gives the audience a little more of an insight and makes them interested and tells them that it's not only about the band members but what their role consisits of when they're working and making their music. The image that is included after the text shows their studio, which is a good thing. Because they could've just shown an image of the band members recording, they actually show a bit of the studio. Maybe many of the readers haven't seen what a studio looks like, and now they have the opportunity to look at one even though it's just a picture. I'm sure that the audience that are in that particular position will understand that the band has took that into account therefore they decided to include a picture of their studio to get a litle bit closer. Describing the colours on this double page spread is that they have only stook to using two colours which are black and green. By doing this it keeps it simple, straight to the point and connotates that the colour of the images and text isn't important but the actual image itself and the text is what needs to be knowledged. As you can see just above the studio image it says 'We got the actress in Sin city to duet with Tom on the record' and the person who said thsi was Sergio Pizzorno. What has been said here will tell the male audience that they don't have a problem with a female working on their album either. It also shows that the band members which a majority are males don't have anything against females, not that i'm sayin they should have. But sometimes when your famous then alot may happen between males and females which causes an outbusrt amongst them.