Codes and Convention's of Hip Hop music video's.

• Dancing
• Dark colours.
• Simple settings
• Women (to show their sexuality, which appeals to males.)
• Usually at a club
• Revealing clothing (women)
• Portrayal of wealth & power- Cars, jewellery,expensive alcohol.

Task: To select a current article from a magazine and explain what it expresses.

I had purchased a Hip Hop magazine named 'The Source'.

A current rapper, J. Cole is explaining what it means to be told he lacks persona. He states that his persona will develop as it is still quite early in his music career, and also gives an example of the Hip Hop legend Tupac (explaining the development in Tupac's career.)

There is only a brief outline of how and where J. grew up in his childhood. He mentions his childhood quite a lot and this is shown in his lyrics and is highlighted through his Songs. I believe this is a major convention in the world of  Hip Hop, many music artists demonstrate this as they usually rap about their childhood and past life.

J. Cole names some of the influences he has had, ranging from the Hip Hop figure Nas (Nasty Nas) to his parents CD collection, J. explains that his influences have surely made an impact on his life and his preference of Hip Hop.
It could be said that almost every music artist has/have had influence on another artist/s so this  idea of influence would be another major convention of Hip Hop.

Evaluation

As a class, we were set a preliminary task, which was to create a front cover and contents page for the school. We had to decide what our target audience would be, and I targeted my magazine at sixth formers (Year 12's.)

Firstly I had to come up with a title name, and after some thought I decided my magazine would be named 'United'. I believe the term 'united' reflects NMBEC as a sixth form and a school.

I chose to use the NMBEC school colours (red, yellow and black) as my theme colour for the magazine because it would represent the school very well. The picture I took for my front cover was a mid- shot, I chose to capture the picture next to the welcome sign in the school, I think this suggests that NMBEC students are welcoming. Instead of just one person in my picture, in decided that there would be 3 sixth form students stranded beside each other, as this relates to my magazine title, the three people are united.

For my contents page I used 3 pictures. Picture 1 was of two male students, sitting outside the decking area.  It shows that there aren’t only girls in NMBEC but there are also boys that choose to study at the sixth form the form excellent facilities we offer.

Things that would like to improve on the magazine was the choice of background on my contents page, it’s not as clear and the sixth form buildings isn’t very visible. For my future coursework, I would be sure to use something different as a background, rather than an image.

Shot-list

Front cover;
A midshot of three students together (with books in their hands)  happily looking into the camera.

Contents page;
1- Head and shoulder shot of students socialising
2- Establishing shot of the sixth form building block
3-Medium shot of students sitting down outside the decking

'Typical reader' profile

Aisha has just completed her GCSE's with impressive results as she studied extremely hard. However, she is now nervous about going into sixth form and wonders whether she could 'fit in' with the multicultural environment. She went to a different high school, so she worries about making new friends. She in unsure about choosing her subjects, so she seeks for advice from previous students. Although she is a smart and bright student, she has high expectations from her parents to get good grades.

In her spare time, she enjoys reading mystical books, such as Twilight and Harry Potter; and after this she usually watches Eastenders, and sometimes The Weakest Link! She adores her kitten twinkle, and when she feels lonely she feels as if she has someone to talk to . On Saturdays, she puts her studies aside and helps out in her local youth club, which she enjoys, as her friends are there with her too.

The name of my magazine!

My magazine would be called 'United.' I came up with this name because the message I want to reach out to my target audience (sixth-formers) is that sixth formers are all of one; they study together and could unite to achieve success. It may be a strong magazine name, if i continue to portray this meaning throughout the magazine.

What could my target audience be?

After some thought, I finally decided that my target audience would be The sixth form students (Year 12- year 13's.)

The reason why I chose this particular audience for my magazine is because I believe that-with such an audeince-  there could be various things to include within the magazine; Such as images & quotes from previous students etc.

There could also be alot written inside my magazine which could include the explanation of the huge 'jump' between GSCE's and ALevel's.

-- Aim for Success! --

In class, each of us were put into groups of 4  to produce a small brochure for the school, mainly to get the hang of taking photo's with the SLR camera.

I was put alongside Ozge, Deborah and Jamal.  Our task was  To encourage more (year 11 ) boys to join the sixth form.

To do this, we had to take just 3 images ;

• Exterior of college
•  Person(s)
•   Object

And the images are shown below ..


Exterior of college ---->










This is an outside view of our sixth form building block. As a group, we discussed that this could persuade the year 11 boys to join our sixth form, as it has a clean and modern look to it.

Person(s) ---->










This was edited using photoshop, as a group we fiddled around on photoshop. We wanted there to be a slight gleam of light shone near the basketball hoop. Which could suggest that there is always hope to achieve in anything that you put your mind to. And in the image, Jamal is aiming to throw the basketball insife the hoop.

Objects ----> 










This is me 'playing' the guitar. We decided that this could be a perfect object to use within our brochure, purely because there are  many boys/men who play guitars in succesful boy bands. And there could be some year 11 boys who wish to be as succesful as them.

An Introduction..

This is a brief explanation about the purpose of my blog. It would show each and every step I take in the prelimanary task to my progession leading up to my final music magazine. My blog would be updated with print-screen shots of my progress ,whilst carrying out the task.