NME Fact File

KEY STATS

Male: 74% 

Female: 26% 

Median age: 23 

Circulation: 33,875 

Readership: 325,000

NME Questions

In 1996 under the stewardship of NME editor Steve Sutherland and publisher Robert Tame, the NME started its website NME.COM. In November 1999 the site hosted the UK's first webcast, of Suede 'Live In Japan'. In 2001 the site gave away a free mp3 of The Strokes debut single "Last Nite" a week before its release. The site rallied around The Libertines after their debut single "What A Waster" dropped from playlists due to its profanity - giving away the single as a free mp3 download.
The website was relaunched and redeveloped the site in September 2005 and the focus migrated towards video, audio and the wider music community.
In 2007 NME.COM was launched in the USA with additional staff and plans to launch its Breaking Bands contest and the NME Awards across the Atlantic.
The site now provides news, photos, video, blogs, reviews, gig listings and videos as well as featuring downloads, merchandising and message boards. Over the last year, the focus of the website has also shifted to also include tabloid gossip alongside its traditional music news. NME.COM now has 5.3 million monthly unique users, making it the largest magazine website in the UK.
In 2010 NME.COM instituted NME Breakthrough, a new music community for artists, bands and fans.
The NME website avoids patronizing it’s readers and in a similar style to the magazine, some of it’s articles contain musical vocabulary. It approaches the reader in an informal manner.  

notes on article about NME

NME’s first issue was published on 7 March 1952 after the Musical Express and Accordion Weekly was bought by London music promoter Maurice Kinn, and relaunched as the New Musical Express. To begin with, it was published in a non-glossy tabloid format on standard newsprint. It created the first UK Singles Chart on 14 November 1952.
1960's - 200,000 issues per week sold, one of the UK’s biggest sellers.
1970’s- NME was overtaken by Melody Maker as it had failed to keep pace with the development of rock music. In early 1972 the paper was almost ceased by IPC (who bought the paper from Kinn in 1963). Sales were now at 60,000.
1980’s- new direction for the NME proved to be a commercial success and the paper brought in new writers such as Andrew Collins, Stuart Maconie, Mary Anne Hobbs and Steve Lamacq to give it a stronger identity and sense of direction. Sales were still dropping and NME was yet again threatened with closure. The magazine was being pulled in all sorts of directions.
1990’s- The start of 1990 saw more American bands published in NME, yet British bands were not ignored. Britpop began to fill the musical/cultural void that Nirvana left, and NME covered all of these new bands. Sales began to increase. However, at the end of the year, sales took a dip again.

2000's -  From 21 March 1998 the paper was no longer printed on newsprint, and was converted to glossy covers. Melody Maker and Select were shut down, narrowing down the music magazine market. New photographers and new writers were hired, which proved popular therefore increasing the sales. An Irish version of NME was released, later to be closed down. Circulation of the magazine has fallen continuously since 2003. In the second half of 2009, the magazine's circulation was 38,486, 47% down on a 2003 figure of 72,442

Preliminary Film Opening

For this task, Anna and I worked together and chose the film opening to Billy Elliot which can be seen here. We did film all of the necessary parts for the beginning (slow motion jumping etc) but chose to leave it out in the finished product. It was left out as we filmed it on a trampoline which we saw was the only possible way to do so but unfortunately the footage was too dark and we could not reschedule more filming with the actor. I have learnt a lot from this task, which I will write about in another post.

Preliminary Task

Preliminary Task from Jessica Baker on Vimeo.

For the preliminary task we had to choose a genre and our group chose to film this scene in the style of a western film.

Location: Saloon-type doors and corridor, leading into a room/space with two chairs.


Roland is wearing a checkered shirt, typical of a cowboy.

Script: (Roland walks through doors to the room where Derek is already sitting, playing with some money and chewing on a toothpick)
           ROLAND: (Slams hands on table) You stole my gold.
           (Derek looks up and raises eyebrow)
           ROLAND: You left your filthy stench on my property. (Bangs fist on table)
           DEREK: Well you left your filthy stench on my wife! (Presses up from the table, kicking away the               chair behind him)
           (The two men stare at each other angrily.  Roland turns and leaves, Derek follows, throwing down some money as he leaves) 

Two contrasting magazine brands published by IPC Media

Marie Claire

Overview - Marie Claire is a worldwide icon it epitomises style and substance, with fashion and beauty that embrace everything from catwalk to high street. Marie Claire is published in the UK in partnership with French publishing company, Groupe Marie Claire.


Frequency - Monthly 


Circulation - 280,021 (ABC Jan-Jun 10)


Readership - 821,000 (NRS Jan-Jun 10)


Target Market -professional women aged 25-34

Country Life

Overview - Quintessential English magazine, is undoubtedly one of the biggest and instantly recognisable brands in the UK today. It has a unique core mix of contemporary country-related editorial and top end property advertising. Editorially, the magazine comments in-depth on a wide variety of subjects, such as architecture, the arts, gardens and gardening, the countryside, field-sports and wildlife.

Frequency - Weekly 

Circulation - 36,836 (ABC Jan-Dec 09)

Readership - 220,000 (NRS Jul09-Jun10)

Target Market - Adults 

The first ever publication that could be classed as a magazine was created in England in 1709. The focus was mainly on entertainment and America started their own magazines too in 1941, based around politics as it was evolving into a democratic nation. The early 20th Century saw new styles of magazines, which included articles, stories and advertising. As the market got more competitive, it also expanded as television emerged, being able to base a magazine on a television programme e.g cartoons and listings. Since then, large publishing companies have gathered even more titles and are just getting bigger. They have different business interests, which means they are not fully dependent on only one media. The magazine sector accounted for 18.4% of the £15.3 billion that was made from the British Media spend in 1999. This means that there is such a lucrative media for publishers to exploit.

According to the article in THE GUARDIAN (Jan 2009) why are the major players in the British magazine industry better placed to weather the economic crisis?
The larger scale magazines are far more likely to survive the economic crisis as they have invested into extending their brands into things such as TV, mobile, radio etc. This means that they can deal with the impact far better than the smaller magazines. 

Colour

• Colour carries certain connotations which may add meaning to a scene (i.e. red = danger/passion)
• Can give a scene a particular look, feel or mood.
• Can be used for dramatic effect.

Lighting & Colour

• Can achieve a variety of effects:
• To highlight important characters or objects within the frame.
• To make the characters look mysterious by shading sections of the face & body.
• To reflect a characters mental state/hidden emotions (i.e. bright = happy, dark = disturbed, strobe effect = confused) 

Positioning of Characters and Objects within frame

• Positioning within a frame can draw our attention to an important character/object.
• A film-maker can use positioning to indicate relationships between people.

1st image: Man and a woman on either end of sofa. There is obvious tension between them shown from their body language. The positioning of objects is very symmetrical, emphasising the distance between them on the sofa. The woman has her arms crossed which is a defence mechanism whilst the man looks slightly more relaxed and his eyes are looking towards the woman whilst his head is still facing straight ahead. Neither of them look happy, and the scene looks tense. However, there is a comic element in the shot.

2nd image: A man in the foreground is deeply in focus, showing all the contours and lines on his face, scars also. In the background not in focus, is a woman with a lasso, who we assume is drawing him in although he isn't looking at her.

Facial Expressions and Body Language

• Facial expressions provide a clear indicator of how someone is feeling.
• If someone is smiling broadly, we assume they are happy but we may get a different feeling if this is accompanied by scary music.
• Body Language may also indicate how a character feels towards another character or may reflect the state of their relationship.

The character is a depressed teenager called Eden who often has suicidal thoughts. Despite having a wide circle of friends, she doesn't seem to be happy with her life, perhaps due to an ongoing romantic catastrophe. She lives in a small town on the south coast of England and she doesn't enjoy living there, she wants to get away. She is of average height, average weight, average intelligence with a generally average life.

My character profile for Donald Duck

This character was created by Disney. He is a white duck that wears a sailor jacket & cap and a bright red bow tie. His personality is famous for having a short, explosive temper but still he has a positive outlook on life in contrast to this. Towards his family he is a bit of a bully and he has great rivalry with Mickey Mouse because he wants to be Disneys biggest star. Donald Duck has been around since 1934, and he went through the second world war, shown in episodes of Mickey Mouse.

opening two minutes of a feature film

Character:

Lester Burnham

We find that the lead character of American Beauty is going to die in less than a year. He's not happy and doesn't get on with his daughter, or wife. His wife is more in charge than he is and she's a perfectionist who goes overboard with matching things like shoes and garden clippers. Their house is large and their garden is neat, it looks like they are well off. He seems like a normal, boring character but there is something making him unhappy. He's also clumsy, as he drops his briefcase on the garden path when leaving. We assume that he doesn't lead a very interesting life, as he explains he could watch his wife and the neighbours forever.

Jerry McGuire

We find that this character leads a very busy lifestyle because of the job he has. We see him taking phone calls, meeting people, accompanying sportspeople to various places all throughout the first few minutes of the film. He's dressed smartly in a suit, which makes us assume he's not short of money. He also looks well groomed. He explains that he is the person behind everything, the one who is never seen. We are then shown a photograph in a newspaper where you can only see his ear and a bit of his head which shows that he is cut out of things. We also get the feeling that he is not happy with how he's being treated, but he's happy with his job. He doesn't really seem impressed with the way that some of his clients are acting for themselves or towards other people. 

Comparison

The two characters are very different, but also have a few similarities. Jerry's personality seems to be more bossy, confident and assuring, while Lester's seems to be reclusive, upset and shy. Both of their characters contrast in that way, but underneath both are unhappy with their job. 

Ken 

This character is a pub landlord who is shown in the first few minutes of the programme singing a song whilst cleaning up around his pub. He seems happy and jolly and not too bothered with the mess that is left around. Obviously he doesn't have the best job, but he seems content with what he is doing. He sang something about dignity as he was scrubbing a toilet which gives us the impression that his job is the lowest of the low, but he doesn't seem bothered. He's also seen filling an expensive looking bottle of brandy that is on show, with some cheaper brandy. This makes us think that he's not truthful. Also, when told that a man had died he didn't seem too fazed nor upset by it, which makes him look disrespectful.

Opening Sequences:

London to Brighton

At the beginning there is a sense of urgency, everything is rushed and it was hard to figure out what is going on. We soon see that the two characters are really 'rough' and don't come from a good part of London. The woman tells the girl to stay in the toilet cubicle whilst she goes to get food. When the woman goes to get food, you see more surroundings and light and you see more of the woman and what her appearance is like. Her eye is swollen and when asked about it she doesn't explain why. She then sells herself to get money for her and the girl to get a train. There are several references in the speech to people finding them and how they have to leave quickly, but nothing is really explained. We assume that something bad has happened and they're now running away from someone or people, but we don't really know what's happening. 

The Graduate

Nothing really happened in the opening of The Graduate. We see a plane full of people looking dull and boring, no one seems happy with landing. The colours we see are dull, nothing stands out and things are clean. After exiting the plane we see him walking along next to a neutral coloured wall, he looks like he is nothing special, or will cause any trouble. Over the song, ''The Sound of Silence' airport commands are played which is probably similar to the life of education he has just been through. He doesn't seem happy about going home. 

Napoleon Dynamite

The beginning of this film is very cleverly done. We see food arranged on plates with the names of producers and directors etc on the food. Names are also written on library cards, pencils and drawings. I think this is really cleverly done, as it keeps the audience interested. Usually no attention is paid to the names at the beginning of a film but this draws the person watching in and maybe makes them take notice of the names.