Poster Analysis:
I found the poster on the back of an A5-sized showbiz magazine from The Times newspaper (a weekend edition). It was promoting Mika’s new album ‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much’, to be released later that month (21.09.09). The release date of the album is an important piece of information included on this poster. The supplements are provided by a newspaper to appeal to different interests and different members of the family. The showbiz section will appeal to younger members of the family and it is these teenagers that the poster is aimed at. I think it will appeal to teenagers because it is colourful and eye-catching. At first glance it looks like a jumbled mess but this actually invites you to look more closely to make sense of it. Therefore, it captures your interest.
Media Forms and Language
Title & Typeface (s) etc:
The name of the artist, in this case ‘Mika’, is written in the same typeface and the same style as on his new album and his previous, debut album. The style and colour of the typeface that has been used in the ‘Mika’ logo has been used like a promotion, such as a brand image. The name ‘Mika’ is also written in 3D, like a stencil giving his name a kind of ‘hero’ effect. It is white against a coloured background which makes it bold, and the most important part of the poster. The text contained on the poster looks as if it is from a cartoon or a comic book, and the word “Mika” is the centre of attention and the biggest text on the poster, with the album title smaller, underneath and in 2D, not bold like his name. The information is the same colour as the titles, again emphasising the importance of the artist’s name and new album.
Written Language (copy & anchorage):
There is one review from ‘Q magazine’ on the poster, which promotes Mika’s brand – as any artist needs promotion, especially a new one like Mika, to keep them in the public eye. Also advertised are two tracks from the new album, “Includes... ‘We Are Golden’ & ‘Blue Eyes’”, to draw attention to released tracks that are already well known. The phrase “The New Album” emphasises that although the cover of the CD looks familiar to his fans (colourful, psychedelic layout), this is in fact a new CD.
Images (Visual Language):
The main scene is a boy’s bedroom with two walls instead of four - two walls are replaced with black-and-white images of space and the universe of stars planets and moons, showing the boy’s interest in space and astronomy. The envelope on the top left-hand corner of the poster is intertextuality - the letter is a connection, or a link to the outside world. The envelope is an airmail envelope linking travelling through air with space travel. The bright yellow of the window frame is contrasted with the black, bare trees outside silhouetted against a dark blue sky. This gives a scary gothic view of the world outside, reinforced by the appearance of a purple demon cat with horns and claws, peering into the bedroom through the window. There is also a black and white portrait photograph of the artist, Mika, to the right of his name and the title of the album, to remind people who Mika is as he’s only made one previous CD.
What’s interesting about the space and universe images is that they’re in black and white, with no colours, drawing your attention away from the images to the colourful centre of the poster where the title appears. It’s different to the CD cover, where the space and universe pictures are printed in colour. This is probably so that you can also read the information in the bottom right corner more easily. It seems that Mika is influenced by the psychedelic era of the 1960s/1970s.
Representation
The designer of the poster has taken the title of the album ‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much’ and tried to show this in a cartoon style. The boy in the bedroom is lying down on the floor with his legs on the bed reading a book. The boy has a lot of interests, as shown by all the posters and things on his desk and on the floor. The general clutter and untidiness represent a stereotypical boy’s bedroom. The boy is white, as can be seen from his arms, and represents a middle class teenager from the clothes that he wears. There are unusual posters on the walls, most of which contain images of monsters, but some of the posters have shapes which look like faces when looked at more closely. The images of monsters and space reinforces the stereotypical interests of a teenage boy.
Genre
The colourful, cartoon-style artwork, with its themes of monsters and space suggest that this is a Pop album likely to appeal to teenagers.
Audience
The poster is bright and stands-out, so will appeal to teenagers who may have an interest in Mika and his new album. It could be narrowcasting, and may also appeal to a more passive audience rather than an active one.
CD Album Cover Analysis:
The CD album cover for The Boy Who Knew Too Much is virtually the same as the magazine promotional poster, except the universe and astronomy-related areas are in colour instead of black and white. Apart from the title of the album and the artists name there is no other writing on the front cover. Like the poster, the CD cover is both colourful and eye-catching and would appeal to its target audience of teenagers.
Music /Pop Promo Video Analysis:
This is the promotional video made for Mika’s ‘We Are Golden’ song from his 2009 album ‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much’. It is a pop song and I have already analysed the poster and CD cover for this song and album, and these three items together form what is known as a music promotional package. The video itself is performance-based and aimed at teenagers.
MES:
The video is set in a teenager’s bedroom, as on the CD cover and the CD promotional poster, creating a sense of continuity and connection between each item in the promotional package. The bedroom contains bright, vibrant colours which gives the childlike theme to the video. The singer Mika appears in his own video in a stereotypical boy’s bedroom and clowns around in his white boxer shorts while singing the song. The actions of Mika jumping up and down, dressing up in different clothes add humour to the catchy tune he is singing. The fast pace and colourful video creates empathy and appeal to its target audience of teenagers.
Scattered duvet covers, cuddly toys, and Pop culture posters help to create this representation of him, or at least the character in the bedroom in the video. One of the costumes he wears (2mins 29secs) is a red buttoned-suit, and is a form of intertextuality to the costumes that The Beatles wore on the album cover for ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’. His performance is that of a teenager jumping around his bedroom to his favourite music.
The cassette tapes at the beginning and end of the video take you back to the 1970’s/1980’s, which shows references to the retro-style which is fashionable at the moment. The Union Jack and England flags represent Mika’s love of Britain even though he wasn’t born here.
Cinematography:
There are lots of close-ups on Mika and certain areas of him, yet even though the frame and camera shots are still (the camera rarely physically moves in this video) the editing is fast to reflect the pace of the song.
Editing:
The video has been edited so that there is fast-cutting between each shot, reflecting the “relationship between music and visuals”. The camera has been positioned so that most shots have Mika directly in the middle of the frame. Near the end, there are shots of Mika jumping around the bedroom, and the footage has been slowed down into slow-motion so that every single detail is clear.
SFX:
At about 3mins 4secs into the video, Mika seems to be getting power from God, as the heavens open and on-screen lightning bolts appear to strike him, therefore the connotations of this are that he is world-dominant. It is basically a God delusion.
The notion of looking
It’s an exhibitionist type of video where he showing off his body and not afraid to show himself in his boxer shorts.
Conclusion
Overall, I think the video itself is aimed at young people who want to listen to tracks that contain lively, happy and rebellious words that empathise with their feelings. Therefore, it lives up to the expectations made by the promotional poster and the CD cover artwork.
