2. Question 1: In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
3. My Music magazine definitely follows the set genre category, it is influenced by a range of
bands and different styles of music also involving students that go to the COWA. The
technical conventions I have used within my photography are for example the Low
angle shot, to emphasise the power and fame of the lead singer of the band. The
symbolic conventions would be the typical plain and simple clothing the lead singer is
wearing to reflect his style of rock and that he is there to sing and not treating it as a
fashion show, also the student at the bottom of the contents page reflects what kind of
audience is typically attracted to this magazine. The colours used follow a scheme
throughout the magazine, white, black, red and grey which are bold colours reflecting
the genre of music. With existing professional products that I used within my magazine
I chose to undertake my photography with a simple IPhone 5 because it puts the
photographer (myself) in the readers shoes and what it would feel like to experience
these gigs fully so the reader can feel like they was there. Soul Magazine clearly fits
into the music genre of rock because it follows striking/bold colours and natural
pictures of bands from gigs and so on. I have used real music artists within my
magazine to make it much more realistic. I have also included a few pictures of
students to give that personal emphasis that it is my Magazine and they would be the
main attraction. Its all my own photography and I have edited the front cover by
blurring the edges so the main focus is on the singer and converted it into black and
white to then make the graphics/text stand out giving it a rocky vibe. Mise en scene is
influenced throughout the magazine to emphasise music by the props used by bands
such as microphones/guitars. The lanyard on the student is also a prop and even the
costa cup just to make the reader feel a link with the magazine. Before I created my
magazine I designed a few layouts so I could get a good idea of what was best, in the
end I just ended up designing it when I went along so everything fitted in nicely
together. I made sure the masthead stood out clearly to the reader and also the
pictures/ sell lines and so on.
5. My magazine represents a variety of ages mainly focusing on young adults
(students) but also is most likely to attract the adult generation as-well (30-
40's) because 'Babyshambles' are a well known band to that era, well at least
Pete Doherty is anyway. This magazine is for both genders, however it may
attract more of the male generation simply because of the genre of music.
This magazine is set to be normal class being priced at a normal affordable
rate and completely British. The models (musicians), the layout and the
language all combines to represent a certain social group of young
enthusiastic rockers that are all about big Festivals and the true morality of
music. They all combine to create a bold but simple effect which would stand
out to the reader. For example the text on the front cover floats around the
lead singer to make him stand out and create the effect of music bouncing
around the room. The magazine represents the intended audience by
keeping modern and using graphics/bold colours to attract the younger
audience also using the main contents on the front cover to catch the young
readers eye. This magazine conforms certain stereotypes of simple rockers-
plain worn in clothes-props such as guitars- a typical rough look,mostly male,
however a medium shot of a female student is on the contents page to
balance out the genders.
6. Question 3:What kind of media institution
might distribute your media product and why?
7. IPC media publishing house might own my magazine simply because it has many
simularities as the NME magazine which is published by IPC. IPC is also a very
successul uk publishing house and I think this would be a huge benefit to my
magazine. My music magazine would be distributed in all traditional newsagents,
available exclusively online and on magazine apps. Soul Magazine will be circulated
monthly to create more suspense on what is going to be in it next and also enables
the magazine to store alot more information/news. It will also be available through
subscription to any customers, this can be done online or through the post. Q
magazine and nme used to be extremely popular with very high sales, however with
todays soiety, people don't really tend to buy magazines anymore. This caused sales
to fall by 20% which is a huge loss for both magazines. However my magazine has a
wider advantage of options such as the app, an option in sizes in the magazine so it
can fit in your bag and so on (large a4 or small a5) , also my magazine would be sold
at certain gigs for half price. My magazines website would be extremely modern and
also suited for phone browsing so there would be a mobile version of the site. The
song that is at the top of the current indie rock charts at that current time would also
automatically play when you open the site. The material in the magazine is mostly
exclusive to the printed version so people are then influenced to buy it , however a
little is given away on the free app/website to give a glimpse of what they would
experience, but the payed app would just be a replica of the printed version because it
has been payed for.
9. My magazine uses a few conventions from professional magazines such as NME and Q. The main
one was the contents page. To begin with I used many ideas from mainly the NME magazine
contents page following a similar kind of lay out but in the end I scrapped that idea and ended up
just doing completely my own layout without using any other ideas from magazines although the
'inside this week' masthead from NME contents page I did use. This may help attract the
audience of teens/adults because they would be familiar with the classic magazine known as
NME, especially the older generation, which keeps the format of indie rock similar but there's
only aspects of my magazine that have used little sections of the New Musical Express
magazine so it differentiates it quite vastly from the rest but keeping those small references still
there within the different music magazines. However my music magazine does have a unique
selling point of the fact that all that photography is done by myself on my phone and also
pictures of students are influenced throughout the magazine so it gives the magazine a slight
personal feel to the reader. The layout design I designed all myself, I used practice designs
before the beginning of the magazine and as I went along doing the magazine I changed it
around. Most of the fonts I designed myself using DaFont.com, such as the mastheads, subtitles,
page numbers and the Soul Magazine logo. The props that were used are mainly from the band
like the instruments and also even the student holding a costa cup and wearing a lanyard would
be classed as a prop. The costumes used were the bands just ordinary clothes, plain top and
jeans, and the college student is also wearing typical every day clothing. The main models of the
magazine are the lead singers/artists and the college student on the contents page. All these
things were used to communicate particular ideas to the audience to reflect the true genre of
music and realistic artists, also students to involve the target audience that may be reading the
magazine.during the begining of my magazine I carried out a survey around the college asking
people of different genders and ages. However this questionnaire was not specific to the music
magazine it was for magazines in general so I would then gain different perspectives of what to
base my magazine on. Some of the results showed that most people look for an interesting front
cover within a magazine and the content/celebrities involved, so i made sure my magazine was
influenced by this as much as possible.
10. Question 6: What have you learnt about
technologies from the process of constructing
the product?
11. The process I went through to create my magazine varied between publisher
and Photoshop. The main basis of the magazine was created on publisher
such as the layout/images and then the photography and editing of fonts was
all done on Photoshop. I found it a lot easier to do my magazine on publisher
because I already knew how to work publisher whereas Photoshop was all
new to me. With my photography I used a simple iPhone 5 and then
transferred these onto the computer to then be edited by Photoshop. The
rear facing camera on my IPhone 5 is 8 mega-pixels and the front facing one
is 1.2 mg, however the front facing one was not used. My camera
automatically focuses onto the main object and if it doesn’t you simply tap on
the screen where you want to focus it and it does it for you. I used flash within
the gigs because it was quite dark so to make it a bit clearer this was a
suitable option. Throughout production I used Dafont.com and other sources
like Gmail because I had to send the photos to myself through email so I
could then add them to my magazine. I also used Google images quite
frequently just to take a glimpse of front covers and so on from popular
magazines. I have used Blogger to represent all my research, planning,
drafting and so on which gets reviewed by all the public and is very
organized. I have also used slide share to upload my evaluation to blogger
and used YouTube for certain answers so it gives a different perspective of
media.
12. Question 7:looking back at your preliminary
task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
13. Since my College magazine I feel like I have made a huge improvement and gone into
much more detail with the music magazine. With the college magazine I only used
Photoshop for the front cover picture and that is all, whereas with my music magazine
I used Photoshop for the main fonts such as the masthead also page numbers, Soul
Magazine logo and a variety of pictures mainly the front cover and double page
spread. I created both magazines on publisher because I felt this was the best option
for me, also for both of them I used the same IPhone 5 for all my photography.
However my college magazine mainly focuses on photography with students but the
music magazine is more about experiences and real life bands. With my college
magazine I didn’t create my own fonts but I did create my own barcode. The music
magazine has mostly all of my own fonts apart from the main/large texts which was
Eras Demi ITC. I have also noticed that throughout my music magazine I have used a
lot more of a bolder fonting to make certain texts stand out but this isn’t used as much
in the college magazine. The college magazine follows a much more brighter colour
scheme compared to the music magazine because they both follow different genres,
the music magazine being indie rock so the colours have to be quite dark/ bold and
the college magazine focuses on students and the success of COWA so bright
colours seemed necessary, also to attract the students attention as they go by.
Through both magazines it has been amazing to see the starting product to the
finishing product, technology is so advanced now so anything is possible and there is
so many different sources you can use within a computer to really explore what’s best
for your magazine. I have shown others my magazine and they have been very
impressed with it because it really reflects the genre of music well and the
photography is very good, also being very realistic at the same time. The bold colours
and range of texts also seemed to take interest in people that I have shown my
magazine because it’s very well written and detailed giving different perspectives
throughout. Overall I have gone into huge detail with both magazines and considered
everything in order to be successful and different to competition.
