The document discusses how the media product, a music magazine called WITCH, uses conventions from existing magazines like Q Magazine, Kerrang, and MOJO as influences. It aims the magazine at older teenagers aged 16-24 and features both male and female artists from the indie and alternative music genres to represent the target audience. The magazine would be distributed nationally in the UK by IPC Media due to their experience with similar music magazines like NME.

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? WITCH By using Q magazine as an influence for this, I decided to put all the writing along one side of the magazine. I liked how on Q they had different font sizes and colours making it look quite ‘rebellious’ which links to the indie genre of music. I took the image knowing that this is the style I wanted to my cover so I made sure that my model was in the right hand side of the shot with spare room to the right for the writing to go over the background. Again like Q I wanted the writing to almost fit the shape of the image making it look more professional. For the image on the front cover I mainly used MOJO to influence me, however I also mixed this with Kerrang and Total Guitar. All of the images on the front cover of these magazines are in black and white. I thought that these looked quite effective and made the model look more dominant, which links with the indie/alternative genre. However I also challenged the codes and conventions of other style models as I made the camera focus more on the guitar than the actual model, I believed again this linked better with the genre. I decided to use three style models to influence me when making my magazine to make it look more professional when I decided to a bar at the top I got this from, Q, Kerrang and Total Guitar. I used Q to influence me when doing the writing on my front cover the most out of any of my style models. On the front of Q they have the plus sign with different features you will find inside the magazine. Although I didn’t do it in the same style as Q, I did add the ‘PLUS...’ followed by 3 features you will find inside, I added this because I thought it looked quite professional. I looked at MOJO as one of my style models, and analysed it before making my magazine. When doing so I decided I would use this feature to influence me when designing my front cover, and at the top right hand corner I decided to add a ‘FREE! Mumford & Sons Poster’. I thought that this would make it look more like a real magazine. They also had free items in Kerrang and NME.

3. WITCH Again I used Q as a major influence when designing my music magazine contents page. I liked the stout of the ‘Regulars’ and ‘Features’ being separated, and then with the red and b and black lines separating the text. So I used this in my work also, and again like Q, had the two sections on different sides of the contents page separated with images. Again using Q as an influence, I decided to add in bold red writing (making it stand out), page numbers on the images to let the reader know where they will find the story in the magazine relating to the image. I found that this would make it easier, and also asked my target audience when doing audience research and I found that they thought this would be a good idea. Using MOJO to influence me, I decided to make sure that I kept with the black and white scheme for my main feature image the whole way through. Again I think that it relates quite well to the ‘Indie/Alternative’ genre of music quite well, and also matched with the mise en scene with the guitar and amplifier, it looks quite effective as an image itself. Adding the smaller images into my contents page was influenced by mainly Q, Kerrang and Total Guitar. I thought that not only would it make it look more professional but it would also look better for my target audience when they are looking at a magazine to buy as it would stand out. Again using Q as influence when designing my magazine I decided it would look professional if I put ‘THIS MONTHS COVER...’ at the top of the page along with an image of the final front cover. When doing research into Q’s contents page, I noticed they had a ‘Q Review’ section. Because I thought this looked quite effective and thought it would appeal to my target audience I decided to add a review onto my contents page also.

4. WITCH A lot of my double page spread was influenced by Q magazine. When looking and looking at the magazines double page spread before the making of my magazine, I found that the main thing that stood out in the writing was the big quote in the middle of the page. I noticed that a lot of the time it was something to try and interest the reader. So I decided to my article on his life as well as his career, so I could add something that would interest my target audience when they saw it. By using the influence of Total Guitar again I decided to stick white he black and white theme throughout , and again have my double page spread image in black and white. Along with the mise en scene of the image, such as the guitar, cigarette, amplifier and bottle of Whisky, I think it looks more effective in black and white. I think the black and white matches the indie genre of music. Also by using Q magazine to influence me when designing my magazine, I decided that I liked the red quotes above the main quotes in black text, giving a brief description about what the quote is about instead of actually having a question there. I thought this gave it a more professional theme because not many other magazines do it and it goes against other codes and conventions of a typical Q&A style article. Using influence from Q magazine I decided to add a quote on the image on the left hand side, along with the artists name. I also added gaps in between the letters to make it stand out a lot more making sure they know who the double page spread is on as soon as they look at it.

5. How does your media product represent particular social groups? Because my magazine is aimed at older teenagers I had to research before I started to find out what magazines the typical teenager would read. After doing this I looked at 5 different magazines that they said, Q, Kerrang, Total Guitar, NME and MOJO, whilst looking at these I had to see which artists appeared in the magazines and try and mimic this in an original way. My magazine shows Artists from a range of different ages. However because I had to link it not only to my target audience, but also the 5 style models I looked at. Mainly because of the genre of the magazine, it represents the younger generation rather than older. This includes artists such as, Pete Doherty, Ellie Goulding, Jessie J etc. Who are all fairly young artists. The genre of the music presented in my magazine is a cross between alternative and indie, this is the main reason the magazine represents the younger generation as there are more younger artists related to this genre than older artists. Because the genre of my music magazine which is a mix between alternative and indie, my magazine is aimed to a much more general cultural WITCH Because of the genre of music that is being shown in my magazine, the main artists are male. However, I tried my best to make sure I added a mixture of both genres in the main features especially. So the main two features that I showed on my contents page were, Pete Doherty and Jessie J. I also added artists such as Adele, Arctic Monkeys and Ellie Goulding. audience, with no particular cultural bias. Because of the genre of my music magazine, it is aimed more generally at people of all sexual orientations. Because it is aimed to an older teenage audience, there is not particular sexual orientation being represented in my magazine. Although my music magazine isn’t aimed particularly to a certain class, because of the indie twist to it, it gives it a lower/middle class to it because of the references to drugs and alcohol, which is stereotypically linked to the lower class, maybe it would appeal more to the lower class audience. Again because of the genre that is presented in my music magazine, it could again be linked to the maybe the lower/middle.

6. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? WITCH The media institution I would use to distribute my media product would be IPC Media. I chose this company because they are quite a big company who distribute a diverse variety of magazines, form fashion with Marie Claire, to more appropriately music magazines such as NME. NME is one of my style models, and I have quite a similar genre of music to them, meaning they have experience with working with similar magazines to mine, so I would feel confident that they were get my product to the consumer because NME is a well known and popular magazine with a similar target audience to me. Along with this they distribute over 80 magazines from different genres, all aiming to a range of audiences. Because of my target audience I would probably try advertising on the internet or radio, because it is aimed to older teenagers it is probably more likely to get noticed by them on the internet rather than on a Billboard because stereotypically teenagers spend more time on the internet and listening to music. I would distribute my magazine Nationally, mainly because I have included well known artists in my magazine and would benefit more than a local target audience. However because I also have a lot of British artist that may not be known in other countries, I wouldn’t distribute it Internationally.

7. Who would be the audience for your media product? WITCH When I was doing the research into existing music magazines, I first decided that I was going to aim my music magazine probably more toward the older teenage audience probably being between the age of 16 and 24. I decided this because I noticed that a lot of other magazines at the minute were aimed at around the same age group, so I assumed that more teenagers read music magazines than any other age group. So then I decided I would do all my research based on the target audience that I had picked out. After researching into existing music magazines, I decided that the genre that I wanted to make my magazine was a cross between Alternative music and Indie music. Because of this, my music magazine isn’t particularly aimed at a particular sexual orientation. Because my magazine is aimed to quite a wide spread audience there isn’t a particular social class I had planned to aim in to in my audience research. However because of the genre of it, it is probably more likely to appeal to a lower/middle class audience. Because of the genre of my music magazine and the music being shown in the magazine, it isn’t aimed at a particular gender. Because I found that there were a lot more male artists in the indie genre of music, meaning it could appeal more to men, especially if they play music of a similar genre. However, on the Alternative genre of music, there is a lot more solo female mainstream artists, so this could also make it appeal more to the female audience. This means that my magazine is aimed to both the male and female audience. AGE SEXUALITY GENDER CLASS

8. WITCH “ I love the mise en scene of the images in the magazine . I also like the set out of the double page spread, and the contents are what I would look for in a magazine.” Emma Eglin “ I like the photo on the front cover, mainly because it challenges the typical front cover image- focuses more on the guitar than the person. Double page spread is the strongest page, mainly because of the layout” Katie Green “ I like the images because they stand out, and they link well to the genre of music. I also like the layout on the contents page with features and regulars sections.” Craig Knott “ This is the type of magazine I could imagine buying because it shows the styles of music that is liked mainly by most teenagers. I also really like the set and how the colour scheme runs all the way through.” Kathryn Hartley

9. How did you attract/address your audience? WITCH This question was about having the page numbers over the images on the contents page. 100% of the people said that they would like to see this, so I added this into my magazine. This question was asking on the front cover if my target audience would prefer a quote from the main feature artist or a lyrical reference. The majority of people said to go with lyrics, so I did. This question is asking whether my target audience would prefer to see posed images or natural image. Although I took a mixture, I mainly took posed images.

10. WITCH Draft Feedback I got a lot of feedback from my first draft from both teachers and peer students. I took it all into consideration and changed a lot of the things people said I could improve. One example of this is the logo for my magazine. After making the changes to this and other things, I felt a lot more confident about my magazine as a lot of the things made it look more professional. Other things I changed because of this feedback was my images of ‘Jessie J’, when I took the images for my second draft I used the feedback and decided to be a lot more stylistic with the modelling. Images At the start of the project I did my audience research to try and find out how I could make my magazine appeal to my target audience the most. When doing this I found that people would rather see the images I took to be posed rather than natural, so when I was taking my images I took this into consideration and took a lot of images posed. When taking my images of my main feature, I tried to be as stylistic as possible and make them relate to the genre of music my artist played to make it appeal more to the target audience who enjoyed the genre of music. Double page spread In my double page spread, I have done a Q&A style interview. However to make it appeal more to the reader, I have talked not only about ’Pete Doherty’s’ career at the moment with upcoming tours etc. I have also talked about his life and how he got into his career path. I think this is going to appeal to my target audience because it shows a lot of things you would not expect to find about that certain artists life. Because it is indie/alternative genre, the language did not have to be stylised particularly towards a certain stereoype. My magazine is trying to portray quite an indie style with the music that is presented in it, and the style of images I have took. I tried to make sure I kept a flowing theme throughout, and I did this with the colour scheme and the mise en scene of my main feature images.

11. WITCH

12. WITCH

13. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? WITCH Photography Because I had very little experience with using an SLR camera, I knew that learning how to use the camera properly would be quite hard. This is because there was a lot more to consider compared to using a digital camera. The main things I struggled with when taking my images was getting the lighting right. To make my images look more natural I used natural lighting rather than artificial, which I found quite hard because I couldn’t always get the light right for the image. To make sure I had a variety of different shots, I made sure I took images from different distances and for some I used the zoom in on some and also took some from longer distances, I found by doing this it ensured that I had enough different shots to fill my magazine. Blogger Before I started the media course this year, I didn’t know how to use ‘Blogger’. However, after a lesson on learning how to use, and learning how to write posts I began to find it a lot easier to use. Because I used Blogger quite a lot when writing diary entries and when working with my preliminary task etc. I began to pick up on things that could make it easier to use and to make it look neater, an example of this is when doing my preliminary task I found that I was putting things in a wrong order. However I worked out how to change the date and time of a post to ensure everything is in the right order. Photoshop Photoshop was one of the most challenging parts of making my coursework. I had very little experience with using this software, and I found it hard t remember all the tools, and which was the right one to use for different things that needed to be done. The first time I had used this was during my Preliminary task, this was good experience for the rest of my coursework as I used it more and more, I gradually began to be more confident about using it. Microsoft PowerPoint I chose to use PowerPoint for my final evaluation in my coursework because I have used it before and felt the most confident using this. I also felt that it would be best to use this software because I could do work at home in my free time, as well as any time I have at school, for example free periods, as well as any lesson time we were given. This was because I have PowerPoint at home.

14. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? WITCH Preliminary task Doing the preliminary task really helped me when it came to doing my music magazine. This is mainly because I had never used Photoshop before, and when I first started using it for the coursework I found it quite difficult to use and remember all the different tools, and then remembering which tools were the ones you needed. I learnt about how to edit the lighting for an image which helped me a lot with my music magazine because most of the images were took in a natural environment so it was quite difficult to get the lighting right every time. Another thing I learnt in my preliminary task, which then helped me when making my music magazine was learning how to take the right camera shots with an SLR camera, which was new to me. I practiced taking different shots in my preliminary task but the one that helped me the most was the mid shot, which I used for my front cover.

15. WITCH

16. WITCH

17. WITCH Conclusion From doing my music magazine I have learnt a lot more about how to use codes and conventions from style models and now feel a lot more confident with doing so compared to the preliminary task. I feel a lot more confident with how to use different software's such as Photoshop. I have also learnt how to make sure a product is going to appeal to my target audience, I learnt this from doing my audience research and by asking them questions about both existing magazines and what they would like to see in a new magazine. Finally I have learnt about how a music magazine should be set out, and how different genres of music magazines should be set out differently, an example of this is R&B and Rock.