Research and Planning: My Music Magazine Production

Before starting the production of my music magazine, I had to decide for definite the genre of my magazine and who the target audience would be. Shown below is the publisher document I created to start the planning process.

After I had established that my music magazine would be for the rock genre and knew my target audience would be teenagers to young adults of both genders, I did some research into which magazines already existed that met my specification, using the results of my questionnaire to help. I did this in order to see what key features I should include within my magazine and what elements I could improve upon.

Shown below is the front page of some already existing current rock magazines.

From researching into the rock genre, that I want my music magazine to feature within, it soon became apparent that male artists almost always feature on the front cover (as shown by the images above) therefore, a unique selling point of my magazine will be featuring a female artist on the front cover. This will help attract the females within my target audience.

Also, from researching into music magazine covers I noticed that most of the band pictures look at the audience. This is effective as it entices the audience and shows that the magazine is addressed to them, it is a magazine feature that I will include in my production.

As well as this, I acknowledged that all the current music magazines available have certain codes and conventions. Many of which are apparent on the front pages shown above. They include: a banner, a headline, a lure, a by-line etc. I will try and incorporate these and many more conventional elements within my music magazine production.

In preparation for my music magazine I compiled a document displaying different camera angles and shots that I had researched. I can then use these various camera techniques within my music magazine production to give a professional effect.