Shown below is a comparison showing the developments I have made from my preliminary school magazine task to my music magazine task.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Evaluation: Music magazine questionnaire feedback and analysis
Below is a copy of the music magazine questionnaire that I produced and distributed:
I distributed 15 copies of this questionnaire to people within my target audience, 8 to females and 7 to males. Shown below is an example of a person's response and the feedback they gave.
I then analysed the data from all of the feedback from the questionnaires and came up with the following findings.
As shown above, out of the 15 questionnaires distributed 13 said the magazine does appeal to them and 2 said it doesn't. The 2 that said the magazine doesn't appeal to them were both male and their reasoning for this was that they prefer the iconic male prominence within rock music magazines and so would have preferred a male artist to feature as the main article. Such as in the Kerrang magazine example shown below.
All the artists that feature on this front cover are male bar the lure for the poster of 'The Pretty Reckless' inside the magazine.
Other comments about my music magazine
"looks very professional"
"striking and effective colours!"
"I love it, but perhaps include a free CD give away?"
"At last, more than a token female on the front."
"Needs more pages, I want to read on..."
Evaluation: what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
One of the main ways in which I attracted my audience was the use of iconic codes and conventions that they would be comfortable and familiar with. Shown below is a deconstruction of the magazine codes and conventions I used.
However, to improve my magazine and ensure that my audience do recognise it as a professional product, I could include more codes and conventions such as: captions, cover lines, editorials and straplines.
However, to improve my magazine and ensure that my audience do recognise it as a professional product, I could include more codes and conventions such as: captions, cover lines, editorials and straplines.
Saturday, 12 February 2011
Evaluation: Who would be the audience for your media product?
When creating my music magazine product I tried to ensure that it would be a mass market product and so expanding the size of my audience to be as broad as possible in order to increase my magazine sales figures and boost its circulation.
Therefore, my main target audience is teenagers and young adults of both genders that have an interest in rock music.
Again, in response to the questionnaire feedback I felt passionately about the under representation of female artists within the rock music industry, so have decided to heavily feature female artists and bands within my fictional music magazine, giving them prominence such as appearing on the front cover and being the main featured article. This will hopefully, engage the female audience I am trying to attract without alienating the male audience.
Therefore, my main target audience is teenagers and young adults of both genders that have an interest in rock music.
Below are some images of people that would fit within my target audience:
Again, in response to the questionnaire feedback I felt passionately about the under representation of female artists within the rock music industry, so have decided to heavily feature female artists and bands within my fictional music magazine, giving them prominence such as appearing on the front cover and being the main featured article. This will hopefully, engage the female audience I am trying to attract without alienating the male audience.
Evaluation: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
In order to decide which media institution I wanted to distribute my music magazine I first had to conduct some research into some institutions. The institutions I researched into are: Emap, IPC Media, Bauer and WWMD (World Wide Magazine Distribution).
Emap - http://www.emap.com/
After researching into Emap and finding out what types of magazines that it distributes, I came to the conclusion that Emap wouldn't be the best institution to distribute my magazine. This is because the magazines that they distribute and advertise tend to be quite academic such as the 'Health Service Journal (HSJ)' and 'Architects' Journal'. This is very different to the music magazine I have created and although it wouldn't have many rock magazine competitors I believe my target audience wouldn't visit this media institution's website because of what it represents.
Bauer - http://www.bauer.co.uk/
Another media institution that I deemed not suitable to distribute my rock music magazine was Bauer. This is because Bauer mainly distributes television magazines such as 'tv choice' and female magazines such as 'Take a break' and 'Bella', not music magazines and so my magazine wouldn't fit in with the other genres.
IPC Media - http://www.ipcmedia.com/
Even though I decided that IPC Media would be the best institution to distribute my magazine I realised that by distributing the vast range of genres that it does, it wouldn't make my magazine stand out to people. Therefore, I carried out further research into media institution and came across an independent one called WWMD (Worldwide Magazine Distribution). This institution distributes magazines worldwide not just within the UK which includes similar magazines to mine such as 'Q', 'NME' and 'ART ROCKER'. Although, this is the most suitable media institution, it is only an independent one and isn't that well-known within the magazine distribution industry and so I doubt it will help increase my readership even though it could offer me overseas sales.
Emap - http://www.emap.com/
After researching into Emap and finding out what types of magazines that it distributes, I came to the conclusion that Emap wouldn't be the best institution to distribute my magazine. This is because the magazines that they distribute and advertise tend to be quite academic such as the 'Health Service Journal (HSJ)' and 'Architects' Journal'. This is very different to the music magazine I have created and although it wouldn't have many rock magazine competitors I believe my target audience wouldn't visit this media institution's website because of what it represents.
Bauer - http://www.bauer.co.uk/
Another media institution that I deemed not suitable to distribute my rock music magazine was Bauer. This is because Bauer mainly distributes television magazines such as 'tv choice' and female magazines such as 'Take a break' and 'Bella', not music magazines and so my magazine wouldn't fit in with the other genres.
IPC Media - http://www.ipcmedia.com/
Out of these three well-known media institutions I realised that IPC Media would be the best institution to distribute my magazine. This is because it sells a wide range of magazine genres ranging from sports magazines such as 'Golf Monthly' to music magazines like 'NME'. Therefore IPC Media would be ideal in distributing my magazine as it would run alongside and rival popular rock music magazines like NME and 'Uncut'.
Even though I decided that IPC Media would be the best institution to distribute my magazine I realised that by distributing the vast range of genres that it does, it wouldn't make my magazine stand out to people. Therefore, I carried out further research into media institution and came across an independent one called WWMD (Worldwide Magazine Distribution). This institution distributes magazines worldwide not just within the UK which includes similar magazines to mine such as 'Q', 'NME' and 'ART ROCKER'. Although, this is the most suitable media institution, it is only an independent one and isn't that well-known within the magazine distribution industry and so I doubt it will help increase my readership even though it could offer me overseas sales.
Evaluation: How did you attract/address your audience?
How did I address my audience?
In my school magazine I used age appropriate language to inform and entertain my young audience. I carried this technique through to my music magazine but adapted it to be 'interest' appropriate language.
The type of mode of address I used was a direct and informal tone in order to make the audience feel comfortable with the magazine and want to read on. Also, to entice my target audience I used concise language so that they could get the jist of the information without having to read lots of text.
How did I attract my audience?
School magazine - To attract the target audience in my preliminary task I used models their age from a year 3 class; colours they are familiar with via their school logo such as the primary colours red and yellow and basic yet fun and enticing text.
Now that I had gained a more developed and advanced knowledge about how to attract a magazine audience I applied this to my music magazine coursework piece.
Music magazine - I used a female band as the main feature in order to attract both a male and female audience in response to one of the requests on my questionnaire (see Research and Planning: Magazine Questionnaire). Then on the contents page I included images of both genders to advertise featuring articles about various bands. Also, the colour scheme and house style of black and white, with red and yellow as my feature colours, enticed my 'rock' genre audience.
In my school magazine I used age appropriate language to inform and entertain my young audience. I carried this technique through to my music magazine but adapted it to be 'interest' appropriate language.
The type of mode of address I used was a direct and informal tone in order to make the audience feel comfortable with the magazine and want to read on. Also, to entice my target audience I used concise language so that they could get the jist of the information without having to read lots of text.
How did I attract my audience?
School magazine - To attract the target audience in my preliminary task I used models their age from a year 3 class; colours they are familiar with via their school logo such as the primary colours red and yellow and basic yet fun and enticing text.
Now that I had gained a more developed and advanced knowledge about how to attract a magazine audience I applied this to my music magazine coursework piece.
Music magazine - I used a female band as the main feature in order to attract both a male and female audience in response to one of the requests on my questionnaire (see Research and Planning: Magazine Questionnaire). Then on the contents page I included images of both genders to advertise featuring articles about various bands. Also, the colour scheme and house style of black and white, with red and yellow as my feature colours, enticed my 'rock' genre audience.
Evaluation: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
During the process of this magazine production coursework I have learnt a lot about the process of magazine construction.
In the production of the preliminary task I mainly used paint and a photo editing software called picasa 3 to edit and crop the images (see school magazine deconstruction). I realised that this was a time consuming process and to make my music magazine coursework more professional and effective I would need to use a different software.
I started testing two softwares to see which one would best suit the needs of my photographic manipulation. They were http://www.picnik.com/ and Photoshop Elements 5.0 exe.
Below is an example of the editing using http://www.picnik.com/ :
After comparing the quality of the editing above with the quality of Photoshop Elements 5.0 exe, I decided photoshop was the best software to use. This is because when experimenting with the two facilities it became apparent that photoshop enabled more accurate and so professional cropping and more subtle but effective image editing. In the image shown above it is clear the image has been edited but doesn't look very effective in creating a professional finish.
Shown below is the comparison of quality of my images being cropped on paint and on Photoshop Element 5.0 exe:
Original photograph
Paint Image
Photoshop Element 5.0 exe image
To take all my images for my music magazine coursework production I used a Fujifilm finepix s1600 camera, like the one shown below.
Evaluation: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When comparing my preliminary task of creating a school magazine with my final music magazine production, I can see areas where my skills have progressed.
I think that my strengths in the production of the preliminary task are as follows. I created a clear house style, used models the same age as the audience and included iconic magazine features such as a barcode and issue number. I also manipulated my images to appear as a hopscotch, which is something the audience can recognise and associate themselves with and I used simple and mainly primary colours.
However, although I am pleased with this production, now that I have learnt more about magazine features and aspects, I do acknowledge that there are some weaknesses in this original production, the main weakness being the amount of unfilled space. On the front page especially, there are white areas where I could have included a caption about a featuring article instead of leaving it blank. By doing this it would look more professional and be more iconic of a magazine. Therefore, in the production of my music magazine coursework I ensured that I used as much space as possible unless left blank for a specific effect.
Friday, 21 January 2011
Production Completed: Final Music Magazine coursework piece
Below is the final music magazine coursework piece that I submitted.
Please see the Publisher document to read the magazine article shown below
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Production Process: Contents page and double page spread development
I originally designed the draft contents page shown below.
After I created this draft, I realised that it didn't really follow the format of a magazine contents page. By researching into existing music magazines I acknowledged that images are featured more heavily on contents pages and so i created the following draft.
The new draft of my contents page is more iconic of that of a music magazine.
The red area towards the bottom of the page is for a magazine subscription deal. To calculate what price I should offer I worked out what the correct yearly price would be if the audience purchased it every week for a year:
£2.49 x 52 = £129.48
and so to entice the audience and make the subscription deal worthwhile I set the price at 60% of the annual cost which is £77.69 for a yearly subscription.
"Subscribe to Xtreme for a year for only £77.69"
I realised that for a reader looking at this number in the magazine it appears to be a high amount. Therefore, to make it more appealing I divided it into 12 monthly instalments 77.69/12 = £6.47 as this is an odd amount I rounded it up to £6.50.
"Subscribe to Xtreme for a year for only £6.50 a month"
Below is the contents page from Kerrang's September 2010 issue which I scanned into the computer. I used this as a guideline for how to produce a profesional and conventional magazine contents page.
After I created this draft, I realised that it didn't really follow the format of a magazine contents page. By researching into existing music magazines I acknowledged that images are featured more heavily on contents pages and so i created the following draft.
The new draft of my contents page is more iconic of that of a music magazine.
The red area towards the bottom of the page is for a magazine subscription deal. To calculate what price I should offer I worked out what the correct yearly price would be if the audience purchased it every week for a year:
£2.49 x 52 = £129.48
and so to entice the audience and make the subscription deal worthwhile I set the price at 60% of the annual cost which is £77.69 for a yearly subscription.
"Subscribe to Xtreme for a year for only £77.69"
I realised that for a reader looking at this number in the magazine it appears to be a high amount. Therefore, to make it more appealing I divided it into 12 monthly instalments 77.69/12 = £6.47 as this is an odd amount I rounded it up to £6.50.
"Subscribe to Xtreme for a year for only £6.50 a month"
Below is the contents page from Kerrang's September 2010 issue which I scanned into the computer. I used this as a guideline for how to produce a profesional and conventional magazine contents page.
My final contents page
When developing my double page spread, I wanted to include an exclusive interview with the female band featuring on the front of the magazine. I used the magazine technique of columns to display my interview text on one of the pages and then to make my band picture stand out and be striking to the audience, I decided to dedicate the whole of the second page to that image.
This could be a risky technique as it could leave the pages looking bare but it looks effective in the image I scanned in below from Kerrang magazine.
My final double page spread
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Production Process: Image editing development
So far in the production of this music magazine coursework I have used 3 editing programmes to manipulate my images. They are: Picasa 3, Paint and http://www.picnik.com/. Although I used all of these software products efficiently and they did enable me to meet the needs of the requirement, in order to ensure a more professional presentation I decided it would be best to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 (Editor). The other programmes that I have used so far were ideal for changing the lighting and texture of the image but effective cropping was an issue. Therefore, I decided to experiment my cropping ability on Photoshop by cropping an image that would appear on my front cover.
This is the image that I first took of the guitars:
Then I roughly cropped out the background around the two guitars on paint.
After this I uploaded the image onto photoshop and did the following:
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Production Process: Advert and contents page progress
From looking at already existing music magazines, the contents page usually appears on the second page of a double page spread. Therefore on the first page, I decided to include a fictional advertisement to advertise an 'Xtreme Tour'. I created fictional bands to feature on this advertisement and top locations throughout the UK for the bands to play at. I carefully considered the dates that I included and the venues at which the tour will visit so that it would be within a time frame that is possible and realistic.
Below is an example of an advert and contents page double page spread taken from the September 2010 issue of Kerrang magazine, which I scanned on to the computer.
Below is an example of an advert and contents page double page spread taken from the September 2010 issue of Kerrang magazine, which I scanned on to the computer.
Draft of my attempt
After I constructed this advertisement I realised that because this advertisement area is of such a prime location within the magazine, that other companies would pay a great deal of money to advertise their product in this position. Therefore, if my magazine was real it would benefit more from having an advertisement in this position from another company or brand. For example, I could include a tour advertisement but for one band instead of my own magazine or I could include an advertisement for a separate product that is related to the rock genre.
Production Process: Draft of front cover
Shown below is an image of my front cover with all of the features so that I can look at which features need to be positioned in different areas on the page and which features work well in the position they are in. Also, I can get a feel for what sizes the various images should be and can then edit them to perfect the front cover.
I used http://www.dafont.com/ to find the appropriate font for my music magazine. When searching through this website I realised that they featured a vast array of fonts. So I narrowed my search by looking through the 'destroy' font section as I perceived this to be most suitable for my genre.
This is where I found the font '28 days later' and decided to use this as the font for my masthead.
I then went on the 'eroded' font section and found the font 'you are loved'. This is the font I used to represent my featured articles through the headlines and the stand first.
Below is an example of the font 'you are loved'.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Production Process: Photography plan for the front cover
The image that I include must reflect the rock genre of my music magazine. In order to feature female artists on the front cover I have decided to create a fictional band. The band that I create will need to have a suitable name, image and props. The name of the band will be 'Strike Two' and will consist of a pair of female identical twins. Instead of using real twins as the artists, to show my development and image manipulation ability I have decided to feature one model and duplicate her but change the style of her hair and outfit so that they look like a pair of identical twins.
The clothes that my model will wear will be dark colours, leather jacket, black jeans etc, all of which are iconic features of a rock person's image. The model will wear heavy amounts of make up to enhance the rock image that they need to portray. The main image that will appear on my front cover will be set against a white background and so making my band stand out in the foreground. The props that I shall include within the photo will be an amp, microphone, and red electric guitar.
The clothes that my model will wear will be dark colours, leather jacket, black jeans etc, all of which are iconic features of a rock person's image. The model will wear heavy amounts of make up to enhance the rock image that they need to portray. The main image that will appear on my front cover will be set against a white background and so making my band stand out in the foreground. The props that I shall include within the photo will be an amp, microphone, and red electric guitar.
When considering the positioning of my models I have decided to have one of them sitting on the amp holding the microphone or singing into it. This will give a casual but edgy feel to the magazine portraying and hinting at the characteristics of the artists included. The other twin will be posing with the guitar but not in a traditional 'playing' pose.
Below are some photos that I have taken that can possibly feature on my magazine front page and that I have edited:
I edited the first image transformation on a website called http://www.picnik.com/ and the other two image transformation on Picasa 3 publication.
Realising that the third image doesn't look directly at the audience, I acknowledged that this photograph couldn't feature on the front cover but could accompany the inside article.
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Production Process: Clifton Road Live Gig 02/10/10 - Court Lane
When attending and working at a local gig at Clifton Road Youth Centre on 02/10/10, I took the opportunity to photograph the main headline band both backstage, on stage, and amongst the audience. I did this as I knew the band 'Court Lane' was an ideal band to feature within my rock music magazine. Shown below are some of the images I took, which I can manipulate and use within my music magazine production.
Meet the band
From left to right: Ryan, Ciaran, Ethan, Rob.
Meet the band
From left to right: Ryan, Ciaran, Ethan, Rob.
Although it is an all male band and I am hoping to feature a female band on the front page, they can certainly be a featured article within my music magazine.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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