Evaluation

1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

When producing my music magazine i wanted to base it on a popular music convention in which case i chose NME, although i wanted to create a different stereotypical scene compared to the NME's indie rock style, in which case i chose to use psychedelic music as it is becoming increasing popular yet there is no particular magazine on the market specifically for this scene.
The conventions used on a typical NME magazine are pretty constant which works well for this magazine making it so popular. a typical NME magazine is as follows:

This magazines main conventions are the the bold red masthead which is always top left, followed by the kickers and cover lines just below containing the main features within the magazine and always with a central image and headline which are related to one another showing that it is the main story within the magazine which is the general layouts of the NME magazine also the main use of colours in the NME is the bold red which stands out against the black and white which is also used to attract the readers attention as well as being recognised to signify the NME magazine.

Through looking at NME's magazine conventions i decided to think of my own conventions firstly was my house style which was using the main colours of black red and white with some hints of yellow to break up the dark colours. i chose to use these colours as i thought the contrasts of black and white gave it the psychedelic 60's feel contrasted with the red which came from the British punk scene the combination of these colours seem to give it a sinister feel. I continued this colour scheme through my work to make consistent house style combined with the same font styles used throughout: as you can see all the pages of my magazine have a consistency with colours and fonts throughout.

When making my front cover i had to use what is known and the grid system where the alignment of my pages made a dramatic affect as i chose my main headline story to be large and central connoting it is the main feature also i placed my cover lines and kickers to the left of the magazine with my masthead so when to magazine is produced and sold in a shop when on the shelf that would be the first thing which the audience saw therefore i would have to but my more important features on the left hand side. i firstly made a flat plan of the layout of the main features of my magazine and felt that this layout was successful therefore this is where i placed my features in my final product.

To ensure that the images used fit the meaning and the caption in which they were assigned to i had to make sure that they were aligned correctly, as the image on the front cover shows it is related to the headline at the band name black vinyl is spread across the image connoting that it is related to the image also the black and white of the title compliments the black and white image this feature is used throughout.

Inviting the reader into this magazine has been done by the use of plugs in this magazine i have used the chance to 'win festival gear' and also a free give away of a CD these features are to make the audience want to buy the magazine more. also my graphic features of bold titles and clear bright aspects make it easier for the reader to see the main features of the magazine.
When making this magazine i have challenged the conventions of the particular music scene in which i have used as it isn't the most popular music scene i wanted to make something a little bit different as there is a gap in the market for this type of magazine genre and the psychedelic music scene is again becoming a lot more popular.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social group in which my magazine goes out to can be from indie to punk to rockers and the psychedelic music scene covers music which satisfies each social group i researched these social gruops when doing my work on mediation and stereotyping. In this magazine i have shown that these social groups are to be into all different aspects of music as there are big differences in the stereotypical social sides of the music scene but there isn't in fact a lot of differences in the music bringing social groups together. i have addressed the readers to have interests as festival goers as there are elements of festival features within the magazine particularly Glastonbury (http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/) again which isn't a stereotypical festival for a specific music scene. although the colours are black they are neutral not being aimed at a specific gender.

3.what kind of media institute might distribute your media production and why?

From researching different magazine publishers i think that the best publisher for my magazine IPC media which is the magazine publisher for the likes of NME which is the main influence for my magazine, also looking through the list of magazines in which they publish there isn't a magazine like psychedelic as they do NME which is for the music genre indie whereas there isn't a stereotypical magazine like the one in which i have produced i researched the publishing company on http://www.ipcmedia.com/ .

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience which my magazine is aimed at is a wide range of stereotypical scenes from punks to indie i based my audience on the results i found from my questionnaire, where i found that there wasn't a specific type of stereotypical social group therefore i didn't want to aim my magazine at a particular social group as my magazine covers features which satisfies a wide variety of people including age groups as my magazine contains music from different eras as well as music genres, i also did a mediation task looking at the mediation of the indie genre and how these artists are presented to there audience also the social grade for which my magzine is aimed at is ABC1. My readership profile shows the results from my questionnaire and shows stats and interests of my audience. Just like NME did there readership profile explaining information about there readers. http://www.ipcadvertising.com/resource/fd4e20nlh1xefkowjxdha4xu.pdfdha4xu.pdf4e20nlh1xefkowjxdha4xu.pdf

5. how did you attract/address your audience?

The features which i included in my magazine, which i feel attracts the audience significantly is firstly the layout of my magazine, the colours of black red and white are striking and the layout of fonts colours, and presentation are both modern and stylish which i feel my target audience will be attracted to these conventions. Also the photograph on the front cover is striking, the fact that the artist is looking straight into the camera its almost as if he is looking straight into the readers eyes. i chose to use these features to attract my audience to my magazine by looking at the way in which different camera angles and facial expressions cause an impact on what the reader may think. also i researched other successful magazines and the way in which there conventions work with there target audiences.

6. what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

To produce my magazine i first took photographs using the techniques in which i learnt from my photography exercises using the feautures of my camera using the likes of the macro lense and from knowledge using the rukle of thirds. I then edited these images on photoshop to help create different effects in order to make my magzine in a format that looked professional. i then composed the magazine on photoshop using all the different techniques, photoshop is useful for editing and constructing technical things as it contains all aspects which are needed for this. there was techniques which i used to change the effects on images to give an edgy feel using saturation also i used the the filters to make an impact on my images. for example darken. i also used the smudge tools a lot to blend images making the magazine seem as though it has been combined rather than just placing the images.

7. looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product.

From first creating my preliminary task i feel i have progressed a lot in my understanding of the general media, magazine conventions and what impacts they have. also in the construction process of using the likes of photoshop i feel my skills have improved dramatically.

I feel that my music magazine is more successful end product as it has a house style, conventions of a real magazine, a format which works and many more effects used to construct my magazine. i feel that my college magazine is missing many key features which have gone into my music magazine as i had no definite format including fonts and colours in comparison to my music magazine which has constant format which relates to the research for my target audience as my college magazine didn't have a specific genre and doesn't seem to have any key features especially for my target audience.
in the duration of this task i feel that i have developed and improved my skills of many media aspects. firstly researching popular magazines in the media looking at the conventions of these magazines and how they have became so popular. creating questionnaires to help me create features which will appeal to my target audience. planning my magazine with learning the grids layout and using conventions and lastly photography and editing skills which i used to create my magazine. learning these skills were an important part of my full production as these key elements are what are included to produce a magazine and make a successful outcome.

Music magazine

FRONT COVER

CONTENTS PAGE

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

Readership profile

this is my readership profile where i have selected images will will link in with my magazines and show the audience the main genre of my magazine.

on my readership profile i have provided information about my audience which i gathered through creating a questionnaire i have then presented these in percentages and showing what was most popular with the audience i will then base my final magazine on these finidngs.

music magazine research.

For my music magazine that i am going to produce i based it on my target audience which i found from creating my questionnaire and collecting data. My target audience will be teenagers both male and female as thats the main audience that i asked my questionnaire to and who i have gathered information from. the questionnaire consisted of questions which would help me to plan my magazine for example favourite music genre, where i found the most popular were indie, punk and pop which are the genres which my magazine will relate to. i also found out what there favourite magazines were in which case the most popular answer was NME so i did some research on the magazine layout and content to get inspiration for my magazine. i also found which artists people are interested in and researched the bands to get more information on what they do to inspire so many people. also what aspects of the music scene it is they like for example fashion, festivals vintage music which can also help to relate with the content of my magazine. the aim of my magazine is to cater

for a wide audience as there isn't a certain gender or genre of

music specifically therefore it will have at least some features to interest many different scenes of people.

college magazine

the magazine cover in which i have created is aimed at college students although i havent aimed it at a particular male or female audince even though the image on the cover is female i have used quite neutral colours for the background of a coloured brick wall, black masthead 'rewind' which connotes the magazine is rewinding or looking back at what has been happening in college each week, i have also made the coverlines green. i did all this by using photoshop editing the photos that i had taken and used fonts from dafont.com to rearange creating the cover on my magazine.










for the contents page i also kept things simple for my target audience usong simple colours of just black for titles, i also blended the image in using my photoshop skills to make the image seem more intersting rather than the simple image that i started off with.

media overview

in media we do both theory and practical, we have 2hours a week with steven doing theory and 2 hours 30mins with carol doing our practical lessons.

for our coursework we have been asked to create a music magazine of our choice.

in our theory we have covered the following topics.

stereotyping
in this section we looked at stereotyping different age groups for example the elderly and teenagers we also looked at music scenes for example emos, punks and indie. we then had a homework on stereotyping music scenes, where i first picked different music scenes and there stereotypical fashion sense and behaviour. i then found an article on the way the media stereotypes music scenes this is through appearance, behaviour, fitting the medium and real vs imagery, i then annotated it.

representation and mediation.
in this part of the course we looked at an image and used the different parts or representaion and mediation to describe the image. we first made a denotation which is observing and picking out basic information, then connotation which is a deeper meaning attached with the image, associations linking things to the image and implicit personality theory influences from our own knowledge.

audiences and questionnaires
for this part we looked at different audience and had to think what interested them we then made a questionnaire to collect data showing what inyerests this style of sudience had, we also looked at who had power and controlled the audience.

identity and ideology

we first looked at what goes into ideology, values, beliefs and attitudes. for this we then had an interview from an artist of a particular music scene and had to highlight and comment on there ideology and how they even represent there social group.

house style and design

in this section we looked at layouts of different magazines and the styles in which they used to create there magazine and how it related to the content. we then had to look for styles and fonts to use in our magazine by using the website http://www.dafont.com/ and chose a selection of font which may compliment our genre of magazine.

Analysis.

we were given a well known popular britsh magazine and were asked to identify the main features and label them correctly. e.g. the masthead, banner, kickers and headlines. and from some of those labelled we went into detail and explained what significance they gave to the magazine and how this may affect the audience.

for our practical lessons with carol we have also covered many new features.

Photoshop introduction

for our introduction to photoshop we learnt the main features and how to navigate around photoshop for example the different layers, lassoo tools, and changing colours and effects to create different images or make improvements.

fashion photography and analysis

in this lesson we looked at different fashion photography photos and analysed them through looking at colours, poses props and the way the model is dressed and how these all work to create different effects and appeal to different target audiences.

photography camera techniques.

in this part of the project we used props such as glasses and hats to create emphasis in photos, we used a white backdrop and lights create a studio and directed our models, i used amy and amanda, to do different poses taking pictures which would be relevant for my college magazine.

photo journalism

in this session we went out of college and took many different images using different features on the camera and using the set techniques and skills to create photos with highangles, rule of thirds and macro lense to create different images.

Photography

in this exercise we were asked to photograph models using different props and poses creating different effects. we used props such as hats scarves and sunglasses as well as directed poses for the model to create different styled images. as the way in which models are dressed or react towards the camera gives different perspectives to the audiences, we found this out through analysing different images and explored the effect which they had on us, which we then tried ourselves.