Question 1
Question 2
Question 3
Question 1
Question 4Thursday, 29 March 2012
Media Evaluation
Question 7; looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?
During my two tasks, the preliminary and main task, I held some hesitations towards the project. I thought the lack of experience and understanding would hold me back from the class, making my work much harder to complete and a struggle to finish up to dead lines.
At the start of the preliminary task, we were told the tools we would be using, cameras and Photo shop mainly. Although I knew a little about camera, its appearance was different from a normal digital camera and I held some concerns towards it, the format of Photo shop was daunting but my teacher explained the way we would use the cameras; showing it wasn’t as complicated as I once thought and then explained Photo shop, parts were more detailed than others but the program which I once thought as long, difficult, daunting and worrying became very simple, and easy to use.
The preliminary task helped me with my magazine. We was asked to do a front cover and contents page; this came in use as we was asked to do that for the main task. Features such as photos as backgrounds, mastheads, cover lines, the order of words, using text etc all came through out the two projects. So when it came to do my main task I had a clearer understanding on how to make a front cover and contents page, although research was still needed to make my magazine as good as possible, it was less than would have been needed if the preliminary task was not performed.
The task allowed me to use some conventions, on a trail and error form. Once looking back and comparing the preliminary task and main task it was clear that my understanding grow in between both task as some of the conventions were poorly used and could have been used better.
Organising people to get involved was pretty easy. Although none were models or had experience, they were friends which I knew were not shy, had taken photos and felt comfortable with them on social networking sites and was I the same line of genre as the main task; the magazine although the models were more diverse when it came to music, not just liking indie but grime, hip pop, rock, heavy mental etc, making sure they were wearing the right clothes were important. I put the cover model it more simple clothes such as a white blouse, white hat, normal shade colour for jeans and chestnut ugg boots. I did this on purpose as I wanted her face and the text to be the most important things on booth front cover and double page spread and knew that if I put her in big wild patterns the audience would be very distracting and this wasn’t just a fashion magazine. For the models on the contents page; their clothes were different compared to the first model, this was because their photos would be smaller, which wouldn’t drag so much attention to them but also allowed the fashion side of the magazine to be shown. The white model, was given a peacock pattern play suit with boots and a wolly hat, shoes and cardigan was purposely black to sync with the play suit which had the peacock pattern on a black background; the wolly hat however was orange, the whole ‘not sticking to the rules’ was shown as indie style and fashion is often about expressing what the person wants to instead of going along with everyone else. The third model was the funniest to style. Although my magazine was indie through out you can see bits and bobs of other genres and cultures, I wanted to make this magazine diverse without declining the target audience.
Managing my time was a struggle which I first thought would affect my magazine extremely but i finished pretty quickly with weeks to spare. Once I had my images; which were quiet easy because it was on location so booking space wouldn’t be a problem, the camera was borrowed from a friend and the location was unknown to most and never busy. This allowed me to get the type of photos I wanted in an environment which wasn’t as stressful for me as working in a studio because I knew it would have been limited, concerning people, photos, time, and place.
As my preliminary task consisted of a front cover and contents page my full project once included the double page, allowed me to gain a brief understanding on how to on and use A3 canvases.
From both preliminary and main task I learnt how to use a Cannon EOS 600D, effectively to produce a good quality of images. As with my preliminary task when I first used a camera I didn’t really have a good full understanding on how I could take images effectively.
The creative decision from location, props, costume etc was all because during the planning of my main task; the magazine. I decided to make a spider diagram of different genres I would like to base my magazine on. Once I decided that, the location was the next decision to be made, as I had a done a table on pros and cons of locations inside the studio and outside, I found that location would be better for me as I didn’t want the background to be boring, dull or normal. I wanted my target audience to feel as though that is where they would hang at, o the magazine connected with them on different levels. A spider diagram was then drawn out; different locations would be coming out first, with costumes coming out of location, I wanted to have as many choices as possible and wanted every costume to be relevant and related to every location chosen instead of choosing mind numbing costumes which wasn’t relevant to the magazine in the slightest.
Due to the process of the preliminary task to the main product I learnt how to fully attract my target audience and fully include them in my magazine. This was also something I felt that I did not do to the best of my ability because of my lack of understanding and experience. I learnt how to focus my magazine on one particular social group instead of trying to stick 5 genres into one magazine; resulting in confusion. My music magazine as a target audience so I was able to research them allowing my magazine to be more suited and focused on the group its self. Whereas compared to my target audience for the preliminary task which was much bigger and not as specific; allowing my research to help me plan a better ways of presenting them in the magazine; instead of focusing on the negotiate bring the positive to the people.
A way in knowing more about my magazine was posting it on social networking sites as facebook and twitter for feed back from people who were in my target audience. I had a selective few which were “the colour scheme works together well, to save yourself hassle why not try a more simple background allowing you to have less barriers with colour choices” another said “I like the quality and style of the images, although following one genre you try to be a diverse as possible when it comes to the style of letting them” a third said “I like the way you allowed the contents to mix with the models, although indie music is independent, you mixed some mainstream in with it which also works for you putting in up and coming artists as well as already established artists” Although most good feed back, a person commented saying “the colours often ended up hurting my eyes, I don’t know if this is due to colour scheme, as my eyes are quiet sensitive which often puts me off some magazines” another person commented “compared to the double page article and front cover, the contents back looks a bit boring, I like the fact that you kept it simple but maybe putting three small images and one big one would of shock the boring feeling” I thought it was important for me to do this as it helps me improve, and lets me know which is good and which is bad, as my opinion might be different from others and although I want to make a product which I very much like, I still want the audience to feel comfortable and happy reading the magazine themselves and to want to continue reading instead of just commenting on the colour scheme and images as it’s a magazine with articles so that’s an important factor.
Media Evaluation
Question 6 – What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Camera; good and bad points, model, lighting, how the camera differs from the Nikon, what I have learnt.
During the process of making my magazine, I had to learn some new things so my images would be suitable for the style that I wanted use them for. The first thing I learnt was how to use the camera to its full use. The camera was a Cannon EOS 600D. I had consumes about using this camera at the beginning as I had no precious experience during a cannon for my precious task I had used to Nikon. After taking the first dozen images I found that I wasn’t as daunting as I first images, of course I did not know how to use all of its factors at first but I quickly got used to it and found it very easy and not as different from the Nikon, although some buttons where different and the way the images were taken would have a different style to them, this interested me and it became an enjoy task using the camera.
My location was off set; underneath a train station, next a river and homes. I wanted to use this location because it made the images look more realistic; where Indie people would want to hang out with mates. Although it was clear that I wanted to make my magazine look as professional as possible I wanted to make my audience feel as though they could relate to the models in the images. The most images were used on contents ages where I had three models, separate and together, I still used some convention such as direct mode of address but I wanted it to look as if the models had a real relationship between each other. The images were taken during the night so I was also worried about the lighting. Unlike others I did not have a soft box as I was not in a studio, so the thought of making this images look a good as possible was with me through out. Luckily for me, the cannon camera has a selection of factors which allowed me to capture good quality, suitable images for the magazine. I used the lighting on the camera; this was bright enough for the location to be seen to its full potential.
The good points for my camera was the quality it gave it, how easy it was to get to grips with camera, the size was very easy to transport about as we did try a lot other places outside before choosing our final location. However the process of learning how to use the camera wasn’t easy, I first I had trouble with focusing the camera’s lens and removing the blurry effort, as these pictures were taken outside it was quiet cold so trying to steady the camera was also a practical problem which I faced. But through the whole process I have now gained a full standard understanding how to use the camera to create good quality images.
Photo shop; good and bad points, what I found difficult, what I learnt, would I use it again, cropping.
Another technology which I used through out this process of making a magazine was photo shop. Through my first task; taking photos for a student magazine I had learnt how to use it and gained a very basic knowledge on how to use this program productively. I would use Photo shop put my magazine together. Once I got the final image which I was happy with and was suitable for its purpose, I would go to Photo shop, change anything which I felt would effect the image in a positive way and also add any text to the magazine – for example on my front cover, I changed the contract slightly and added in some codes of conventions such as cover lines, and a masthead although I did develop the masthead but kept a lot of conventions the same. I used Adobe Photo shop CS3 Extended to do this process. At the beginning I had asked my teacher for some help on how to use the program, I worried that my basic understanding would mean the magazine would have be of a bad quality, failing to keep to the plan of a professional look for the magazine. After being explained some ideas I found that it was much easier that I had first thought and that it wasn’t going to be as daunting as I first expected. Through Photo shop I have also gained a bigger, more developed understanding for Photo shop and its different factors which all work to make one piece of work for example – cropping and resizing are factual aspects needed to be considered for making a magazine using Photo shop and were used throughout while making my pages; front cover, double page spread and contents page. Through out my magazine I tried to keep a professional image about, I used the same styling as kerrang for my contents page, I found it wasn’t too b7usy but still filling the page with a lot of information and images, of course I did change the work, I found that it shadowed the work making It very easy for me to finish my work to a standard, I also used some of my teachers’ advise. Using Photo shop I did have two choices for my contents page; one was covered in images, the second was clearer placed, with a selection of images down the side, giving information on page numbers etc, with the advise and guidance given I was able to chose a more suitable one.
There are a lot of different points, and aspects of Photo shop which were important through out my process of constructing my magazine, for example I found adding and resizing images to the page, changing some of the contract and brightness to the images to be simple, straight forward and easy to get the idea of which allowed me to use this through the magazine; front cover, contents page and double page spread, using these also allowed me to keep to some of the conventions which were keys such as a typical image on each of them, and keeping it to a suitable size allowing the reader to understand. I also found using the text was simple and straight forward, downloading the different fronts from dafront.com was easy as it was linked through out the computers system, also allowing me to keep to the conventions of cover lines and masthead on the front cover, and a suitable size text for the contents page and article on the double page spread.
How ever the bad points towards Photo shop which I faced on a regular bases were the layers, I was not used to using so many layers on product at a time, the bases of the layers seemed very simple at the start when they were first exampled to me by my teacher but as constructing the project went on and I became more familiar with other aspects, layers became very confusing, I had to get used to the fact that everything had its own layer and that if I wanted to link something together it was take more work than predicted as couldn’t just merge things at the start.
Most tools could be found on the side bar on the left, they were shown in an icon for example;
CROP :
TEXT was show was a T:
However to see the layers, it would be on the right hand side:
Media Evaluation
Question 5; How did you attract/address your audience?
Using my research on my audience; profiling my audience, as my guidelines I felt I attracted my target audience in a variety of ways. To start with one of the ways I attracted my target audience was through my front cover which was a vital part of my magazine as it what my audience would use to decided whether or not they wanted to read my magazine. Choosing a model which was young was one of the ways I attracted my audience, I done this so that my target audience would feel as if they could relate to the magazine and the article which was written about the model. I also used a white model so that my audience would identify my magazine as a indie magazine as traditional convention of indie magazine is a white person. As well using a young white model so that my audience would be attracted and make my magazine identifiable I also used a attractive model to help attract the audience. The front cover model was also wearing clothes that represented a particle style related to indie pop culture. As written in my audience profiling audience my target audience would be able to relate to my magazine as they try to change mainstream fashion and music making their own style to it. This is why I chose to new artist as well as popular ones it insure that my target audience would be interested and willing to buy my magazine. This is also chosen through the clothes which my model is wearing; I chose a hat which started out being sold on markets and stalls, which then went into popular shops as H&M, PRIMARK, all common shops which are on the high street but also caterer for the indie style which my target audience would be interested in also.
Another way which I targeted my audience was by keeping the focus on British indie music, new artists and culture scene. I was able to do this through the cover line issues discussed throughout the magazine. Additionally, I used well known names in my magazine to attract my audience and issues that I felt would appeal to my audience more than a completely unknown text. For example I done this by putting “The UK’s HOT top 40 Chart” I know this would attract a lot of my audience and in the modern world a lot of people want to be in front of the music charts knowing what songs are hot and what songs just didn’t make it. This would keep my magazine relevant. I also included a new artist as well such as “Dunk ‘Em Daily” which would also keep its fresh & not mainstream.
Throughout my magazine I used san serif front to give the magazine a contemporary and professional look which I felt worked well together and also linked into the magazine music genre which I had decided to base my magazine around. This would be another way in which I attracted my target audience. I used a san serif font I downloaded from www.defont.com called Champagne & Limousines’ for my masthead, cover lines and general front. I chose this front because it was bold, recognisable, clear and understandable for my target audience, this helped me attracted them to the magazine. The font had a sort of posh and professional music twist to it which is where the name links to. This would make the target audience think about why the beats were compared to champagne thus making them think and talk about the magazine. This would encourage the readers to pick up the magazine and take a look. I thought the front was eye catching and suggested links to the masthead and music, which attracted my target audience.
I used the colour scheme to attract my audience. The colour scheme of my magazine was mainly based on grey, and red as well as yellow although that was only used on the double page spread to replace to red so that it stood out compared to the rest of the magazine. I used these colours to be involved in my colour scheme for the magazine I involved these colours in my colour scheme because they were bold, strong and eye catching; grabbing peoples attention and helping me attract my target audience as it was familiar colours. During my research on the genre and audience I had learnt that bold colours were very popular in their culture and that grey was almost like their version of black compared to Goths cultures and norms. I have also used the type of language as a way of attracting audience; another convention as well colour scheme used in my magazine to make sure that my magazine was different but recognisable to its target audience. Throughout my magazine I used Standard English; sentences, punctuation, often using third person and quotes. I used this so that my magazine would be easy for my audience to read and relate to. I wanted to make it common with a certain twist to it which would also link into the genre of indie. My reasoning for the way that I used these codes of conventions were so that the magazine would appeal and attract both female and male which was important because I wanted to make a versatile magazine which both genders could relate too. Also the type of language I used although easy for my target audience to relate to, but also doesn’t discriminate towards an older audience as I would like my audience to be able to be as big as it possible could. And each thing was appreciate as it linked in with each other as well as serving a purpose and following the code of the conventions.
To attract my target audience as well on my contents page I kept it clean, fresh and tidy allowing the reader to focus on the separate pieces of text and photos separately; this would make it ‘easy on the eyes’ easier to understand and removing any overwhelming sensation they may feel towards a contents page with too much text and images because it would feel as though it is too much information to consume and avoid the magazine.
Media Evaluation
Question 4; who would be the audience for your media product?
At the start of my project I said that Champagne beats was targeting a young audience involving teenagers and young adults. This audience would be of a British speaking background; as the words would be written in English. I aimed at this audience because at the moment in time and in the past Britain has always had the fond liking style towards Indie music, trying to separate themselves from the ‘rest’ whoever that may be at the time. For example, during the 60’s a person who dressed indie would want to rebel from the norms set by their parents but at the same time break away from the norm which was set by popular culture such as rock music; causing the mods and rockers riot at Brighton. British bands tend to dominate the indie scene worldwide making it very popular for my audience to be interested in this line of genre.
I decided to target a younger audience; under 30’s as the artist featured and the contents of my magazine are more likely to appeal to them rather than an older audience. They were relatively new bands or artists, which would attract the music they listen to more than a more mature person who had been listening to the same line of genre or people since a younger age. Plus the discussion and issues, raised or written about in the magazine are more likely to affect young people of today’s time. However my magazine would appeal to an older audience because it discussed all issues surrounding the genres like festivals and gigs which is more common convention of a ‘indie scene’ although this is written about on the contents page, which could limit my audience if the more mature reader went on the appearance of the front cover.
In terms of ethnicity, indie music is usually associated with white people, so it keep some of the conventions and to keep the traditional roles of a indie magazine I chose to use a white person on my front cover. This made champagne beats attracts its target audience, in a easy, simple and typical way. Although the magazine does use a white person as the front cover model to allow the target audience to establish the magazine for it genre, I did however use a black people though out the magazine and on the contents page there is a photo of a black girl is featured throughout the magazine. This makes my magazine easier to relate to other minorities. The magazine target audience that have a deeper passion for the music which this magazine targets in; beyond just downloading the current ideals; it allows the audience to know up and coming artists as well as allowing them to keep track of the popular artists already out there.
Media Evaluation
Question 3 - what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Conde Nast
At the beginning of the project, we did a case study on publisher companies. This took longer than I predicted to research as I didn’t want to choose a company that already had a magazine like mine as that would create competition within titles. When looking at companies I wanted to find one which would benefit from my magazine as well as me. There were a lot of aspects to look at such as audience, financial, encouraging subscriptions to the magazine, where would I want my magazine to be distributed; new agents, supermarkets, stations, Internet etc.
Firstly I chose to Conde Nast publishers. This company where based in the UK with little magazines, their magazine had very similar aspects as mine but it wasn’t exactly the same, they were interested in culture which would be important to my magazine. This type of interested, allowed me to know that they would be interested in publishing my magazine as my magazine wasn’t just about music but culture as well. I think that this would benefit them because they would be used to selling something along the lines, so they won’t feel overwhelmed with new techniques.
A reason I choose to use this company was because of the effects it would have on the audience, benefiting me as well as them too. GQ the magazine that they publish is involved in celebrities (culture) policies, fashion, living, sport, travel etc. My magazine would link into this publishing easy allowing my magazine a solid audience straight away. But although my magazine would get an audience straight away, there were some differences between my target audience and GQ’s audience already. This would beneficial towards Conde Nast because my target audience included teenagers, as well as young people like them. This would allow them to widen their audience as well as not changing their own personal style.
Another reason for my chose of publishing companies was the financial benefits for both me and the company. My magazine would be distributed through a monthly subscription. I think this is a good way to see the profit made because it would be in a monthly statement. Also a monthly subscription allows the company to see their stable audience and also going in to some research on them; improving the magazine and increasing the profit made. This would benefit both me and the company as it allows us to know work on situations needed though out.
The way my magazine would be distributed would be a main factor on why I chose this company as well. Although I already said I wanted to a monthly subscription, the place would be key factor for example the typical traditional places would be newsagents, stations, shops etc. But because of my target audience and research found on the company and its already existing magazine I would want to make my magazine more available for my target audience, making the audience widen benefiting me and the company. I would want my magazine to be distributed though schools, colleges and universities because this is my target audience, as well as youth clubs and the Internet. A place which would not be known for distributing magazine would be a club; I would like my magazine to be distributed there because of the audience I want to attract. For all of the places which aren’t common, I would distribute a free copy on a busy night. Although bars and clubs are places people wouldn’t want to read a magazine, timing would be key factor for this distributing skill. For some people if they get a magazine for free they would put it away as a lot of people go by “love freebies” although this would be risk it would be targeting my audience perfectly.
Media Evaluation
Question 2; how does your media product represent particular social groups?
My music magazine was made to target a teenage to young adult audience, both female and male, which have a keen interest in indie music. I represented this particular social group though the images used in my music magazine. Firstly, my chosen model on the front cover represents the social groups which this magazine is meant to attract and appeal to.
One of the ways this is done is though her clothes; she is wearing white and black shirt tucked into her jeans with ugg boots on and a fur ball, ball hat. This looks suggests masculine but also femininely which is stereotypically associated with female artists of indie. Additionally, not only are the clothes masculine but also laid back which is a typical traditional style of this genre also it suggests that the artist does not take herself seriously as although the shirt seems serious the hat suggest a more playful side to the model. The clothes are fashionable especially the hat, which I feel adds the genre and represents the social group quiet well; as the artist of the genre and listeners of that genre are fashionable and have a certain style. Also not only are the clothes representative for the type of genre the magazine and audience it will develop in to, it also associates with the genre of clothes all year round which I think is important as a person who is interested in indie would not only come out during one season like summer for example and I feel that this style and photo represents the social group quiet well.
The model does not wear an a sane amount of jewellery, this was because sometimes less is more and as her outfit was smart, and funky which doesn’t draw your attendance away from the models facial expressions, I felt as though, if the model would have been wearing overlarge jewellery, conflicting with the colour scheme the front cover follows that it would distract the audience, confusing them and making the front cover look too busy and hard to concentrated on. But although the model has only one bracelet on, it does however, link in with the double page spread by contracting but not distracting too much as I hoped, and still keeping the professional look I had hoped to obtain though out the magazine. The model’s poses also represent a particular social group and link to the tag line; an almost angry emotion, looking directly into the camera, which presents a outspoken attitude of wanting to be heard and listened too, an attitude which the target audience can relate too as it was aimed at teenagers and young people who have a strong interest in indie music which is all about finding themselves and their own voice through their clothing and lifestyle choices.
Media Evaluation
Question 1; in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
To start my project, I chose to research a variety of existing magazine in the same line of genres as mine to see how they also used the conventions of a magazine to appeal to their chosen target audience. There were a lot of different ways that the product I produced developed kept and rejects the conventions of real magazines. In my music magazine I used some conventions to symbolise a real music magazine and portray my magazine to look more professional. One of the conventions which I developed was my masthead. Although I kept to some of the traditional conventions by placing my masthead at the top of the page and making it bigger which dominated the rest of the text I also had one of the words on a slate. This developed the masthead as it isn’t typical of music magazine to display their mastheads as I did mine but I felt it sorted the genre of my magazine. As my magazine was Indie, it often breaks the forth wall of traditional themes by developing existing styles or often changeling what is seen to be normal or ‘mainstream’. Although I did change my masthead a bit I kept to some of the basic ‘rules’ to still make it recognisable for the audience that I wanted to attract. I chose san serif for the front on my front cover, contents page and double page spreads which I got from defont.com I downloaded a certain type of style to do this. I chose to do this because it gave a modern look to my magazine, which made the magazine look more professional and suitable for the audience I wanted to attract. I chose to involve my front cover model in the masthead as it gave it a unique look without losing the professional look I tried to obtain throughout my project.
Another code of conversations which I used but I did not change and kept the same in order from the audience to identify the magazine was its bar codes. The bar code was placed at the bottom of the page, in the right handed corner on top of my bar code. This is usual and I felt as if it would look unprofessional if I didn’t include it as well.
A way in which I attracted my chosen audience was by using cover lines; this is always another convention communal used throughout magazines as a whole. Cover lines give the audience/reader an insight into what the magazine as features. This is a good way into attracting my audience as they can see the types of interest they have which the magazine will include. To use my cover lines correctly and get the most out of them I chose a colour which contrast and make it stand out to the background, this made it eye-catching allowing me to attract my chosen audience. I used the same fronts for my cover lines except for the main cover lines as it’s the feature of the magazine. Also the main cover line and image linked with each other; and the kick exp lines. They acted as the main selling point of the magazine so it had to stand out from the rest. I chose to do this to kept with the codes of conventions to attract my auditions and attract my chosen audience. Also when I researched different magazines at the start of my project it was clear that this would give my magazine a professional and typical, clean and neat look which I wanted my magazine to portray instead of a messy, unprofessional one. From the research I found that most were arranged vertically, on the sides of the page, which guided and help me know where to put them. My cover lines were placed on the right side of the front cover as well as the left side in order to not make it look too busy and evenly spaced out so it wouldn’t detract the chosen audience away from the image too much.
Also a popular convention of music magazines which I had researched were using a medium close up as the dominant image on their front cover magazine, in my magazine I decided to use a medium long shot it makes the image more ‘in your face’ and creates an illusion of being close with the model. The model is also posed in a way which would catch peoples eyes and attract the audience which I felt suits my target audience.
Following my front cover, I also created my contents page by using some conventions in real magazines. To start I included other images, which is a commonly used convention in magazines. The images and setting were simple and not to buy allowing my reader to look at each thing one by one in detail and not get a headache. A lot of magazines would do this as it would draw a bigger audience in who would normal read magazines but feel overwhelmed at the same time. A way in which I attract my chosen audience was by including photos that linked to my front over and gave a sense of unity.
As well as that my double page spread used some basic conventions. Firstly I used a simple colour scheme which also linked in with my front cover and double page spread but I still added a different colour separated them slightly at the same time so that my audience would not get confused but still allow the magazine to create its own professional and modern style. Also I arranged my article into two columns, with a headline and a stand first; however in order to make it more traditional and more suited for my target audience I included a a photo underneath the columns. This would attract the audiences’ creative eye and is complete to layout for the articles and articles in future.
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