In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and convention of real media products?
I used NME magazine to compare features and conventions of a magazine front cover because my magazine has the same indie/rock music genre. I also continued a similar colour theme of red, white and black and NME use red, black and yellow.
I put my masthead in the top left corner of my magazine as this is a front cover convention, however you can see that my masthead fades over the image of my artists head. I edited this on photo-shop so that you could see my artist, however on this NME front cover the masthead is front of the image. I did this because on other NME magazines I had looked at if the Masthead block most of the artists face then it goes behind the image although it is still visible. The NME masthead has a white border to make it stand out, similarly I used a black border to make my masthead more visible.
I used the issue number as this is also another convention for the front cover. However on this NME magazine this is a ‘Special Issue’ so it does not have the issue number however usually it does. It is normally displayed in the top right hand corner so I placed mine here also.
The tag line is just a line which is on most issues and is what my magazine ‘believes in’ almost like a slogan for my magazine. Mine is ‘Just can’t get enough’ because my magazine is called ‘Addict’ to make the connection clear I placed it underneath the title. On the NME magazine the tag line is ‘the future of music’ but is placed in the left top corner which differs from mine.
I looked at several NME magazine front covers, on most the plus box was a band across the bottom like on mine, on this particular NME magazine the plus section is in the left corner. On every NME magazine the different pages in the ‘plus section’ are separated with a vertical bar I liked this and decided to do the same on my banner. I made my banner on paint and tried to make it the same as one I had seen on a different NME magazine.
On most NME magazines, including this one, there is often a quote that the cover artist has said during the interview. This is to intrigue the audience and have a little bit of information on what they are going to be talking about. On the NME front cover the pull quote is “I’m a whole new kind of pop star” so we know that she will be giving us an insight into her music, however I wanted to make mine more personal so my pull quote is “I’m a whole new person” which suggests we will be talking more about the artists personal life.
I think there is an obvious contrast between my image and the image on the front of this NME magazine. The NME magazine is very futuristic. This links with the tag line ‘the future of music’ as well as the pull quote ‘I’m a whole new kind of pop star’ which suggests new up to date music. The headline ‘the future 50’ also suggests that this is issue is going to be about new music coming out. However my image is a more traditional rock image and is very natural for example I have edited the picture so that the colouring is ‘sepia’ which is associated with old fashioned images and cameras whereas the NME is bright and metallic looking silver background which makes the image look modern and futuristic. In my image the mise-en-scene is festival and rock and roll style. We can see this because he is playing a guitar and we can see a drummer in the background suggesting a rock and roll band. From the background we assume they are on a stage preforming. The hair and makeup is just natural and the image is un-posed as if the artist does not know the image is been taken. The clothing is a casual big hoodie which gives a relaxed casual image just focused on the music and nothing else which gives the impression of a traditional rock and roll look. However the NME front cover has had the hair styled in an unusual new style, the artist has heavy bright blue makeup on and sliver diamonds on her face which suggests something different and unusual, a big focus has been on her image in order to give the new futuristic look which reflects the kind of music this artist makes. We can see the main concentration is on her face which is why they have used a close-up image whereas my image is a medium close up showing most of the surroundings and half of Harry’s body.
When improving my contents page I wanted to make sure I had included all the conventions so I used this NME magazine as I style guide to create a similar layout and include all the magazine conventions. I chose this one because the main image was similar to an image I had taken of Harry. The genre of the two artists looks rock and roll also so I thought this as a good one to focus on. I used the same titles for my different sections and did the same layout to make my magazine look professional like an actual real-life music magazine.
The images are very similar, both are preforming on stage, playing guitar. Dark background so all the focus is on the artist. Both wearing casual everyday clothing and have long ‘messy’ hair which is typical indie rock image and suits the artist and the genre of the magazine.
I divided my contents in different sections so that my audience can easily access the part of the magazine they would like to read. NME magazine also does different sections and I think this makes the contents page look more presentable and professional. I also used a subscribe box also to make it look like a real life professional magazine as the majority of contents pages I looked at included a subscribe box. It also usually shows a small image of the next issue so on paint I created a ‘mini magazine’ to make my subscribe look more realistic.
I made the main focus of my content ‘Harry’ as he is the story and the main content of this issue. I also did a small blurb which shows how he is the main focus of this issue. People will buy the magazine with the intention of reading the story about the cover artist this is why the contents page usually has a main focus and image on the contents page which will be the main story within the issue.
To improve my contents further I would include a ‘band index’ section as well as the magazine name ‘addict’ at the top. This is because firstly it is shown on the NME sample contents page and makes it look more professional. Also I have put the name of my magazine ‘addict’ on the front cover and double page spread, I think to improve I should have also included it on my contents page as part of continuity editing to show that they are all part of the same magazine. This is also shown on the NME example above.
I chose this NME double page spread as a comparison because I thought it was quite similar to mine in some ways. Firstly I noticed that the headline was similar as it is presented in a way which looks like it has been cut out of a newspaper and stuck on, kind of like collage which looks quite messy and unprofessional. I think this has been done to show how rock and roll and free Lily Allen is. My text is also a ‘messy’ unstructed font which looks hand drawn which shows the rock and roll style music and we can assume this will be the genre of music the band plays. Lily Allens reflects her indie rock image also which is suited with the genre of NME magazine. Her clothes represent the ‘anti-image’ which goes against high-street fashion showing her rebellious streak. Her hair is messy and her outfit is quite tom-boy which suggests she doesn’t really care what people think of her which is a denotation that NME magazine do not care what people think of them and are glad to rebel against typical main street fashion and popular music. This is also shown through the text which looks like it has been cut out and in different font sizes which looks like someone has just hand-made this and doesn’t really care about looking professional which continues this not caring denotation of rebellion. We have a medium close-up image so we can see more of the tomboy rock/indie outfit. The image is large which takes up the whole of the right hand side of the page showing she is important and the main feature. The text and image have been divided on to separate halves on the page this could have been done to avoid the crease in the middle. I set out my layout for the same reason and also to show the main focus of the article. Ell similarly isn’t dressed in fashionable or modern clothing. His kharki green jacket suggests a laid back kind of individual clothing style which suits the genre of ‘indie.’ His dark curly hair also suggest this, although we can’t see it very clearly on here we can tell he has not tried hard to achieve this image it is just a natural look. The black background makes him and the text stand out more but also gives the article a bit of an edge as it isn’t bright and cheery which makes the genre of the music more obvious.
Both double page spreads have the same red, black and white colour scheme which also suggests they have similar images and genre of music. The colours black and red are a connotation for horror or gothic looks which suggest rebellion and that these artists a scary image and suggests they have quite a bad attitude.
The pull quote that I choose was “Newcastle was pretty crazy” this is because I thought this would intrigue my audience to read the article as they will be interested in why New Castle was ‘crazy’ it also means they will be telling personal stories from their life and not just speaking about their music. The pull quote for Lily Allen is “people think I’m an attention seeker but I’m just honest” this will interest people in a similar way as firstly she must have told them something within the article so say this, the word ‘honest’ also implies she’s being truthful by perhaps revealing something about herself that she shouldn’t. This will interest the audience and will be more likely to read the article. The drop cap also does this by giving an extra bit of information on the article and the content of what is going to be in it. For example mine goes with the pull quote as it says “exclusive details about the tour” which also implies there will be gossip about private stories from the artist’s real life.
How does your media product represent particular social groups and How did you attract your audience?
My media product represents the typical indie/rock stereo-type. From my front cover image we can see this as Harry (the cover artist for the band Rumour) has messy hair and casual clothing showing his rebellion against main street fashion. We get the impression presentation is not a big priority and therefore does not care to much for his image, this is a typical rock and roll kind of attitude of being rebellious, laid back and care free. This will relate to the majority of teenagers as the type of image and attitude is considered ‘cool.’ The target audience would be for people interested in this genre of music and will therefore be fans of the artist displayed on the cover. Most people interested in this genre of music will be aged between 16 – late 20’s. This will relate to the younger generation more because it is their kind of music and style being represented on the cover and what they consider cool or attractive.
I decided to create some feedback sheets and hand them out amongst Wyke College students because they are the same age group as my target audience. I found that 100% of people asked were familiar with the genre of the magazine and knew it was ‘indie-rock’ which meant I had achieved a recognisable genre throughout my magazine. The price of my magazine is £1.50 the majority of people asked said they would pay £1.50 as a reasonable price except for two people one who said £1.00 another who said £2.50 so I feel that £1.50 was a good choice for the price of the magazine as it is what the majority of my target audience would feel is reasonable to pay because it is a decent price yet affordable for students who are likely to not have a large income, so this will be a demographic to my audience. If the price was not affordable they would not buy the magazine.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
If my magazine was to be signed by someone I think it would most likely be Bauer media because when I was reaching I found that the magazines these are the magazine they already publish: Men’s: “Kerrang!”, “Empire”, “Mojo” and “Q” and for Women’s: “Closer”, “heat”, “more!”, “Pop” and “yours.” As you can see this publisher has a gap in the market. This is due to only having one female music magazine which is “Pop” and secondly they do not have any unisex magazines. The genre of the music magazines they do have are pop, mainstream, retro and heavy metal. So they do not publish a magazine with an indie-rock genre like mine which is also unisex therefore I think Bauer would be the most likely to publish and sign for my magazine. For example IPC are less likely to publish my magazine because they already have signed NME music magazine which is the same genre as mine, indie/rock therefore they will not need another magazine like this.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The main skills I have learnt from constructing my product are the different ways to use media technology. For example at the start of this course I had never used photo-shop before but I created my full front cover on this program, all the while learning new editing techniques. Here is my first try at the front cover with little skills of photo shop: (next page)
You can see that my first draft (above) does not look very professional. I was unsure how to use photo-shop and edit text. I didn’t know how to put a border on my text so attempted to colour behind it. I also had made no edits to my image and just kept it the way it was, the text on my cover doesn’t really fit in with the genre of my magazine therefore this was a bad first draft and is why I decided to completely re-create it.
This was my 2nd draft of my front cover:
I edited the image to make it which made it more visibly clear meaning you could see more detail. I changed the font to a bigger bolder font which was sans serif meaning it looked more suited to the indie rock genre. I made the masthead more large scale and put it in a bright red to make it stand out more. However to stop it from covering the artists head I used a fade tool. As I has the image layer copied just Harry’s head then I moved the image layer to the front, then I used to fade tool to fade Harry’s head image layer. This meant just the top layer of Harry’s head would become slightly transparent however with the image still being originally on the back layer the rest of the image remained normal. I thought this looked quite effective as you can still see Harry fully yet the masthead is also still visible and still stands out so was very happy with the finished outcome. I made the main headline larger also to make it clearer this was going to be the main feature of this issue. I also created a plus box on paint then added it on photo-shop.
Here is my final front cover:
Here we can see the final details I changed to make my finished media product. I made the masthead even larger, added an issue number, and created a black border around the masthead and small red one around ‘The Rumour’ headline. This made both texts stand out more. I also added a tagline of what my magazine believed in almost like a slogan for my magazine. I changed the pull quote completely to make it stand out more and moved position so it was more noticeable on the cover and showed that it was the main feature of this issue. I think these final finishing touches made my magazine look more realistic and professional.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When I look back to my first attempts of using Photo-shop I can see how much I have progressed. The college magazine was my preliminary task before starting my actual coursework. We can see how I’ve developed from this, for example on the college magazine I have made no edits to the image whereas on this one we can see how I’ve changed the colouring and lightened the image to make it more clear and professional looking. With my music magazine I had more of a set idea on what I was trying to achieve, I had already planned a colour scheme and genre for my magazine and had a good idea of the kind of image I wanted for the cover. Researched more into the genre and looked at a variety of music magazines and created several drafts before achieving my final copy. So the main improvement I made when creating my music magazine was the amount of research and preparation that I did before producing a final draft. My photography skills have also improved; with the first image I just took it round college however it was not very professional for example the light in the background on the wall kind of ruins the image as well as Kyle was kind of caught of guide and is therefore pulling an unprofessional face. However with my music magazine image I went to one of the bangs gigs at Freedom Festival that I had taken a while before this actual project, I decided as I was taking pictures of him anyway this was a good image to use for my front cover as it showed them preforming and everything in the image was part of mise-en-scene, including the music equipment, the stage, the drummer in the background which made a much more successful image for my magazine cover. The continuity of conventions was also improved. Looking at the college magazine the fonts sizes are all different in different colours and none of them really match, the genre is very unclear and none of it quite fits together showing an issue in continuity editing whereas on my music magazine we can see how all though there are a variety of fonts and colours everything fits together and looks a lot more professional. So we can see the progression I have made from when I first started the course and was unfamiliar with Photo-Shop and the skills required to create a professional and realistic magazine to my final finished product where I have managed to achieve something which looks a lot more real to life including all the magazine conventions to make a successful looking magazine.
