In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• My media product develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products with the use of images and shots, the fact that all of the images and shots have been used in my research and in real media products, it makes my media product seem more authentic. I also used the colours for the writing for the same reason I used the images and shots in my magazine.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• I reckon that my media product represents particular social groups by first, mainly focusing on young or older people who have a fascination with the world of rock and its subgenres, commenting on the lives of rock stars and how they live their lives everyday. It secondly represents them by talking about issues that people go through in their everyday lives, for instance, one topic my magazine covers is drugs and getting the people involved to stop, a lot of people take drugs, whether it is daily or weekly, they can all be addictive, so if drug addicts were to read this, they may feel compelled to try and get off drugs themselves. In conclusion, I believe that my media product represents particular social groups in both a good and a bad way.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• I think that an underground media institution who isn’t really known would consider distributing my media product and I think this would be a way for the institution to promote both bands in a local area and bands on a much grander scale at the same time.
Who would be your audience for your media product?
• My audience are people from as young as 14, going towards somewhere in a person’s 20s, but my magazine is also aimed at people who are experienced in terms of going to gigs and knowing what bands are out there, in terms of colour of the person, I would believe that mainly Caucasian people would read the magazine.
How did you address/attract your audience?
• In terms of attracting a young audience, I have included pictures of the band mentioned in my main article and as the band look young themselves, young people might feel more tempted to pick up the magazine. In terms of attracting an older audience, I have included the names of certain bands that have been around for years, the fact that I have mentioned those kinds of bands will mean that older people will want to be updated on what is going on recently.
What have you learnt about technology from constructing this product?
• I have learnt that because of technology, things like magazines can be created quite quickly on the computer when using the right programs like InDesign and Photoshop, without those sorts of programs around today, magazines could take quite long to make and wouldn’t be able to be distributed as often as they are.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
• In terms of my progression from the preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt how to use the program InDesign a lot better for creating magazines than when I first started out and when it comes to manipulating my images, I have learned some techniques from the program Photoshop, something I didn’t use for my preliminary task. I have also learnt to manage my time more efficiently when it comes to planning and creating the product, because if I don’t, then I would end up falling behind and not accomplishing things when I am meant to be, which in turn, could leave me with a grade that I perhaps do not deserve to get due to missing pieces of work.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
The Final Product - Main Task
This is the final product of my music magazine.
I have already received feedback from fellow classmates, but additional comments could also be be useful in terms of feedback as well.
I have already received feedback from fellow classmates, but additional comments could also be be useful in terms of feedback as well.
Write up for the Plan - Main Task
What are you planning to do?
• I am planning to create a music magazine that will hopefully appeal to people who love the music genre of rock.
Who are you targeting? Primary target audience needs to be clearly identified in detail.
• My primary target audience will be people who are mainly at a young age from as early as about 14, to about somewhere in a person’s 20s, mainly Caucasian. There is going to be no separation between males and females with my magazine (as shown by the front cover image) as some females may like the images of certain band members, whereas males would just like to be updated about new or old bands or about recent or gigs past. In terms of religion, there is no use of it, meaning that this magazine isn’t religious, especially down to the fact that the magazine mentions the use of drugs and alcohol, something religion frowns upon.
What genre of music are you creating the magazine for?
• The genre of music I will be creating for my magazine will be on rock, possibly having a sub-genre of one of the following: screamo, goth, alternative, grunge, metal or indie.
What is your concept for this issue?
• My concept for this issue is to promote the fact that the band in question are rising to the top so quickly and even thought they have only been a band for two years and are at quite a young age, will there be anything else that they can try and accomplish.
Are you presenting a solo artist or a band?
• I will be presenting a band that I decided to make up called “Fate’s Hand”.
What are your colour themes – explain choices (semiotics)
• My colour themes are going to a blue that isn’t too light, but isn’t too dark, combined with a black gradient as a background for all of my pages, I decided to use those colours because even though most music magazines that I researched had a monochrome theme when it comes to their use colours, I still thought that they would be the most suitable colours to use for my magazine. In terms of the colour of the writing, I will be using the colours black, red and white as based on my research, they are the most used colours in any magazine in terms of writing, adding a sense of authenticity to everything.
What images/shots do you intend to use? Why?
• On my front cover, there will be a use of a two shot and a medium close-up, showing the artists that the magazine is going to cover. On my contents page there is again, going to be the use of a two shot, but instead of a medium close-up, there is going to be a use of a medium shot, once again showing what is going to be covered in the magazine. On the first page of my double page spread, there once again is going to be the use of a two shot, but there is also going to be the first use of a medium long shot, showing the featured band in the article. Finally on the second page of my double page spread, there is going to be the use of a medium close-up and the use of a medium shot in two different pictures, showing the band in a relaxed form. All of the shots that I want to use were picked down to the fact that I thought that they would make the magazine seem more authentic and real as most magazines that I have researched have used all the shots I had used, so there is a sense of realism from my magazine.
How will you create these shots?
• Due to my knowledge of different shots and based on my research, I will create all of the shots for my magazine by getting someone to take pictures until I feel that they have created the right shots and taken the right images for my magazine to use.
What will be in your double page spread?
• On my double page spread, I will be including a big image of the band with 2 captions related to the article on the first page and then on my second page, I will be including the article itself with a quote from the band and some additional pictures of the band.
• I am planning to create a music magazine that will hopefully appeal to people who love the music genre of rock.
Who are you targeting? Primary target audience needs to be clearly identified in detail.
• My primary target audience will be people who are mainly at a young age from as early as about 14, to about somewhere in a person’s 20s, mainly Caucasian. There is going to be no separation between males and females with my magazine (as shown by the front cover image) as some females may like the images of certain band members, whereas males would just like to be updated about new or old bands or about recent or gigs past. In terms of religion, there is no use of it, meaning that this magazine isn’t religious, especially down to the fact that the magazine mentions the use of drugs and alcohol, something religion frowns upon.
What genre of music are you creating the magazine for?
• The genre of music I will be creating for my magazine will be on rock, possibly having a sub-genre of one of the following: screamo, goth, alternative, grunge, metal or indie.
What is your concept for this issue?
• My concept for this issue is to promote the fact that the band in question are rising to the top so quickly and even thought they have only been a band for two years and are at quite a young age, will there be anything else that they can try and accomplish.
Are you presenting a solo artist or a band?
• I will be presenting a band that I decided to make up called “Fate’s Hand”.
What are your colour themes – explain choices (semiotics)
• My colour themes are going to a blue that isn’t too light, but isn’t too dark, combined with a black gradient as a background for all of my pages, I decided to use those colours because even though most music magazines that I researched had a monochrome theme when it comes to their use colours, I still thought that they would be the most suitable colours to use for my magazine. In terms of the colour of the writing, I will be using the colours black, red and white as based on my research, they are the most used colours in any magazine in terms of writing, adding a sense of authenticity to everything.
What images/shots do you intend to use? Why?
• On my front cover, there will be a use of a two shot and a medium close-up, showing the artists that the magazine is going to cover. On my contents page there is again, going to be the use of a two shot, but instead of a medium close-up, there is going to be a use of a medium shot, once again showing what is going to be covered in the magazine. On the first page of my double page spread, there once again is going to be the use of a two shot, but there is also going to be the first use of a medium long shot, showing the featured band in the article. Finally on the second page of my double page spread, there is going to be the use of a medium close-up and the use of a medium shot in two different pictures, showing the band in a relaxed form. All of the shots that I want to use were picked down to the fact that I thought that they would make the magazine seem more authentic and real as most magazines that I have researched have used all the shots I had used, so there is a sense of realism from my magazine.
How will you create these shots?
• Due to my knowledge of different shots and based on my research, I will create all of the shots for my magazine by getting someone to take pictures until I feel that they have created the right shots and taken the right images for my magazine to use.
What will be in your double page spread?
• On my double page spread, I will be including a big image of the band with 2 captions related to the article on the first page and then on my second page, I will be including the article itself with a quote from the band and some additional pictures of the band.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Plan of what things are going to look like – Main Task
This post is going to show the designs for my music magazine, I will explain my use of colours and why things are where they are on my page.
This is what my Front Cover will look like
This is what my Contents Page will look like
This is what my Double Page Spread will look like
Even though there is a lack of it on any of my designs, I will be using a shade of blue with a gradient of black towards the bottom of the page. I decided to use this theme of colours because I thought that these would be the most suitable colours for me to use, this was mainly based on paper based research that I had done.
Boxes of things like text and where pictures will be are where they are due to the fact that again, based on paper based and internet reseerch that I had conducted, would be the most suitable places for things to be.
I have a feeling that along the way in terms of creating the music magazine itself, my plan will change as I may have a lack of images or a lack of text on a page.
This is what my Front Cover will look like
This is what my Contents Page will look like
This is what my Double Page Spread will look like
Even though there is a lack of it on any of my designs, I will be using a shade of blue with a gradient of black towards the bottom of the page. I decided to use this theme of colours because I thought that these would be the most suitable colours for me to use, this was mainly based on paper based research that I had done.
Boxes of things like text and where pictures will be are where they are due to the fact that again, based on paper based and internet reseerch that I had conducted, would be the most suitable places for things to be.
I have a feeling that along the way in terms of creating the music magazine itself, my plan will change as I may have a lack of images or a lack of text on a page.
Music Magazine Ideas - Main Task
Background information
Music Magazine: They are a magazine dedicated to music and music culture. Such magazines typically include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record reviews, concert reviews and occasionally have a covermount with recorded music.
They were very prolific in the United Kingdom, with the NME (short for New Musical Express) leading the pack since its first issue in 1952. NME had a longstanding rival in Melody Maker, an even older publication which had existed since 1926, however by 2000 falling circulation and the rise of internet music sites caused the Melody Maker to be absorbed into its old rival and cease publishing. Several other British magazines such as Select and Sounds also folded between 1990 and 2000. Current UK music magazines include Q, Kerrang! and Mojo (all published by EMAP). Magazines with a focus on pop music rather than rock and aimed at a younger market include the now-defunct Smash Hits and the BBC's Top of the Pops, which outlived the television show on which it was based.
Major music magazines in the United States include Rolling Stone (founded in 1967) and Spin (founded in 1985). Clash Magazine was voted 'Music Magazine of the Year' in 2004 and is the second largest UK online presence, Clash was also Awarded Magazine of the Year at the PPA Scotland Awards. Among classical music magazines, Diapason is the most read in France.
My ideas
I want to create a magazine devoted mainly to the genre of rock, with perhaps a little bit of pop music. If I cannot create a magazine devoted mainly to the genre of rock, then it will mainly be based on the genre of pop, with perhaps a little bit of rock.
Examples of magazine covers
Examples of contents pages
Examples of double page spreads
Based on the research I have done, I especially like the images from Kerrang Magzine that I have used, this is mainly down to the fact that I want my music magazine to be based on something around the idea that Kerrang have been running with for years, however, I shall try and include ideas from the other magazines my research is based on like NME and Q.
Music Magazine: They are a magazine dedicated to music and music culture. Such magazines typically include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record reviews, concert reviews and occasionally have a covermount with recorded music.
They were very prolific in the United Kingdom, with the NME (short for New Musical Express) leading the pack since its first issue in 1952. NME had a longstanding rival in Melody Maker, an even older publication which had existed since 1926, however by 2000 falling circulation and the rise of internet music sites caused the Melody Maker to be absorbed into its old rival and cease publishing. Several other British magazines such as Select and Sounds also folded between 1990 and 2000. Current UK music magazines include Q, Kerrang! and Mojo (all published by EMAP). Magazines with a focus on pop music rather than rock and aimed at a younger market include the now-defunct Smash Hits and the BBC's Top of the Pops, which outlived the television show on which it was based.
Major music magazines in the United States include Rolling Stone (founded in 1967) and Spin (founded in 1985). Clash Magazine was voted 'Music Magazine of the Year' in 2004 and is the second largest UK online presence, Clash was also Awarded Magazine of the Year at the PPA Scotland Awards. Among classical music magazines, Diapason is the most read in France.
My ideas
I want to create a magazine devoted mainly to the genre of rock, with perhaps a little bit of pop music. If I cannot create a magazine devoted mainly to the genre of rock, then it will mainly be based on the genre of pop, with perhaps a little bit of rock.
Examples of magazine covers
Examples of contents pages
Examples of double page spreads
Based on the research I have done, I especially like the images from Kerrang Magzine that I have used, this is mainly down to the fact that I want my music magazine to be based on something around the idea that Kerrang have been running with for years, however, I shall try and include ideas from the other magazines my research is based on like NME and Q.
Thursday, 17 December 2009
School Magazine Evaluation
• Explain what you were trying to achieve
What I was trying to achieve with the creation of my front cover and contents page were to show a school magazine, I could have chosen any school but I decided to make my magazine based on my school: Kelsey Park Sports College.
• Highlight your strengths: What went well? What went to plan?
The strengths of the creation of this front cover and contents page were mainly based on my contents page. What I think went well was the way I made the layout of my contents page, but also the background colours I used (this was on both my front cover and contents page).
• What was deliberate? What coincidence?
In terms of creating my magazine cover and contents page, nothing was created deliberately or by coincidence.
• Where are your weaknesses? What were the problems?
I feel that I only had one major weakness, which was creating the colour of my background, I knew that I could control the gradient of 1 colour, but I didn’t know how to control the gradient using 2 colours, but with a little help, I managed to control the gradient of 2 colours. However, after doing this and leaving this task for a week, I had completely forgotten how to control this, so this was a problem when it came to experimenting with different background colours.
• What had you intended to do? Why did it not work?
One of the things I intended to do was to get an image of a student in my fellow year holding either a football or a basketball (I decided on a basketball) and then use that as my main cover picture, however I could not do this due to lack of time that I had to create the magazine cover and contents page and I also didn’t do this because my magazine was for students ages 11 to 16, but then because I had images of students older than this on my front cover, I had to change my target audience from 11 to 16 year olds, to 11 to 18 year olds and I also used a picture of someone who appears to be in either year 8 or year 9 as my main cover picture.
• Compare your work to the standard OCR example (on W Drive)
The colour of the background used is the same; however the OCR example uses a darker shade of yellow, whereas I have used a lighter shade of yellow mixed with black (the gradient). The font size of the text used in the OCR example draw my eyes towards that specific bit of what I am viewing, and I think that this works well to the advantage of the creator, whereas the text I use isn’t big enough to draw readers into anything specific in my opinion. My work compared to the OCR example doesn’t really feel as professional, or authentic as the example is, but as this was only the preliminary exercise, it doesn’t really matter how professional it is, but when it comes to the main task, I would have to make sure that my magazine cover and contents page look a lot more professional, this would involve: Making the cover of the magazine look a bit more untidy, but still upholding that professional level of work, using bigger font sizes to draw readers in to specific parts, bascially things that would make my magazine a lot more interesting.
• What have you learnt about Media Production as a result of this process?
I feel that I have learned how to use a desktop publisher (Adobe InDesign) to a certain standard, but I do not know everything about that (this would take quite a while in my opinion to grasp) but then creating my front cover and magazine didn’t take me long to grasp certain tools used whilst creating these products.
• What have you learnt about the task and the way you work?
What I have learnt about the task was that sometimes it takes experience to produce something of a good quality, but then other times, to produce good quality work can come to mind instantly. The way I work is that I normally act on impulses and just throw out ideas when I’m in the planning stages which help me to make something of a good quality, but here, I never did that which was quite weird for me, hence why I feel that my work isn’t at the best quality it could be at.
• How will you change the way you approach the main task?
In terms of approaching the main task, I will make sure that after everything new I learn, I will write down notes on how to do those specific new things that I have learnt so that I don’t forget how to do it again (this could refer to how to create a gradient using 2 colours) and I would make sure that I have all the resources I need to make sure that creation of the main task runs smoothly.
• What lessons have you learnt?
After a lot of thought, I can say that I have learnt to put more effort into everything I create, and give myself more time to think of ideas for my creations.
What I was trying to achieve with the creation of my front cover and contents page were to show a school magazine, I could have chosen any school but I decided to make my magazine based on my school: Kelsey Park Sports College.
• Highlight your strengths: What went well? What went to plan?
The strengths of the creation of this front cover and contents page were mainly based on my contents page. What I think went well was the way I made the layout of my contents page, but also the background colours I used (this was on both my front cover and contents page).
• What was deliberate? What coincidence?
In terms of creating my magazine cover and contents page, nothing was created deliberately or by coincidence.
• Where are your weaknesses? What were the problems?
I feel that I only had one major weakness, which was creating the colour of my background, I knew that I could control the gradient of 1 colour, but I didn’t know how to control the gradient using 2 colours, but with a little help, I managed to control the gradient of 2 colours. However, after doing this and leaving this task for a week, I had completely forgotten how to control this, so this was a problem when it came to experimenting with different background colours.
• What had you intended to do? Why did it not work?
One of the things I intended to do was to get an image of a student in my fellow year holding either a football or a basketball (I decided on a basketball) and then use that as my main cover picture, however I could not do this due to lack of time that I had to create the magazine cover and contents page and I also didn’t do this because my magazine was for students ages 11 to 16, but then because I had images of students older than this on my front cover, I had to change my target audience from 11 to 16 year olds, to 11 to 18 year olds and I also used a picture of someone who appears to be in either year 8 or year 9 as my main cover picture.
• Compare your work to the standard OCR example (on W Drive)
The colour of the background used is the same; however the OCR example uses a darker shade of yellow, whereas I have used a lighter shade of yellow mixed with black (the gradient). The font size of the text used in the OCR example draw my eyes towards that specific bit of what I am viewing, and I think that this works well to the advantage of the creator, whereas the text I use isn’t big enough to draw readers into anything specific in my opinion. My work compared to the OCR example doesn’t really feel as professional, or authentic as the example is, but as this was only the preliminary exercise, it doesn’t really matter how professional it is, but when it comes to the main task, I would have to make sure that my magazine cover and contents page look a lot more professional, this would involve: Making the cover of the magazine look a bit more untidy, but still upholding that professional level of work, using bigger font sizes to draw readers in to specific parts, bascially things that would make my magazine a lot more interesting.
• What have you learnt about Media Production as a result of this process?
I feel that I have learned how to use a desktop publisher (Adobe InDesign) to a certain standard, but I do not know everything about that (this would take quite a while in my opinion to grasp) but then creating my front cover and magazine didn’t take me long to grasp certain tools used whilst creating these products.
• What have you learnt about the task and the way you work?
What I have learnt about the task was that sometimes it takes experience to produce something of a good quality, but then other times, to produce good quality work can come to mind instantly. The way I work is that I normally act on impulses and just throw out ideas when I’m in the planning stages which help me to make something of a good quality, but here, I never did that which was quite weird for me, hence why I feel that my work isn’t at the best quality it could be at.
• How will you change the way you approach the main task?
In terms of approaching the main task, I will make sure that after everything new I learn, I will write down notes on how to do those specific new things that I have learnt so that I don’t forget how to do it again (this could refer to how to create a gradient using 2 colours) and I would make sure that I have all the resources I need to make sure that creation of the main task runs smoothly.
• What lessons have you learnt?
After a lot of thought, I can say that I have learnt to put more effort into everything I create, and give myself more time to think of ideas for my creations.
Friday, 4 December 2009
My magazine cover and contents page
Here is my magazine cover and my contents page. I need feedback in order to see what was good about this and what would need chnging (if anything), please can you give some as it would be very helpful to me. Thank you.
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