Evaulation

In what ways does your Media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My front cover has all the conventions you would expect to see on a regular front cover. It has a masthead (Noise), it has a strapline which tells the audience the issue number and the price of the magazine, it has a barcode, it has plugs which advertise other bands and artists that will be featured in the magazine, a main edited image and a main headline.
Before I began making my music magazine, I looked at other music magazines such as NME and Kerrang. I looked at the way both magazines had chosen to set their front covers, and I decided to use NME as a template for my front cover as the front cover NME produced didn't have lots of photo's and writing all over the cover. Whereas the front cover Kerrang produced had lots of photo's and writing all over the cover.
My contents page has all the conventions you would expect to see on a regular contents page, it has page numbers for each of the articles featured in my magazine. Also I have put descriptions of what each of the articles will be about. At the top of the page, I have the words 'Contents Page' in the same font as the one I used for my masthead. I also have smaller edited images at the bottom of the page. Down the side of my contents page I have 'regulars' which are all the regular features which will be in future magazines.
My double page spread also has all the conventions you would expect to see on a regular double page spread. I have a edited main image, I also have three smaller edited images which have all being rotated. Next to the edited image I have written a article on the artist. At the top of the double page spread I have a headline telling the audience who the artist is, underneath this I have a strapline which gives more information on the artist.

How does your Media product represent particular social groups?
My music magazine represents both male and female social groups. On my front cover, I have a female musician, but I haven't used a feminine color scheme. I have used blue, black and white which I would say represents the male social group more.
I haven't just used the female social group throughout my music magazine, I have also used the male social group too, on my contents page I have used two edited images of the male musician. I think the edited images I have used represents male musicians. In the edited images the male musician is stood with a guitar in hand. I have used black and white edited images throughout my magazine to show that my music magazine features serious artists. I also think that my black and white images help to show that Noise magazine represents the indie music genre, as the images show that the musicians featured in this magazine are serious about making music.
The female musician on the front cover of my magazine represents the female musician social group, I think this is because of the way she is dressed.
Also I think the male musician on the contents page of my media product represents the male musician social group, again because of the way he is dressed.

What kind of Media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Bauer Media may distribute my media product, as they don't publish a magazine which focuses on the indie/rock music genre. Bauer Media produce Kerrang magazine which is a magazine that focuses mainly on the rock/screamo music genre. Bauer Media would be a good media institution to produce my media product as because they already produce a music magazine, they will now what they are doing when producing my media product.
IPC produce NME magazine, the magazine which I based my media product on. If Bauer Media were to produce my media product, both NME and Noise magazine would be in competition with each other as they both cover the same music genre.

Who will be the audience for your Media product?
The audience of my media product would be both the male and female audience who are in their late teens, early twenties. But also people older then late teens, early twenties may also want to read my media product as they too may be interested in the indie/rock music genre.
The audience must already be interested in the indie/rock music genre, because if not then they wouldn't be buying my media product. The audience may also be interested in the bands and artists featured in my media product and that could be the reason why they are choosing to read my media product.

How did you attract/address your audience?
To address my audience I have featured both male and female musicians to attract both the male and female audience. I have done this because if I just featured female musicians, I would probably just attract a female audience, likewise if I just featured male musicians, I would probably just attract a male audience.
I haven't used a color scheme which represents either the male or female social group, I have done this to attract both the male and female audience.
I have also featured artists which are already well-known, so that when my target audience are reading my media product they will know who they are reading a article about.
I used informal language in my media product, I did this because I didn't want my media product to be too serious, I wanted to use the language my target audience would use.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Before I started constructing my media product, I looked at other music magazines. I looked at NME magazine and Kerrang magazine. I looked at the way both these magazines were set out. First I looked at the way both magazines had set out their front covers, I looked at the masthead, headline and images both magazines had used. I decided to set my front cover out like NME had set out their front cover, as the front cover NME had produced was simple and didn't have a lot of writing or images on the cover. I thought that this worked well.
Next I looked at the way both NME and Kerrang magazine had set out their contents page, I looked at the images they used, I looked at the regulars and features columns. I decided in my media product I would have regulars. I didn't base my contents page on either NME's contents page or Kerrang's contents page, as I didn't like either of the magazine's contents page's.
Then I looked at both magazines double page spreads, I looked at the images the magazines used and the way they set out their articles. Again, I didn't base my double page spread on either NME's double page spreads or Kerrang's double page spreads.
I decided to edit my images on PhotoShop, I changed the background of the images. On some of the my images, I lightened the backgrounds as it was too dark to begin with. On three of my images, I changed the image from a colour background to a black and white background, I did this because I didn't want all of the images to look the same. None of my main images are in black and white, only the montage images. On the image which I used for my double page spread, I straited the colour from the background of the image leaving only the colour on the musicians clothing visable.
Also on a few of my images, I blurred the background of the image, although you can't really tell on the image.
For all my images, I used the skin cloning tool and the red eye remover tool. I did this because from looking at the music magazines I carried my research out on, none of the images in them magazines had bad skin or red eyes. All the images looked airbrushed and edited.
I used Publisher to put my media product together.
By using PhotoShop I learnt how to edit a image to make the image look it's best. I learnt how to crop, straited, change a background image from colour to black and white, lighten and darken images and blur images. I never knew how to edit a image before, my first draft of my media product wasn't really edited. But I learnt how to edit images and I feel like my final copy of my media product shows this.
By researching music magazines I learnt how publishing companies set their magazines out and the ways in which they try to attract their audiences.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
By doing this media product I have learnt about language, institution, ideology, audience and representation of magazines. Not just music magazines, but the college magazines that I researched for our preliminary task. I have learnt about institutions which produce music magazines and how different genres of music are produced by different institutions. Also, when I was researching music magazines, I learnt the ideology behind certain music magazines. I found out how many people read the music magazines, how long the magazines have been going and how many percentage of males and females read the magazines.
I have also learnt to use PhotoShop more effectively, I have learnt how to edit images to make them look their best. In the preliminary task, I only really had a basic knowledge of PhotoShop, I already knew how to heal peoples skin and get rid of red eye in images, but by doing the music magazine task, I gained a wider knowledge of how to use PhotoShop.
I have also learnt how magazines attract and address their audience, I have learnt how magazines use artists and bands to attract their audience by featuring people who are already in the media for what ever reason.
Also, I have used to Publisher more effetely, I already knew how to construct a magazine using Publisher, but on both my contents page and double page spread I wanted to have smaller images rotated at the bottom of the pages.It was simple to do, but I now know how to do it.

Final Front Cover, Contents Page, Double Page Spread

This is my final media product, I think it works a lot better than my draft media product. My draft media product, the person posing didn't look at the camera and the background was too bright and I didn't really know how to change it on PhotoShop. My final media product, the person posing is looking at the camera and the background is a neutral one.

Draft of Front Cover, Contents Page & Double Page Spread

This is the draft of my front cover, contents page and double page spread.

I decided not to use these as my final media product as I didn't think that these looked professional enough for my fianl product. Also the photo's didn't look professional enough as the girl in the photo isn't looking at the camera.

Edited Photo's

These are my edited images, I decided to use two completely different people on my final media product.

I edited my images on PhotoShop. On some of the images, I changed the back ground from a colour background to a black and white background. I did this because I didn't want all my images to look the same, I haven't used any black and white images on my front cover though, as I like my image for my front cover.

Photo's For My Magazine

Draft Front Cover, Contents Page & Double Page Spread

Draft of my front cover.

I'm going to feature other artists who are already well known and are in media already. As well as featuring Ami as the new artist.

Draft of contents page. As well as Ami other artists who are already well known. Also I will have a list of all the other bands featured.

Draft of double page spread. Photo and article on Ami.

Contents Page

My contents page will be split up into two different features, one will be features which would be seen in this particular issue and regulars.
Features-
Interview with the artist featured on the front cover.
Interviews with the artists featured in the week's magazine.
Regulars-
Band index (a list of bands featured in the magazine)
Any upcoming gigs and tours.
Reviews of albums.
Posters.

For my features section, I'm going to feature other artists as well as my main artist who will be the main feature of my front cover.
I'm going to give my regular features different names like other music magazine's have, for example my band index will be called 'a-z of bands', upcoming tours will be called 'gigs & tours', album reviews will be called 'reviews' and posters will just be called 'posters'.
To make my magazine seem like essential reading I'm going to make my reviews interesting instead of them seeming repetitive, for example instead of giving every band and artist a good review, I will give some bands mixed reviews and some may even get bad reviews.

The Front Cover

I'm going to brainstorm a few idea's for the colour schemes of my magazine, the colour schemes will have to change each fornight as I will hopefully be producing more than one magazine.
Red-Blue-Yellow. These are the primary colours and will mostly appeal to everyone. Also the colours go well together.
Blue and Grey.
Yellow and Orange.
Red and Pink.
Green.
Purple and Blue.
I'm going to feature other bands and artists who fit into the indie/rock genre in my magazine and who are also in the news as well. For example I could feature Amy Winehouse who is in the news recently for pouring a drink over a hotel guest's head. Mystery Jets who are playing two gigs in Amercia. I'm going to pick a artist who will feature on the front cover of my magazine, I'm going to pick Amy Winehouse as the artist. She's in the news recently for giving up drugs.

Basics of a Music Magazine

I'm going to brainstorm some idea's for a name for my magazine.
Noise.
Pulse.
Rock&Roll Magazine.
Music Weekly.
Teenagers and people in their early 20's will be able to afford my magazine as it will be in the price range that they could afford. The price of the magazine will be not really expensive but not really cheap either. My magazine will be aimed at the same type of people who will buy NME magazine, NME magazine is the magazine I am basing my magazine on. IPC Media who produce NME say that 'almost two in every three women and over 44% of UK men read an IPC magazine. That's over 26 million adults'. My magazine will be printed on high quality paper to make sure that the colours look bright and not dull.
My magazine is going to be released every two weeks. By releasing it every two weeks I will make sure that I have different news stories on bands. If I released my magazine every week, I would have the same news stories as the week before and I would just be repeating myself. Also by releasing it every two weeks, I will have more choice of albums and gigs to review.

I've got some idea's for how my music magazine is going to look and who is going to featured on the front cover. On the front cover I'm going to have a picture of my friend Ami, I'm not going to feature a band just an artist. I'm also going to feature some other real bands who are in the media for whatever reason. The picture for the front cover is going to be a picture of Ami either posing against a brightly coloured wall or outside. The idea which I like the most is her posing against a brightly coloured wall. My double page spread is going to be about Ami as she is going to be an up and coming artist who has already had a hit single and her new album is coming out, abit like Lilly Allen or Amy Winehouse. The picture is going to take up one and half pages of the double page spread. On my contents page I am going to have another picture of Ami and some other pictures of other bands who are in the media that week. Again the picture of the featured artist will take up most of the page.
I've had some idea's about the main headline on the double page spread.
'Take Over'- because she is taking the music industry by storm with her new single and up and coming album.
'Ami'- to make sure that the audience remember her name and have an idea of who she is.