Diary Entry Week 16

This week I received audience feedback on my front cover, contents page and double page spread. I am using this feedback to continuously improve my work. I opened up my work in Photoshop, and my peers then analysed my work and wrote down comments using the notes tool. I am also currently working on the Mise-en-scene for my magazine.

I encountered problems with my front cover. I worked on it at home using Photoshop CS5, however CS3 is used at school, therefore I am unable to work on my front cover at school as it is incompatible.

What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?

Diary Entry Week 15

This week I completed the Photo shoot. It went relatively well in my opinion, as I was able to get several good shots. However, another student double booked over my photoshoot slot, so I had to take my photos in various different areas around the school. If I feel that I need more photos, I will book another slot for my photoshoot to give me a broader range of images available to me. I also begun the first draft of my front cover.

How does my media product represent particular social groups?

My music magazine ‘RAW’ is aimed primarily at heavy metal music fans. After closely studying my similar product research magazines, such as ‘Kerrang!’. I drew the conclusion that my target audience would be interested in artists with rebellious traits and characteristics. For example, I found that my target audience enjoyed reading about people such as Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold and Slipknot. This is because of their rebellious take on life and the consequential attitude shown in their music. These characters would be shown in magazines such as ‘Kerrang!’ with guns and covered in blood – signifying their rebellious and defiant personalities.

I wanted to make my magazine appeal to the same audience as ‘Kerrang!’ and those like it; because of this I chose to use a group of three people on my cover with one man who hides his face behind dark sunglasses, symbolising his ‘shady’ personality. They all have dark hair connoting their ‘dark-sides’. This will effortlessly appeal to my target audience as the dark colours used for their clothing (e.g. their popular metal-band t-shirts) and their facial expressions will reflect their characteristics, signifying they are dark, and interesting to read about.

I have tried to make my magazine appeal to an audience who listen to rock or heavy-metal music. I did this by using colours such as red, black and white as a general house style as I found it was quite a popular colour scheme; used in other rock magazines such as ‘Kerrang!’. The bold, striking fonts will also appeal to the metal community as it reflects the boldness and rebelliousness of the music genre and how indifferent the genre is in general.

I began my article with the sentence: “Anyone who hasn’t had the privilege of having listened to this next band’s talents, are really missing out!” This is because it will have an instant impact on my target audience if they are wondering whether or not it is worth it to read on. This type of language will stand out to them as they will have a sudden interest in who I am talking about. The general tone of my article is friendly and honest. This causes my target audience feel that the information they are reading is exclusive and makes them feel special as if they’re the first to read it. This tone also relates to my target audience as they will enjoy learning about the people behind the music and their true ways. This may also inspire my target audience to try and be more like them.

My cover models facial expressions are generally happy, however, Dan (the man in the photo) has a significantly less chirpy face as I intended for him to be the bands ‘bad boy’ which stereotypically attracts a lot of fans and causes them to want to read on. This also creates a mysterious appearance for my feature artists, helping to sell the article further as the target audience will feel curious about her and want to read on. My target audience will relate to my feature bands front cover picture as their stances show their attitudes towards each other; close and friendly. However on my double page spread they are more relaxed; showing the reader what the band are like ‘under the surface’, allowing the reader to understand who they truly are.

I wanted to portray my feature artists as bold and rebellious but also approachable. I wanted to achieve this in order to make my target audience feel admiration towards the new band but to also feel intrigued by their appearance. This means that my magazine aims to inspire young musicians or singers, making them want to read about a new band that have just made it big, as they will be able to look up to and idolise them.

Audience Feedback

I got some audience feedback on my magazine to reassure me that my magazine was absolutely finished.

People believed that this was my strongest page, "All the titles are big and eye catching and the colour scheme works really well."

 People believed that this page had improved the most over the course of this production task.

People believed that this page was most impressive due to Photoshop skills, "The way the text wraps around each of them is incredible."

Diary Entry Week 14

This week I completed all of the planning documents for my magazine, apart from the Photo shoot. I believe that the planning stage of my magazine will help me improve and develop my initial ideas, after receiving feedback on the documents. Last week I decided to change the model that will be taking part in my magazine photo shoot. The reasons behind this are because I felt that my new model would suit the genre of my magazine more, and I believe that he is more reliable and would be able available when required (for future shoots).

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

My magazine “RAW” is a heavy metal based music magazine. My magazine closely follows conventions of other similar magazines in its category; however it does differ slightly from the most popular of music magazines.

My music magazine is similar to Kerrang! In the sense that they are primarily both about heavy metal, but on the other hand the layouts are similar as well, due to the fact that I loosely based my magazine on Kerrang! They both have big, bold, striking Mastheads to draw in the readers’ eye. The Sell lines are positioned mostly towards the bottom half of the front cover and a powerful picture of the main focal band of the week. As is compulsory on any products; my magazine includes a barcode and price. It also includes a website URL and a tag-line underneath the masthead itself. The information included on my front page was made up by me but I tried to keep it interesting as official music magazines have professionals coming up with sell lines that capture the reader and make them want to read the story. This is accomplished through the use of puns and or excessive use of punctuation to seem aesthetically appealing to readers “System of a Down – Still down under”. My contents page has 4 subheadings; which is typical of most music magazines as it breaks the contents down further into more easy-to-read topics, allowing the reader to quickly find what they’re looking for or simply to see what features in this week’s particular issue. The double page spreads are also alike to most other music magazine equivalents; an interview, surrounding a picture or two of the person/band in question. With clear signs of text wrapping used to boast the professionalism of my magazine to the actual reader.

I attempted to avoid challenging the typical forms and conventions used in the creation of magazines in media, specifically because they are used and referred to as ‘typical conventions’ because they do exactly what they are intended to do; attract the audience’s attention and convey information in an entertaining and enjoyable way.

Diary Entry Week 13

Earlier in the week, I decided to improve my masthead as I wasn't happy with the finished product. I spent the last two days trying to produce a better version.

The final version of my second masthead uses colours more suited to my colour scheme than my old masthead. The actual masthead itself is also of higher quality.

Overall I believe that this is a significantly better masthead, as it appears to stand out, whilst remaining sophisticated at the same time.

Recently, I have also uploaded my Model Release Form, which gives me permission to use photos and that I have taken of my model in my magazine. I also begun drafting ideas for the article that will appear in my double page spread.

Diary Entry Week 12

Over the last 3 days I produced a Sell Lines/Contents Page ideas document. It contains examples of sell lines on leading music magazines, and their contents pages.

These examples helped provide me with ideas for my own Sell Line - text ideas, design (font style, size, etc.). I then went on to find ideas for my own contents page. After looking at other examples, I produced a list of different possible categories to put inside my own contents page.

I also decided that I was not entirely satisfied with the first masthead I created. I felt that it wouldn't stand out as much as I would like it to, so I have begun to work on a second version, which I will post on my blog, with screenshots of different stages of it being created.