Evaluation and Audience Feedback

Evaluation

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Through the use of models dressed in dark colours with piercings in awkward places e.g the tongue, I've represented the punk and gothic social groups. These are the groups that actually listen to this sort of music and stereotypically dress in dark clothes and have unique hairstyles or long hair which my front cover model has. The facial expression of my model is extreme which also represents the social group as its people normally dress extreme, act energetic and extreme and do not classify themselves as normal average people.

My contents page model has his shirt off which reveals a very masculine side which can be associated with many artists of the same genre and many people in the punk/gothic social group. The idea is to look rather dark, scary and strong which I feel is done well through the white mask and the intimidating body frame.

What media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The maedia institution I have chosen is Gordon and Gotch as they aer the distributors of 'Kerrang!' thus will have a lot of experience when distributing this sort of product. They will know where it should be sold attract audience's attention and they may have customer loyalty which brings more customers to the magazine because of who it is being distributed by. Magazines may be sold all over the country in places like HMV and WHSmith.

How did you attract/address your audience?

By using conventions of real media products such as dark colour shemes and bold titles and using models who were dressed like people from that social group I attracted my target audience as they would find similarities in their clothing and musical tastes and the tastes of the rockstars in the magazine. The use of guitars would immediately show that it is a music magazine and the clear image of the rockstar would attract her fans and would the large titles would attract loyal customers of the magazine. I made the price 3.50 pounds which is not too cheap but is still affordable. I didn't want it too be too cheap so it wouldn't devalue the magazine andyet not too expensive so that people would still think the free items are actually free and not that I am tricking them by making them pay higher prices for the magazine as a whole whilst still saying there are free items i.e. posters.


What have you learnt from the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Through construction and blogging I have learnt how to use certain websits and programs more effectively. I used Photoshop and InDesign to edit my pictures. I've used youtube and google as research sources and have used blogger.com to write a journal on my products. In all programs and sites I am now more familiar with.

Google is the most popular search engine in the world and it is used to gather information about anything and everything. It is used by typing a word into the search bar and then it brings together all the information that it can find relating to what was typed. I used it to find out more about magazines and contents pages. I searched on how they looked, the most popular ones and their distributors. I have learnt better ways to research media products and good media product websites through usage of this site.

Photoshop is a program that is used to manipulate images. Through this program one can change a digital image in almost any way possible and fuse them with more than one other image. I used Photoshop to add effects like text and barcode pictures onto my image after taking it a on digital camera. I've learnt how to use this program well as I had no skills with it before this course.

InDesign is another program used to manipulate images. Through this program one can change a digital image and fuse images together although this program is better than Photoshop at laying out and organizing more than one different image on one canvas page especially for magazine contents pages. I've learnt how to use this program well as I also had no skills with it before this course.

Blogger.com is a website where people can write their ideas and views about anything. It can also be used to write stories and, in this case, journals. You can write anything in your blog and post it so it is available for the world to read. I used the blog as a journal on the process of creating my media products. It proved very useful and I have learnt to use it more efficiently and organize my thought better when writting.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

My magazine is aimed at both males and females from around ages 14-25. It is adapted to have a slightly bigger male fan group than female fan group as does the genre. The magazine is directed at these ages because they are the main ages in life when people associate themselves with the punk/gothic social group and are thus more likely to listen to metal rock music. Before 14 most children would have not entered such a phase and usually after 25 adults would have started moving out of such a phase and may develop new interests.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Since completing my preliminary product my knowledge on Photoshop has increased a lot. I have learnt different ways of fading and cutting out images. I've learnt how to place images on other images and change the colour, brightness and filters of the pictures. I am now able to do a lot more complex things to make my products look more sophisticated and realistic. I am now more confortable with programs such as Photoshop and InDesign.

Audience Feedback

At the end of my work I conducted a short questionnaire to see how my audience responded to the magazine. I asked questions to people between the ages of 16-18 who listened to this sort of music and brought magazines like 'Kerrang!'

Question 1: What are your thoughts on the title and the colour schemes?

Most of the audience liked the idea of 'Fuse' and the connection it had to electrical inst6ruments and the way of life of its performers. They also liked the way it glowed on the page but suggested that the 'u' should be a little more visable as it is being blocked by the models head. The audience felt that I had successfully used conventions of media products as I had used a dark colour scheme which enhanced the darkness of the genre and goes well with the dark clothing of the models.


Question 2: What did you feel about the model's dressing, poses and facial expressions?

All of the audience agreed that the two models looked like rockstars, not only because of the guitars but because of the facial expressions, dark dressing and 'bad-ass', controversial poses that are conventional to the social group and the genre. Many people liked how the female model stuck her tongue out as it futher enhanced her crazy character.


Question 3: What do you think of the band names?

Rock band names are usually very strange and unique so I tried to keep to this trend when naming my made up bands. The audience laughed at some of the names and liked them as they were very creative. A personal favourate of a certain person's was 'Pharoh's Slavez'.


Question 4: Would you pay for this magazine?

Many people said they would due to the variety of content shown on the contents page. Quite a few didn't mind paying 3.50 but there were a few that felt they would by it for at least 50p less. I, however, stuck to the original price as I had quite a few people who would still buy it at that.

Design Techniques and the use of Media Product conventions

Magazine Front Cover

I constructed my first draft of the cover in Adobe Photoshop by placing my picture in it and adding in text. I added my magazine title and information of other music interviews in the magazine but was unhappy with it as it didn't look like a proper music magazine. There was too much free space in the image and I felt that the name of the magazine was a little too long so after a while I decided to change it. The picture below is of my first draft of the cover.

I began to reconstruct my cover by using the crop tool to cut unnecessary space out of the picture which made my model look bigger on the background. I also got rid of the title and the rest of the text and started writing again. After I had finished the final front cover looked like this:

The use, development and challenging of conventions of real media products

I followed the conventions of a media magazine by using the image of a musician and presenting her boldly. I also followed conventions by presenting her name with bolder letters than the rest of the text. The big yellow text saying 'Miss Metal' will be easily visable and will attract her audience into the magazine. I decided to use bright text to make it visable but stick to the rock magazine conventions of plain colour backgrounds. Using a black background appeals to the audience as the genre is rather dark. My magazine speaks on punk, emo and metal rock which are dark sorts of music further enhanced by how their fans dress in dark clothes and accessories. This is furthermore the reason why my model is also dresssed in black. I decided I liked this pose on my model as it shows her in a crazy stance similar to rockstars and the life they live. The guitar helps to show the audience what type of magazine it is and the facial expression is crazy, rock-like and exposes a tongue piercing on the model. Piercings are very common to rockstars which is one of the reasons I chose this particular person as my model.

I kept to the conventions of a music magazine by adding the barcode in the right corner, a promoting slogan at the very top, the title below it and the issue number and price on it. I picked the title 'Fuse' because it brings to mind electricity and power. Rockstars have alot of energy and power when in performance so this title relates well to them. Rockstar's guitars also use electricity when being played so this further relates to the title. I put a glow effect around the title to give it a look of electricity running round it. I also followed the conventions of a rock magazine through adding free posters which will further attract customers. The presentation of the price and the barcode makes the product more realistic. The Price had to be presented carefully because an expensive magazine may not attract customers and make them feel that their free offers are not really free at all while a price set too low may make them feel that the magazine is low quality or has not presented quality information which has resulted to them selling it cheap to get rid of as many copies as they can as quickly as they can. I also presented the website so readers can comment on the magazine and obtain information on the contents or release date of the next is. I did challenge a convention of rock magazines by not putting multiple amounts of pictures of other bands on the front cover. This wasn't done so the focus is kept on the main model as she is featured in the most important article.

Magaine Contents Page

As well as the front cover, I also made a contents page that I scrapped because I didn't like certain features. My first contents page generally didn't look much like a real media product. I also decided that I'd like to have a different model from the front cover, placed on my contents page. Below is the first draft of my contents page:

I then decided to restart my contents page from scratch and use Adobe InDesign to do it . I used the pictures of me as the model and ordered my interviews and page numbers in columns like I'd seen being done in 'Kerrang!' I followed conventions of a rock magazine by adding more than one image to the contents page apart from the main image which I placed on the top half of the page exactly like the 'Kerrang!' contents page I blogged about earlier. The column method of organization makes my contents easy to understand so that the audience can see whats on offer and easily get to the page that is preferred. This is the image I used for my contents page:

I felt that this picture was better because it is more of an outrageous image. The model is shirtless and with a gothic white mask which is part of the scary image of most emo/metal rock musicians. The guitar and headphones round his neck help to further enhance the music theme. I decided on this background because it looks like a caged place which is even more gothic as he may depicted as an uncontrollable dark, gothic animal. I even made his name, Macdeth, rather horrific and also intersting as a creative spoof off Shakespeare's Macbeth. With this name the musician forms his own poetry through his music. The new magazine contents page can be seen at:

http://www.slideshare.net/petefrasers/contents-page-final-2-pdf

Double Page Spread

I used In-Design to create the double page spread. I opened up my picture and did some text wrapping before opening Microsoft Word to write my interview. I really enjoyed writing the interview and it gave me a chance to explore my creative abilities on paper. I decided to have an extreme title so I thought 'Mental Metal' would do well to describe the energy and craze of this rockstar. I also enlarged a quote from the musician in the interview so it would stand out when first turning to the page. This again follows the conventions of a music magaine. I chose a picture which again showed my model in a cray rock stance with the tongue piercing more visable. I kept with the dark colour scheme and gave a short introduction by the interviewer before going into the interview which is also conventional. Another thing common to music magaines is distinguishing between the interviewer and the interviewee through types of text. The words from my interviewer are written in bold whilst my musicians answers are not. As not all pages in a music magaine are marked by page numbers, I decided not to add them to my double page spread.

The magazine double page spread can be seen at:

http://www.slideshare.net/petefrasers/double-page-spread-01

Photoshoot

Magazine Photoshoot

I began to take pictures for my magazine cover and contents page. I did photoshoots for each page seperately. For the cover I placed my model infront of a black backdrop and shot them in different positions with and without musical instruments. We had to adjust the lighting a few times to make sure that the pictures would turn out bright enough and shot the models in different positions for variety so as to make a choice of the best one and the ones that will be used for the front cover and the double page spread. I instructed my model on how to pose and let them experiment with some of their own ideas. Reflecters where used to project more light onto the models which gave a good effect to the photographs. Later on, we did the same with a white back drop and picked the best pictures which we doctored in Adobe Photoshop and In-Design.

For my contents page, a various amount of photos were taken with the same model as for my front cover but I also experimented with a few shots of myself as a different rockstar. I placed the camera in places were I wanted it to be and told someone to take pictures of me posing with a guitar. The video below is of me posing for my contents page and being camera shot.

Music magazine research

Generic Conventions of a Music magazine

I have decided to make a Rock music magazine which covers all type of rock from punk to harcore metal. Before beginning work on my magazine I began to do research on other magazines of the same genre. The first magazine I took a look at was 'Rolling Stones' but this magazine was more of an all-genre magazine. I then looked at 'Kerrang!' which is a very popular rock magazine. Through looking through various images of their covers and contents pages I began to obtain ideas for my own products and also learnt more about conventions of rock magazines and how they differ from other genre magazines.


This is a picture of the front cover of a 'Kerrang!' magazine. One of the most conventional things about 'Kerrang!' and most rock music magazines is that it has a very full front page. There is little free space as big images and multiple amounts of text fill up the cover. The main image is of a stereotypical rockstar with dark clothes, messy hair and a musical instrument (in this case a guitar). These qualities immediately create awareness to the rock audience on what type of magazine it is and what is inside it. The image is large but goes against the conventions of most magazines because the model is not looking directly at us. None the less, the face is clearly shown so that fans of this particular person can immediately see him on the cover and get drawn into the magazine. In a further attempt to attract the audience, the bands name (Green Day) is towards the top of the page and at eye level and is written in big, bold letters. Also written in big, bold letters is the name of the magazine. This attracts the 'Kerrang!' audience to the magazine regardless of who features on the front cover. A well known and respected brand will be easily able to attract a wide audience as they have a reputation for presenting interesting stories relating to a particular type of music.


Also conventional to a music magazine is the front cover broadcasting of other stories in the magazine. In this cover, Muse and Slipknot are shown. There is even a small picture of Slipknot that is also conventional of rock magazines and not of others. Most Hip Hop magazines, for example, have the image of only one artist on their front covers.


This is a picture I took of a 'Kerrang!' contents page that I used to inspire my own magazine ideas. The page conventionally has a main image complemented by a few smaller ones around the page. The use of a big image at the top of the page shows a link to the contents of the magazine and that it is related to punk or emo sort of music. The picture is contraversial like its genre. This is shown through the long hair, screaming through the microphone and collapsing about of the rockstars in it.

The layout of the contents in columns makes it clear and easy to understand and it immediately shows a vast amount of stories which will attract the readers and it shows that the magazine covers a wide area of music. This is supplimented by the smaller images which help to liven up the page so its not boring. The titles are written in different colour writing also to liven up the page. I have also noticed that the rockstar on the contents page is not the same rockstar on the front cover which shows the range of popular musicians the magazine has stories on.


This is an image of a 'Kerrang!' double page spread. It conventionally show a big picture of the musician being interviewed with a short introduction in bold writing and a longer introduction right before the interview begins. The questions from the interviewer are in a different colour then the answers from the musician which distinguishes the two, making it easier for the audience to understand. In bold letters at the top of the page are blocks of speech quoted from the musician being interviewed. This is conventional to magazine interviews. The colour scheme is plain and dull which is also conventional to a rock magazine. These sorts of magazines usually use colours like black and grey as it is dark like the genre of music.

Introduction and Magazine cover preliminary

AS Media Blog

Introduction

This is a blog to record the process of my media products. I will make a cover, contents page and a double page spread of a music magazine that will use, challenge and develop the forms and conventions of a real media product. I shall also make a Preliminary piece of work which will be a school magazine.

Magazine Preliminary

The first piece of work created was making our preliminary task using Photoshop and this was a school magazine cover of St. Edmund's College. The image to your left is of the finished product. This task involved taking pictures of different areas of the school and figuring out the best one to use through the quality of the picture, the beauty of the image taken and the message it forwards to any readers (ie the connotations). We were introduced to the idea of promotion and using our pictures and products to attract a certain type of audience which in this case are children's parents. We circled the school taking pictures of the most attractive places and the places that forwarded a message of a good, safe, pieceful and academic environment. We also thought it would be a good idea to have images of students to possibly bring life to the front cover. My favourate image of a person was a medium close up image of a particular student on a computer. With a collection of pictures we then recided back into class to begin work on Adobe Photoshop. A lot of experimenting was done since it was my first time of using photoshop. First off I chose a shot that showed a large portion of the school from a side on view with the sun shining directly on it showing that the school was large and grand but still a happy colourful place. The grass helped to enhance the natural side of the school and also added to the colour and beauty of the picture and showed that the school grounds are not just a 'concrete jungle'.










I opened the picture up on Photoshop along with the medium close up. I used the Polygonal Lasso tool to cut out the person from the background of the close up and then I dragged the image onto the image of the school for the cover. I then used the Quick Selection tool, Magic wand to cut out my picture of the school crest and drag it onto the magazine cover. The medium shot was moved to the side of the page to show what a happy, smart student looked like and to give an outlook of the school's appearance. Apart from adding life to the cover, the smiling student also invites the audience into the magazine as the student is also looking directly at them as if to say, 'I am happy here. Come and take a look at what is making me happy'. I then faded away any unneeded parts of the medium shot (i.e the computer) so that it was only the student showing with the school in the background. The crest was moved to the other side of the picture to put a balance into the organization of the cover. The crest is essential because it represents the school, it's history and what it stands for. The logo will also be recognized anywhere whether on the school uniform or on the school gates so it is important it appears on the magazine to show ownership. The name of the magazine was then typed boldly on the top to catch peoples eyes. I named it Ediscope because it gives us a scope or insight in to the St. Edmund's College and its atmosphere.


This exercise helped me get used to Photoshop so that I would be comfortable with its gadgets when creating my other media products. It also gave me awareness of the things needed in the cover to attract audiences. I now had some experience in taking the right shots for a particular type of magazine and putting them together with technology. I had also gained the knowledge of how to use certain types of digital cameras.