Friday, 10 May 2013
Thursday, 9 May 2013
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
Re-Draft: Evaluation
1. In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
It was important that I researched into Existing Real Media Artifacts before constructing my own Music magazine as I had to understand how music magazines target their audiences and what codes and conventions are used with the magazine to make it effective.
For example including basic things such as a bar code and the price of the magazine on the front cover as well as a large title and sub-heading. I also noticed from looking at other music magazines that it is common for them to include a pug on the front cover so I chose to advertise free downloads in a bubble on my original front cover, as this draws the audience’s attention in. However, when redrafting my music magazine this year I chose not to include a Pug. As I have researched again this year and realised that Real Media Artifacts that are similar to the specific type of magazine which I am trying to create such as NME do not include pugs, as they tend to target a younger audience. I did not want to make my music magazine appear too childish or put off readers so I therefore decided against including any form of Pug on my Front cover, Contents or Double Page Spread.
As my music magazine is aimed for young adults, I chose to develop the forms and conventions of a music magazine that targets a similar audience. I found a successful magazine called MOJO which is similar to the magazine I was trying to create, so I then studied this magazine and learnt what worked well within it and what did not work so well. This helped me to plan my music magazine as I was learning the forms and conventions of the magazine and developing them further into my own work. I think the general house style of MOJO magazine challenges the usual codes and conventions of a music magazine, as the overall style is quite minimalistic. This gives the music magazine an edge to it, which the audience may find intriguing as it is unusual and makes the magazine stand out from others. I thought this was a clever technique and tried to develop this style in my own music magazine. I also looked at other magazines which are not just focused on music but also feature photography, culture and fashion such as i-D Magazine and Dazed&Confused Magazine. Both of these are targeted at young adults with a similar age range as my target audience so I have looked into these Real Media Artifacts in detail to see what codes and conventions they are using and I have tried to develop them in my own work. For example, I have tried to develop on the minimalistic style within these existing Magazines, as this look more fashionable and interests a younger audience. These two Magazines also influenced me to focus on the main artists Charity work instead of her music career, I wanted to focus on a different aspect as I wanted my music magazine to be unique. Therefore when interviewing the artist it was mostly based on her opinions and how she wanted to make a difference, which I think is what young people generally like to read about as she could be seen as very inspiring, as well as giving the source of music a deeper meaning as the artist in my music magazine is trying to do something really special.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product would reflect a younger generation; due to the Indie/Alternative style of music my magazine therefore represents young Alternative social groups between the ages of 17-20. When I began re-drafting the construction I planned what my female artist was going to wear in order to ensure that she would be accepted by the social group reading the magazine. For instance, I ensured that she would wear a beanie hat as this is what typical Indie boys and girls wear, as well as a plain over sized tshirt with rolled up sleeves. This is not the most exciting outfit in the world, but I chose it because it is recognised by this particular social group as an acceptable thing to wear and they can relate to it easily, making it more likely that they will relate to the artist. As well as this, the images that I took and included in my magazine also represented my target audience, as I featured both male and female artists. Although a Beanie hat could be seen as quite a masculine thing to wear I think it worked well with the female artist because she has very feminine features and is very pretty, therefore these things contrast against each other but work well as they even each other out. If I had photographed the female artist without a heavy hat on she may have appeared to feminine and my male audience could have been put off. The female artist therefore represents both genders in an Indie social group.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I found out where people prefer to buy their music magazines from my questionnaire. The most popular choice for young adults to read magazines was online, so if I was in charge of distributing my magazine I would make sure that it featured a website (named Voltage.co.uk so it would be easy to locate online) I would also make it easy to for anyone to sign up online and ensure that subcribers would save money so that they would be more tempted to subscbribe to my magazine. As the idea of an online magazine was a popular choice of distribution for my product I'd have to make it fully available to view online. I could even set up a free trial for each customer, in order to try and sell my product more as many young adults like to look at new sites everyday and it's likely that they could stumble across my magazine website. A free trial would therefore grab their attention and which they are unlikely to say no to, helping my product to become more well known. Another popular choice was subscription, so I would also make sure that my magazines could be posted door to door, as this would ensure that my magazine made a certain amount of money each month. As people tend to forget to buy magazines each month, by subscribing it would ensure that they never miss an issue. The most popular choice for people to buy the magazine each month was in a Supermarket, as stores such as this are more convenient for the audience, compared to shops they are less likely to visit on a regular basis such as HMV or Water stones. It’s therefore important that I consider this when distributing my magazine, as Supermarkets are a popular choice for my audience. In Supermarkets such as this, my magazines main competition on the shelves would be indie/rock music magazines, such as NME, Q, and MOJO. I think these three magazines would be my strongest competition, as their readers tend to be a little bit older than audiences for magazines such as KERRANG!
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Young adults that are interested in the different effects that music can have and the power it has. I have tried to focus on this in my music magazine by featuring Avery Rose's DJ event which raised money for charity. Topics like this where someone has become successful through music and is then trying to do good from that is generally in the public interest, no matter what age they are. I also wanted to do something slightly different in order to interest my target audience and stand out from existing Real Media Artifacts which could be seen as competition. The genre of my music magazine is mostly Indie but also features some Alternative music such as Drum and Bass. So my target audience would be young people that enjoy these types of music and that are also likely to enjoy big nights out such as drum and bass events or DJ sets. Something like this is fits in well with my target audience, as young adults are going to be more interested in events such as this. If I was targeting a younger audience I wouldn’t mention nights out, as many of them wouldn’t be old enough to go. I have tried to make my magazine look quite professional and give it an Alternative feel so that the house style suits the genre of the music in my magazine, so my target audience could possibly match this type of style themselves.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
I looked at other music magazines and worked out what worked best when it came to attracting a younger audience. Generally speaking, I found that most magazine's targetting young adults stick to a simplistic and minimal style. There is a bold use of white and black in most magazine and they tend to include only one main colour alongside this. I tried to develop this in my construction by making my music magazine look edgy and up to date with the time, so that young adults would be interested in buying it, as younger audiences want something new and exciting. As well as this, I also made sure I took notice of my questionnaire, as it helped me to get a better understanding of what young adults want to see in a music magazine. It was important that I featured up and coming artists and new music in my magazine, as I found this was the most popular feature in a music magazine. This was therefore the most popular thing to see on a front cover from my questionnaire, so I chose to include a new artist who is named "Your favourite artist of 2013" on the front cover. In my questionnaire I asked my target audience what captures their eye most on a front cover, my results showed that the image is the main thing that draws the audience in. It was therefore vital that the image was perfectly in focus, edited and looked professional as I had already planned that it should be a medium close up of the artist from the shoulders up, as they are the images that sell magazines most effectively. In my original draft I included a quote taken from the interview with the artists featured as this interests my target audience and draws my readers in. However, for my re-draft I chose not to include a quote from the interview as it seemed to take up too much space and made my front cover appear messy. When constructing my re-drafts I asked 5 people that fitted into my target audience what they thought of my magazine as the process went on so that I knew whether or not I was on the right track, this really helped me to understand my target audience better and made me feel more confident in my work.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I learnt how to use Serif Page Plus, which I used to construct my music magazine. When beginning this coursework I had never used the programme before but it was very easy to understand and extremely useful for this piece of coursework. I learnt a lot of new skills from it and I'm glad that I used Serif for my music magazine as it has more options and made my magazine look much more professional, compared to a magazine that has been created on a common programme such as PowerPoint. For my original drafts I played around with lots of editing techniques on Serif, such as the option of making things 3rd, and putting text in different shapes such as circles or L shapes, allowing me to make my double page spread more effective. I learnt how to create a colour scheme which I used in my plan for my original drafts, this was really handy as I had Serif save the exact colours I needed so that I could use them over and over again for every draft. When starting my re-draft for this piece of coursework I taught myself to alter the font by changing its transparency, as well as giving the text a pattern, which I used in my title "Voltage" on the front cover.
As well as this, I also edited the images I took that featured in my magazine on Photoshop. This allowed me to edit my images to so that they suited the style of my music magazine and linked in with the genre of music I was including in my magazine. As my music magazine follows an Indie/Alternative Genre it was important that I edited my images so that they suited the grungey genre. I therefore made all my images that featured in my magazine black and white as it made them look darker and more edgy, which suited the style of the magazine. I then played around with the contrast and curve levels for each image, as this adds more depth to the image and makes it look more effective. It could be argued that this is an unusual thing to do to an image that is going to feature on a front cover, as I learnt from researching other music magazines that artists are usually airbrushed and made to look as perfect as possible as a way of promoting them. However, in my original construction I wanted to challenge this when it came to my front cover, so by highlighting his bad skin instead of trying to airbrush it, it made the image seem more realistic which fitted in well with his “unfortunate background” which featured in the interview. Obviously, I have changed my artist since then in my re-draft so I had to alter this slightly for a woman. The female artist I photographed did not have bad skin so I did not have any problem areas to deal with, which was quite lucky. If she did have bad skin I don't think I would have tried to emphasise on her flaws like I did with my last artist, as this would effect the idea of male gaze and male consumers may have been put off.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking at my Preliminary task now that I have completed my final pages for my music magazine, I think the Prelim looks very amateur. This could be for a number of reasons; one being that my choice of background colour on my Preliminary task is quite childish. For my final front cover I chose to make the image take up the entire page, which made my front cover look more professional. The image on my final front cover was also taken at a better angle, as the image was closer up, this showed more detail on the artist and I think the photo was more effective compared to the image I used in my Prelim which was a medium close up and seemed too distant.
I feel as though I have progressed a lot and now have a much clearer understanding of the codes and conventions of a typical music magazine, and that I can now effectively target a young audience. There is not a huge difference between my orginal drafts and my re-drafts which I have done this year but I think the small changes are what make it look a lot more successful. I'm glad that I chose to feature a female artist as this is a more modern approach that hardly any music magazines do and I felt as though I should take advantage of this niche market whilst still targetting both genders.
It was important that I researched into Existing Real Media Artifacts before constructing my own Music magazine as I had to understand how music magazines target their audiences and what codes and conventions are used with the magazine to make it effective.
For example including basic things such as a bar code and the price of the magazine on the front cover as well as a large title and sub-heading. I also noticed from looking at other music magazines that it is common for them to include a pug on the front cover so I chose to advertise free downloads in a bubble on my original front cover, as this draws the audience’s attention in. However, when redrafting my music magazine this year I chose not to include a Pug. As I have researched again this year and realised that Real Media Artifacts that are similar to the specific type of magazine which I am trying to create such as NME do not include pugs, as they tend to target a younger audience. I did not want to make my music magazine appear too childish or put off readers so I therefore decided against including any form of Pug on my Front cover, Contents or Double Page Spread.
As my music magazine is aimed for young adults, I chose to develop the forms and conventions of a music magazine that targets a similar audience. I found a successful magazine called MOJO which is similar to the magazine I was trying to create, so I then studied this magazine and learnt what worked well within it and what did not work so well. This helped me to plan my music magazine as I was learning the forms and conventions of the magazine and developing them further into my own work. I think the general house style of MOJO magazine challenges the usual codes and conventions of a music magazine, as the overall style is quite minimalistic. This gives the music magazine an edge to it, which the audience may find intriguing as it is unusual and makes the magazine stand out from others. I thought this was a clever technique and tried to develop this style in my own music magazine. I also looked at other magazines which are not just focused on music but also feature photography, culture and fashion such as i-D Magazine and Dazed&Confused Magazine. Both of these are targeted at young adults with a similar age range as my target audience so I have looked into these Real Media Artifacts in detail to see what codes and conventions they are using and I have tried to develop them in my own work. For example, I have tried to develop on the minimalistic style within these existing Magazines, as this look more fashionable and interests a younger audience. These two Magazines also influenced me to focus on the main artists Charity work instead of her music career, I wanted to focus on a different aspect as I wanted my music magazine to be unique. Therefore when interviewing the artist it was mostly based on her opinions and how she wanted to make a difference, which I think is what young people generally like to read about as she could be seen as very inspiring, as well as giving the source of music a deeper meaning as the artist in my music magazine is trying to do something really special.
My media product would reflect a younger generation; due to the Indie/Alternative style of music my magazine therefore represents young Alternative social groups between the ages of 17-20. When I began re-drafting the construction I planned what my female artist was going to wear in order to ensure that she would be accepted by the social group reading the magazine. For instance, I ensured that she would wear a beanie hat as this is what typical Indie boys and girls wear, as well as a plain over sized tshirt with rolled up sleeves. This is not the most exciting outfit in the world, but I chose it because it is recognised by this particular social group as an acceptable thing to wear and they can relate to it easily, making it more likely that they will relate to the artist. As well as this, the images that I took and included in my magazine also represented my target audience, as I featured both male and female artists. Although a Beanie hat could be seen as quite a masculine thing to wear I think it worked well with the female artist because she has very feminine features and is very pretty, therefore these things contrast against each other but work well as they even each other out. If I had photographed the female artist without a heavy hat on she may have appeared to feminine and my male audience could have been put off. The female artist therefore represents both genders in an Indie social group.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I found out where people prefer to buy their music magazines from my questionnaire. The most popular choice for young adults to read magazines was online, so if I was in charge of distributing my magazine I would make sure that it featured a website (named Voltage.co.uk so it would be easy to locate online) I would also make it easy to for anyone to sign up online and ensure that subcribers would save money so that they would be more tempted to subscbribe to my magazine. As the idea of an online magazine was a popular choice of distribution for my product I'd have to make it fully available to view online. I could even set up a free trial for each customer, in order to try and sell my product more as many young adults like to look at new sites everyday and it's likely that they could stumble across my magazine website. A free trial would therefore grab their attention and which they are unlikely to say no to, helping my product to become more well known. Another popular choice was subscription, so I would also make sure that my magazines could be posted door to door, as this would ensure that my magazine made a certain amount of money each month. As people tend to forget to buy magazines each month, by subscribing it would ensure that they never miss an issue. The most popular choice for people to buy the magazine each month was in a Supermarket, as stores such as this are more convenient for the audience, compared to shops they are less likely to visit on a regular basis such as HMV or Water stones. It’s therefore important that I consider this when distributing my magazine, as Supermarkets are a popular choice for my audience. In Supermarkets such as this, my magazines main competition on the shelves would be indie/rock music magazines, such as NME, Q, and MOJO. I think these three magazines would be my strongest competition, as their readers tend to be a little bit older than audiences for magazines such as KERRANG!
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Young adults that are interested in the different effects that music can have and the power it has. I have tried to focus on this in my music magazine by featuring Avery Rose's DJ event which raised money for charity. Topics like this where someone has become successful through music and is then trying to do good from that is generally in the public interest, no matter what age they are. I also wanted to do something slightly different in order to interest my target audience and stand out from existing Real Media Artifacts which could be seen as competition. The genre of my music magazine is mostly Indie but also features some Alternative music such as Drum and Bass. So my target audience would be young people that enjoy these types of music and that are also likely to enjoy big nights out such as drum and bass events or DJ sets. Something like this is fits in well with my target audience, as young adults are going to be more interested in events such as this. If I was targeting a younger audience I wouldn’t mention nights out, as many of them wouldn’t be old enough to go. I have tried to make my magazine look quite professional and give it an Alternative feel so that the house style suits the genre of the music in my magazine, so my target audience could possibly match this type of style themselves.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
I looked at other music magazines and worked out what worked best when it came to attracting a younger audience. Generally speaking, I found that most magazine's targetting young adults stick to a simplistic and minimal style. There is a bold use of white and black in most magazine and they tend to include only one main colour alongside this. I tried to develop this in my construction by making my music magazine look edgy and up to date with the time, so that young adults would be interested in buying it, as younger audiences want something new and exciting. As well as this, I also made sure I took notice of my questionnaire, as it helped me to get a better understanding of what young adults want to see in a music magazine. It was important that I featured up and coming artists and new music in my magazine, as I found this was the most popular feature in a music magazine. This was therefore the most popular thing to see on a front cover from my questionnaire, so I chose to include a new artist who is named "Your favourite artist of 2013" on the front cover. In my questionnaire I asked my target audience what captures their eye most on a front cover, my results showed that the image is the main thing that draws the audience in. It was therefore vital that the image was perfectly in focus, edited and looked professional as I had already planned that it should be a medium close up of the artist from the shoulders up, as they are the images that sell magazines most effectively. In my original draft I included a quote taken from the interview with the artists featured as this interests my target audience and draws my readers in. However, for my re-draft I chose not to include a quote from the interview as it seemed to take up too much space and made my front cover appear messy. When constructing my re-drafts I asked 5 people that fitted into my target audience what they thought of my magazine as the process went on so that I knew whether or not I was on the right track, this really helped me to understand my target audience better and made me feel more confident in my work.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I learnt how to use Serif Page Plus, which I used to construct my music magazine. When beginning this coursework I had never used the programme before but it was very easy to understand and extremely useful for this piece of coursework. I learnt a lot of new skills from it and I'm glad that I used Serif for my music magazine as it has more options and made my magazine look much more professional, compared to a magazine that has been created on a common programme such as PowerPoint. For my original drafts I played around with lots of editing techniques on Serif, such as the option of making things 3rd, and putting text in different shapes such as circles or L shapes, allowing me to make my double page spread more effective. I learnt how to create a colour scheme which I used in my plan for my original drafts, this was really handy as I had Serif save the exact colours I needed so that I could use them over and over again for every draft. When starting my re-draft for this piece of coursework I taught myself to alter the font by changing its transparency, as well as giving the text a pattern, which I used in my title "Voltage" on the front cover.
As well as this, I also edited the images I took that featured in my magazine on Photoshop. This allowed me to edit my images to so that they suited the style of my music magazine and linked in with the genre of music I was including in my magazine. As my music magazine follows an Indie/Alternative Genre it was important that I edited my images so that they suited the grungey genre. I therefore made all my images that featured in my magazine black and white as it made them look darker and more edgy, which suited the style of the magazine. I then played around with the contrast and curve levels for each image, as this adds more depth to the image and makes it look more effective. It could be argued that this is an unusual thing to do to an image that is going to feature on a front cover, as I learnt from researching other music magazines that artists are usually airbrushed and made to look as perfect as possible as a way of promoting them. However, in my original construction I wanted to challenge this when it came to my front cover, so by highlighting his bad skin instead of trying to airbrush it, it made the image seem more realistic which fitted in well with his “unfortunate background” which featured in the interview. Obviously, I have changed my artist since then in my re-draft so I had to alter this slightly for a woman. The female artist I photographed did not have bad skin so I did not have any problem areas to deal with, which was quite lucky. If she did have bad skin I don't think I would have tried to emphasise on her flaws like I did with my last artist, as this would effect the idea of male gaze and male consumers may have been put off.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking at my Preliminary task now that I have completed my final pages for my music magazine, I think the Prelim looks very amateur. This could be for a number of reasons; one being that my choice of background colour on my Preliminary task is quite childish. For my final front cover I chose to make the image take up the entire page, which made my front cover look more professional. The image on my final front cover was also taken at a better angle, as the image was closer up, this showed more detail on the artist and I think the photo was more effective compared to the image I used in my Prelim which was a medium close up and seemed too distant.
I feel as though I have progressed a lot and now have a much clearer understanding of the codes and conventions of a typical music magazine, and that I can now effectively target a young audience. There is not a huge difference between my orginal drafts and my re-drafts which I have done this year but I think the small changes are what make it look a lot more successful. I'm glad that I chose to feature a female artist as this is a more modern approach that hardly any music magazines do and I felt as though I should take advantage of this niche market whilst still targetting both genders.
Friday, 3 May 2013
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