Evaluation
Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Posture of both woman are both different in their own way
but then again so close, compared to other magazine main images, I tried to
make mine more unique with the pose of the model on the front cover my
magazine. Both of the images are taken with the model posing, with the legs slightly bent. The shot of the image on both front covers is a zoomed out shot, that show some of the models body, down to just below the knee. Both of the models shown in the picture above share the same facial
expression, both staring straight into the camera, this creates eye contact
with the reader of the magazine, and could potentially drag the reader in to
read the magazine, also the models on the front of the magazine, could
determine who reads the magazine, as they can relate to the model if they know
their music or if they are a fan etc. Both of the models are wearing a shirt
and shorts, even though the clothes look very different by looking at the
picture, the clothes are so close, how the two models are dressed. Both of the
images are taken with the model posing, with the legs slightly bent. However both of the photographs have been taken outside, but the one that is on the front of my magazine, I took the natural outside background out of it, and left the magazine with a white background so it could mainly focus on the main image on the front of my magazine, compared to the NME front cover where they have used mise en scene for their front cover, and thought carefully where they want there model to be situated, and what kind of enviroment that they want her in.
Question 3 - What kind of media institutions might distribute your media product and why?
I found it hard to try and comapre my magazine, with a different since I tried to make my magazine a ninche product, and do a regional magazine, in the North-East. My magazine, covers one genre of music magazine, but in the magazine, it covers most genres of music, from acoustic to R&B, talking about what artists play at the stadium of light e.g Rhinanna who is playing at the stadium this June, also mentions and shows a photo of Coldplay who played at the Stadium Of Light last June here in Sunderland.
There are alot of types of magazines these days, you can read magazines online loads of different genres, the main website that iv found is;
http://www.world-newspapers.com/music.html which shows alot of different genres, such as this Country one
This website, has a ninche market of Country music, and focus' on one type of audience for their product. The site allows the audience to comment on things, and subscribe to them through social media. This can then drag audience in to read the magazine more, and also if they mention something through social media people will then look into it and want to read on about the article they have mentioned on other sites. The only problem I would have found by focusing on one genre such as Country is that I wouldn't have found enough to talk about and also I don't think I would of had enough inforrmation to focus on one genre. Also buy having a webiste, as shown on the picture, it shows that you can buy now so by having a wedbsite, it enables them to make money through different media platforms.
The publisher of Country Weekly is a man called Troy Michigan.
Question 4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?
Question 5 - How did you attract/address your audience?
What attracted an audience to my magazine;
What attracted an audience to my magazine;
I dragegd an audience in with my front cover by;
- Making the artist stare at the camera, so that the audience relate with the model on the front and so that, the model and audience connect by eye.
- I put that it was the 50th addition so that buyers would want to buy the magazine as it was a special addition.
- I put a bar along the bottom of magazine, showing what else is shown in the magazine, so that the reader wants to read further and because its a regional magazine, they will want to know why the artists are mentioned in the North-East music magazine.
- Also I tried to make the writing on my magazine, unusual but easy to read so that it captures a audience, but its also easy to read from far away still.
After the front cover on the contents page, I kept it relativily the same as the front cover, so that it followed a theme. I added pictures of the artist shown on the front with more stories from around the area, I put normal magazine instutions, like a e-mail adddress for the reader to contact the magazine (www.independantmagazine.co.uk) and then I put institutions such as the issue number, contact number, address. I also put page numbers on which indicates pages in the magazine, I did a unusual font for the page numbers too, so that it made my magazine, different to other magazines. I used art font and then used american typewriter font.
For my double page spread I did a face image of the artist on the page, facing the writing, this is different to a normal magazine, because they normally have the image on the left hand page, when you first go to read the double page spread, Also I used one main image, which isn't facing the audience, which is different to the rest of the photos that I put on of the artist. I had a few problems trying to attract a audience into my double page spread, like what shall I base my double page spread on? Shall I do it on the artists travels? Shall I do it from my point of view from the show? Or shall I do a review and ask the artist questions? I ended up doing a review and then asking the artist questions. I think this was the best idea as it got points of view of the artist across, and I think this is what readers like when they are reading magazines, E.g if they are reading a gossip magazine, and there is a interview from a celebritiy in it, this would attract the reader to buy it, if they were getting primary infromation from the celeb.
Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The equipment that I used to do my magazine, is a Apple Mac, Iphone camera/Nikon camera. The reason that we used Apple Macs was for the photoshop software. By being able to use these softwares, they helped me alot with my final product. Because of effects, programming, image quality, editing, etc. this help create my final piece, look much more effect in comaprison if I had used another programme such as powerpoint to create my product. If we didn't have the software and hardware that I was lucky enough to be able to use, I might have came across a few obsticles with making my final prooduct.
I would of struggle being able to take my pictures, as I took them at different times, I had already hit an obsticle, that one of the days that I went to take pictures, I was unable to take the proper camera, and I was left to use the camera on my phone, which then when I was putting my magazine together, I realised, that some photos were of a much better quality compared, to the photos that were taken on my iphone. If I wasn't able to access any type of camera, I would have had big diffculties, when it came to my final piece, as I would be restricted of where I could of taken the photos becasue I would of had to lend a camera.
Other problems that could of happened if I was able to access the technology that I had would be that I might not of been able to layer my product properly, and wouldn't be able to access certain tools that I had to use when doing my magazine, such as the wand tool, blur, layers, magnifying glass, etc. By using these effects it helped create my maagzine and make my final piece look much better compared to something that I could of made on another software, such as PowerPoint.
Without being able to use the internet I wouldn't of been able to research into what genre of music I wanted to make my magazine on, as I was trying to see where the was a space on the market, for a niche magazine. Then I used the internet again, to research other magazines to see the layout of other peoples magazines, and how magazines, were put together, and what attracts audiences to magazines, what draws the readers in to buy the magazines, and then go ahead to read them. Also what kind of magazines, to subscriptions, and how they write about it in their magazines. The internet made it much easier to get information on magazines, and helped me alot with my research.
By using certain internet pages, such as NME.com this enabled me to look at the types of things, this kind of genre puts into their magazine and becasue NME magazine, is a well known music magazine, I thought that this website would help me alot with what readers want in a music magazine and what kind of things inside of NME as I had never read a NME magazine, before I had to make my own music magazine.
Question 7 - Looking back at your premliminary task (the school/college magazine task/short film squence), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from that to your full product?
Looking back at my premlimainary task, I have learnt, what is needed for a magazine to sell and look good to a audience e.g. what is needed on a front cover, and learnt the meanings and conventions of magazines, know more about what is shown on the front cover (main sell lines, main image, title) and what gets the audiences attention from what you put on your magazine.
Music Magazine Front Cover
With my magazine, I added all the the main conventions of a magazine, but the difference between my music magazine and the preliminary task, is that the genres of magazine were different therefore you needed to use different images, shots, writing, effects and information in the magazine. From doing a music magazine I have learnt that it is very different to doing a general gossip magazine like heat or Elle magazines, which are most magazines, which are on the market today.. Mainly woman that read it, where as a music magazine, can be for both sexes.
Magazines on the market today (Gossip)
My thoughts on music magazines, is that the magazine, has to be fixed on certain genres, depending on who you want your audiences to be. Where as all i needeed to focus on with the preliminary task was one subjet, which was the college. I found the preliminary task easier because of the type of magazine it was because I knew more about it, but obviously it wasn't as good as my main magazine, because of the time that we were limited to when doing the task.
Preliminary Task Front Cover
From doing the preliminary task it helped me alot, knowing where to put things on my magazine, and knowing what looked good and what didn't as I tried alot of things out on the preliminary magazine. Even though we all did the preliminary task on powerpoint compared to on the main magazine we had to do the whole thing on photoshop, it still helped me towards my main magazine, and gave me a feel to what making a magazine would invovle, and how much time it takes to produce a magazine. It also made me think about what kind of image I would want for my front cover and what would stand out and look good to a audience.
I think that i made alot of progression from my preliminary task to my final piece, even looking at the two pieces together you can tell, that the main magazine took much longer that the preliminary task. I think that everything on the main magazine, is a big upgrade from what is on the preliminary task mag. The picture quality is know where near as good on the premliminary task as it is on the main magazine, the models on the college mag don't catch the attention of the reader, compared to the main magazine model. If both magazines were on a shelf, I wouldn't even look at the college magazine I would go straight for the independant music magazine. Even though they are different genres and they should look different, if you looked at the college preliminary task magazine, you wouldn't have a clue on tge genre, you would have to look further and read about it to see what was inside of the magazine.
