Wednesday, 8 May 2013
Diary Entry 17
Today I have finished my blog, as I started a power point over the weekend and lost everything I had to result in handing in a blog which i'm not too pleased with but I just don't have the time anymore to complete a power point.
Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The style model I researched in my planning was Q and this is the magazine I stuck to and made my magazine against.
Which codes and convection's I used on the front cover
The circle with writing inside which caught people’s eyes and really stood out is something I included in mine. This is something which is normally first read as it is the biggest thing on the page other than the image and will get the message across when read.
The style model I researched in my planning was Q and this is the magazine I stuck to and made my magazine against.
Which codes and convection's I used on the front cover
The circle with writing inside which caught people’s eyes and really stood out is something I included in mine. This is something which is normally first read as it is the biggest thing on the page other than the image and will get the message across when read.
All text on the front of Q is in capitals therefore I copied this convention and is something I’m pleased I did as it really gets the writing on the front cover across to the readers and allows you to make bits of text stand out more than others.
The Bar Code is something I really liked when doing my initial research it places down the side out the way with the price date and issue number under it so this is something I included in mine.
A main thing for Q was to have a large image in the middle and the text around the image, this is something I liked and used on mine as it allows you to see the photo clearly and also take the text in and read it all without been distracted.
Which codes and convection I used on the content page
Most of Q’s content pages when I did my research had a big main image on the right and a few different images in other places therefore I have kept this and put it into my magazine.
There were a few different magazines of Q’s I picked up and they had a review section in the bottom bit, I thought this was a great idea and people’s attention is really drawn to it therefore is something I included in my magazine and allowed me to include more images within the content page.
Of course on a Content Page you will need a list of page numbers and what is on each page, I liked how Q had their pages down the left hand side and really spread out, easy to read and sort snippets of what is on that page. This is something I kept on mine and love how it turned out.
On most pages the name of the magazine is included and on the content page it is situate near the top and this is something I have included in my magazine.
Which codes and convections I used on the double page spread
The main image has been placed on the left hand side of the page and slightly over lapping the fold in the middle as when I did my research this was one of the conventions. As shown in the image below this is also done on Q magazines.
Most magazines have the name of the singer and when I did my research on Q magazines this is something I picked up on and had to include in mine as I have done in the title of the article.
In all articles within Q magazine the text is in three columns therefore to stick to the convention of a real magazine I made my article into three columns.
A very popular contention throughout most magazines not just music is to have a larger letter at the beginning of articles and paragraphs known as a drop capital. This is something I most definitely needed to have in my magazine to make it look professional and realistic.
All pages within a magazine need to have the page number on it. I noticed on every page of Q they also had the name of magazine so therefore I put a page number and control the name of my magazine at the bottle of my double page spread.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Age
The age group of my magazine is aged towards 16-20 however people over the age of 20 are still going to be attracted towards this magazine. As it is a pop magazine it is aimed towards the younger generation.
Ethnic Minority Groups
My music magazine doesn’t really have an ethnic group as it is a aimed at pop music and has a happy fun theme throughout it does not equal out any particular group and allows everyone to read and enjoy it.
Sexuality
The sort of audience it is addressed towards is heterosexuality as it is based very much on a straight male therefore it is going to attract the straight female.
Class and Status
My magazine is aimed for a lower class sort of group as it is a pop magazine and the language within is very slang and childish. The lower class would be interested in this more whereas an middle class or upper class would take one look at it and put it straight back.
Gender
My magazine is defiantly aimed towards females as the images on the front cover and within are of a young male. A male would not be interested in this magazine one bit and would probably laugh if they read it.
Age
The age group of my magazine is aged towards 16-20 however people over the age of 20 are still going to be attracted towards this magazine. As it is a pop magazine it is aimed towards the younger generation.
Ethnic Minority Groups
My music magazine doesn’t really have an ethnic group as it is a aimed at pop music and has a happy fun theme throughout it does not equal out any particular group and allows everyone to read and enjoy it.
Sexuality
The sort of audience it is addressed towards is heterosexuality as it is based very much on a straight male therefore it is going to attract the straight female.
Class and Status
My magazine is aimed for a lower class sort of group as it is a pop magazine and the language within is very slang and childish. The lower class would be interested in this more whereas an middle class or upper class would take one look at it and put it straight back.
Gender
My magazine is defiantly aimed towards females as the images on the front cover and within are of a young male. A male would not be interested in this magazine one bit and would probably laugh if they read it.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The type of company that distributes your magazine says a lot about the type of product that it is. It tells you what it values and messages it contains and also who the audience are and how important profit is to your product and your company.
Frontline is a very well-known magazine publisher it was formed in June 1986 and have four main partners.
· Seymour
· Haymarket
· BBC Enterprises
· H Bauer
These provide many different sources of revenue and more profits for the company. Frontline sells and distributes over 160 magazine titles including 54 of the top 200 bestselling magazines in the UK by selling nearly 8 million copies every week, through over 55,000 shops ranging from smallest corner stores to the biggest supermarkets which makes them the biggest magazine distributor in the UK. This is why I would want Frontline to distribute my magazine nationally.
Frontline provide for all genres from music to self help and for many different audiences. Popular wellknown magazines that they distrubute are Heat, Bella, Kerrang! And Q.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
My music magazine represents a particular age group between 16-20 years old, but mainly anyone who is interested in the young fashionable good looking male who can sing incredibly well. It is aimed more towards Females as the type of artist who is the main model on the magazine is a male which will attract the females. All young females fantasise about their favourite pop star/singer/artist been there boyfriend and these are the sort of people who would want to buy the magazine as they will want to read more into John Murs, representing Olly Murs.
You always get screaming girls over a boy who can sing, the younger male singers around the age of 16-18 years old always attract the younger girls aged 12-18 years old whereas my male model on the magazine is aged 24 and I wanted to try and attract a wider range of girls. If the singer is a bit old they always seem to get attention from all ages from 12-30, this is why I wanted this sort of model on my magazine as it will attract a wider range and be able to sell more. Rather than having a much younger singer and it just attracting the younger girls.
My music magazine represents a particular age group between 16-20 years old, but mainly anyone who is interested in the young fashionable good looking male who can sing incredibly well. It is aimed more towards Females as the type of artist who is the main model on the magazine is a male which will attract the females. All young females fantasise about their favourite pop star/singer/artist been there boyfriend and these are the sort of people who would want to buy the magazine as they will want to read more into John Murs, representing Olly Murs.
You always get screaming girls over a boy who can sing, the younger male singers around the age of 16-18 years old always attract the younger girls aged 12-18 years old whereas my male model on the magazine is aged 24 and I wanted to try and attract a wider range of girls. If the singer is a bit old they always seem to get attention from all ages from 12-30, this is why I wanted this sort of model on my magazine as it will attract a wider range and be able to sell more. Rather than having a much younger singer and it just attracting the younger girls.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Before making the magazine I did a questionnaire and ask a variety of questions which would help me understand what my target audience wanted on a music magazine. One of the questions was What sort of things on the front cover of a magazine makes you pick it up and buy it? One of the answers I received back and thought this is what I was going to base my cover on was “A Singer I like or a singer that has some gossip going round about them, someone who I want to read about!”
As Olly Murs is a very popular guy and has plenty of fans this is who I used and thought this is how id address my audience.
Another question I asked was Do you like your magazine to have a lot of images rather than text? 8 out of 10 people said yes therefore I put quite a few images on my music magazine hoping this would help attract the right audience.
The sort of language used was informal as I thought this was going to be the best way to grab their attention. I wrote my article in a very chatty form as I thought this would relate to my audience and really bring them into the magazine. They would be able to understand it a lot better than it been very formal. As well as it grabbing the attention of the audience it makes it more interesting and less boring.
The font I used is very different and unique which will draw in the audience, as it is a lot different from anything else it will stand out. The text I used was very bold, silly and pop like to link in with the pop theme and standout from other music magazines.
The Images used throughout and on the front cover engages the audience as it will attract females as it is a young male singer, which is around the same age as my target audience. As my front cover image is looking directly into the camera anyone who looks at it, it will look like he is looking at them drawing them into it. Also on the content page I included an image of a model for Taylor Swift which will also interest the young female audience. Double page spread image really draws in and attracts the audience as it is a very happy smile image and will make them want to read the article.
As I took on board what my target audience wanted from their questionnaire and the rest of my research I think my music magazine really is addressed to the right sort of people and think I got the right message across.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the making of the music magazine I have learnt so much about new technology and how to work with them. It has helped me a great deal and improved my media product, without these products I would have not been able to produces what I have.
During the processing and creating the music magazine I had to regularly blog about what I had done and where I was at in the stage of making my magazine. This was also something new I had never done before and learnt a lot about keeping up to date with it and how to add images, videos and graphs. This ended up been very detailed with diary entries and you are able to keep track to where I was at through the process.
To actually make the magazine I used a number of different technologies which some I had never used before and took me awhile to get used to and get the hand of.
· Computer
· Scanner
· Digital Camera
· Adobe Photoshop
· InDesign
· Internet Explorer
· Dafont
· Blogger
· Microsoft Word
· Microsoft Publisher
Computer
The computer was used of course go get the programmes which were needed to make the music magazine.
Scanner
The scanner was used to scan in my hand drawn designs and other bits to put onto my blog.
Digital Camera
A Digital SLR camera was used to take the pictures for my music magazine. This allowed me to see the picture I had taken straight away and to decide if it was what I wanted or to take it again. This also helped to see if the angle I had taken the photo at was effect and worked or if I needed to change it and take the image again. That the camera had a huge memory I was able to take loads of photos so I could then decide which ones to use once on a bigger screen and looked at on the computer.
This camera had so many different setting to take an image with; depending on the sort of photo depended on what setting to use. I learnt a lot when it came to using it and was incredible to see what different things you could do with a camera. In the end this camera was great to take the images for my music magazine.
Before making the magazine I did a questionnaire and ask a variety of questions which would help me understand what my target audience wanted on a music magazine. One of the questions was What sort of things on the front cover of a magazine makes you pick it up and buy it? One of the answers I received back and thought this is what I was going to base my cover on was “A Singer I like or a singer that has some gossip going round about them, someone who I want to read about!”
As Olly Murs is a very popular guy and has plenty of fans this is who I used and thought this is how id address my audience.
Another question I asked was Do you like your magazine to have a lot of images rather than text? 8 out of 10 people said yes therefore I put quite a few images on my music magazine hoping this would help attract the right audience.
The sort of language used was informal as I thought this was going to be the best way to grab their attention. I wrote my article in a very chatty form as I thought this would relate to my audience and really bring them into the magazine. They would be able to understand it a lot better than it been very formal. As well as it grabbing the attention of the audience it makes it more interesting and less boring.
The font I used is very different and unique which will draw in the audience, as it is a lot different from anything else it will stand out. The text I used was very bold, silly and pop like to link in with the pop theme and standout from other music magazines.
The Images used throughout and on the front cover engages the audience as it will attract females as it is a young male singer, which is around the same age as my target audience. As my front cover image is looking directly into the camera anyone who looks at it, it will look like he is looking at them drawing them into it. Also on the content page I included an image of a model for Taylor Swift which will also interest the young female audience. Double page spread image really draws in and attracts the audience as it is a very happy smile image and will make them want to read the article.
As I took on board what my target audience wanted from their questionnaire and the rest of my research I think my music magazine really is addressed to the right sort of people and think I got the right message across.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the making of the music magazine I have learnt so much about new technology and how to work with them. It has helped me a great deal and improved my media product, without these products I would have not been able to produces what I have.
During the processing and creating the music magazine I had to regularly blog about what I had done and where I was at in the stage of making my magazine. This was also something new I had never done before and learnt a lot about keeping up to date with it and how to add images, videos and graphs. This ended up been very detailed with diary entries and you are able to keep track to where I was at through the process.
To actually make the magazine I used a number of different technologies which some I had never used before and took me awhile to get used to and get the hand of.
· Computer
· Scanner
· Digital Camera
· Adobe Photoshop
· InDesign
· Internet Explorer
· Dafont
· Blogger
· Microsoft Word
· Microsoft Publisher
Computer
The computer was used of course go get the programmes which were needed to make the music magazine.
Scanner
The scanner was used to scan in my hand drawn designs and other bits to put onto my blog.
Digital Camera
A Digital SLR camera was used to take the pictures for my music magazine. This allowed me to see the picture I had taken straight away and to decide if it was what I wanted or to take it again. This also helped to see if the angle I had taken the photo at was effect and worked or if I needed to change it and take the image again. That the camera had a huge memory I was able to take loads of photos so I could then decide which ones to use once on a bigger screen and looked at on the computer.
This camera had so many different setting to take an image with; depending on the sort of photo depended on what setting to use. I learnt a lot when it came to using it and was incredible to see what different things you could do with a camera. In the end this camera was great to take the images for my music magazine.
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe PhotoShop is an image manipulation program that I edited the photos on I had taken. This was very useful and helped me a lot throughout the process; it allowed me to use photos which I thought I wasn’t going to be able to use. For example an image I had taken which I really wanted to use on my double page spread was very dark and with PhotoShop I was able to lighten it and make it look so much happier and joyful.
There is so much you could do with PhotoShop to edit an image, I also cut out the head of my model on the front cover for the title of the magazine to go behind the person. The tool bar which is situated down the side of the program has all the tools and allows you to do everything which is needed I have labelled them shown below.
Adobe PhotoShop is an image manipulation program that I edited the photos on I had taken. This was very useful and helped me a lot throughout the process; it allowed me to use photos which I thought I wasn’t going to be able to use. For example an image I had taken which I really wanted to use on my double page spread was very dark and with PhotoShop I was able to lighten it and make it look so much happier and joyful.
There is so much you could do with PhotoShop to edit an image, I also cut out the head of my model on the front cover for the title of the magazine to go behind the person. The tool bar which is situated down the side of the program has all the tools and allows you to do everything which is needed I have labelled them shown below.
InDesign
InDesign is the program in which I made the magazine, this was the first time I had used this and took me awhile to get the hang of things. Everything had to be placed into boxes and then could be moved about. There were so many different things which could be done and allowed me to make my magazine to a very high standard and get it looking professional and marketable.
Internet Explorer
The web was used throughout to keep me on track and look at real music magazines to make sure I stick to the conventions. It was also used for DaFont and Blogger.
DaFont
Dafont was a massive help to my music magazine if it wasn’t for this I wouldn’t have gotten my magazine to look as I wanted it and for it to attract my target audience. I feel that the font is one of the main parts of the magazine other than images that attract a particular audience and this is why I got a big variety of fonts from Dafont.com. This allowed me to download and use any of the fonts available from this website for free.
Blogger
Throughout this coursework I had to blog everything as this is 20 marks of the course. I found it very useful and easy to use, it was easy to keep track of where I was at with my work. As it is an online record system I could see where others were with theirs and help me to push myself and keeping up to date. It also allowed me to present my work in a very organised, clear and consistent way.
In the blog I posted about production, research, planning and diary entries to let people know how the production of my magazine was going. It was very easy to use and sign into, that it was online I could access it from home and on my phone this allowed me to update it from anywhere. I thought this was a brilliant way to record my work and that you could embed images, videos, graphs and slideshows helped a lot to explain bits of the process.
Microsoft Word
Microsoft word was used to write my article in before it got placed into my magazine in InDesign. With typing it into word first allowed me to get spelling mistakes and grammar fixed before it getting placed in. This was also used for my posts onto my blog I first wrote them into here for word to help with the spelling and grammar before coping and pasting them into my blog and posting them for everyone to see.
Something else I also used Word for was to make my questionnaire on and making the graphs from the results from my initial research to also put onto my blog.
Microsoft Publisher
This was used for me to save images into my documents for me to then upload it onto my blog.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
There are a number of things I learnt from my preliminary task before jumping straight into doing the music magazine. I am glad we did this task before hand as it allowed me to get the hang of InDesign Photoshop and how to use the camera properly.
InDesign is something I had never used before so doing the preliminary task allowed me to get the hang of it and really understand how it worked. When moving things around InDesign I always wanted to use my arrow keys on the keyboard as this is something I was used when moving images around in other programmes, however this did not work and it had to be moved with the mouse. Also within InDesign I learnt how to add in text, change the size and colour of it which helped a lot when making the music magazine it saved a lot of time. Text was a main thing on the music magazine and was done a lot so doing the preliminary task really did help and allowed me to learn a lot about it before jumping in feet first.
Photoshop was used a lot in my preliminary task to remove bits and bobs out of the image which made me get some more practise with the programme before having to edit my music magazine images. When doing this task I had to lighten one of my images for the school magazine and make it look as if it was just a natural sunny day, it was a good job I did do this as when it came to one of my images for the music magazine I had to do the same and knew exactly what to do, this saved a lot of time.
The camera was an absolute nightmare and took me forever to understand how to work it, I am so thankful we had the preliminary task before hand as thins enabled me to take a camera out and take some photos, have a play about with it and find out how it worked and what setting was best for a certain image. Learning about the different shots helped with planning out the images for my music magazine like a mid-close up for the front cover worked best.
With doing the preliminary task it saved me a lot of time when coming to make my music magazine as the small things I might have gotten stuck on beforehand had already been figured out. For example lightening an image this could have taken my an hour to play about with it and get it looking right look my five minutes and let me move on and do other things. My time management throughout was on point and I got everything handed in on time and done to the best of my ability.
Friday, 3 May 2013
Diary Entry 16
Today is the 3rd and I have 5 days before my evaluation to be handed in I have answered the 4-5 questions and I need to answer another 2-3 after i have done this I then need to make it into a power point if i have the time otherwise I will just have to do a blog and hand that in.
Monday, 29 April 2013
Diary Entry 15
Now I have to complete the evaluation of my magazine this can be done in a variety of ways however I still haven't decided what to do. I am answering the questions in a windows document for now and if I decide to do a DVD extras I can then read my answers out and add in the images which are needed.
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Diary Entry 14
Today is the hand in date, has to be in for 4:30 today and I'm just about finished which I am happy about. Do the last few tweaks then save it and put it into the shared area.
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