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.



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. 


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. 



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. 

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. 


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

Rough Cut Compared To Finished Thing!






Final Magazine

Front Cover
Content Page
Double Page Spread



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. 

Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Diary Entry 13

I have completely changed my front cover and double page spread images, these look a lot better now and more pop like.

New Photos

These are some of the new photos i took last night to replace my last ones for my final music magazine.


 These of my self i had to put the camera on self timer and put it on a stand.


Diary Entry 12

Last night I took my new photos for my final magazine which is in for tomorrow so therefore today I'm going to sit and get on with my music magazine to get it complete!

Friday, 19 April 2013

Diary Entry 11

Today I've just came back from my holidays and I now have 4 days to get my magazine changed act on my feedback and re-take my photos. I need to get my magazine to a standard I am happy to hand it in and finish it.

Sunday, 31 March 2013

Feedback Sheets

This are the sheets I recieved my feedback on.....
this one if from my fellow students in my class
and these two below are from teachers.

Friday, 29 March 2013

Improvement's Wich Will Be Made To Rough Cut

There are many improvements I shall make on my rough cut from the feedback I recieved. The things I shall change to my rough cut will therefore improve my magazine and make my final magazine better in the end.

Front Cover
Feedback I recieved about the front cover, was mainly to improve the main image, stick to two or three fonts and change around the positioning of the text. Things I will change....
Change the image as this was not the photo I wanted as my main image on the front cover in the first place. When I took them its started to rain and was freezing cold therefore prevented me to get the images I wanted. So will take my images again and change the whole of my front cover. With the image going to be different the positioning of the text will therefore change which was something which needed improveing anyways. I shall also change the fonts and stick to three, to make sure it doesnt look over crowded and messy.

Content Page
The feedback I recieved about the content page was that the images were all too similar, also there was too many page numbers and that these could be cut down. Things I will change....
I will first of all get a few different models and take some new photos and get a better variety of images to place onto my content page, this will give it a better proffesional look. Also will change and delete some certain pages off the content page as people said it looked over crowded and had too many on. I am happy with how my content page is laid out however the one main thing I need to change are images.

Double Page Spread
My double page spread got feedback saying that the questions need to standout more and the titles could be more stylish. Also to go over and proof read the article. Things I shall change....
Something I will defiantly do is make the questions standout more as they just blend in with the rest of the text. I might also change the fonts to the questions and the article. Something I might also change is the titles to the article as someone said they need to be more stylish and this is something i took on board and might change. The image is going to have to be photoshopped again as i wasnt happy with the way it turned out and could be better. Overall the layout of the double page spread is someting i will stick to and just tweak around it.

Feedback

Good Feedback From Students
Front Cover

Large main image, colour scheme, title font and how the text moves around the image.
Content Page

Neat layout, nice font, good images and good colour scheme.
Double Page Spread

Detailed article, neatness, detailed writing, good layout and good image.Bad Feedback From Students
Front Cover
Needs a better photo, text fonts and the positioning of it, photoshop, photo is a bit blurry and title could do with editing and be better.
Content Page

White space, all the pictures are similar, photos are repetitive and more than one model is needed.
Double Page Spread

White space, font, colour scheme and questions need to stand out.



Good Feedback From Teachers
Front Cover

Colour Scheme, like the purple and good attention to detail with barcode.
Content Page

Good layout, neat, well organised, stong use of colour and good photography.
Double Page Spread

Good idea for photo and good use of branding.

Bad Feedback From Teachers
Front Cover

Is the background of the photo appropriate for the front cover, photography needs work, be more creative, too much variation choose 2 or 3 font styles and stick to them, fonts, upper case letters needed and look at grammer- look alike (one/two words?)
Content Page

All the photos link to the same page, vary images, name of magazine needs to be bigger, the content, less pages in the magazine and check grammer.
Double Page Spread

Proof read article, sort out dropped capitals, vary fonts make the questions stand out and make title more stylish, change the fonts.

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Diary Entry 10 (Handed In Rough Cut)

I've finished my rough cut and put it into the shared area to get feedback on, can't wait to start improving it and making my final thing! Here is my rough cuts final done below.

Front Cover

Content Page


Double Page Spread


Diary Entry 9

Today I am doing some last finishing touches before it has to be handed in tomorrow. 

Monday, 25 March 2013

Diary Entry 8

I changed my Front Cover as i thought it didn't look very pop like, adding the big zig zag box at the bottom made it look more jazzy. This was on quite a few pop magazines and thought it was something I had to include on mine. 

Diary Entry 7

Last week i was ill and missed quite a few lessons therefore have these last 3 days before the hand in date. Within these 3 days I will be getting to the point where i am happy to hand in my rough draft. Cant wait to hear feedback and get my finished thing done! I think I will change a lot when it comes to editing for finished thing. For now I need to get on with my rough cut as I only have the rest of today tomorrow then a few hours Wednesday morning before it has to be handed in.

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Diary Entry 6

This is what i have been doing today adding more writing to the front cover. Deciding what colours to have and what fonts was difficult, also deciding what to write was hard. As i didn't want to write the same as what is on my content page I had to come up with new text to write and slogans and little snippets of things to make people want to pick it up and read on. 

Diary Entry 5

It is a week today until it has to be handed in, this final last week I am making sure everything is up to scratch and happy for me to hand in. I have added more writing to my front page today and moved things around as I didn't like the way it was looking. It wasn't very pop magazine ish therefore I went onto Google and looked at front cover's of pop music magazines and realised how much more colorful and jazzy there were. Mine is quite boring and this is something I will defiantly have  to change on my final magazine as this is my rough cut and can get feedback on how to make it better in the future.

Monday, 18 March 2013

Diary Entry 4

This week I am just going over all pages (front cover, content and double page spread) to make sure I am happy with everything. Just tweaking the small things and maybe changing some things around until I am happy with everything and ready to hand it in on the hand in date. I have a week and a few days left and really happy with how everything is going.

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

Rough Cuts So Far

These are my Rough Cuts So Far......
Front Cover
Content Page
Double Page Spread



Diary Entry 3

First of all i inserted my article which I wrote throughout my half term holidays, placing this into three columns which were all the same size over just less than half the page. Therefore when placing my image in I will be able to put it in and make it over place the middle page fold just how I wanted it. I then added in my larger letter at the start of my article and added titles. This is coming on really well and is looking great.

Friday, 8 March 2013

Diary Entry 2

The last few days I have been working on the front cover, i was looking forward to getting my front page image on and start to get my texts around it. I didn't realise how much of a task this was, it took me for every to get it looking right and how i wanted it however it still isn't what i wanted. I still have a lot of work to do with this and i'm not looking forward to it as it does take loads of work to get it looking like a music magazine.

Monday, 4 March 2013

Diary Entry 1

This week I have been working on my rough cuts of my front cover, contents page and double page spread for the deadline on the 27th of March.Today i have started to do my content page, as i knew what photos i wanted to use i was excited to start it and get them on. I started off by placing the boxes around the page where i want them to be. Then i started to add in text and the images. After getting all the text in i ten started to change around the colour of the text and the fonts. This made it look a lot more music magazine like and I'm very chuffed with how its looking so far.

Sunday, 3 March 2013

Front Page Image

This is the image I am using on my front cover for my rough cut however will defiantly be changing this for my finished magazine!


Content Page Images

These are the three images i have used on my content page for my rough cut, these will more than likely be changed for my final magazine.




Double Page Spread Image




This is my double page spread image, which i have edited and deleted the big blue bridge out the background and lighten the image to make it more appealing and sunny looking. As the day I chose to take my photographs wasn't the best and needed editing to make it look more happy and fun for my pop magazine.