PRODUCT EVALUATION
In what ways does your media
project use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I took the layout of the front cover from most existing
magazines as there is an obvious convention of having a main, central image and
cover lines around this image. As well as cover lines there are other features,
for example; masthead (magazine logo), a bar code, price, date, puffs and sometimes there may be a few smaller images. I looked at some existing pop band photo shoots
and used the styles of some of these images for my own photo shoot and took the
one I thought that was most suited to fit all the cover lines around. I took
colour schemes from the photo shoots I researched to dress the models and tried
to use some that were similar to my magazine colour scheme. I used a mid-shot
in order to get a close up of the artists’ faces but also to allow you to see
what they are wearing and it then allowed me to get some background in without having too much.
For The background I spray painted a sheet with “The 'k' Eyez” on to include a wider range of mise-en-scene. On the page I included a puff which had a buzz word on and
I also put more buzz words on the page which draws the audience in as they will
believe they are getting more for their money by writing 'free wristband' or
'exclusive' so they feel like they are finding out some extraordinary news
which they wouldn't find normally.
I took the theme of only three main colours throughout the whole
magazine. I found out from doing research that most if not all existing music
magazines are created to have 3 colours. For example; NME have the colours of
red, white and yellow. I chose the colours of red, black and blue. I chose
these colours as I looked at some existing magazines and also looked at the
mise-en-scene of some pop bands and picked out many different colours that are
all linked in with the colours I found most of in this research and tested
different colour schemes. I find this makes the magazine look more professional
as most music magazines will have a 3 colour scheme and it will make the
magazine easily recognisable to the audience/ reader. I chose red as it shows a
bit of danger and fear, blue as it shows there's a calmer, peaceful side and
black as it brings the red and blue together and I didn't think white was as
affective in creating a sophisticated look for the magazine when testing.
On my double page spread, for the article, I
created an interview with my feature band. I layed this interview out in columns as when I researched existing magazines I notices the layouts on the double page spreads were mostly in this way and I wanted my magazine to look as realistic as possible. For the content of the interview I used questions that I noticed were
asked a lot in existing music magazines and the type of questions I would want to see answered by my favourite band so it was more realistic. When
making up the answers I thought about what typical female artist would respond
with so it is more realistic for the readers. I also noted from my researched that on the pages there is
usually a main image on the page as well as text so I used one larger image of the whole band which showed their main personalities to the readers
but I also included 3, smaller, individual photos of each band member.
How
does your media product represent particular social groups?
As my product is aimed at both sexes of teenagers I needed to
include features that appealed to not only appeal girls but also boys. I created it to
suit both genders by using quite neutral colours such as red, black, blue and
white; these suit both females and males. My photos are aimed mainly at girls as
they look to girls as role models more than males do so I dressed the models in suitable clothing
for a teenage audience but as it was for males I put make up
on the models in order to make them as appealing as possible to the males but as the rest of the magazine other than the images is the main part of the magazine which is aimed at boys I have made the colours more suited to both genders and the contents is written in a way which boy males and females of the pop culture will like; the questions are about video games and consoles for example.
I have used models that are of similar ages to my audience.
This allows the female audience to look at the models/ artists as role models
and inspirations which makes the magazine more appealing to them as if
they see people they look up to they will want to read about them and see what
is going on in their personal lives, in most cases so they will mimic the artist
as they look up to them so much. I used direct mode of address so the artists look
very confident and successful. As the audience are very individual they may sometimes
struggle to fit in so having a group that are portraying such attitudes may
influence the readers. This is the case with males as well as females as the
group of people I targeted my magazine at is made up greatly of both males and females.
When you look at the three models they look like friendly people so the
audience will use this impression and make the assumption that the magazine is
worth buying due to its positive portrayal of the younger generation and the
fact that they will think all the feature artists will be inspirational; they would buy more issues and
learn this is true so they would become loyal readers.
On the front cover the three artists are in a position which
shows they are very close and as the readers are teenagers it will appeal to
them more as they are at the age where friendship is very important so they
will be able to link to it very closely to their own lives and relationships. I also used direct mode of address so
the reader will instantly form a connection with the artist and as they are of the
same age when they read through the interview and article they will realise
that they are very similar to the artist and it will hopefully make them realise they can achieve
anything they want. I think this magazine will be more about inspiring the teenagers
than anything else so to have a band that are good role models is very
important so I created them to be exactly that. This will appeal to the boys as well as they are very similar to girls in the way that they care about being part of the mainstream so if not for any reason they may want to read the magazine to get a sense of involvement which is very common within teenagers but I also hope they like the magazine because it includes articles that interest them and includes a good variety of bands and features they look for in magazines.
What
kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
After researching different music magazine distributors I learned
that many companies don’t only specialise in music magazines so I took this
into account and focused on finding a company that had high figures along with
whatever music magazines they had/ were selling already; I focused on the music
magazine in particular as this is the area I am focused on so if they have done
well with sales before they would be more suited to sell my magazine than a company
that only sells music magazines but does not do well in sales. From my research
I found that IPC and Bauer would probably be the best as they have done the
best in their music magazine sales previously out of the most popular
distributers. Although IPC does not only focus on music magazines its sales on
the existing magazines are extremely good so therefore IPC are my chosen
distributer. They already sell a pop magazine so my magazine would make no change to their way of publishing and they are a very popular company (selling over 350 million copies of their magazines per year) which means if my magazine was part of the IPC empire it would most likely do well as it would be along side magazines like NME, Marie Claire and Nuts (sorry) which are some of the most well know, best selling magazines around the world.
Who might be the audience
for your media product?
From this I can see that a large percentage of people who
read music magazines are male. We can also see that the largest age range is
16-25 year olds so that means if I want to make my magazine accurate to an age
selling point I should make it suitable for teenagers. Although from my
research I discovered males read music magazines on a whole more than females I noticed that the different in readers between the sexes is so small I realised I could make it for both sexes which would double the reader numbers, this
would also allow my magazine to make more money as it has a wider target
audience. It is suited for a female audience as girls
often aspire to be like female singers so although I will mainly target it for
boys there will be many aspects that appeal to girls. I am also more inclined to use this
target audience as most pop music fans are of the teenage generation and both
genders listen to it. This opens up more options as to what I can do with my
magazine as most magazines in the current market are aimed at both males and
females so I can use these for inspiration when making my own magazine. The fact that I use female models in the magazine would be appealing to both artists and the colour scheme will suit both sexes as they are not gender specific colours and the boy readers will look at them with sexual interest and the girls would look to them as idols and inspirations. As I am
the similar age to this target audience it will be easier for me to make it
more suited as I can include things that I would expect and like to see in a
music magazine if I purchased one.How did you address the audience?
In my research I found that out of the all possible sections I could include in my magazine the two that people most want to see are the artists personal life and interviews. Although I only had one double page spread I used both on the page as this will mean there are more people that the articles apply to. I included quotes elsewhere on the page so the audience will be happy as they are getting some insight into the subject’s personal life. The readers I am targeting are teenagers so as well as including questions that this age group would like to see answered by the band I made the technical side of the magazine appealing to them. They wouldn’t want to see colours that are very dull and boring or the type of colours their parents would like so I used bright, vibrant colours for text, backgrounds and in the backgrounds of the images. As I mentioned before I used three colours so it fits in with the conventions of existing magazines. The fonts I used were playful and fun so when they look at the page it doesn’t resemble a newspaper page and will make them want to read the article more. When I did a quote for each artist on my double page spread each had the artists name so the audience would know whose words they are reading and connect with their favourite artist more.As my magazine is aimed at the younger, teenage generation and the magazine is quite casual I didn’t want to use any formal language so I tried to write it as if I was writing something to one of my friends so the audience are able to understand what is written. As I need to sell my magazine well I noticed from looking at some of the more popular existing magazines on the market they all have buzz words like “free” and “Exclusive” so the audience will be more likely to buy the magazine. On my double page spread I wrote quotes from the band so I made them as personal and informal as I could as I wanted the audience to feel as if they were close and friends with the artists. Although I included things about how they started I didn’t really write anything about how they actually got famous after they became a band so looking back I would have done that and written some more about their personal lives so the audience could see that they can be anything they want to be, no matter who they are.
My models are all around the same age as the target audience
will be. If they pick up a magazine and it has a picture of three girls that
look similar to themselves they will be more inclined to buy it than they would
if they had one that had an elder artist on. Although my magazine is aimed at
both male and female readers I decided to use three females as my models; I chose
this as I noticed that males are interested in female’s artists as much as male
artists although they look at the males in more admiration and the girls more
as sexual figures it does not really make a difference to the target audience.
I included a range of different shots and poses within the images I used so the
audience have more of a chance to get to know the band and the audience can get
more sense of what their personalities are actually like. The mise-en-scene in
my images is very simple; they are all dressed in quite simple clothes and one
of the artists who is the lead out of the three has a tiara to show her
dominance out of the group. I also showed she is the lead throughout the images
by having her in the middle of at the front.
What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
When making my magazine I had to use many different types of technology in order to make it look as professional as possible and make it as original as possible. First of all I used a camera and Microsoft word to create my preliminary task as this was the most basic task of all. I then used Microsoft word again and the internet in order to carry out my research of existing magazines, using the ‘snipping tool’ in order to get the pictures onto the word document. For my planning there were more technologies used. I used;
-Microsoft word in order to create a questionnaire to find a
target audience and ensure the contents were appropriate for this audience.
-Excel to present the results from this questionnaire on
charts and graphs.
-A camera in order to take some pictures to get ideas for my
final photo shoot of the images that I was going to use in my magazine.
-A memory stick in order to get my work from
computer to computer so I could do maximum work on the project.
-‘Pixlr’ photo editor to edit my images and to crop some
images that had excess back
-‘Cool Text’ to create to design for my company logo.
These were only used in my planning. I found some of these
easier to use than others. When making my final magazine, at first I used serif
page plus. When I started I found it easy to use but as I progressed with the
product I found there were a few issues. I came across too many problems and I spent
more time trying to edit or re-do my work than making any actual progress so I decided
to change programme. I changed to Pixlr which is an online editing site. When I
wanted to edit the images by adding effects I used Pixlr as it has the widest
range of options whereas other programmes don’t provide such options. On some
of my images the lighting was not very professional looking so, although I didn’t
use the programme for my actual magazine, I used the editing section on serif
page plus to increase lighting and also sharpen some of my images. My final product was created using Pixlr. I used Pixlr as all
the other programmes I used previously in the project either didn’t do what I needed
or did not create a professional enough finish. At the start of my project I used
serif page plus but I could not get along with it. As we had a time limit I needed
to keep making more and more progress however the programme would close in the
middle of me working on it so I would spend more time trying to catch up with
whatever work I had lost than actually doing more work. Another reason I decided
to change was the fact I couldn’t afford to get Serif at home so I only had a
chance to do work at school which didn’t leave me a great deal of time; as Pixlr
is a website it meant I could save my work on my memory stick and simply
continue at home. As I was using Pixlr to edit all of my photos anyway I decided
to save what I had done and continue on Pixlr so I could do some more work and
catch up as I had fallen behind due to Serif.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?
When I started the project I used computers a great deal but only really used Microsoft word, excel and the internet for research so when we found out our whole project had to be done on computers I was a bit pessimistic about it but now, looking back, I can see I have progressed a lot since my preliminary task; not only in computers but knowledge on other things too.
When we started I knew nothing about what to include in a
music magazine and nothing about what the conventions of music magazines are.
Now, looking back on my preliminary task I can instantly pick out lots of the
basic things that should be on a magazine that I have missed out. I can also
see that my images need editing as they look unprofessional and the text is all
one size and one colour which is very dull and the fact it continues is boring
and predictable which is what a music magazine should not be. It is very
obvious that there was no research done before making my preliminary task so it
is all over the place without any obvious themes throughout the pages. On my
final product I spent much more of my time researching than actually creating
my final magazine as now I know that you need to take the reader and their
needs into account much more than I believed you did.
One of the main parts of a music magazine is the
photographs. As we had to do our own photo-shoots of the artist I needed to do
some research for this, obviously. Before I just saw images as being taken from
different angles and highs whereas now I know about high-angle, low-angle,
mid-shot, wide shot and many more. In my preliminary task I went out and took
pictures that I though looked ‘cool’ with no attempt to take a variety; I just picked
a spot and took a photograph of it. In the images for my final product I made
sure the angling was exactly right and the zoom was not too far in or too far
out. I also learnt how important mise-en-scene was. Although, on my preliminary
task the subjects are in the Poole High uniform I probably wouldn’t have cared
any less if they had their own clothes on as I did not know how important the
clothing and location was to magazines. Along with this is editing which I had
no idea about. In my preliminary task I didn’t edit the photos at all and would
probably have just edited it so it looked nice however I have learned how
crucial editing is and how you need to take the rest on the magazine into
account in order for the image to fit in and look appropriate,
One final thing I have developed over the course of this
project are my computer skills. At the start, for my preliminary task I used
word whereas now I can see it looks extremely unprofessional. To edit the
photos I would have used whatever options were available on the windows photo
viewer whereas now I know how to use a huge range of programmes such as serif, Photoshop
and many other technical programmes.
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