Draft Evaluation Activity 1

In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

To help me develop my idea of a magazine into a real magazine I used a Q magazine cover as my main focus and aim. It includes a similar feel to it, as I am also trying to pick out a colour and use it throughout the cover and the magazine as a whole. I also really like the close up image of Florence. This gives a very powerful and dominant feel to the band and to her. The idea of using the close up of the face and the selecting of the colour and keeping with that colour, is something that I have wanted to do for my magazine since the idea was first put out to us. I liked how the name of the magazine is short and catchy and I wanted to include something similar to that, so people would remember it easily. I have used a similar genre for the magazine. Both of the magazines focus's on the pop, rock and folk side to music and that is what I wanted to incorporate into my magazine-the variety of music. This magazine cover shows a pop side to the magazine and I feel that my magazine focuses on pop music as well due to my front image.    

For the contents page I wanted to make it busy and also allow it to stand out against other pages. I took some of my inspiration from  Q magazine. I liked the big photo and the amount of writing used in the pictures. I have taken that idea of the big image and also the lots of writing idea to give a full contents to the magazine. They have linked the contents to the front cover which is also what I have aimed to do with my magazine contents.

With this magazine double page spread I have taken some inspiration from many different magazines and attempted to put them all together to get an overall double page spread. I have used the columns and the two seperate headings- the main heading and the sub heading. I have then taken the idea of splitting a page into 4 like i have seen several magazines do and used them to display both images and text. I have added my twist onto things with the stripes and the logo on the page as it this is my constant theme throughought along with the colours.   

    

Draft Evaluation Activity 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine model has been chosen to fit the same theme as Florence and the machine. I liked the idea of the close up of the female artist and the use of the blue to make the reader focus on the key points. That is why I have edited the eyes and made them slightly more blue to attract the attention. I have made the rest of the image black and white to focus the attention even more onto the eyes and allow the blue to stand out from the dark colours. Both of the artists have a pop theme to them although my artist has a rocky theme to it as well. Both are part of a band and both are the front people, the ones that are always in the public eye. I have also used the natural but posed look on my artist as they have that sort of relaxed and inviting look to them, although Florence looks slightly seductive and my artist looks more smiley and happy in comparison, but otherwise a similar look. I have also taken the idea of the eyes looking straight down the camera as it also captures the attention of the reader as it almost feels like you are being watched. I have also tried to keep the shot as simple as possible to make them appear more effective.   

Draft Evaluation Activity 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The media institution that is going to ditribute my magazine is Bauer Media Group. This publishing company have published Q and Kerrang! so are used to having to create music magazines once a month. They have funded the magazine as they already have many contacts throughout the music industry so it was easy to get hold of some well-known music artists in order to get some interviews and some amazing photography. It also helped that alot of the artists that appeared in the magazine happened to be artists that are new on the music scene and still trying to get their name out to many people across the country; this allows for a reduced cost when it comes to interviews and photoshoots. With the help of this company they have helped me to proce and edit what hopes to be a top magazine within the media industry.  

Draft Evaluation Activity 4

Who would be the audience for your media production?
A typical teenager/ young adult would be the typical reader of this type of magazine, here is her profile on what she looks for in a magazine.  


Hannah is 17, she loves anything to do with music, rock, pop, blues, Jazz. She loves downloading new tracks and Albums as well as listening to the radio whilst she is working. Mainly she enjoys looking out for up and coming bands and music artists, she loves being the first to notice a new band and being able to tell all of her friends. She would like a magazine that she could use to discover new bands, new tracks and the latest albums. She would like to have a magazine that tells her which artists will be the biggest in the next month and which bands are doing tours and which bands are working on a new album and new sounds. She would also like reviews on bands as well as exclusive interviews in her favourite bands. She doesnt want to spend too much as she is only a student. That is why she would like a monthly magazine that is full with relavent information and not filled with adverts and pointless junk. 


I believe that I have targeted this audience well as I have used artists of a similar age, I have included all of the things that the audience looks for in a magazine whilst keeping it lighthearted and easy to read. 

Draft Evaluation Activity 5

How did you attract/address the audience?
To attract my audience I used language that my targeted age range would understand and would be comfortable with. I have used relevant images and bands that will attract my ideal age group of an audience, I wanted it to attract to anyone with a sense of musicality and wanted to experience the latest in the music world, that is why I have included a relatively new band on the cover of the magazine. It attracts the right audience for my magazine. Apart from my main band, I have split the artists so that the majority of artists that appear are British but some are American or European, depending on their popularity to the British audience and there latest album/ track is doing in the charts or whether they are in a gig or creating a new album. All of this helps to attract my target audience. I have used completely different colours to create that fresh and new feel to the magazine. the layouting and the style of the magazine keeps it simple and easy to read whilst loking professional and interesting. This is also contributing to the target audience.

Draft Evaluation Activity 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
For the whole of my coursework I have used many different types of technologies, there has been my SLR camera and flash bulbs for taking the shots, I have used photoshop for editing my shots and creating the pages to the magazine and Blogger for keeping teachers upto date in  the work that I am doing.
My SLR camera is something that I am used to using so I have not really learnt anything from using this. However, I am not used to using a flash gun, therefore I had to experiment alot with different angles and the reflection shield had to be placed just right in order to use the best of what light I had. I knew I had to take lots of photos as the more you have the more material you have to work with.
Photoshop is also something that I have used over and over. It did take me a long time to completely understand the softare, but i was fortunate enough to know how to use the software before starting any of the media work. Because of this I found it really easy to get the type of results that I wanted. The only problem with the version of Photoshop that I was using was that the software kept crashing if I used it for more than a couple of hours or if I had one too many files open in the 'photo bin'. It would also take an age to save what work I did do and this would slow me down in the what work that I could do during lessons and at home.
I have two blogs on Blogspot, one for all notes that are taken during lessons and homework that is set for theory, whilst the second is dedicated to my coursework and it shows all of the different stages I used in order to get my finished product. It lets you put in images, videos, hyperlinks etc. With blogspot I had never used it before the start of this school year so it did take me a while to know how to use all of the different elements and also know what all of the buttons did and all of the shortcuts I can use on here.
Overall I havent found that using all of the technologies difficult, I hav learnt from them, I just havent learned much as I already knew how to use most of them.

Draft Evaluation Activity 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

This is my Preliminary magazine. I feel that the editing is ok on this but not the best and also the colours and the text are all wrong for the feel of the magazine. I liked the idea of the mid shot and the coloure scheme but it think i could of made the image more powerful and the colours less vibrant as the colour takes away the emphasis of the girl on the front cover. By using more subtle colours that allow each of them to stand out against each other it allows the magazine to have a theme and an identity. I also believe that because I have had more time to research my main magazine, I feel as if I understand more in what they are looking for when it comes to a 'type' of magazine. Whereas with my preliminary magazine I have found that going straight into a magazine without any thought or any planning or research really stopped me from achieving the best of my ability. between the two I have also learnt more about layoutting and about sizing and all of the different types of things that are key in order to get a magazine that looks like a magazine.