Preliminary Task

 This is the preliminary task that I did in preparation for my music magazine. The front cover includes a masthead in the colour of blue as well as the repetition in the taglines, "Study." I made both these texts this colour in order to make the words stand out from the page, as well as being different to any other school magazine, reinforcing being an independent page. I experimented with background colours however I couldn't find one that suited the school genre of this particular magazine, and this lead to choosing a picture that already has a good enough background. It is evident that with having paper with writing on as the background, it links with the use of "studying" as a whole and would therefore make people want to read it more due to thinking the whole magazine will be linked together. Looking back on this page now, I realise that the cut out of Yasmin doesn't look real and I knew I had to work on this technique for when it came to making the real music magazine.

The contents page that I constructed out involves a lot of pictures and less writing than normal contents pages. I chose to lay it out in this way in order to make the page look engaging and interesting as if it were to appear in a real-life school magazine. The images involve different activities that are relevant in school such as studying, chatting with friends, being in the music department playing an instrument and picking out what to eat for lunch in the canteen. I  wanted to make a school magazine such as this one to portray to my readers that school isn't always "boring." I looked at other school magazines online and not a lot of them looked like mine, moreover, reinforcing the fact that I have chosen to make a magazine of the indie genre later on. I will be making an independent music magazine because I like the concept that it will be different from any other.





I also made another draft of a preliminary contents page, however this draft is shown to be a lot different than the one above. It is still portrayed as unique because of the fact that for the background, an image of the school corridor is placed instead of a normal background colour. On this contents draft, there are a lot more features and writing as to what will actually be involved in the magazine and it gives the reader an insight as to what they are about to read. I chose two students that look as if they go to JCoSS in order to appeal to their friends and the younger years that would look up to them. Again I had trouble with cutting the people out from their backgrounds and therefore resulted in looking fake. I knew I had to work on this technique for the actual magazine that would be the final draft, nevertheless I was running out of time with this draft. I included a coloured pencil that separates the features from the information section at the bottom. This creates a lightning mood and would make the reader feel as if the are in school when reading it.

Production Schedule

 This is my production schedule for planning and actually making my magazine. I felt that I needed to make a production schedule so that I would be organised when it came to making my music magazine. I found that taking pictures would take the a substantial amount of time and therefore, I thought it would be best to get it out the way as a first thing to do. Without a schedule of what to do and on what date, all the work wouldn't get done and it would be impossible to reach the marks given.

After finishing the production I have now looked back on this schedule and have realized that I stuck to it and made sure I kept to finishing the tasks that I had on the deadlines that they were meant to be done by. I am thankful that I made a production schedule because if I didn't, it would have been much more harder to be organised and to take the pictures that I needed for my magazine.

My Target Audience

For my indie music magazine I have chosen to have my target audience range from 15 - 21 year olds both male and female. This is because, it would give my magazine a larger amount of purchases from consumers. The fact that I have made the colour scheme of my magazine grey and white implies that both genders of male and female will appreciate it enough to purchase it if it were on the shelves in a shop. This is due to the fact that grey is a universal colour and is mostly used for fashion purposes for men as well as women. 

I have chosen to make the target audience start from the age of 15 because this is the age where teens decide what music they actually are in to and want to listen to. Therefore, my magazine there will involve issues and articles that appeal to a younger audience as well as a little older such as people aged 21. I chose this age range because in general, individuals are more easily persuaded which would make my magazine more successful than any other.   

Weather Report

To improve our understanding of different magazine articles and how they portray their artists to be, we had to look at successful magazines and analyse one article. As the genre I am looking at is indie pop, I thought it would be best to focus on an artist such as Ed Sheeran as he is quite a unique singer compared to any other artist. Before doing this, I hoped to achieve a better understanding of how to lay out an issue in a magazine and how using two columns in the main body text to make the article more legible, for example. I also was interested in analysing the image of Ed Sheeran with the way he is positioned and what he is wearing as it gives me more of an insight of how an indie artist is meant to look(for when I make my magazine article).



After finishing this task I felt that I had learnt how to construct a successful article with an image of the artist on one side of the double spread and the main body text on the other. I liked learning that one does not need text on both sides of the page because it looks more spread out in general. In m opinion, from doing this task it has helped me for the future when I end up making my own magazine because I now know the set out in which an article would be in. 

Go Animate on Uses and Gratification

We were asked to make a presentation on all that we learnt on uses and gratifications in media. Our teacher told us how this aspect first occurred with Bulmer and Katz who started this programme. We had to condense all the information in which he gave us and to then put it all onto Go Animate. From doing this presentation I had hoped to learn how to use a different programme to represent information, which would also give the spectator a more fun way to receive information. I felt that by doing this, it would help me in the future by allowing me to understand that boring information can be presented to be more enjoyable if one uses cartoon characters and different effects.   

http://goanimate.com/videos/064vLC0ZSp4o

From doing this task, I have understood and learnt about the term 'uses and gratification' and that it includes five different needs within the media. From knowing and developing my understanding of this topic it has helped me with media in general, as well as which of the five needs I will focus on most when making my magazine. Whilst studying this aspect I found that every media text, whether it is to do with television, within television programmes and films, or on paper such as magazines and print advertisements, every publisher or producer needs to consider which audience they are trying to appeal to, therefore, using the five different aspects that are needed from the consumer, will support one in making the audience enjoy what they are looking at.

Focus Group on Music Magazines

My teacher told my class and I to create a focus group video in which we had to get people we knew in our school to answer some questions about particular music magazines. As the genre that I am looking at is based around indie artists and their music, I wanted to find out what people look for when buying a music magazine whether it be the colours, the lay out, the artist on the front cover or anything else that stands out from other magazines as a whole. 





From doing this task, I have found that different people have specific opinions about magazines and not everyones opinions will not be the same. For example, some people may prefer a front cover that is loaded with pictures and colours, nevertheless others could have a preference of more of a simplistic feel, which is more relatable to me due to the fact that I am focusing on the Indie pop genre where a simple lay out is more necessary. From doing this I have learnt that different people like different aspects within magazine covers and one magazine can not always appeal to all. This is why one would need to choose a small group of consumers to appeal to. I will remember this in the future for when eventually making my own magazine.

Analysis of Uncut (Double Page Spread)

I have analysed a double page spread that is included in Uncut Music Magazine and involves Paul McCartney. This article has a relation to the front cover as it involves McCartney and as I will be making a double page spread that has a relation to the front page, I decided that this was the most ideal magazine to choose to analyse. I focused mainly on the main image and main body text as these are the conventions of what makes up a double page spread in order to tell the story of what is happening on the page. I liked the way the article was spread over two pages instead of have an image on one and the writing on the other as it makes the reader enjoy it more because of the fact that it looks engaging. This reinforced my idea of having my double page spread over two pages for Margin as it also looks better on the page. 

I found that on the right of the page, there is an extra bit of information that has not got a lot to do with the main article. This breaks up the pages and makes it easier to read from a readers perspective.  

Analysis of UNCUT (front cover)

In preparation for making my music magazine I thought that analysing an actual successful front cover of a music magazine would help me greatly. I wanted to understand how a front cover, in this case, worked and how it is laid out on the page. This lead me to focusing on all the main features that are portrayed to us as readers. I wanted to make sure that I understood where all the features on a front cover would normally be placed so that, when I make my own magazine, I will make sure it would look like a normal magazine that would be placed on shelves in shops.

Within this front cover page, I focused mostly on how the masthead stands out with its big font as well as being written in serif font and abiding to the colour scheme of this particular magazine, being red and black. I also thought the image makes an important part of the page as it shows the reader which kinds of artists are the focal point for this magazine, and below on the page, the artists is shown to look "indie" as well as having a bit of "rocky edge" conveyed. When picking a magazine to analyse, I based my choice on how the artist looked on the front cover, and as Paul McCartney looked the most individual compared to others, I chose this magazine.   

Research on Similar Music Magazines

These are examples of some successful indie music magazines and had the biggest impact on influencing me to choose the indie genre for my music magazine. I looked how each magazine front cover was presented and thought of basing my magazine front in a similar way so that it would look 'real.' The magazine that I focused on most of all is "indie," this is because it looked different from any other as the front page has minimal taglines and captions that allows the page to look plain and simple, instead of making the page look busy and crowded. "Q" magazine is conveyed to have a lot of taglines and the image fills up the whole page therefore making it look crowded. This was not the sort of look I wanted for on my front cover and therefore reinforced the concept that having a crowded page would not work for my specific music magazine.

I like how with the "Indie" music magazine, that the background is near to black with other bits of white included. It is an image that doesn't include a background that is a special colour and is edited on Photoshop. When experimenting with the colour of the background, I couldn't find any colour that worked well enough and therefore reinforced how I had to take an image that includes the background of where the picture is being taken.  

My Genre

As I have decided to focus on the indie genre, this type of music has quite a lot of sub genres and so I had to choose which one I liked most in order to eventually make a music magazine based on that specific genre. I decided to choose indie pop because this is the type of music that I listen to most of all. Moreover, I felt more comfortable working with this genre than, for example, indie rock due to the fact that I understand the artists more in pop, nevertheless, as these sub-genres are quite similar in general, I figured that if I was to make both magazines, they would look quite similar.

When first looking at genres, I knew I wanted to display an indie magazine as an ending product and therefore, I had to decide with sub-genre I wanted. As said above, I chose indie pop as it relates to me most of all. Normally when a reader thinks of pop, they imagine bright colours and bold pictures. However, as I am also making it indie this implies that I can make the magazine how I want. I would like to use darker colours to make it much more mature in a way that not only just kids and teens would purchase it, but adults as well.

Wordle of Indie Magazine Competitors

In this task we were asked to research and find the competitors names for our specific genre. As I have clarified in other posts, my genre is indie pop, therefore I had to find different magazine titles in which were under the genre of indie as a whole. I gathered up some of the indie magazines that represent the indie genre in the best way and this resulted in magazine names such as the one underneath. I wanted to find the most appropriate titles that are succeeding currently in our society. Below are the magazines in which I liked the look of as well as them being the most successful.

What I liked most about this task was the research that I put into it, this included looking at different images that I found on google that included mastheads of indie music magazines as well as other magazine genres. When looking at each title I found that all of them had a specific 'ring' to their name which made them individual. I learnt that having something simple such as 'The Word' has a calming effect on the reader and this important for me to know in order to come up with an indie title in the near future. 

Moodboard

For this particular task we had to use final cut pro to make a montage of different images of artists that we found from the internet to portray our chosen genre of music and the artists that are presented in it. It also could include some locations of where their music videos are shot, as well as their fan base if we wanted. As it was a moodboard, we were allowed to include words in addition to just images of each artist and their locations. For me, adding text to the video made it feel more interesting to watch. The music also made the video more inspiring to me as I enjoy listening to indie artists' music and by hearing their songs in the background of the clip, it made me want to finish the media text and make it as good as I could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvUdTNM1-FY

After finishing this task, I felt as if I had achieved something special as it was my first time using final cut pro and I felt that it went quite well. Not only did I feel this way when I finished it but I felt that I had learnt a lot about final cut pro and the different techniques which are used when exploiting the programme.This will help me in the future because of the fact that in media in general, one needs to know how to make videos showing important aspects of a certain topic and I now feel I would have no problem in doing so. By doing this, it also helped me to get to know my genre better as there were some artists in which I did not know, nevertheless, from researching them specifically for this, I now feel more confident for making my indie magazine focusing on the indie genre as a whole.  

Emaze on Indie Pop Genre

After choosing a genre for our music magazine, we got told to research more about the genre. This included the history of indie pop in my case, as well as the development, fan base and the genres style. Below I have put together a presentation using Emaze to present the information in an orderly fashion. Whilst doing this task I wanted to find more out about this genre of music including interesting facts so that it would increase my knowledge of indie pop music in order to produce a realistic music magazine that appeals to a demographic of indie pop music listeners.

   

From doing this project I have learnt more facts such as the history, development, the fans and style of the indie pop genre of music. It has given me an insight into how the indie pop genre works and produces money in order for the public to enjoy and buy off of itunes and other sources of music production. This task has influenced me in producing the final product of the music magazine by allowing me to understand further how this sub-genre of music works and appeals to a certain demographic.

Powtoon on Mass Vs Niche

In class we got told to make a Powtoon on mass magazines in comparison to niche magazines. The reason we got told to do this is because, as media students, it is important to understand how different publishers use their media texts to attract different audiences. It is also significant to understand this in order for my class and myself to make sure we include all the key techniques for when coming to make our own magazines. From doing this task I hoped to achieve a better understanding of Mass and Niche magazines in general as a whole. 

   
From using this powerpoint presentation, Powtoon I have learnt the differences between niche and mass magazines and the main difference is the amount of people who read each magazine. These skills that I have learnt whilst doing my powtoon will help me in the future when it comes to making my own magazine because, the fact that I am doing an 'indie' magazine allows me to come under the niche side of things. It gives me and idea that I only have to appeal to certain types of consumers, however I would still want my magazine to look appealing on shelves in a shop to attract other members of the public if they decide to change their magazine taste. Overall, by doing this, it has given me an insight into how much work and effort I need to make my magazine look professional and I feel that I will be prepared to make a good standard media text with all this knowledge that I have taken into account.    

Why researching Genre is important.

For this specific task, I wanted to find out why genre is so important within music magazines in media. I understood that magazines had to be different from one another, be it the colours, the artists or genre. In addition to this, if two or more magazines have a similar layout, colours and genre then it would make it harder for the publishers to earn money as it would not look appealing to the consumers eye.

                                       



                          
From doing this task, I found some interesting aspects in the reasons why genre is so important in magazines. Most of the reasons come down to audience reaction in the way that they may or may not buy a specific magazine. I understand now that without a genre, a magazine would not have a personality and would therefore not be purchased by consumers on a shop floor. Knowing this has helped me develop more of an understanding of how genre works and why it is important. From this I will take on the concept of how genre works and will apply it to my own magazine in the near future.