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

As I don't read music magazine it was quite obvious that I wasn't going to know some of the conventions that they use. I believe that one of the main things I have picked up between the preliminary task and the final task is the conventions. I feel there are a lot more in my work now.

The main thing that sets the covers apart is the main photo. As you can see I learnt that the photo is the most important element, I noticed that the quality of my preliminary one wasn't very good. This emphasised to me the importance of getting all the elements of the photo right. I learnt that I had to take more time when taking the photos to ensure it was not blurry, another way to tackle this would be to take a couple of shots so I could pick the best one. I also learnt that the mise en scene should fit the context. On my preliminary I am talking about a sports star but he is wearing a suit, it would make a lot more sense if he was in some kind of sports kit. Another point with the photo is the lighting, I think that in my preliminary the issue of lighting is largely ignored, the photo is taking place indoors which straightaway gives the picture a dim look and the little light that there is, is in the top left corner where there is just a wall. I feel that the light should be on the main model as they are the main focus of the magazine. This is an idea and convention I knew that I should show in my final work, I knew to take the shot outside as it allowed me to manipulate the amount of light that was reflecting on to my models and the positioning of the light i.e faces.

I also have realised the importance of a consistent house style and the rule of thirds. My preliminary doesn't have a real colour scheme. The text is black and white but I don't feel that this very successful as the background is largely black and white, this means that the text doesn't really stand out. I also think that it looks strange that 7 colours are included in the title but in the rest of the page their and only black and white. This is the place in which my preliminary goes against the common convention of the rule of thirds, which is not having more than 3 main colours on the front cover. You can see this has been adhered to in  my real cover as I felt that my preliminary was a bit too busy to attract the attention of the audience.  

You also get the feeling that the preliminary was slightly rushed. This had to be the way as I needed to finish the actual product on time but i think this shows. It shows in the fact that no real effect has been made to make the text stand out or stop it from becoming lost in the background. It does adhere to the convention of putting words around the main model it doesn't do this anywhere near well enough. This all told me that it is important to not rush the final pieces as it will end up showing.

The production of the preliminary task only went to show me just how important it was to get audience feedback, audience feedback has helped me to be in the position I am now. When I created the preliminary I didn't ask for any feedback because I felt that it looked quite good. This also left me clueless on how to change it to make it look better. It is only when you put it next to my final cover which has been massively guided by audience feedback do you see the glaring problems with the preliminary. 

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

This project has required to to work with a range of different technologies. I have worked with Microsoft Publisher, Macromedia Fireworks, Twitter, Microsoft Word, Serif Movie Plus, Blogger and my camera.

When i started I was unsure about which software I should use to create my project in. So I started off by using Publisher like I had used for my GCSE Media coursework. There were no skills that I needed to learn but I soon found out by printing off drafts that Publisher didn't look very professional and for some reason the shapes that I was playing around with just didn't work. This is when I realised that Publisher wasn't effective as working as a graphic design software which was probably what I needed. I did learn that Publisher was good for importing drafts from other software into for printing, this is because it has a blue outline which tells you where the printer will start cutting off bits of the paper.

This was necessary as I then moved to a graphic design and editing software Macromedia Fireworks. I learned that this was much better for my purpose as the graphics and the way objects interlink and overlap look a whole lot smoother than in Fireworks. I now know that if  I ever have to do anything like this again Fireworks will be my first choice. As I did have previous experience with Fireworks I knew how to crop, edit and adjust the lighting in photos reasonably well. I also learnt that you could send shapes to the back or bring them the front on Fireworks, a feature I thought only available on Microsoft packages. I found this very useful as it allowed me to make my designs more advanced by having multiple shapes on top of each other.

The next technology I used was Twitter, there wasn't much of a learning process as I already knew that by tweeting out a picture and asking for feedback you will get better results because you will be getting feedback from people that are following you that you might not even know. I realised this would be better because it means they are more likely to be critical as they don't know you personally. This is why a large chunk of my audience feedback came from this area. I also didn't have to learn much with Word as it is very simple to use the most advanced thing I had to do was input shapes to create my questionnaire.

The part where I did have to do a bit of learning was with my video that I took for audience feedback. I knew that it didn't need a great deal of editing but there were a few bloopers that needed editing out before it could be uploaded to my blog. First of all I had to find an appropriate software to use that would accept the video in its current file type. I searched all that was available on the school system and eventually I found Serif Movie Plus. I learnt that on this software you could trim bits off the video that you didn't want, it took a little while but once I figured it out I got on fine. I have now learnt that if I need any videos editing Movie Plus is the software to use. 

The final technology I had to use was my own camera. Outside of Media I wouldn't really say I'm a keen photographer so setting up a photo shoot was a relatively new concept to me. Although I did GCSE media I didn't really put a lot of efforts in to long shoots I just got a few shots and went again. Also this was the first time I had had to create a detailed shot list. I found that it really helped and made the whole shoot a lot easier. I realised that I had a lot of learning to do about taking a good photo. It required me to go out on a practice shoot before the real shoot and take photographs experimenting with lighting and models picture within the frame. I felt that after that practice I had learnt how to use the camera to take a well posed and relevant shot that I could use in my work. 

I had never used Blogger before I started this project but it didn't take long to figure out. After my first couple of posts I felt very comfortable using it. I didn't really learn much about the process to create a blog post, the main thing I learnt was how helpful keeping a blog could be. Regularly posting allowed me to review past work and spot changes so I could determine if I was successful or not. It also helped me to know if I was on track with completing the work on time as every time I opened my blog my progress was there.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

There are two ways in which I will be answering this question. I will firstly talk about how through the production of my piece I attracted the audiences attention and secondly how through out the production of my pieces I have gone to my audience to ask for feedback.

While I was producing my 3 elements I employed a range of elements to try and peak the attention of my previously mentioned audience. The first thing I did was to add a competition, having the words 'WIN' in big letters and in a big red circle make them the first thing the audience notice when they look at the magazine on the shelf, This is what I want as the competition is the main hook to get people to buy the magazine. I deliberately left the details of the competition vague as I want the audience to buy the magazine to find out. If I was to put win signed record sleeves from The Beatles all of the non- Beatles fans would simply ignore the competition and maybe even the magazine all together. By just writing 'signed record sleeves' I am keeping my audiences guessing and hooked on the magazine.

I have also carefully chosen the articles that feature on the front page of my magazine. I have chosen to run a story about Adele who is one of the most popular artists this country has ever produced, as consistent album sales of over 3 million suggest she has a large following . I was hoping to tap into this following and persuade them to buy the magazine. I have also run a vote, for the audience to decide what the best Indie song ever is, by doing this I am introducing a level of audience participation. This will make them feel as if they are personally involved and will make them more likely to pick the magazine up especially if they have taken part in the vote as they will to see if where their vote has come in the overall rankings.

Continuing on with the front cover I tired to use non gender specific colours such as red and white, these colours aren't particularity associated with any gender so won't immediately appeal to one gender and not the other, perhaps like using pink or blue would.

On the contents page I used a large and very dominating photo to advertise the feature that I ran on the band the Noughtie Boys. By having the picture so large I am trying to create the impression that it is the most important and worthwhile feature in the magazine. This is in the hope that my audience will be attracted to read it, this is necessary as you want the main article to be read by everyone as it has dominated most of your time and space on the page.

On my double page spread I have used a pull quote, which puts a short summation of a whole paragraph together. A person with very little time could straightway pick up the jist of the article without spending too much of their limited time reading it. This will attract and please of the audience as they don't always have time to sit there reading large chunks of text. For this exact reason I put an introduction in bold, the introduction sets the scene for the article and discusses what the main themes will be. A person will be attracted to it as it is in bold and it will help them make their mind up as to read it or not bother. This will further please the audience as they will get the impression that the magazine has been designed with then in mind.

The second way I will be answering this question is the way that I used my audience to gain feedback. Very early on I wanted to get the look of my pages right before I put the photos in. This process ran from the moment that I finished my paper plans. As I was producing my magazine for the pleasure of my audience I felt audience feedback was very important. Every time I created a draft I asked for my audience feedback to see if what I had produced was to their liking. My audience feedback came in the form of social media, face to face and video.

The very first thing I did was to create a questionnaire to establish what the audience thought the basics of my magazine should be . Through this questionnaire I helped to choose the original name 'TMS' over 'Tuned In.' It also helped me to decide on a sensible price and as interviews received the most  votes for article type it started me off on planning what the content of the actual article would be. From this point I had the idea to do an interview with a band.

As you will see from looking at my blog there were a lot of intervals that I sought audience feedback, these were most commonly in the form of showing them a printed version of my work and asking them to comment while I noted down what they were saying. They did end up suggesting some quite radical changes. For my front cover they helped me finally choose a font, they helped me to decide how the competition box should be presented. It was a rounded box but now it is a circle and they ultimately helped to see that the name should be changed to make it more convenient to be used as a masthead.

For my contents page they had a look at the draft without original photography and told me what kind of shots weren't working and what kind of shots would. I found this very helpful as at the time I wasn't really sure what kind of photos I was taking and how they would be posed. They also gave me pointers on the general layout of the colours. They told me that one grey I was going to use was too dark and wouldn't attract their attention. This was important to know as my ultimate goal is to attract the attention of and please the audience.

For my double page spread my audience made me aware of some quite basic errors that I had made, I had forgotten to add page numbers and my logo to the page. They also advised me on the layout, I was told that the 3 red boxes which have the band's name written in them didn't look very good flat so I rotated them to make them look similar to that of the Sex Pistols.

I found this feedback very useful as it gave me feedback that I probably never would have thought of myself and it allowed me to ensure that my project met its ultimate goal in pleasing the audience.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

On the whole my target audience are fans of Indie music who want to find out about all of the latest releases and what is happening in the world of Indie music. Although I would expect my audience to be a little more narrower than this not in terms of gender as I have tried not to be gender specific as I don't feel that I have picked colours that suggest my magazine favours one gender over another. I believe that due to the presence of a very young Indie band on the front of this issue it would appeal mostly to a younger/teenage audience as the band are people their age singing about topics they can relate to. I haven't used much advanced or adult language that may stop some of my target audience accessing my magazine.

Although this isn't an exhaustive list as inside I have mentioned some of the most famous Indie artists in the world such as Adele who stereo typically has a much older following. This will hopefully show that the independent music industry has something for everyone just like my magazine. By adding in artists such as Adele and competitions I am trying to attract just general fans of the artists featured or new fans of Indie music than my expected target audience of teenagers or young adults.

I feel that for my magazine to be successful it had to have appeal to a wide range of people not just a narrow audience and I think with my content I have achieved this.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

As there are very few physical magazines on the market purely about Indie music it was hard for me to find an outlet that would distribute my magazine. A lot of magazines such as Q focus on artists that are signed to the major labels such as Muse who are signed to Warner Bros. Due to this fact I think that Music Scene would have a large online presence either through online stores such as Amazon and Apple Store or through it's own website, that could be promoted through social media such as Facebook and Twitter. On the Music Scene website there would be a small monthly subscription which if paid would allow the user the chance to access the latest copies early and completely online. This is important as like the artists themselves the Internet is becoming more and more important for the Independent music market, it is seen as a great leveler. By having a website Music Scene would be available to all at any time.

In terms of distributing physical copies I would expect someone such as IPC media to distribute my magazine, this is because they produce NME who often bring stories about Indie artists to their audiences and I think Music Scene would support this well. I also feel that a company such as MAMA&Company would be interested in this magazine. They were the publishers of the few Indie music magazines called 'The Fly.' The fly went out of business this year and I believe that MAMA would be interested in getting back into the market. I feel that their experience of distributing this kind of music magazine would be very beneficial to Music Scene.

I can also see Music Scene being sold in some newsagents and supermarkets. Defiantly supermarkets as they have a large range of magazines and have a lot of sub genres within their ranges too. For example when a lot of them sell music magazines they have Pop, Rock and Indie sections. I believe diversifying their range would appeal to supermarkets. But I think it might be a bit harder to get Music Scene sold in all newsagents as some of them will only sell a small selection of music magazines and will only be interested in ones featuring worldwide known artists as they think they would be able to sell it easier. Although I could definitely see Music Scene being sold in the few remaining record shops on the high street, as we know many are struggling and are almost becoming out of fashion. So I think selling magazine about their genre of music will appeal to them as it will potentialy boost their falling profits.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The age group that is represented in my magazine is teenagers and young adults. My article portrays an expected representation of this age group and a positive one at the same time. The main piece of my work that contains the representation is my article that tells the band's story. The initial representation will perhaps back up what society thinks of teenagers as it tells of how the two of the band members spend a lot of time on the streets causing trouble, at one point it they come very close to entering a young offenders home. This deliberately supports a negative stereotype of teenagers and confirms what the media always seem to be telling us that teenagers do in their spare time. But I use the rest of the article to disprove this and show that some people possess the ability to turn their life around, which is what happens as they both discover a shared love of singing (which is not something usually expected from teenage boys) and they form a band together. the act of telling their friends about their passion would be interpreted to be a hard one. This creates a positive image of teenagers and hopefully proves to people that not all teenagers are rude and violent and that some are really determined to work hard. Also I think the fact that my pictures show the band practicing in a park shows how down to earth they are and further help to provide a positive representation as they are not doing what people would expect thwart to be doing in a park such as drinking or smoking.

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

I took a lot of time in creating my research because I knew that they would help to inspire my own ideas and would give me crucial ideas and conventions of real music magazines. I decided to focus the bulk of my research on NME and Q as I have taken a liking to their styles when looking for pages to annotate as part of my research. Although I have also chosen to annotate Vibe, Kerrang and Clash because I thought they have some stylistic features that I like. As I said NME and Q are the main conventions that can be seen in the production of my work.

I chose to follow the conventions of many music magazines as I decided in the end to add a masthead, this makes the title stand out as it dominates the page. This also makes the title and the genre obvious to the reader. I wanted it to obviously be a music magazine and had  so I called my magazine 'Music Scene' a name with musical connotations. I also chose to add date, issue number and the barcode as these are all conventions that existing music magazines choose to use. They are good as they allow the audience to organise a collection by date. I felt that it would be good for me to use a barcode as it allowed me to show that I could weave it in to the page without it gaining too much attention.

The research had also told me that it was important to add in a competition, all of the other magazines that I have looked have offered the chance to win a competition. I think they are good as they offer an incentives for the audience to pick up and read the magazine if they aren't particularly interested in the main articles.

Another convention that I chose to follow was the limited use of block colour. From looking at existing music magazines I noticed that most of them used block colour but only usually once. They do this to make one certain feature of the page stand out, it does this as the one block colour attracts the audiences eye compared to the rest of the page. I thought this was a good idea so I decided to use this convention, I put the competition in this box as I feel it is the part of my front cover that I think will interest the audience most and I am relying on it help sell copies. Following this convention led me to just put my text on top of the actual picture, I feel this is more effective as too many block colours make the page look too busy.

The final little convention I followed is to do with my main photo, from looking at 'Clash' 'Kerrang' and others I noticed that all of the models on the front covers were looking straight at the camera. I decided this was a good convention to follow as this gives the a connection with the audience.

However I did chose to challenge some conventions I have spotted. Clash in particular uses a lot of pull quotes form the articles on the front cover. I felt that this wasn't really a convention I would want to follow. I think that the cover should be reserved for only the articles inside, if a person isn't particularly interested in the pull quote or the pull quote offends them in any way they are unlikely to buy the magazine. I also felt that there was no room for one. I couldn't really put it along the bottom as that would only leave me with two articles which isn't enough and I couldn't put it at the side because it would look out of place on it's own.

In terms of the contents page I chose to use a single page contents page. Out of the 5 magazines that I looked at only 1 of them chose to a double page. I felt that I could fit in everything that I wanted to say into one page. Doing it this way would make my page look more organised, where as a double page would mean the articles would have to be spread out and this would make them hard to find.

The main way in which my research helped me was with the structure. I was planning to order the articles in number order e.g.1,2,3,4 etc but none of the magazines I researched did it this way. They all structured them under headings such as 'News' and 'Features.' I felt this was a good idea as it makes the page easier to search for the reader plus it gave my page a professional look.

The final convention I used on my contents page was the descriptions under the articles. I didn't realise this was a convention as in all the magazines I read (which aren't music related) didn't do this. I came round to the idea because if the description was done correctly with the use of questions it could entice the reader to read on more than a single sub heading.

The only real convention I chose to challenge is the use of the subscribe to us box. About half of the magazines I looked at was had this feature where details on how to subscribe to the magazine were given. I felt that this wasn't necessary needed on the contents page as it could be a stand alone advertisement later in the magazine. This will make it much more noticeable than a little box in the corner. I also feel that the without the box I will have more space to inform the audience of what is inside the magazine.

I chose to follow the quite basic conventions for my double page spread of adding in page numbers, this is needed to help the audience as without them there would be no point of the contents page as they correspond. I also chose to add my logo to the top left corner, I feel that this adds to brand identity and really makes it clear who is producing the magazine with the hope the audience will remember the name more.

I actually had to refer back to my research as  I wasn't sure if I had accurately followed the convention regarding the main text for my article. it turned out that my text was too big it was size 16 when most music magazines use a font similar to size 10. Having a large font wasn't really working as it only meant that I could have a small article. This in fact reflected badly on the impression as it looks like I couldn't find much to talk about and gave the impression there wasn't much worth reading in the article.

Although I chose not to use a pull quote on my front cover I chose to use one on my double page spread. Most of the double page spreads I analysed did this especially NME. I felt this is good as it can give a good overview of the article content without reading it. I also feel that it is helps to break up what would otherwise be large chunks of text.

 

The only convention I decided to challenge was the amount of pictures that I chose to use the average number I noticed during research was 2. Although an issue like this depends on the content and style of the article as mine is an article of the band and then band profiles not including pictures of the band members would be rather inappropriate. There is one article that I analysed that I liked and it is in NME, as I like the way the text and the band profiles was laid out I chose to

use it as my inspiration and that used 4 pictures just like mine.