Photoshoot Evaluations

Below is a video presenting the reasons behind why I chose my photos and why those close to being picked were not.

Photo shoot evaluation

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Double Page Spread Construction

Double Page Construction

 The relevance of this style is to keep in touch with the rebellious fantasy role model character I have created throughout the magazine. Also the fonts have mainly had floral and fancy swirl type patterns feature throughout so I felt it matched the house style very well.

When first developing I had to often move the text around. I mainly had to manipulate the main font feature (the quote I took from the interview and enlarged) in order to make the placement work well. The language I have used in the piece I wanted to be colloqueal and although it has contained a few swear words I needed it to appeal to a teenage audience, so I had to minimize the bad language.

Placing the main font proved to be a bit of a challenge as with my initial planning of spacing it did not look right as the text wrap made the piece look strange. In the end I manipulated the picture and alligned it left which I feel worked much better.

I feel my final double page spread ended up looking better then I had even planned it. I feel it created the ambience and atmosphere I strived to develop and I feel the cool icey tones and colours reflect the attitude of the piece I have written.

Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

Firstly, I decided upon a target audience for my magazine. I knew I wanted to attract the 'Indie-rock' trend, as I liked the indivdualism that those particular people empowered and the unique factor that both their fashion and attitudes captured. After deciding this I had to research and look at the genre of music that were favourited among these people, I found that there was quite a wide variety and that I would have to limit my music choices. I chose the artists and bands that I percieved to be most relevant to the cause and began to base my magazine around this. I looked at photos of both models and those I knew that had the fashion associated with the 'Indie' genre and began to think of choices for my model. The two I chose instantly sprang to mind. My friend Charlotte, and ofcourse my main model, my cousin Poppy. She seemed to embody every aspect of my target audience and was the perfect model. Her clothing wasn't a problem as she had many antique pieces of clothing, for example her faux fur coat that had been her grandmothers and other 'Indie' based clothing.

Here is a picture of the fashion that Poppy endorsed.


I knew if I really wanted my magazine to stand out I would need a unique selling point. For example some magazines like NME and Kerrang often promote festivals and gigs.This had to be a combination of both the production and design of my magazine itself and in the music I included. I began wondering how I could capture the confident somewhat rebellish attitude of the genre in a photo. I realised it was all down to the 'micro' detail of shot composition,framing, anchorage, layout, mode of address and register.

In my front cover photo I used a close up of model (as often featured on the front cover of many music magazines) I wanted her gaze to be outwards and provocative, engaging readers. Here is the photo I used and finished front cover:

To convey more of her 'rebellious' nature. I gave her a prop to work with, she held it between her lips conveying power and confidence. In my other photos I shot her from different angles. One of the photos her face is tilted upwards and her arms are behind her back. This gave subtle connotations of arogance, yet rebellion and a 'I don't give a s***' kind of attitude. This is shown by this main quote featured on my Double Page Spread:





 Which is appealing to many young adults going through the harder stresses of life. I also had a few hooks inside my magazine, for example gig offers, festival ticket wins etc. All the gigs offered or promoted I had researched as being related to my genre, and included bands and artists that were in my magazine for example Reading which has artists such as 'Florence and the Machine' playing. I also feel that my cover lines and language helped to induce the readers, I used colloquial language and provocative phrases.

Evaluation Question 7

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

 Since starting this magazine project I have developed a knowledge and deeper understanding of many different aspects within the magazine industry, these being:

To begin we started learning about the basic magazine conventions and of course the magazine industry. My basic knowledge on this was very varied, but I began to understand terms like circulation, revenue streams, socio-economic groups etc. I learnt that when it comes to making a magazine, it was a lot more complex then what I first thought. There were many things to consider, to begin there was the basics for example layouts, colour schemes, fonts, housestyles. But then I began to realise that there were more aspects that would affect my magazine. The target audience would contribute greatly to my final product, and the importance of the content itself I had hugely underestimated. 

 The content had to not only constitute that of a real music magazine, but it also had to reflect my genre. It was much harder coming up with all my content that I had ever thought it would be. In terms of managing my time, this took me a lot longer then expected and could have hindered the rest of my work. In general I spent much longer on actually creating my final product then on both my research and planning and my evaluations. This wasn't a good decision as my research would hugely influence and benefit my magazine and the quality of the product.

In this post I have shown both my Preliminary Task and finished task, in order to show my improvement of skills. We can first look at the photos. The photos on my finished product are of much better quality, the lighting makes the picture a lot bolder and more proffessional looking and of course my skills in using technology have developed. Adobe Photoshop has been the main programme I have used, I had no previous knowledge of the programme before I started using it for this project and I feel I have really progressed in my use of such technologies. 

In order to capture my target audience and achieve all the standards set by the project I knew I would have to work at getting the best picture possible. I looked at the composition of my photos alongside the lighting and the spacing etc.

Decision making was a large part of my task, there were lots of difficult decisions to make. For example I had to choose my housestyle, which included fonts, colours, layouts etc. Obviously these had to be related to my genre and model etc. My decisions all also had to be linked to my time keeping. Time keeping had a major role within the development of my project

In order to get feedback from my audience I thought it would be a great idea to make an online poll. Throughout my blog I have videos and rhetorical questions that get the audience involved but I thought this would be one step further into engaging my blog readers. This way readers got to actually help influence the final piece. I've also recorded and included audience feedback throughout in order to show how their comments and creative criticisms have helped to form my magazine.  

Front Cover Photo Analysis

Specific Analysis
Looking at the composition, colours and framing of the front covers and the feature pictures in order to attain a better understanding and idea of the front cover I want to present...

Specific Analysis of Front Covers and the Feature

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First stages of Front cover and contents feedback

First stages of Front Cover and Contents Feedback

Below is a powerpoint presentation of my feedback, containing both pictures and videos/ audios of me documenting my feedback and analysing the changes that need to be made to my work.

Front cover and contents feedback powerpoint

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Evaluation Question 6

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

Prior to this course I was not familiar with anything to do with Apple Macs or Photoshop. I had no idea how to use many of the programmes featured on the macs and Media lessons have helped to majorly advance my technological skills, especially when using Photoshop and Indesign.

Below is a link to another post which displays the progress of my front page in order to give more examples of the technologies I used throughout.




http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3138161771538533354&postID=3512130410057273199

 I think I worked best within Photoshop. If I'm honest this may be because I had longer to become accustomed and familiar with all the tools. Photoshop is a complicated programme and on few occassions because somewhat frustrating. This often occured during an episode in which I wished to use the 'magnetic lassoo tool', because the slightest move you made wrong meant that you lost your curren progress. But eventually I grasped the concept of using it properly. I had a couple of small struggles when trying to use InDesign, the programming differed quite a bit from Photoshop and the icons and their uses at times became quite confusing.

These are my front covers. If you look closely enough at my Wilmington Weekly page you can see that I had used magnetic lasoo to cut out the main girl in the picture. The contrast is very obvious and does not look natural or proffessional. Whereas I used the feather tool in my completed task. This tool definitely makes the magazine cover look a lot more proffessional as the hair and hat blends effortlessly into the background. Also you may notice that the contrasting tools have been used in both. The difference being that the clarity, clearness and definition looks a lot better quality in my completed project in comparison to my school magazine project. I feel my use and placement of font in regards to layout has also improved. The cover lines on the school magazine are quite randomly placed and don't work strategically with the rest of the page.

I also used a variety of websites and programmes to create my research blogs and evaluation. I used a website called 'goanimate' to help display my target audience. In which you create your own character, choose a background and write in your text that your characters speak. I also often used powerpoint to present my pictures and feedback from my fellow classmates. For a long while, one of them wouldn't work because I had embedded a video and audio within the powerpoint. So my skills improved as I attempted to overcome this problem.

Below is a video of some of my Website Medias used.

                

Technologies everything used pp

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Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

GoAnimate.com: Media Video by bj.beth

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com.




http://goanimate.com/videos/0fWgPhNHYEjA?utm_source=linkshare






PICTURES 

As stated before, I mainly wanted to target women as, as specified in previous questions, many Indie based music magazines are generally aimed at men rather then women. But I wish to exclude neither, in both cases I am targeting the Indie-rock genre and there is a particular style that is connotated with this type of music.
One of the biggest selling 'Indie' typed clothing shops is Urban Outfitters. It has a section named 'Urban renewal' which basically means that the items of clothing are pretty rare and almost completely unique. This shop sadly, is quite exspensive, so some Indie stylists turn to charity clothes for their vintage look. When we picture Indie, we often get the idea of baggy jersey tops, or big 'grandma' styled cardigans embellished with patterns, the outfit tied together with a pair of skinny jeans and numerous bracelets, garnished with gig names and places. But as style is developing so is fashion as it slowly continues to become more abstract and unique. My magazine however tries to promote the more laidback style of clothing as depicted in my two pictures. The girl with more wild unkempt hair and laidback styling, garnished with the usual bracelets and a large bulky necklace. The boy wearing the now trended large thick black rimmed glasses, high buttoned shirt and rolled up leather jacket.

I have already posted some of the music within my genre, below is a link to these posts.

http://bethreaderwgsbmedia.blogspot.com/search/label/Magazine%20Research%20and%20Planning?updated-max=2011-12-01T12:37:00-08:00&max-results=20&start=2&by-date=false

But developing from that all of the bands/artists featured within my magazines are generally seen as 'Indie'. For example bands I've included such as Florence and the Machine and Example, they are bands that play at festivals and concerts such as Reading and Wireless. Stereotypically Indie people are idealised as rebellious, and often pictured wearing 'different' clothing, excessively drinking and sometimes smoking. They would most likely not often be seen watching tele, but really that would all be down to personal preferences, though they would most likely be depicted as only watching mainly music channels.

Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media institution might distibute your media product and why?

The magazine industry is currently dominated by several different music magazines, below is a table of the most popular and their circulations/year on year comparisons.

Music Magazines: Jan-Jun 2009 Year On Year Comparisons
Title						Publisher	Jan-Jun 08	Jan-Jun 09	Actual Change	% Ch
Classic Rock						Future Publishing	66,632	70,301	3,669	5.5
Kerrang!						Bauer Consumer Media	60,290	43,253	-17,037	-28.3
Metal Hammer						Future Publishing	48,540	46,004	-2,536	-5.2
Mojo						Bauer Consumer Media	106,367	97,722	-8,645	-8.1
NME						IPC Ignite	56,284	40,948	-15,336	-27.2
Q						Bauer Consumer Media	113,174	100,172	-13,002	-11.5
The Fly						Channelfly Enterprises Ltd	105,212	107,771	2,559	2.4
Uncut						IPC Ignite	86,925	76,526	-10,399	-12.0

Here is an example of an NME magazine front cover, the pictures both share the same genre, style and general unique connotations, which is a large bennifactor as to why I feel my magazine would best be published by a company like IPC. Also noting all the other aspects annotated in my above image you can see the both subtle and obvious similarities between the magazines.


The Socio-Economic System and Groups must also be classed within deciding upon my magazines, in both the pricing and those who I shall target, like aspirers etc. 


Below is a definition found on a website which evaluates many of society's structures, explaining Socio-Economic groups:
Market Research agencies often divide the population into different groupings, based on the occupation of the head of the household, for the purpose of drawing comparisons accross a wide range of people - it is used to see how people in differing socio-economic situations react to the same stimuli. The groups are most often defined as follows:-

A- Higher managerial, administrative, professional e.g. Chief executive, senior civil servant, surgeon

B - Intermediate managerial, administrative, professional e.g. bank manager, teacher

C1- Supervisory, clerical, junior managerial e.g. shop floor supervisor, bank clerk, sales person

C2 - Skilled manual workers e.g. electrician, carpenter

D- Semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers e.g. assembly line worker, refuse collector, messenger

E - Casual labourers, pensioners, unemployed e.g. pensoiners without private pensions and anyone living on basic benefits

I priced my magazine as I did, so younger unworking teens (possibly working part-time or have left full time education) could afford to take this amount of money off of their guardians to purchase my magazine. 

IPC Media produces over 60 iconic media brands, with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men – almost 26 million UK adults – while our websites collectively reach over 20 million users every month.
IPC's diverse print and digital portfolio offers something for everyone, with a focus on three core audiences: men, mass market women and upmarket women.

 So to conclude I have picked IPC Media as my chosen publisher. I have chosen this as due to all the information above I feel it best represents my magazine and my magazine best mirrors the others published by IPC Media. I have edited my magazine here with two other magazines who are published by IPC. I feel my magazine fits in well with these two. Looking mainly at the housestyle and layout.

Schedules and deadlines

Schedules and Deadlines 

Our deadlines were all posted together on our shared blog:

Monday 5th December - photos for front page, contents and DPS

Friday 14th January 2012 - Front Page complete

Friday 27th January - Contents

Friday 3rd February - DPS article draft

February 24th February - DPS Complete

Friday 2nd March - Evaluation questions 1 and 2

Friday 9th March - Evaluation questions 3 and 4

Thursday 15th March - Evaluation question 5

Friday 23rd March - Evaluation question 6

Friday 30th March - Evaluation question 7

In order to keep to all these deadlines, I prepared schedules. It was difficult at times to keep up with these due to other work and classes but mainly I did and have gotten all of my work in on time. There were difficulties with the first one, as my model lived quite a long way away and so if my photos weren't suitable I would not of had another chance to get them. Thankfully, my pictures were said to be suitable and I didn't need to re-take them. I finished my DPS article on time also, but I had to go back and make some minute changes,  like taking out some of the bad language in order to keep it consistent with my chosen target audience

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media project represent particular social groups?

The above photo of my model Poppy Clarke was used on my contents page, the photo next to it is of Rihanna from 'Q magazine'. I chose these photos as they had quite a few subtle similarities.  Both photos are medium close ups although the photo of Poppy is slightly closer. Both Rihanna and Poppy have their shoulder at a slanted angle and their gazes are faced outwards, staring directly at the reader. Both have serious expressions on their faces though Rihanna's is slightly more aggressive and passionate. Despite the obvious difference in hair colour both have their hair parted to the side and it is fashioned into a natural wavy 'just got out of bed look'. Both of them have unique clothing on, Rihanna dressed in a loud sequined outfit that mirrors the attitude in her expression. She is also adorned with large pieces of jewellery and a speakerphone which also leads us to the conclusion that she is a very loud person. Her bright coloured hair, noticeabley unique outfit and props all tell us this. Poppy has this same attitude but in a more discrete and laidback fashion. Her eyes have a look of sullen passion, her hair is volumised but not overstated and her stance conveys attitude. Both pictures can be related to their genre because of the aspects featured above. The genre of 'Indie-rock' has a very unique and individualistic style which both Poppy and Rihanna present in different ways. Rihanna portrays the more extreme side of the style, wearing an outfit that is not often seen being worn around your average town. You can tell the photo is trying to make a statement which screams 'speak up!' to those who are used to just blending in. Today's society and media is constantly trying to promote individuality, whereas previous society's didn't often offer this oppurtunity. Poppy's outfit is far more understated and yet speaks the same message. Her passionate expression perhaps displaying a need to be unique. There are many different social groups in our developing society and I feel this best represents the 'indie' genre and style. I also feel these photos promote the message I want to send out to my target audience (15-19 year old females), these women are making a loud and clear message and I feel they provide as good role models to young women, in order to encourage them to be loud, dress as desired and to act out as they feel right. Though obviously I didn't want to exclude the male reading public, so obviously the models are attractive and many of the bands and singers featured appeal to a largely mixed audience.

 This picture is also featured on my contents page, here she displays a kind of 'cocky' attitude, which screams confidence. Her gaze is focused outwards towards the reader and lips are slighty parted and pouty. She's wearing a simple shirt, I used her understated indie clothes as I wanted my readers to view a look and style which they could achieve themselves, yet has a unique quality. Her head its tilted at an upwards angle. This can be compared to the two adjacent photos which share similar poses. One wearing much more embellished clothing, one wearing more casual 'rock' type clothing. I believe that all three appeal to their target audience and present their genre, as each has displayed their own personality through their clothing, stance and facial expressions. I found that my phots can closely be related to those of real music magazines, despite my photos being much more understated due to a much more limited price range for clothing. I feel that the poses and expressions I got Poppy to model show character and capture the essence of 'Indie'.

Evaluation Question 1

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

Both Music magazines and School magazines differ greatly in content and layout and so I had to be sure that I did not use to many aspects of the school magazine set up within my music magazine. My music magazine had to be realistic as a genuine consumer product. In order to do this there were certian criterias that had to be met. 

To begin there was the title of my magazine : Outkast. I researched many magazine titles before choosing the name of mine and my inspiration came from 'Kerrang'. The harsh sounding consonant made the title more catchy and memorable. Another reason for my choice of name was related to my target audience, 'Outkast' is supposed to represent the typical feeling of rebellion among older teens and to portray an idea of this so called new 'pop sensation' sharing the isolation or rebellious nature as those who read the magazine. When choosing the font I closely analysed many different fonts and those that seem to be more often featured on the front pages of the most popular magazines that related to my genre. 
As you can see the font is bold and clear, much like mine, although Outkast had an added affect to make it look more relatable to the theme and genre. Although I had a different font for my title, the rest of my fonts I ran consistently throughout, so that I would have a definite house style which is vital in a magazine. You must be able to print off your pages and be able to visabley see the connection between them. It isn't just through font that this is achieved it is also through the people, content and general mise en scène of the photographs. 
 
As you can see my magazine title differs greatly to that of Preliminary Task. This I believe to be for many reasons. My target audience for the two magazines were obviously completely different. For my school magazine I was targeting younger teens and for the reason of school related issues. Therefore this limited not only my title and font uses but also my language, layout and pictures. Obviously the magazine had to also look school related. This is why I chose the more mature looking font, so I could add an air of sophistication. I used alliteration in my title, and also it's simplicity helped to add to the laid back and talkative nature of the magazine I hoped to achieve. A large factor of the change in my titles is also down to my develpoing knowledge of the technology I am able to use, I managed to download new fonts, edit them to my liking and place them exactly as I wanted, which I wasn't able to do before.




As mentioned before the photos and people in them constitute a large part of your magazine. The costumes of those featured within your pictures help to present the chosen genre, mine being 'Indie-Rock'. 

 This is the photo used in my Double Page spread and I feel it best encaptures my title 'Outkast'. Her gaze is focused outwards, as if she is looking out towards her hopes and possibilities. This gives us the impression that she is somewhat isolated and perhaps feels trapped by her life. I edited the picture, changing the saturation and brightness to make the picture look more cold, which helped to also empahasise her features. Here her pallid complexion contrast deeply against her surroundings to give her an innocent look. Her large fur coat is 'indie' styled, the whole idea of 'indie' being kind of retro and unique. Not only this but it gives us the impression of cold weather and the idea she's dressed for a trip. I feel this photo is provocative and mysterious. She's also by the sea, which brings with it connotations of beauty and freedom. Her bright pink lipstick and light hair deeply contrasts against the darkness of her coat and the blues of her surroundings, making these features stand out.  

I saw from many magazine that the front covers often featured extreme close ups and props, this is why my front cover included a combination of both. I couldn't use a prop like a cigarette featured in the below picture as it's not an item I wished to endorse, despite the rebellious nature of my magazine. Throughout my magazine the costumes change, but I liked the theme of the big heavy coats, and so most of pictures featured a larger heavy coat, in this one I decided to also use a hat, to add to my wintery cold theme. For my front page I wanted a picture in which my model gazed outwards therefore somewhat adressing the audience. Her gaze is strong and passionate, which I feel represents the nature of my magazine. The fact she is biting something gives us the idea of frustration or agression, and yet the light placid colours contrast this portrayl with an air of innocence. So I feel my magazine photos reflect those of genuine consumer products as they contain elements of magazines often featured heavily in popular magazines. Her facial expressions and outward gazes reflect the majority of magazine front covers and this grabs the consumer and somehow gives the magazine a powerful hook.
 

I feel that the genre of my magazine is presented through many elements, a main one being the content. Many of the articles featured contained many 'indie-rock' related topics. I have presented here three example of this. Reading is a festival more typically associated with 'indie' type bands and types of music. It's not only the music but also the atmosphere, this would encourage more 'indie' consumers to buy as they have a chance of winning these tickets. The strapline which talks about fears and runaway lifestyles would perhaps be more easily related to those who deem themselves 'indie' as through their strives and struggles to be different and seperated from the crowd, this may lead them to be isolated or the idea of a 'runaway lifestyle' might be appealing as sometimes they may feel the same. The person I have created may give solice to those who feel similar and let them understand that there are others. I feel that many 
magazines do this for the different genres. More heavy rock bands give those who lead a rougher lifestyle inspiration.

 
I used the artist Example as I feel his music is inspiring to those who strive for individuality, his lyrics are known world wide, and the upcoming artists would interest the 'indie' genre more then any other as they are often looking for new music interests that aren't particularly well known.

From my two contents pages shown we can see the band index, the subtitles and the layout. Despite being somewhat different it is obvious that the two pages are part of the same magazine due to the housestyle, use of the same model and consistency in numbers and language.

I wanted to not only convey my genre and theme through my use of pictures and fonts, but also through the use of language. I had already thoroughly planned and have above analysed my first Double Page Spread photo and I aimed for my doube page spread article to be formal and yet colloqueal at the same time. I used a couple of swear words, mainly only 'shit'. I reasearched the use of that kind of language within music magazines, I found that a few words like 'shit' were used throughout to exentuate a point and coinside with the artists attitude. I chose not to use that kind of language too frequently though due to my chosen target audience. I chose to promote my magazine towards 15-19 and in particular females, as found from statistics many popular magazines are focused more heavily on a male audience. So, towards a younger teenage audience I didn't want to promote bad langauage.

The photo in the second part of my Double Page Spread photo is quite contrasting to the rest of my magazine. In this photo we are meant to see a different side of my model. Here she is featured 'at home' and we see a more relaxed, sensitive side of Poppy. This is in order to make Poppy relatable to the readers, so they could become engaged and involved more in the magazine. 

Douple Page Spread

My Doube Page Spread

For my Double Page Spread I chose to use two pages, one as an introductionary page and one as the actual DPS.

 I did an extra page as I felt the picture added to the atmosphere of the article. Poppy seems like a more relaxed atmosphere, and gives the image of a real person, rather then a fake star you often see on the tv screen. This helps for the reader to build up a relationship between themselves and the interest of the article. 

My Front Cover and Contents Pages

contents analysis

 Ideas for the Contents of my Contents

Looking at this NME magazine contents, I decided I wanted to include some of these features in my music magazine. I found that the 'Band Index' idea was particularly effective and I wished to edit this and put my own spin on it. My magazine was monthly, and I decided that 30 odd pages wouldn't constitute the criteria/needs of a monthly magazine. I knew through general planning that I would not have enough room on just one contents page for around 60 stories, and so I decided it would work better if i spread my contents over two pages.

The layout is quite intricate, and there is lots to read, which I feel suits a music magazine as it reflects the attitdues of the younger readers. Looking at the picture it differs greatly from many of those shown on the front covers of magazines. The picture on the front is usually a medium close up, regular close up, or extreme close up of an artist or band, generally depicted as the models gaze aimed outwards towards the readers with a provacative glare and expression. As you can see this picture differs greatly, this is a picture of the band feature playing. The only other picture shown is that in the subscribe box. Due to the fact that I would be having two contents pages, I would most likely end up having more photos.