Media AS

Daniel Jones Media AS level

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

The creation of my Music Magazine was inspired by magazines such as NME, Kerrang and Q. I have used colours associated with the genre I used a contrast of bright and dark colours which are associated with the genre that I basing my magazine on. I have followed steps of magazines such as NME as they use the same colour scheme in several issues.

As you see, the 4th magazine is my music magazine in which I have created. I kept along the style of Q by keeping it simple and clean. Sticking to a neat and tidy colour scheme and layout for a professional look. I have kept the text minimal for maximum impact hooking the audience into purchasing the magazine. It is aimed at teenagers to late 20's therefore they will be on the lookout for a professional look. I have edited out the background in the image and replaced it with a rendered background.

For my contents page I tried to follow the main

Competitors and keep a simple and professional

Look. I mainly took inspiration from NME contents page for its layout and professional look. I chose these contents because of the colour scheme and layout. I kept to my colour scheme but tried to replicate the NME contents. I added some colour to add a fuller and brighter contents page. The first is my style model and then second is the one I have created.

For my double page spread, I again kept it simple and

professional. I have used a simple layout which has been

used in several magazines such as NME and kept to my colour scheme I have used through the magazine to make it consistent. I have used a large picture taking up of the featured artist then used to the rest of the double page spread to promote and build a relationship with the audience. I used NME as a base model for my double page spread

The second image you saw was my doublepage spread. I again kept to

my colour scheme, and kept a professional and modern look with modern

font and colours. Also I noted that in other popular magazine double page spreads

they fill up empty space and add colours to the double page. By this idea I added

squares with different colours blends sticking to the colour scheme while filling

up parts of emptyness while adding colour to the double page spread. The image I

have added I modified the artists shirt to yellow, making it match up with the

the magazines colour scheme. I used this idea to match up with magazine and make

it look the magazine is revolving around the artists making him look very popular.

How does your media product represent

particular social groups

I decided to base my music magazine of the genre on several forms

of rock, ranging from Alternative rock to heavy rock due to at the time

I enjoyed the large range of different types of rock, therefore I tried to create a all genre rock magazine. I have provided several videos and pictures about the genre of the social group.

The first video was a selection from the alternative side of rock.

The Killers - When you were young. The second video was

Parkway Drive - Karma which was more to the

heavier side of rock. These are examples of what the types of music

I am focusing on.

When looking into the genre of rock, I generally found that the current

rock decade wear clothes such as Chequered shirts, skinny jeans, short hair,

three quarter shorts and trainers. I took this into account when selecting on

what actors I was going to choose. I made sure their appearance suited the

genre I was choosing. Modern rock today is quite bright and colourful, so I took this into mind when creating the colour scheme. I mixed a dark colour scheme while keeping bright not to exclude one side of the rock genre and some of rock may be slightly darker. This gave me the choice to easily choose between brightness and darkness throughout the magazine if needed.

What kind of media institution might distrubute your media

product and why

I believe a suitable choice for this would be Bauer Media Group, as already

they have experience in distributing for rock magazines as already they

distribute Q and Kerrang, which would be the perfect as my music magazine

would be a combination of both of the genres of these magazines (Alternative

& Hard Rock) meaning that Bauer Media Group would be a suitable choice for as

they have experience in the multi rock genre that my magazine is. They will be

able to provide useful information and expert opinions on how to improve help me

reach out to my audience that is most beneficial towards my magazine

Another choice for a distributor would be MusicMags. They are musical magazine distributors and provide a cheaper

distribution charge. Though they are smaller than Bauer, they would provide more effort into towards their clients, they also have much experience and full focus on musical magazines.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience I am targeting are people

who are generally interested in the Rock Genre

and are willing to explore the genre for new likings.

This gives me a large variety to build on a have a large

audience willing to be interested. As well as that I will

include information on gigs for audiences who are

interested in gigs and festivals.

How did you attract/address

your audience

The way I attracted my audience was to use references

from the rock genre itself. I used well known names

and related them to the stars I was promoting.

In my double page spread I aimed to promote the artists

by comparing him with big names that only the audience

that are knowledgeable with the genre would know off.

And for the writer to relate him to such high names, would

provoke the audience into reading more and listening to

the artist. Along with in genre references, I have listened big festivals

associated with the rock genre that the audience would be keen

to read. Again the bright colours I have used will stand out and attract

the audience and stand out from the other competitors

As shown in my front cover, I have used banners promoting

well known bands that are associated with genre, also I have included

large name festivals. Which will appeal to the audience. The name

"Riff" is a musical term, mostly associated with rock, as it is a repetitive

rock rhythm that is catchy and memorable. I aim to try and repeat

the same effect with the name. Also I added a question to who could be

in this year’s festivals, which have not been released but the idea is to lure

the audience into reading on believe they may know who be headlining

before anyone else

In the contents I have kept the colour

scheme the consistent. Again referring towards

rumours in the Leeds festival, which aside more big names that would interest audience in the rock magazine genre.

What have you learnt about technologies from

the process of constructing this product and looking

back on your preliminary task, what do you feel

you have learnt in the progression to the full product

During the construction of my magazine, I believe I have advanced on my technologies much further than from when I started.

The first image shown was my first draft of a front cover. I created a front page for my school magazine. As you can see they're several fatal flaws that are standing out. The colour scheme is very bland and boring, the text is very unprofessional and they're puffs are very tacky. To show I have learnt from these mistakes in my draft, I have added a neat banner across the top of my final front cover, to add a manner of professionalism towards the magazine. I have also blended the image of the artist with background, while maintain a bright and articulate colour scheme which is also professional. In the draft, I have made errors such as text stretching out to far. This again made it look like the "Average Joe" created it, and has no sense of uniqueness to stand out from the crowd. With the new technologies I have come across, I have managed to significantly improve my work; the first draft shown was created in a basic Microsoft publisher. For my final cover, it was created in a professional editing tool call Adobe Photoshop. I used all of these techniques and technology available in this program to outdo and get ahead of the competition.

With this technology I was able to render out backgrounds and replace with artificle backgrounds. As shown in the next two images. I replaced the background with a slick wooden background.

This was just few of the perks that I was able

to create in Photoshop. I have a large variety of

texts to choose from, as from the draft, they were

very bland and not very outstanding where as

Photoshop has a large array of selections for every

situation, in this case I needed a slick professional

look which is what I got.

The progression I feel I have made through making the full product have advanced each day. When I started on to the first draft, I kept adding and learning more. I kept pushing until I was satisfied with the final outcome. Each day I learnt a new tool to help advance with my product, which each edge adding to a unique magazine. I believe I have thoroughly progressed. In contrast to my first draft, I believe I have improved every aspect of the original draft. I have not left any space empty to make it as colourful and outstanding from the other magazines I am competing with. I started out with the draft layout and kept building on it till I had a solid foundation on which I was happy with. I replaced puffs, as I believe they aren't as profession as I would like, and instead but neat tidy banners and borders around the magazine. Originally I was going to leave a space empty for a CD of some kind, but when taken I realised that it would still leave an empty space. With research and planning, I was able to able to learn the basics of creating a magazine but not only this, I was able to advanace on it with the use of a professional software.

Thank you for reading my evaluation

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on my blog

dhsmediadgjones.blogspot.com