media eassay

Media, Magazine Coursework. Essay.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media magazine that I have produced uses develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products on the market. I have included conventions that you would see on a magazine such as cover lines and primary and secondary images and mastheads on the front cover. I have kept to the forms and conventions by keeping the colour scheme the same on the front cover, contents page and the double page spread. When designing my magazine I had wanted to also challenge the forms and conventions to make my magazine different and more appealing to the target audience, I tried to challenge them in much as I could by having the mast head and primary and secondary images in my own style but keeping the main things a magazine would need the same for example price, date and barcode.
To create an idea of what magazines should look like I did a lot of research by looking at types of magazines that I believe if on the market would be competition to mine. When researching these magazines I also took in their ideas and styles to inspire me, such things as advertisements also influenced my magazine. I had to take in consideration the types of adverts seen in my magazine that would represent the readers for example the advertisements in NME magazine was for products such as mobile phones companies and typical things for teenage and people in their early twenty’s. Where as the advertisements in Metal hammer was for alcohol and games for over 18’s this tells me the magazine would be read by people over the age of 18 so and older audiences. The connotations behind these images tell me that the audience would be an older type for Metal hammer as they are targeting people over the age of 18 where as NME is advertising for universal products such as phone companies and music stores. I have tried to keep my magazine to the forms and conventions that you would see in a regular magazine but I have also tried to make them different for reader to be attracted by to by.
Who would be the audience for your media product?
The media magazine I produced is targeted for readers around the age of 16 to early twenty’s no real ethnicity, but I have tried to targeted more of the gender of girls as when I was reaching different magazines I found that the type of music genre, Rock/Alternative does not really advertise for girls it is more of a masculine market. Targeting mainly girls is different from magazines in the genre of music on the market at the present moment. I’m trying to create a new image and interest for girls who listen t this music. I will market mainly girl rock bands and encourage girls to be inspired to get into this genre and create their own bands. I also want to make bands in the Alternative genre more known such as unsigned bands, and get the readers to put forward their own bands for other readers to listen. When having unsigned bands featured I will also be featuring the mainstream bands in the magazine as you can see on the front cover by using a band I would like to believe are a mainstream artist. Using young adults in the band would intrigue the normal teenagers that would read this magazine and that would be interested to read about music created by people the same age as them.
The magazine that I have created will help these girls become a signed act if they would like to and encourage them to follow their dream if they wish to do so.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I would like a big institution to distribute my magazine as there would be more support behind it to publish it, the company would also have previous experience from when they have produced other magazines. I also think it would be appropriate for a large institution as the magazine genre is not really taking a risk; I am just targeting a different type of audience to the magazines already on the market. To be able to adversities the magazine there would not be a problem with money as it being produced by such a large company and they would have the money to do such things.
When having to advertise the magazine I have produced it would have to be advertised on TV channels that my target audience be watching such as “Q “Scuzz” and “MTV hits” although this is not a spefic genre related channel it will occasionally have rock/ alternative bands playing on there and it would broaden the target audience. I would also like to advertise it on the music channels, “Kerrang” and “NME” but they are well known industries that already have their own magazines and would most likely seeing my magazine as a threat therefore not advertise my magazine but they would be the kind of channels I would advertise them on. I would also try and take advertising my magazine on the radio on stations that again my target audience would be listening to such as Xfm and Virgin radio. When advertising in print I would like it to be advertised in places such as train stations and in the entertainment section of a newspaper.
How did you attract/address your audience?
When designing my magazine I had to think about how I would get the attention of the reader’s eye. I used 3 main colours, them being purple white and pink. Looking at them 3 colours the connotations you would get is girly which is what I was aiming for, but I made these colours darker to give them more of an rock effect so it wasn’t so girly they would be put of off purchasing it. The primary image takes up most of the space on the front cover so the readers would become interested to see why the magazine chose to use this particular band.
The masthead is an very important aspect of the magazine as it tells the reader what the magazine is called, when placing the masthead on the magazine I put it classically at the top of the magazine above the primary image. I made the masthead stand out by using a white colour for it, so that it would stand out being placed on top of a dark purple background and the font being bulky would also make it stand out. The actors in the primary image were wearing a mixture of dark and light clothes which contrasted well with the dark purple back ground, but when finding a colour in which the reader could see the cover lines when they are placed over the picture was rather difficult as I had to keep within the colour scheme I had chosen. When writing the cover lines I tried to make them as interesting as I could by making them sound exciting and using explanation marks.
When planning the primary image I had many ideas that I thought would work for the magazine and I tried each idea I had. I had to take in consideration what the actors would be wearing, the lighting and body language, as these are the main things that reader will notice when looking at a picture. I thought through the main image quite carefully, and it took me many attempts to get my image perfect.
After taking photos of my actors in 3 different positions I decided on a “V” shape formation, I put the only boy in the middle of the two girls as I felt it would involve the reader as he was looking into the camera so it looks as if he is looking to the audience. With the two girls leaning towards the boy makes the girls I used a mid shot portrait, as this looked best when put on the front cover. The two girls were standing beside him leaning against him shows that they are in power to him and make them look just as important as the boy in the middle.
In my contents I done an editors say in which the contents was a definition of ‘fearless’. The language used throughout the magazine was informal so that when the target audience would read it they could relate to it. Although I did not use slang words it was just informal language used.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
When begin to construct my magazine I learnt many technologies from this experience. Before starting this project I would never have known how to work fireworks and how to edit pictures using it. When learning how to use fireworks I found it frustrating at time but I soon learned why on how to use the tools quickly and easily. For me I think found the hardest part trying to get all the text and images in the right place I found it very fiddly for me to do also I found cutting around the picture one of the hardest things to do I found this too rather fiddly as I wanted my picture to look as professional as it could by cutting around the background that I did not need. I found the easiest part was to put the text in place, although as I said it was hard to get it in the perfect place and finding the font to work for the magazine was also one of the easiest parts once I had an idea in mind of what I wanted it to look like. When constructing the contents and double page for my magazine I used publisher. Using publisher at first I found hard but I picked it up quickly, I found the colour schemes and layouts very dated for what I wanted to do.
When I was planning my magazine I researched a lot of other magazines but I did not plan it on paper at all well and now I wish I did as looking back I think It would have been easier for me to see what I needed to do and how it would look to the human eye not just in my head
I think the easiest part for me was to create the contents page and the double page spread as it was not a fiddly as the front cover and I had had previous experience of using publisher so this was easier for me where as most people had found fireworks easier as they had used this programme before I had never used fireworks and found it hard at first but soon found it easy to cope with.
How does your media product represent particular social groups?
On the fount cover of the magazine I used an imagae of young teenages to attract that particular social group, i also used mainly girls in the image. To attract the audience i wanted i made my models use gutiars to represent the type of audience who would be intrested in "rock" music. The chloths they are also wearing is not the type of clothes that teenages listening to hip hop would wear, so i chose the actors to wear chlothes to represent the particualr social group they are from.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When looking back at the preliminary task I believe I have made a lot more progression in taking pictures, in my preliminary task I had trouble with take a portrait image as when I took the picture I cut hands out. In the main task I made sure that the picture taking was not as bad as when I first took picture back in the preliminary task.
I also developed choosing colour schemes to attract target audiences.
Not only have I learnt how to use editing programmes correctly and easily I have also learnt how to spend my time more as I had to plan when I’m doing things in order to give me time to edit if it had not gone to how I had seen it I’m my head.
Giving my draft in to my teacher my teacher pointed things out that I had never noticed and this gave me and advantage to improve and make it better than it was before. I had to change my picture as the lighting was no the best and change the colour scheme as I was not comfortable with it and felt it was not good at all and my teacher fully agreed and helped me to pick a colour scheme suited for my magazine.