Media evaluation
- 2. IN WHAT WAYS DOES THE MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP AND CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS? My product uses several conventions that are common in existing magazines like NME and Kerrang. I have done this so the target audience will recognize it on the market as a music magazine and the genre and audience isn‟t questioned. For example, it has a barcode, price and all the usual relevant information on the front cover, and a large masthead so there is little question as to what the genre and brand of the magazine is. All these features help sell the magazine effectively. I have included a large, central image to be the main focus of the cover. Similarly, the contents page has a clear and conventional layout so the information is not scattered and hard to find for the reader. The interview also follows basic conventions, being ordered in an article format. In following certain conventions I have given my magazine some much needed realism, and using these features has helped make the final product look more like a magazine that would be sold on the market and less like poor standard GCSE work.
- 3. My magazine has some unconventional features though. It has a bright and colourful comic book theme which is rarely used for music magazines, which tend to follow a black, gothic and cluttered theme to suit the rock genre. The use of reds, yellows and purples are very punkie and contrasting, which make the magazine visually striking and unconventional. The background on the front cover and the contents page are made up from scribbles (described in the interview as having been drawn by the featured artist). This makes the background completely unique and original, and thus unconventional. The layout of my interview is also unconventional, showing a rock singer in a quite idyllic hill setting. This setting also contrasts with the title, which retains the comic book theme of the contents and front cover, and in the main picture the singer is dressed in punk/ indie clothing. This links to the theme of this article; to meet the real Will Marshall, the article shows the person behind the persona he has built. I have made the background on the interview contrasting to make it visually striking like the other pages, and perhaps to express the singers contrasting personality.
- 4. I have used specific jargon with the title Alva. It is the middle name of Thomas Edison, who created the gramophone. This title is very unconventional, as my target audience are indie teens and this name is very unrelated to the genre. Despite this, it is linked to music and is short and catchy like similar magazines like NME so is conventional in that sense.
- 5. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS? As my product is aimed at young adults aged 15-25, it must use language that will appeal to them and images related to the genre. I have tried to achieve this by keeping the writing simple yet informative, particularly in my interview. For example, it follows a simple question answer structure to maintain readability in the article, and it consists mainly of fun facts and trivia rather than statistics and numbers. This keeps the article interesting and entertaining for the stereotypically short attention spanned young audience. Maintaining this stereotypical view on my target audience, I have kept the text minimal on both the front cover and contents page, and more focus on strong images that stand out. The images used all are of people aged under 20, which further establishes the magazine as aimed and related to young adults.
- 6. The major social groups represented in my magazine are punk, indie and rock movements. Punk dominates the magazine as it is used as the major theme, particularly in the colourful and contrasting colour scheme. This is mainly due to the fact that one of the major features that would appear in my product would be a retrospective on punk music, and in having a punk theme it would bring the audiences attention to it being linked with the genre. I have tried to incorporate many influential and instantly recognised aspects of the punk genre to my magazine, including using a punk symbol (the anarchy „A‟) on the front cover and the inclusion of images of classic punk albums that are now synonymous with the genre.
- 7. The musician featured in my interview does follow the stereotypical vision of musicians and their rock and roll lifestyles, which often consists of substance abuse and following the old idea of “sex, drugs and rock and roll”. However, Will Marshall is fictionally portrayed as being “clean and teetotal since 2009”, to ensure the article doesn‟t promote drugs for the young and impressionable audience. The major theme of the article is to reveal the real Will Marshall, perhaps after events that prelude this article. Either way the idyllic setting of the article contrasts with the stereotypical view of rock and roll being nightclubs and dark rooms. Again stereotypically of most musicians, their lives are plagued with various tragedies. This is often the case with musicians, who will use tragic circumstances to give them more humanity and an emotional edge over other musicians, and to gain popularity and common ground with their audiences. Following this I decided to use his fathers death as a catalyst for his motivation towards music.
- 8. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY? Following most magazines, my product would be distributed by a much larger company, but if it is able to compete on the market professionally against other popular magazines like NME and Kerrang, it must be distributed by one of the big names, in particular Bauer (Q, Kerrang etc.) or IPC Media (NME, Uncut etc.). Both are competing companies, and both have a similar scope in scale of distribution. Despite this, IPC Media have a large gap in their market for magazines like ALVA (being a mix of indie/ alternative rock/ punk) with only NME being a big name music magazine in their collection. Another magazine like mine would help them compete better against Bauer, and alternatively if it we‟re to be distributed by Bauer, the similarities with NME would weaken the chance of success for my magazine on the market compared to these well established brands. The reason for using a well established media institution as my distributor is simply because that will almost certainly mean higher sale figures rather than if it was independently distributed. Having a well established distributor will help give it national success rather than just localized success, meaning it will be more widely known and eventually become well established like other music magazines on the market.
- 9. WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT? The primary audience for my media product, as detailed in my target audience model, would be young adults aged between 15 and 25. Following the NRS classification system, my primary audience will be in the C1, C2 and B boundaries, which will mean they will be working to middle class, who are probably tired of the constraints put on them from class, status and gender. They‟ll have a rebellious streak, possibly dying their hair and wearing emo/ mosher clothes as a way to get rid of these constraints put on them by their peers, family and society as a whole. Music will most likely make up a large part of their lives, so my magazine has to love music as much as them. It must inform them on tour dates and new releases from their favourite bands, but also entertain them with articles that contain fun facts and anecdotes about their favourite bands. There must be a variety of bands (from Metallica to Asking Alexandria to The Smiths) to attract a larger variety of audiences, but still stick to the major alternative genre to keep it specialized (For example, no articles on rap or pop).
- 10. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE? I tried to attract and address my target audience with my product in a variety of ways. One of the major ways to do this in a music magazine is mentioning brands that are well known to the audience, particularly well known bands. On the front cover, I mention several to attract fickle readers to my product, including Green Day and AC/DC. The inclusion of this on the magazine front cover means they will be included in some way within the magazine, and will attract fans of those bands to read it. Also on the front cover I have included a competition to win tickets to an Arctic Monkeys gig, so the prospect of winning something may attract the young audience to the magazine, and it is directly linked to the central theme of music. I have directly addressed the audience in the note from the editor segment on my contents page, where I have included a paragraph to summarise the most important articles featured in the magazine. Whilst it remains pretty generic, it does refer to the audience as “...for all you music lovers out there.” This shows that the editors understand that the target audience will love music and will have bought this magazine for this as a primary reason.
- 11. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT? In creating my media product, I have had to produce the majority of my work on Photoshop. In using this software, I have learnt a lot more on making my product look more professional and less like GCSE work. I have worked on various things, like adding contrast and brightness levels, to make my images striking and easily eye catching. When using Photoshop in the past, I have often misjudged the scale of my work, often resulting in too small photos and too large text, which make my work look amateur and messy. To avoid this problem I have printed out and seen previews of my work as I have done it, and compared it to existing magazines at all times to make sure it looks professional in comparison. I have also used the stroke effect on various texts I want to look the most important, such as the title on my two page spread and my masthead, and also drop shadows and outer glows to stop the magazine looking stationary and flat. Another problem I have had in the past when using Photoshop are the backgrounds, where I have usually used the gradient tool. Unfortunately I realized early on that this doesn‟t create a sense of verisimilitude because it doesn‟t look like a product that would be on the market. Instead I decided to use an unconventional drawing as my background, which makes it look different to other magazines yet it still retains a sense of realism. Similarly on my contents page I have used a faint drawing over a plain blue background so it will link to my front cover, and on my background for the two page spread it is the same as on the picture I took, a hill setting. I tried to minimize the amount of cutting on photo‟s I had to do to take away the initial backgrounds, as cutting can often look messy and I wanted to maintain some realism to the images.
- 12. Due to the amount of Photoshop used, I have had to do the majority of my work on Apple Macs. This proved difficult at first due to me being more used to PC‟s, but in creating this product I have become more skilled with Mac's, being able to use most of the programs on them successfully. My other most used piece of equipment whilst creating my product is definitely the still cameras. I have used 1 original image on my front cover, 5 on my contents page on 3 on my two page spread. All 9 of these were taken at different times with 5 different models, and so I have learnt over the span of this course how to use photography successfully. Along with the above, I also used the Safari browser to get additional images needed for my magazine, including the barcode, some of the text, the parental advisory logo on my album cover etc. I also used it with my research into existing products, research of distribution companies and other research into bands and albums. I have had to put all the work I have done over the course of this year on Blogger. I have had to make sure I have made regular posts on various aspect of my production, including evidence of my research, planning, progression, extra details and my final product. I had never used Blogger before this year so I have had to learn over the duration of the year how to use it.
- 13. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT. In the progression I have made from Preliminary task to my final product, I have definitely made significant improvement in all areas of media. For one thing I have learnt that the attention to detail is very important, such as if a magazine front cover doesn‟t hold the relevant information (such as barcode, title, issue number etc.) the audience will find it difficult in establishing the genre and it will also look less professional. Another thing I have learnt over the duration of this year is to make sure I use effective backgrounds on my work. Instead of just using block colour or gradients on Photoshop, I have opted for photos and other original images as this makes the product look more visually interesting. Unlike my preliminary task, I have aimed to make each page visually striking, instead of solely focusing on my front cover, and I believe I have achieved this during my progression. Another skill I have developed over the last year is photography, which at the start on my preliminary task I did shoddily. For work on my final pieces, I made sure that I took a large amount of photos of each person, so I could pick the better ones to use on my magazine. I also tried out various different lighting effects on the pictures I took to find out the better aesthetic look for each situation and to successfully portray the models ideology. Following the idea “A picture paints a thousand words” I have tried to effectively express as much about the models character as I can, particularly focusing on how mise en scene can be used to portray them. These are all things I would not have payed much attention to during the preliminary task, but which help the product look better and more like an actual magazine on the market.