Media As Coursework Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My media product is a music magazine, for many weeks we studied many key aspects of conventional music magazines before started our product. By doing this I feel I have deep understanding of what typical music magazine consist of and now feel that my product complies yet challenges many forms and conventions of one.
From looking at front covers I learned many aspects such as colour schemes and structure and feel that my front cover compliments a typical music magazine front cover. In terms of a colour scheme we learned that a conventional magazine cover should consist of no more than three main colours in order to become attractive to the human eye and not to confuse our audience, I feel I have complied with this rule since my front cover has three main colours which are blue, red and grey. In many cases blue and red may clash but the shade of blue in which I used compliments the other colours. This colour scheme also fits in well with my main image of my model who was wearing a blue jacket with red logos. Many main images of in music magazines are taken in a studio or in front of a white background, however I felt in order to praise my genre of magazine which is urban music I decided to take my main image to coincide with that urban genre. The main image was taken at a train station and has a train in the background, this fits in with the Masterhead/Name of my magazine which is underground so I decided to use the double meaning of underground and tie it in with the London underground transport, also this setting further complimented my colour scheme since it is a similar shade of red to that of my front cover in order to become attractive to a the audiences eye. Although the setting of my main image may challenge the normal convention it was meaningful and also complimented my colour scheme making it conventional in the same way. In most music magazine the master head is typically at the top of the front cover either centrally or in the top left corner, however in my draft my master head is in the top right hand corner, this is something I have been sceptical about since it is unusual in a music magazine but may also become visually confusing or unappealing to the audiences eye since, we in English and many other languages we read from left to right and usually take in information from left to right so the fact that is in the right hand corner may degrade my front cover visually, this is something I may consider changing for my final product. In the majority of music magazines the main image is of an artist that will feature in the magazine, this is something I took into consideration and decided to conform to. There are also many smaller aspects which I included in my front cover such as a barcode, slogan, and a main sell line which refers to my main image. However in my final product I will be including other aspects such as a price and over see’s price.
Other key aspects that I included were page number references in my contents page but without ‘Pg’ or ‘Page’ since I expect my audience to already know that I am referring to the page number this is a common feature in many contents pages, however these page numbers are realistic, clear and stand out from the background. I also have a realistic number of articles for a traditional music magazine, enough to attract my audience and make them feel as if they are getting their money’s worth. Also i have had a consistency in my text with the contents sub headings in the same font and size with Contents master head matching my ‘underground’ logo font. I have divided my contents into sections with My fashion articles separate from my music features. As well as my background image complimenting my magazine name like on my front cover I have included secondary images which relate to my articles, this will give my audience a further insight to my articles. Another conventional aspect I have included is having subscription details visible on my contents page.
Q2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Amongst production and substance of my magazine I felt the most important aspect of my product was to represent and appeal to a particular social group and audience. During pre-production and production of my magazine I felt it was essential to establish and account for a particular social group, in order to attract a particular audience and to maintain a theme and style of my magazine, which will intern give it a great level of substance.
This social group in which I intended to establish and appeal to were teenagers and young adults who were keen passionate music fans, with interest in the genres of Hip-hop, Grime, Dubstep, Funkyhouse and R’n’B. Although I have chosen various genres I feel that the all coincide and complement each other due to them all fitting into an urban style.
I believe my magazine has successfully accomplished this by attaining the appropriate style in the genres of music and urban theme. From looking at my front cover it instantly highlights the urban theme due to muse en scene of my main image showing urban scenery, and also having the setting of a train station coincides with the name of my magazine ‘Underground’. My front cover also represents my social group, through the use of my models outfit, which consisted of many urban fashion trends and colours which apply to the fashion and style of my genres The outfit also implies and highlights the age of my readers since the clothes were fairly youthful, which hints at the target age of my social group. The way in which my model wears the clothes is also significant, with the hood up helps covey the theme and idea of rebels or even a less formal style of music and social group.
In terms of my colour scheme used I feel it complements the genre and social group of my magazine since I used a variation of dark colours rather than bright and cheerful colours since I feel it fits in with the urban and underground theme and genre, I also chose colours which go together and do not clash in order to attract my social groups eye instead of confusing them visually.
3. What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?
For my magazine I would chose IPC to distribute my music magazine for a number of reasons in order to progress my magazine and enhance success to its full potential.
IPC Media is one of the main four distributors in the UK which form the oligopoly. IPC also 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. With IPC already having great success with distributing its magazine to a large proportion of the UK population this will allow my magazine to be spread across the nation, gaining fans and attracting my target audience. The fact that IPC produces a large number of magazines and is still able to reach a high number of people proves that it is able to balance and distribute all of its media brands, meaning that an up and coming magazine such as mine will still have a fair chance in reaching its full potential. This is further illustrated on their website ‘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.’ Therefore their diversity will be able to apply and benefit a less popular and less published music magazine with the genre of urban music such as mine.
A further reason as to why IPC is the ideal distributing institution for my magazine is that although it offers a diverse range of magazines, it doesn’t already distribute a magazine similar to mine, which serves the In’s and out’s of the youth culture, particularly in urban music and fashion. IPC doesn’t produce many music magazines but has a wealth of leisure brands including Country Life, Horse & Hound, Rugby World and Decanter and as well as lifestyle brands including Nuts, Mousebreaker and NME. NME is a hugely successful music magazine which highlights how well IPC can distribute a music magazine. However NME is a music magazine that focusses on a completely different genre of music to mine, which allows there to be less chance of a competition between NME and my magazine since it is aimed and a different target audience.
I feel that IPC would like to distribute my magazine for numerous reasons. The main reason is that they don’t already distribute for a magazine such as mine so this will therefore increase their diversity as an institution. IPC do publish many lifestyle and fashion but they are mainly aimed at the female audience with magazines like ‘Look’, ‘Now’, ‘Chat’ and ‘Woman’. So with my music magazine also covering fashion, it will increase their fashion genres to a wider and more youthful audience for both genders. IPC already serve for a enormous audience with print alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 42% of UK men – almost 26 million UK adults. So with a magazine like mine IPC will be able to reach to a larger audience of adults and an audience of teenagers, which is an audience that they don’t already account for which will increase their success and popularity enormously.
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What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
Throughout the course of this unit I feel my technology skills have improved immensely and I feel this is particularly proved with a comparison from my preliminary task to my final drafts and final coursework pieces. The prominent programme in which I used the unit was Photoshop. This was my first time using Photoshop so this meant I had to learn very fats the ins and outs of this programme and I feel my skills with Photoshop has improved vigorously in such a short period of time. I decided to use Photoshop because it gives my coursework a high quality and very professional look, due to the varied range of tools and edits you can make to any picture as well as building a magazine. A key illustration of the skills I used was editing photos and manipulating and editing text to suit my magazine.
I managed to learn skills and improve my skills in a number of effective ways. Firstly I watched and learned many tutorials supplied to us through my school. These tutorials, made by a media teacher, showed me the very basics of Photoshop which as a beginner I found entirely useful and also gave a step by step guide on how to achieve certain desired effects. I found these particular useful since we could pause, stop and rewind the lessons rather than constantly asking my media teacher, and it was also helpful since it gave us a visual lesson as they were working through the programme. I also got assistance from my class mates, as some of them had more experience and skill in the program by doing media at GCSE level and allowing me to improve along with them to A Level standards.
I also learnt how to take pictures much more effectively with no photography experience I found this particularly easy since my school supplied us with high quality cameras which gave useful and effective photos in a very high quality. By looking at online examples of music magazines and trough mine and my peers own initiative I was able to come up with a suitable and effective setting for photos to compliment the style and theme of my magazine through looking at pictures over the internet and getting some of my own ideas, I was able to find a desired location for each of my pictures to be taken. Many of the pictures in addition were taken in front of a green screen. This allowed for me to add any colour background that I desired, due to the cutting out of images being much easier and much more detailed. With the help of tutorials and peers I also learned very quickly how to edit my photos to a standard in which I desired. I found this help particularly useful since I had no previous experience with editing and now I feel very confident in this field.
These forms of technological skills made the creation of my magazine much more effective, professional and produced to a high standard. Through the use of Photoshop and online editing software’s, I managed to add several effects and processes which allowed me to complete my magazine to a high standard. The addition of high quality image-capturing made possible to high quality cameras and editing also added to my final coursework making It a high quality sense of professionalism of my magazine.
How did you attract/address your audience?
In order to really determine and identify my target audiences needs and desires in a music magazine I created a target audience poll. This poll enabled me to get a detailed look into crucial features In which I needed to include into my coursework, which acted as a foundation and guideline on how to appeal to my audience.
I asked my audience ‘which is you primary source of social networking’ my results showed that the two most popular networks were Facebook and Twitter. From my results I decided to include information into the Facebook and Twitter page of magazine, I included this into my contents page therefore my audience will be able to socially network with my magazine creating an increased bond with my audience.
I asked my target audience which their favourite feature is and from my results interviews were the most popular so that is what I based my double page spread on.
I also asked what is the most eye catching and favourite prominent thing on a front cover and the most popular vote was the main image so I decided to highlight this to best possible way I could. Therefore I decided to make my main image the actual background for the front cover and also decided to captivate this eye catching feature by having a eye catching and unique background in order to stand out as a front cover.
My muse en scene also played a big part in attracting my audience. My background complimented the theme of magazine in an urban environment; it also complimented the name and theme of my magazine with use of a train station platform as my background. The costume used in my photos also apply to my audience since my model is wearing casual/street attire which many of my audience consume as well as the style of the genre of music in which my magazine focusses on.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?
In my preliminary task I had no experience in Photoshop and very limited understanding on the structure and common key features of music magazines. As I had just started media as a subjects I had completed this preliminary task with very little amount of skill on Photoshop and was limited to constructing the task with a hotshot with lower photography and editing skills consisting of around 15 photos which I found was not enough to work with and select form when constructing a magazine when it came to making a magazine and the fact that I had no idea how to edit a photo contributed to this problem additionally. My photos were on the location in which I used for a couple of my photo in my final coursework and I also felt the background was necessary to contribute the urban style of my magazine and the theme of the ‘Underground’ title since it was taken a train station. This is something I kept for my final product and with gaining knowledge on how to edit my photographs I edited and added effects to these photos for my final piece.
When I started my preliminary task I did some basic planning, I drew sketches of what I wanted it to look like in order to create a foundation and a template to work from. Found this was helpful because it guided me in the direction of how I wanted my school magazine to go, however I had very little knowledge on how to structure a magazine so I felt the preliminary task lacked a level of professionalism due to the fact I hadn’t broadened my knowledge on common structures of magazines. Also due to a limited short amount of time spent on the task I was unable to perfect and improve the standard, however this was not an issue with my final coursework since we had a longer time period to work in, therefore allowing me to produce to a much higher quality. So overall I did a basic level of planning of the colour scheme, sell lines, contents ideas for my preliminary product which I then used a starting point for final product allowing me to elaborate greatly.
I think one of the prominent progression of this course was the improvement of my Photoshop skills which is evident when I compare my preliminary task to my final, this was accomplished by watching many tutorials on Photoshop to help perfect my skills in order to benefit my final magazine. As you can see from looking at my preliminary task, I made a simple masthead using bevel and a stroke around it however for my final piece I wanted to challenge myself and I developed and mastered an image based master head which acted as a logo for my magazine.. This took time and effort, however I like the London underground themed outcome which makes it look interesting and original which also fitted in nicely with the ‘Underground’ tittle and therefore it has a unique selling point. I feel my skills of editing improved vastly which you can tell form my preliminary and contact sheets this helped give my work a more professional level of quality and added positively tot the overall outcome of my work.
In the preliminary task I did not use many photos whereas in my final I used many photos which I then edited to improve my overall quality. I also experimented with different camera shots and angles and with many muse en scenes to improve the overall outcome. I also spent a great deal to consider my colour scheme which is evident in my final work, particularly in my double page spread.
Furthermore I felt I needed more detail in the content of my magazine, especially in my double page spread. Therefore I did a great deal of research for my double page spread which is evident on my blog. I felt the double page spread is one of the most important sections in delivering a quality of detail and content. I also added variety in the style of writing, with both a biography and interview which was in popular demand from my target audience.
