Tuesday, 26 April 2016



Punk/alternative
Demographics are statistical data relating to the population and a particular group within it, my audience demographic is ages 16 to 24 with an interest in "alternative" music.
Alternative is a broad term when it comes to the music industry, bands such as; Nirvana, Pearl jam,
,Alice in chains, The smashing pumpkins and Weezer. speaking in terms of class demographics they fall under C1 to B, this is low enough down to dislike those above them but at the same time high enough to afford musical pleasures. many falling under the punk/alternative subculture may have hobbies which include attending gigs and festivals, learning of an instrument; perhaps even performing alongside friends, reading and having an interest in cult acclaimed and horror movies. peopel who follow this subculture are likely to shop at clothing stores such as; hottopic, dropdead, doc marten and various other band merchandise stores.
being such a young group of adults they would have  better sthings to do than stay in and cook so fast food.

Monday, 25 April 2016

Construction Schedule


Week 1:         Work on drafts for three products
Week 2:         Photo shoot for front cover image/s
Week 3 & 4:  Construct front cover
Week 5:         Photo shoot for contents page and feature article
Week 6 & 7:  Construct contents page
Week 8 & 9:  Construct feature article
Week 10:       Final changes to finished products

Colour Moodboard


Friday, 22 April 2016

Location, Props and Costume Report


I have taken all of my images in the photography studio at college, the image I have used on my front cover was taken in studio at college as I could take full advantage of the green screen and lights provided, this helped make sure I could get the best lighting possible and made it easy to crop when it came to editing the image for my front cover. There is not much in the way of colours other than black and beige, predominantly it is grey. This links to the colours I have chosen to use for my magazine. I had my friend stand in a serious pose to show rebellion as my target audience is a rebellious young audience. The image I have used for my contents page was again taken in the studio, however i opted for two full body shots rather than a traditional extreme close up shot –The image on my feature article was taken in the studio at college and is of the same person I used on the front cover, for the purpose of this magazine made up punk sensation, “Mila M”. The only prop i used throughout the images was a wooden chair, this photo of my friend josh appears on the contents page. The costumes used in the cover give a grunge/90s vibe. 

Monday, 11 April 2016

Forms and Conventions

Masthead
A masthead is a title for a magazine, it is usually bold and is used to attract customers to the magazine. When creating the masthead, I was sure to use a very bright colour in order to immediately draw the attention of the audience, vivid colours stand out on a plain background. The masthead is font size 133.5pt and has bold/italic effects on it. I feel that enhancing the font really made it look unique and like it could actually be from a professional standard music magazine.
Cover Photo
 A cover photo is the large image on a magazine. The photo I selected was taken in a studio, using a DSLR camera with the aid of studio lighting. The photo is a medium close up

Cover Lines
Cover lines are short statements found on the cover of the magazine that allude to or describe the articles inside. Their purpose is to entice the reader into picking up and/or buying the magazine. Generally, there's one main larger cover line and then a few smaller ones, usually in a variety of fonts that fit the house style

Puffs
By putting an advertisement on the front cover it encourages the audience to purchase the magazine as it gives promises of further desired discounts.


Colour scheme and ‘house style’
The colour scheme is red, black and white, I selected these colours as they give the impression of darkness and mystery. The colours are repeated throughout the front cover and the contents page. The purpose of the repetition of the colours is to give the magazine continuity.

Pull Quotes
I have used pull quotes both on in my feature article, a pull quote is a brief, attention-catching quotation taken from the main text of an article and is usually used as a subheading or graphic feature. I did this as I wanted to catch the attention of the audience and entice them to continue reading the article.
The division of your contents page into regulars and features


Column structure
Throughout my feature article I have used a 4 column structure, my reason for this is that I believe it makes it look more professional and easier to follow opposed to a 6 or 8 column structure.


Institutions

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

With careful consideration and after thoroughly researching into all the major publishers, I have decided to publish my magazine independently. I looked at the advantages and disadvantages of distributing my magazine through big companies such as IPC and Bauer, these publishers offer a high platform for my magazine to start publishing at and would allow me time to build my product from scratch, would give a lot of financial backing and can allow me to invest in technology. However, this does not necessarily guarantee me full editorial control over my product. Because of this, I have chosen to publish my magazine independently. I also have to consider what publishers would be interested in my product being as it is similar to other already existing magazines such as KERRANG and NME. music magazines being published by UK publishers and being published by an overseas corporation could be tough to keep regular involvement with your publishers and could result in frequent flights for meetings. This could however be tackled with the growing importance of the internet, as Skype calls and emails can allow me to keep in touch with my publishers on a regular basis at a cheap price.

One of the advantages of publishing my magazine independently are that I am in full control of the product and so can moderate the content in which is included such as, who I feature in my magazine and advertisements; this would be good because I can keep the magazine the same as it progresses forward. Independent publishing is also appealing to a lot of people in my target audience because many young people now want to support their ‘local scene’ and people who are self-employed rather than big corporations. Independent publishing is great for my magazine’s reputation as well as being a great marketing technique when aided by social networking site such as Facebook and twitter. The disadvantages of independent publishing are that I have to fund the entire production process and I need to make sure that I am financially stable enough to do so, because if I am not I will not get as much time as I would if I had the backing of a major publisher. I also won’t have the platform that major publishers provide in the way of publishing, I will have to deal with where and how I distribute my magazine, I will not be able to walk into WHSmiths for example and sell my magazine there if I am working on it alone.


There are many benefits to disturbing my work through a major publishing institution. Firstly, I would be fully supported financially so this would allow me the opportunity to afford technology that I may not have been able to on my own without any financial support, this would maximise my magazine’s production and would buy me time to build as the pressure of succeeding at a fast pace is not as crucial. Getting my magazine into the major retail spaces such as WH Smiths would not be an issue, this gives my magazine a platform and enables it to mix in with other music magazines, offering a wider audience as it is given more publicity and distribution from the off, Bauer, one of the most influential publishers as an example reach over 19 million people across their different platforms. There is also the link between major national publishers and distribution company Marketforce (UK) which can maximise shelf space, this connection however only applies to magazines which are likely to be commercially successful instantly. The problems with being published by a major publisher is that I will not be guaranteed 100% creative control over my product, there could be disagreements over what can or cannot feature in my magazine and I could also be forced to feature content I might not want to and this would be frustrating for me as it is my magazine, I want to control what I do and don’t put in my magazine and I want to reach to my specific target audience, not display to an audience with interests I am not passionate about. There is also an added pressure to succeed long term because if the product doesn’t sell as expected and the publisher of my magazine starts to lose money because of this, they could decide to drop my magazine and stop publishing it all together.



Tuesday, 22 March 2016

Evaluation Question 2

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social group I aimed to attract were 16-21 year olds who loosely followed the punk and alternative subculture. I portrayed this punk image by selecting the correct camera angle and lighting in order to appeal to the punk social group.
The way I have represented the social groups is by use of text fonts and colour scheme, the font I have used is called chiller and it has quite an alternative look about it, I feel this gives the magazine a punk vibe straight away. The colour scheme I have used consists of red, black and white, I chose these colours as the result of my survey saw that these were the colours that the audience felt would appeal to them the most, the deep red, in contrast to the black and white gives the magazine cover a punkish look.

The social group “punk” tend to outrageous and have a clear attitude about them, so by using a medium close up I have tried to convey this attitude. The girl I photographed fits into this alternative subculture, by using her as the image of the magazine it makes it more appealing to the subculture I am trying to attract.

The location I used to take the image was in a studio, as I felt it needed to be in a room which was well lit, also an advantage to using a studio is that you have the opportunity to use a green screen, this is important when it comes to cropping down the image to fit on the magazine cover.

Concerning the journalism of my magazine I have used language which I believe will appeal to the audience. Throughout the magazine I have made it appeal to the teenage subculture by using informal language however it also contains formal text too as after all the target audience is 16-21.