Evaluation- How do your school/college magazine and music magazine relate to existing examples of these media forms?

College Magazine (Preliminary Task)

Music Magazine

Front Cover

Contents Page

Double Page Spread



As you can see there is a really big difference between my preliminary task and my music magazine. When creating my college magazine I used a simple layout that met most magazines that I looked at, which were music magazines and gossip magazines. When creating my music magazine I looked much more in depth when researching music magazines as I wanted to have a music magazine that followed the forms and conventions of other music magazines so that my magazine would fit in really well if it was to go onto the market.

There are some similarities to both my preliminary task and Music magazine as in both I have used one main image for my front cover and the same for my music magazine. I have also put the title of both magazines at the top in large bold writing. Text has been placed around the outside of the image in different sized text but keeping the same font. I have been more in depth when creating my music magazine as I thought a lot about how I wanted my images to be taken, what exactly my the language of my text was going to say, which fonts would look best and fit my genre of magazine, the colours that I should have used etc.

Evaluation- How have you approached the task and how have you managed time, equipment and other resources?

Time

To begin my media practical the first thing that I did was to create a gantt chart to show how I was going to manage my time throughout the process of producing my own music magazine.

http://asgeorgiaskusecabot.blogspot.com/2011/01/introduction.html

By doing this I could keep looking back to make sure I was managing the time I had correctly to ensure that I would meet all deadlines that were set.

To keep my time accurate I made sure that I planned my ideas ahead so that I could stick to these throughout the production and if any changes needed to be made, it would only be very slightly.

I made sure that I was using my time well outside of school to complete the work that needed to be handed in, to ensure I was doing at least 4 hours of media work a week made sure I would meet all the deadlines. Although I spent much longer time some days/weeks as I wanted to make sure I could complete everything really in depth.

Equipment

To ensure I achieved a high standard photograph to put into my magazine I used my Canon EOS 40D DSLR camera. For some of my pictures I also used an external flash so that facial features of my models really stood out.

To do the creating part of my magazine I used Adobe Photoshop. The program has many features that helped with the production of my music magazine. From image manipulation, different font and texts sizes, to being able to rearrange images and text to look like a conventional music magazine. The program creates each little bit that you do in a separate layer so that it can be rearranged so different things can be placed on the top of other things.

Models

I had 3 people as models to feature inside of my magazine, this made easy for my to stick to my time plan as I only had to arrange 3 separate photo shoots although more took place my ideas changed slightly during this pre production stage. All of my photo shoots took place in my own time after the school day, which shows how I have managed my time well.

I feel I have worked very well while working individually to create my music magazine and feel my time and resources have been managed very well.

Evaluation- What conventions have you observed with use of imagery?

Each of my images were taken in a particular way to keep all readers interested throughout the magazine. For example my main image was taken in a unique way to attract my audience and creating a mode of address. Having a strong photo with a direct address really attracts my target audience to my magazine.

None of my photographs really portray a particular stereo type, meaning my magazine can attract a wider audience of people to want to buy it. As you can also see by all the photos that I have shown here they differ slightly to the ones present on my magazine. This is because I did a slight manipulation process to each of my photographs so that they looked correct to be on/in my magazine. The lighting and saturation was the only aspect that was changed on the photographs as some were taken with a flash that came out too bright and some were a little bit darker with some shadowing that I wanted to get rid of. 

 

I have thought carefully about how I wanted to images to look on each of the pages and I have shown that I have used a range of different shots. With the use of mid shots, long shots and a close up shot for the producers say.  

I feel all of my images that I have taken follow the conventions from other music magazines. The photos especially fit in with my genre of a pop magazine, as I have though carefully about costumes, make up and lighting. Sticking to mainly studio shots because I wanted the photos to fit in nicely onto my magazine page so that text could fit in around the images.

Evaluation- You should also reflect on the importance of design drafting and how the final outcome related to the draft layout in each case

designing drafting- final outcomes

Evaluation- What conventions have you observed in terms of Mode of address and use of imagery?

Each of my images were taken in a particular way to keep all readers interested throughout the magazine. For example my main image was taken in a unique way to attract my audience and creating a mode of address by the way I have stood my model and used her arms to create a particular look with a direct address to my target audience.

I used the same idea when taking my other photos that are inside my magazine to make sure I was keeping my audience interested throughout the time they were reading my magazine.

I made sure that I was using a range of different shot types within my magazine because I wanted show that I could follow conventions from other music magazines. 

All these images that are shown were taken using a DSLR camera where the photos were then uploaded onto photoshop so that they could be easily manipulated and edited to fit the genre of my magazine. Although I did not make many major edits to my photographs I needed to change the lighting, contrast and saturation settings so that each of my models looked the right colour to be on each of the individual pages.

All of my images have direct address to keep the reader interested when they are looking through all the pictures inside of my magazine. I think if I had to design more pages for my magazine I would have included pictures that didn't all have a direct address as it would have been more appropriate.

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

 

  

Looking at other pop music magazines in the research stage I figured out that many institutions are likely to distribute my magazine. It doesn't necessarily mean that because I have created a music magazine that it would need to be distributed by a specific media institution.
Having a look in lots of different supermarkets e.g. Asda, Sainsburys, Co-Operative, Tesco etc. I found that all these supermarkets held a large amounts of magazines from music magazines to gossip magazines, which are likely to be one of the institutions that my music magazine could be distributed by.

Other institutions similar to supermarkets would be smaller shops e.g. in a town centre or a local corner shop. WHSmiths is another major distributor for my music magazine as they get a lot of attraction from customers for books and magazines and aim to target a much wider audience each year.  Although my target age group of 16-25 year olds may not be attracted to a shop like this.

A music store is another institution that will distribute my media product as they will be attracting many music artists for album's etc. This is likely to create a wider target audience for music magazines as a range of music fans will be in shops like HMV.

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

MEDIA EVALUATION