Evaluation Question 1

What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I began by researching into different music magazines and getting an understanding of how they look. NME was very influential in my research. I used other magazines such as

Kerrang to see what the other magazines were offering. I studied the pages in the magazines to get an idea of what they were like, and how the articles were presented.

When I started on Photoshop for the first time my work was very weak as

I had no experience using the application. As the weeks went on I gathered more guidance with Photoshop and began to use many different tools. The tools in which i used consisted of 'Burn Tool' 'Drop Shadow' 'Pen Tool' 'Text Wrapping' and many more.

Magazine Conventions.

Overview of Magazine Conventions.

Forms and Conventions
I believe that my magazine follows the conventions of a real music magazine, I used fonts that I thought would give the magazine a more modern feel to it, which is what now-a-days music magazines are trying to pull off. The magazines are looked at (Kerrang! & NME) had very much a lot of images and text on there contents and articles, and I really wanted to mirror this effect because I believe it looks more entertaining and eye catching. Also readers could argue they get more for there money. I challenged the forms and conventions of the current existing music magazines in my genre by making my text more modern and eventful. However it may look similar to Kerrang's font. Although this can be excepted, as my genre is basically the same as Kerrang's. Both being INDIE/ROCK. On my front cover, I included one primary image. On my contents page I included 1 image and another 2 on the double page spread, which fulfills the conventions of music magazines.

Masthead- Mise en Scene My magazine is called 'SOUND AFEX' my inspiration came from much research into why and how magazines are called what they are. Mostly Kerrang helped me in my idea of choosing the name 'SOUND AFEX'. The reason being is because Kerrang resembles the sound of a guitar. The sound of a guitar could be seen as a Sound effect. I then thought that Sound can affect people. So I started with the idea of 'Sound Affects', then I realised that people might believe I am trying to spell 'Effects' so I deliberately spelt it wrong so people the understand that I am trying to give off the idea that Sound AFEX's/affects people. So I decided to stick with the name Sound Afex. I then was inspired by the rough, shattered effect used in Kerrangs font. So I took this idea of shattering and applied it too my masthead. MY magazines masthead typography is distorted and very bold, I believe my masthead is different from other magazines as its not smooth and sophisticated like many other music magazines are.

The colours used by my masthead are conventional colours. I have used a block colour of lightish purple on the word 'SOUND.' and a dark purple on the word 'AFEX' I then reinforced its borders with a darker shade of purple outline, using a drop shadow to give it more style. I havent seen this style used conventionally whilst researching although I believe that in using it myself I have challenged the codes and conventions set by other leading magazines. The position in which my masthead is in follows the conventions of other magazines.

Music Magazine Title

As you can clearly see the Title above is the title/font I used for my Music magazine. The effects and font are so much different from my title on my school magazine. The Title 'Sound AFEX' works really well with the font BASE02 which is a font I took from dafont. The colours are different to made it stand out that little bit more. I also decided to give the font a drop shadow to make it stand out slightly.

School Magazine Title

When we began are task to create a front page of are school magazine, I had no experience on Photoshop what so ever. This is clearly shown by the title above, as its not of a high quality of my music magazine title. I used pretty much basic fonts as i had no yet discovered dafont at the time. I kept the colours the same as the school's to give it more of a house feel to it. I then added a Wilmington Grammar logo to give it more resemblence to WGSB.

Cover Lines- Mise en Scene My front page cover lines use and develop conventions set by real music magazines. I wanted to keep too the house style so I used purples blues and whites in the cover lines to keep the style more or less the same. The largest one of my cover lines is situated on the left in the middle. The reason being is because during my research I picked up on the fact that the most important articles are planted in the middle, where most people's eyes are drawn too at first. The font 'Punks not dead' is very common in my work. I believe its the best font for my genre (INDIE) and looks attractive.

Size and colour is another important convention I researched. I have a huge variety of different size fonts situated on the cover lines, the reason being is because some cover lines are more important than others. Too make the fonts more outstanding the colours play a big part in making the cover lines more eye catching. So with this in mind I made the bigger cover lines have a darker font.

Mise-en-scene/ Costumes/ Props.

The costumes that were worn in the pictures, were checkered shirts with white vests worn underneath, I got the idea of this from research into leading music magazines. To see what was worn by the musicians in Kerrang & NME because my genre of the magazine was almost the same as them. If the model was wearing too much clothing it does not work as well as models with basic casual clothing.

Layout and Colour- Mise en Scene I have used a colour theme throughout my magazine. I have used black & red in my magazine, as it seems to be common colours used by many music magazines. For my magazines background I have used light blue, and white. When designing my layout I researched other leading magazines too establish how they layed there pages out. I ended up putting the picture in the middle and placing (with thought and practice) the cover lines around the picture then like all the other magazines I put the master head at the top. I researched into where the cover lines are placed normally, although I noticed that some were placed at the very bottom of the Front cover. These was mainly 'PLUS's' or 'EXCLUSIVE's'.

Finished Work

Front Page

Contents Page

Double Page Spread (3 Pages)

Development

Article
Music Magazine First Draft.

The new indie sensation Alec Bradley takes time out from the studio to come and tell us how and why he has become a HUGE UK HIT. When he recorded his first video of himself online he was not to realise his talent and how much of a star he would become...

So Alec, you started making music at what? 14 am I right? However we understand that it was not easy for you in your early days?

Haha well you’re not wrong, basically when I was around 11 years old my parents got divorced and I started to go off the rails a little bit. What I mean is, I was skipping school allot, and I kinda of got in with the wrong crowd, you know the type of boys who your ‘mother’ doesn’t won’t you mixing with, you could say I was under Pier pressure, however I didn’t see it that way. Well anyway I then began to smoke and got in a few fights, hard to believe at such a young age right? So after around 3-4 years of becoming a slacker, I then became interested in music.


You said you became interested in music? How did you become interested init whilst you were out breaking the law with your mates?

When I was out at the weekends, well I went out in weekdays as well, it was mostly weekends. I listened to allot of music. When we were on the buses, going places, playing football someone would always play some music out loud. I like mainly most types of music, so I was a fan of anything being played most of the times and I seem to know the words to many songs, so I always used to sing along. I used to sing in the shower, at school (when I went), at home you name it, I was singing. I wasn’t embarrassed or scared. I wasn’t afraid to be myself. Ever since I was little I always wanted to be a ‘singer’ or ‘performer’ I just never really had the chance at the time, or I never thought I was good enough. Most of my pals said I was a really good singer, but I always thought they were just being me mates you know.


So you say you’re ‘Mainly into most types of music’, but really what types of music are you into? And what genre of music would you say you fit into?

well if I had to chose I would say I’m into ‘Indie rock’ I like the casual R & B from time to time, but my favourite I would say yeah is indie rock. I would like to think that I would fit into that category, well I hope. When I started singing properly I always wanted to be on the front page of ‘Kerrang’ ‘NME’ and ‘Sound afex’ all these magazines contain indie rock bands or singers, I like I said wished I would be in one issue one day, and now it’s happening.


From streets to the studio? How, tell us how, this all came around.

At school this one time, we had a talent contest; they called it Stars in their eyes I always found the name abit cringe seeing as they nicked it from a TV programme. So anyway I signed up to sing with 3 other lads, who were my mates at the time, you would think that a group of 13 year olds singing on stage at a school talent show would be shambles. However. It was pretty good. Well I mean I played my part, I can’t really say much for my friend john who played drummer at the time haha we won’t go there. What we didn’t know was that we were being filmed, not by the school but by one other student in my year, he really thought I had potential, I never believed him. Whatever. Well he wanted to prove me wrong by filming me and putting it on YouTube. I never knew that he did this until he had put it online. It kinda went from there I mean, the video got 500,456 views and tons of comments saying ‘THEY WONT MORE!’ I couldn’t believe what I was reading! So anyway from then on I started playing locally in halls, parties etc. I then went on to sing in front of larger crowds and that was kinda when I got noticed. This man named ‘Jack Adams’ who is now my agent came to one of my little gigs, and said I could be a national superstar with abit more training, so I worked with him, he got me studio time and a chance to sing live on BBC Radio 1. And this is where I’ve got to so far in my music career.


What must of it been like going from ‘a teenage boy who was involved in crime’ to a UK sensation, it must of been a great feeling right? I mean no one had ever heard of you, then suddenly you get a chance to sing on the radio? Was it always your dream to become a singer?

Well coming from a teenage boy who WAS involved in crime to a well known singer, it was kinda hard in away. I mean don’t get me wrong music has saved my life. I wasn’t doing very well in school my grades were lower than expected. I get a 4 minute clip on YouTube, and now I’m earning money from my dream. It’s an emotional rollercoaster which I’m riding with a huge smile on my face. Although it was hard leavin the lifestyle that I live even thought it was a bad one. I mean I had my mates a few houses down, I could go see them, we would play football. I used to take it easy. Now I have no time to take it easy. Which is good. For me. I like to be very busy and music is very busy, I mean now I’m expected to release my new album ‘Fighting for survival’ and once that has been released, I’ll start working on my new one as soon as possible. The chance I got to sing on the radio was a huge part in me being here today. I mean my agent jack had helped me hugely and I can’t thank him enough. Seriously. And yes I think it was always my dream and ambition to become a singer, although I had the dream of becoming a footballer. Well aint that every other boys dream? I knew I wasn’t any good to make it big time in football, so I always had my eyes on singing.


You said you’re expected to release your new album ‘Fighting for Survival’ how do you think it will perform in front of the nation? Are you nervous?

Well I can tell you for free, I’m more than nervous. I mean I was nobody a few weeks back and now I’m being topped for the ‘newcomer of the year’ I mean this is exciting stuff however its playing with my nerves. Also I think if people can understand me and my music then maybe they will come to like me. It’s all in good time, I really wish I could predict the future but I can’t so we will just have to wait and see what happens.


How much would you love to play at venues such as READING & LEEDS?

Wow well I haven’t even thought that far ahead, I mean if the opportunity comes. I wouldn’t think twice about it, I mean I’ve been reading a few times well only twice and I absolutely loved it, listening to all my favourite bands whilst getting smashed with my pals. I mean it’s great. But to perform there would be something else. My dreams are coming true as we speak; maybe this one might as well.


You’ve said you have so much work to do now you’re a star but when you have free time what do you do with it?

Before I became famous I played football allot with my mates every Wednesday and Sunday, I did it to stay in shape and also because I love the game. Now that I have short time on my hands to do other things I still play the occasional game of football however I don’t play as much as I used too. Believe it or not I also sit down and right things that come into my head for future lyrics, I have pages of notes that will help me with my next album, I always keep a notepad handy in case I’m in the mood for making music.


So its full steam ahead with your music career then?

Haha full steam ahead, well I hope so. I mean like I said we will see how the first album sells out, and we will go from there. Obviously I would love to carry on making music and producing it, although if the people of Great Britain don’t like my shit. Then I have no hope in hell, as they are my target audience and I really won’t to please the public with my music. Hopefully as I get older and more into the music business I will get better and more confident. I mean I’m confident now, however in a few years maybe if I play at bigger venues like reading etc. I would become extremely confident and if I can play at such venues, then this is a sign that I’m doing well.

Front Cover
Final Cover Development

The picture above is the one I started with Un-edited. I had an idea that the this picture would be one of the contenders to be on the front cover. However after much thought I decided to develop on this picture, because I thought it was the best to represent the 'Indie Style'.


I then added the Title 'Sound AFEX'

Masthead ideas

Idea's for 'Name
The genre of my music magazine is 'Indie'. I started to wright down names in which i could call my magazine. Then i started to edit them. This page is full of idea's and adaptation towards my final magazine name.

This page of Names is kinda like my final idea's, i adapted from the previous names and ideas from above and ended up choosing the name 'Sound AFEX'. The reason for this being is because i like the way it sounds and it fits in really well with the type of genre i am using for my music magazine (Indie). I firstly started off with the name 'SOund Effects', i then changed it to 'Sound Affects' because sound can have a large impact on people's mood's and actions. Therefore i chose 'Affects' because music affects people. Then i realised people would start to think i have made a spelling mistake therefore i then decided to change the name to 'Sound AFEX'. Therefore people know its ment to be called 'AFEX' and not 'Effects'.

Task & Opening Ideas

The task given was to create a new music magazine for 2009. The brief stated that we must create a front cover, contents page and double page spread, the magazine in which we had to create had to consist of 4 of our own photo's using are very own photography. I chose to focus my pictures on students aged 16-20 as I felt I would be able to relate to them best. Once I had thought of my target audience I started to think of different language and tones that I would use inside the magazine. I wanted my magazine to be an 'Easy read' however I wanted it to capture and lure people into reading the articles.

Photos

Here is a print screen of some of the pictures I took of my model Alec, I took overall 189 because I wanted a lot of choices to chose from and to work from.

Front page picture, Ideas.
Below are 4 pictures I liked the best and if you recognise the far right is the picture that I used.

Magazine Analysis

Before I started creating and planning the sections of my magazine I decided to carried out research into popular music magazines such as 'Kerrang' 'NME' to analyse their layout, language and how they sell so well.
























'KERRANG' Magazine Analyis.

General
According to the publisher's website, it says they reach over 19 UK adults across multiple media channels. Individually minded, independent of thought and musically experienced, an audience defined by attitude, passion and loyalty. 'Kerrang' is published every week to keep there readers interested and satisfied. Total circulation sales are 52272 (50128 in UK and Republic of Ireland).

Front Cover
The magazines name is onomatopoeic and refers to the sound made when playing a power chord on an electric guitar. The title has lines running through it almost to create a guitar string effect. The title has rough edges and looks like broken glass. This makes it very eye-catching.

'The UK's biggest Gig guide', this strap line identifies the magazine contains the best gig information, which on it's own, will make people who are into the genre of music won't to buy the magazine. Because it's the 'UK's biggest' means that you won't find a better gig guide in the country.

The main image is a medium close up of 'Dave Grohl', the reason for this is because the main story is about himself, also with an exclusive interview. People who are a fan of Dave will find the magazine very appealing to them. The main image of Dave show's he's happy, and his eye's are looking straight at the reader, which almost acts a fishing rod, luring you in too buying the magazine and read all about him. His expression looks suspicious because he has a grin on his face, although it looks as though he is hiding something.You cannot see his clothes as such, however you can see what he's wearing consists of the colour black. The colour black is very common in 'Kerrang', because the colour black is associated with heavy metal music.

Other images which appear on the cover, are what else is in the magazine. There are pictures of posters to show that you receive free photo's/posters. Other images consist of 'Green Day'. 'Rock Legends' and loads more. The fact it contains Rock Legends shows it has the best of the best inside. Making it very more appealing. These appear on the cover too show the reader what's in the issue, because if someone has never bought 'Kerrang' before and they stumble across it in a shop, they have little time to be amazed, therefore they show a lot of eye-catching, interesting articles which are inside.

The cover lines are promoting that the magazine will contain interviews with the band members, it's showing exclusive photos of bands on tour. The fact that there exclusive means there new photos and they've never been seen before. Therefore the fact the photos are 'exclusive' means it will make the magazine more attractive to buyer's. Also the cover lines show that there are competitions to win signed musical instruments. All this makes it very appealing again and makes people want to read into the articles.

The font's are extremely effective. The title is very sudden ad bold, it almost looks like glass smashed over the title which works really well. The cover lines work really well, the font's fit in with the title. The colour's consist of yellow and white. They also have a black background which makes the font colour's very easy to read. All the types of font on the front cover fit the 'Rock' type genre. If you only had font you could tell what genre this magazine is in. Rock.

There are a few quotes on the front cover from bands who are in the weeks issue. This shows you a glimpse of what's inside and what the band are like. Language from the cover lines is very revealing and friendly. Nothing about the language is off putting. Words such as 'Brightest', 'Great', 'Crooked' and 'Incredible' stand out and make the sentence more exciting. Rather than it being plain and boring. The cover talks to the reader by offering the reader many things to do and win.

The cover looks slightly similar to the other magazines because they both have (NME & Kerrang) the same kind of style and structure. Both magazines have quotes and competitions on the front cover. Both front cover's contain band member's and exclusive interviews. However 'Kerrang' offers a variety of articles shown on the front cover. Also it has a lot more pictures and chance's to win prizes. 'Kerrang' is more full of information and gig information than it's rivals because it advertises the amount of bands inside, and its officially the 'UK's Biggest Gig Guide'.

Inside
There are 63 pages in the issue. 22 pages consist of adverts. The advert 'types' are as follows : Beauty products - Shockwaves
Music
Technology - Phones
Music concerts - Gig guides
Clothes - Necklaces
- Bracelet's
Next week's issue.

These adverts which are inside the magazine can tell you what target audience the magazine is aiming for, for example. The fact the magazine is advertising mobile phones tells you its more for the younger generation because younger people tend to be more into mobile phones. The clothes shown in the magazine are either clothes warn by artists or clothes advertising artists/groups. And the artists/groups shown in the magazine are bands/people such as 'The Killers' and a lot of new artists. Therefore clothes have a big part in showing who the magazine is directed for because you wouldn't see many people in the older generation wearing clothes such as these. The jewelry in Kerrang is very 'loud' and bold, you wouldn't see many older people wearing such things. However teenagers and young adults find them attractive, (sometimes because that's what the musicians wear).

List of features/articles - Feedback
- News
- Competitions
- Live Reviews
- Posters
- Features
- Album Reviews
- Gig guide
- Famous last words

There are 12 double pages, based on; Exclusive interviews, Gig reviews, information on the recent month's and concerts for singers and bands.