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

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

1. For the front cover of my magazine I have used a variety of conventions limain image of the magazine making it stand out from the rest of the text. I have also implemented text underneath the main image so that the audience knows what the picture shows about the magazine and what type genre the music is aimed at. On my front cover I have included a tag to entice the reader by using such words as “new and exclusive”. nking in to real life media products.  I have used a masthead to show the main selling point of the magazine; in this case it is “Liam Bruce announces new band, tour and new album”. I have included a menu above the masthead, which included page numbers and what the reader can find on the page. I have included a secondary lead beneath my masthead, which entices the reader to find out what band is being interviewed exclusively by my magazine. I have also implemented a sidebar into my front cover to give the potential reader a brief overview in what they can expect to find form the magazine.  I have made my splash stand out by using a two toned background of black and white, with the white light shining on the main part of the front cover which in turn should catch the audiences eye in hope that they buy my product.  

These are some examples of magazines produced by Bauer media

This is my music magazine, there are some similarities between them, the main similarity between them is the positioning of the main image which is in the middle of the page. I have also included cover lines on my magazine to attract a wider audience due to the variety of bands included in the magazine.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

2.  Throughout my magazine I have kept to the same house style of a black background with a white text so the text stands out.  The black background shows that he magazine is aimed at rock fans, as rock fans generally address themselves in black or dark colour clothing.  The front cover shows the main focus of out magazine wearing a rock band t-shirt, showing from the front of the magazine the audience that it is targeting so that the appropriate audience purchases the magazine.  Along with the image, I have also included the names of old famous rock bands such as Jimi Hendrix and Led Zepplin. Furthermore I have chosen the price as £1.50 so that most people within the social group can afford it as if it was any higher then some people within the group wouldn’t be able to afford it. 

Name: Lionel Bruce
Age:17
Music hero's: Austin Carlile, Mark Hoppus
Favorite Band: Blink-182
Favorite song: Poison
Music He Hates: Pop, Classical, Jazz, Korean Pop














http://prezi.com/9rortchdnzr8/question-2-how-does-your-media-product-represent-particular-social-groups/

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

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

3. A media institute that may distribute my magazine is Bauer Media. Although they are a privately owned company outside the UK, they have a wide variety of magazines, which are sold in the UK aswell as many other countries sold around the world, however they already publish Kerrang! Q and NME, which are rival magazines to one, which I have made.  An example of a distributor could be WHSmith as they specialize in selling magazines and newspapers

“The Group is a worldwide media empire offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries, as well as online, TV and radio stations. Today, Bauer Media spans over 80 influential brand names covering a diverse range of interests"

Another option, which I can go for, is to publish the magazine digitally. This would be a good choice as technology is advancing day by day meaning less people are buying hard copies of the magazine, instead they are going online and downloading it.  Another option that could link in with the online product idea is a monthly/yearly subscription to the magazine, which would save them from travelling to the shops every month to get a copy of the latest issue.

Although Bauer media already publish a magazine like the on which I have produced, I believe that my magazine appeals to a different group compared to Kerrang! As the age of the magazine, which I have produced, has an older target audience compared to Kerrang! My magazine is also mainly aimed at males, whereas Kerrang! Is aimed at both genders. Bauer’s music magazines, also use many conventions, which I have used in my magazine, making them easily recognizable compared to other brands.   

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

In the making of my magazine I decided to lean towards a male audience as I could relate and understood more about what they wanted. My suggested age range was between 17-19 however I decided to address a slightly older age, aiming my magazine at people in their late teens to early twenties. It was also revealed that the most read magazines were Kerrang! And Q and I decided to not only try and interpret their styles into my magazine but base my magazine on both genres of the magazines. Due to my audiences age I knew that they would not be earning much yet however I was going to make my magazine affordable form the beginning making it around £1.50-£2.50 I think more people would be able to afford it.

I sent out a first draft to a variety of ages and people to see who would read my magazine. The pie chart above are the results from my study.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

I have made a slide share presentation for this question. The link for it can be found down below  

http://www.slideshare.net/maxa175/nbu

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product

From the construction of this product we started by learning how to use our blogs. This meant that we could post our work and ideas to it. Also, for guidance we can look at other student’s blogs which can influence our own ideas and if need be get some ideas direct from other bloggers who are doing/completed the work.

Before the process of constructing this product I had a vague idea how to use a camera and I had never used the editing software before. During the process of constructing my media magazine I have learnt about the effects of each type of shots, the camera movement and angles. When we used the editing software, I learnt how to add parts of the images to the layers in the order I want. However, I realized that some images I had were not the right fitted to the music conventions. This meant that we had to re shoot the main image of my magazine but it taught me that you had to get the right shots because when certain ones I also learnt how to add the music don’t work they can ruin the whole layout of the magazine. In some of my images the lighting was off so I learnt how to brighten and darken them using the advanced editing tools which I had never used before.

This is an example of the camera, which we used to take our photos with.  We used this camera as it has flash on it, which allows us to take photos in darker settings for specific pictures, which we may need. 

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I believe me as an individual and us as a group have grown lots in knowledge and understanding of the equipment and how it can be used to produce the best quality looking rock magazine, during this I have learnt a lot about the magazine industry and what goes in to making a radio station, from analysis of the survey results to editing the radio together. The preliminary task was a big help for me personally because I had little experience in editing/designing a magazine ,so it helped me get to grips and understand the equipment so when it came to the main task I was fully understood and knew what had to be done and how to do it. The preliminary task was to design a music magazine like ones we own or may have seen before. E.g. Kerrang!

My editing skill have grown a lot, with the preliminary task there a lot of editing after we had took photos, during the main task the editing was one of the most important things, added effects We also spent a long time taking the required amount of original images needed for the whole of the magazine. For both the preliminary and the main tasks we used the editing program Photoshop to edit our images, in the preliminary was created a very simple quick track for our guest to introduce, where as in the main task we used Photoshop as our main application to edit with. Through this, I can now use Photoshop to its full potential with little to no help. 

These are examples of my first pre-lim task front cover compared to my work for my product

Example of a double page spread plan

This is an example of a double page spread, however in my magazine, I didn't stick to this magazine design as I found one which suits the style of my magazine better.

More photos

These are some examples of some more photos which I took, I have added examples of music magazines to make it look more like a music magazine. 

Music Magazine Comparison

http://www.slideshare.net/maxcollins175