New product research

 I chose this image because the band look like they have a bit of humour and are not as typical as most of the band photos in NME. Typical images in NME make the bands look serious and I chose this because they have changed the

 

I chose this image because it's one of the only images of a female artists in the NME magazine I brought. The female artist is represented as a dominant woman as she is in front of the male in this image. She is lighting a cigarette which shows that she is rebellious.

Final project

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4h9e2efGXSyTlVjeWtBT193QW8/edit

The link above is the finished project saved as PDF form

Music magazine evaluation

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

When I planned my music magazine I wanted the design to be like NME magazine, because I enjoy reading NME and I like the design they use in it and also the colour scheme they use. NME is also the main music magazine I studied, I compared a lot of the work I done to an actual NME magazine because I liked how NME done there pages and liked the designs used and really wanted my magazine to be similar to give mine the same effect on the audience. I also liked the colour scheme used in many NME magazines Yellow, Black and White and Black, White and red, I think these colours go well together and are effective toward the audience, so I used a similar mixture of these colour’s on my front cover.

  How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The genre of my music magazine is Indie Rock. My made up artists are called Jacob Walker and a band called Gold Scars. The real life artists I based them on were Gold Scars to be like White lies because there songs are similar and there band styles the same. They are interesting because both artist and band don’t really care what others think they are quit rebellious and do things without thinking, but are also always in touch with fans over Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. The band I featured in my double page spread are a typical indie rock band as they don’t care about the public there just there to make music and as much noise as they can, they all have a rebellious attitudes toward haters, they dress mainly in black with an Indie fashion. The models I chose in my photo-shoot for Gold Scars was a band from a college nearby they are an Indie band In real life so though It would be perfect If I could get some pictures of them in band practice. I didn’t need to give out any props because they had everything already. The Jacob Walker Photo shoot was a lot different because I used one of my mates (Rahim Khan) and I took pictures of him posing we used a light adjuster to make the lighting just right, The clothing used was made to look Indie for the Indie fashion to the artist.

 

 Who would be the audience for your Media product?

The age range of my target consumer would be teenagers from 13-25 because the genre I chose was Indie and in my opinion and from research mainly young generation (teenagers) was targeted at by many different music magazines. They’d mostly be male aimed at in my magazines because my magazine Is similar to NME with mainly males represented in the images, but on the other hand has a female band member in one of my band (Gold Scars) so it does have some kind of influence towards females in my magazine but overall the magazine is targeted at males. The target audience could be of any classes but mainly aimed at working class because my magazine is cheap and affordable to purchase. The audiences hobbies would tend to be music, being able to play or enjoy instruments, aimed at people in bands or could inspire them to make one with friends; It’s mainly aimed at people who enjoy going to gigs and listening to Indie rock genre. In terms of the other media texts they’d consume, they would like Misfits, YouTube, Anouvahood, IPhones, Facebook, twitter and NME. Contemporary bands or artists they’d tend to like would include Oasis, White lies, Coldplay, The killers, Ellie Goulding.

How did you attract/address your audience?

The most attractive aspects of my magazine work were my colour scheme because it was made to be more dark than colourful to suit the genre and also similar to NME  Black, White and Red. For the double page spread. In terms of design of the front cover, I wanted to make the reader think that my magazine was a similar one to NME and the design had slight changes in it but overall to make it to look like a typical Indie magazine. Particular coverlines were used for effect, such as, the text was yellow to stand out from the dark background and also in a bold font used to stand out to catch the readers eyes with attractive writing. The type of language I used was Informal because my magazine audience is young and use slang word so my magazine is understandable to them makes the reader feel that they are more involved with the magazine and understand it better than.

What have you learnt about technologies through the process of this product?

 From doing my project, I have learnt a lot of new skills with Photoshop, like editing pictures with effect and also sharpening pictures to make it look a lot more clearer. I also made my Masthead for my front cover in Photoshop I found it hard to make a gradient background and importing cropped out text but I got there in the end and know how to do it now. Also learnt how to crop images so that there was no background and could be placed In my magazine work so it don’t overlap writing ect. InDesign was a new program to me that I have never used before this project, so at first it was hard to use but I got used to it and this was the main program we used because it had my magazine front cover, double page spread and contents page, so I got used to it fast and learnt new skills by using this program. I learnt how to take different camera angles suitable for music magazines and how to edit them and plan by looking in a music magazine, seeing a picture you like and then getting your models to pose the same way to imitate there pose to suit the certain genre.

 Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt from the progression from it to the full product?

I have learnt a lot more since the school magazine task, there is a lot more detail and has better editing used.

Audience feedback

Here Is my audience feedback sheet, on my magazine front cover so far. My class mate (Will) filled out this sheet for feedback to show what to improve and what was good about my front cover so far. Which means Ican learn from the sheet 

Click the link below to veiw the sheet that was filled out.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4h9e2efGXSyQXVQWnc1bld2OEk/edit

Gold Scars photoshoot

Wide shot of the whole band, black and white edit.

Medium Close up of a band member, also edited.

Two shot of a stage performance.

Long shot of the drummer In the band.

Wide shot of the band stage performance.

Making my masthead

This Is my masthead which I made In Photoshop

From making my masthead In Photoshop I have learnt how to use effects of text with drop shadows etc, my masthead uses two different background colours to fit In the front cover of my magazine and so It suits the dominant colours used In the magazine.

The text uses a eroded font so It suits the genre and also looks good and not plane.

Double page spread design and planning

This Is the layout design for my double page spread how I would prefer it to look like.

Below Is the text that will be filling In the text box spaces.

As the band Gold Scars walk into the room, It’s immediately obvious that they are cocky and rebellious. Since last year, they have released an album ‘Bullet’ and become the fastest selling indie band since Oasis back in the 90s. A recent reader polls suggests that they are one of the most popular bands at the moment and this is mostly down to their following online. The band have reached out to fans in their social media site, such as Facebook, Twitter (where they have started the odd scuffle with other bands and even risked legal action) and posting cryptic YouTube clips of their shenanigans.  We met up with them to find out what their secret Is.

What’s the story behind the title ‘Bullet’?

Jason: Well, there’s a song on the album called ‘War’ which reflects our thoughts about war and the recent situation in Afghanistan. We think that it’s wrong because the government is after money and oil and doesn't care about the real cost paid by the British public. ‘Bullet’ tells the story about a soldier who fought there and experienced terrible things, the bullet going through him represents how he was forced into the situation and how people are manipulated into fighting for ‘ honor’ which I don’t really get to be honest.

So how did you guys meet?

Amy: Well, Jason and I went to the same school in Hove and from a young age, we knew that we got each other and we like the same kind of stuff. We used to listen to The Smiths, The Cure, anything which had an edge to it. We’d sit on the bus with our stereos and cause chaos. The old people really hated us for it!

How did you guys first get famous?

Adam: Well, we used to play gigs in pubs, clubs and at our college and after that we got signed to a record label, we all started to become good friends then we had one massive live performance at the O2 and it all went really well from then, we started getting a lot of followers on the social network.

What are your plans for 2013?

Billy: We’re going to be touring the UK from next month, starting in Bolton and ending up in Inverness. After UK domination, we plan to hit America where we will release our album and see how it goes down.  We’ll be spending time in the studio recording some new material; we want to create a new sound. We really like The White Lies because they have a different Indie vibe. Adam has suggested that we branch out more into different types of percussion and have a heavier bass guitar in our music.

So Amy, what’s it like being the only girl in the band?

Amy: It’s not that bad! The boys are great although they have their moments. Sometimes I get fed up on tour because they tease me and protest against my beauty products but I just tell them to stick it!

Which other bands, other than The White Lies, are you guys into?

Amy: I love Green Day because Billie Joe Is kinda crazy and is fun to watch on stage. The Killers are awesome; I went to their gig at the O2 last week and I thought there energy was mind blowing!

Jason: I like San Cisco, an Australian band who seem pretty neat.

Billy: Palma Violets

Amy: Yeah, we’d love them to support us one day, we’ll see.

So why did you call the band Gold Scars and who came up with it?

Adam: Well it all started when Jason was drunk, I know it sounds bizarre but its true we wanted to make a band name and we could not think of anything so it was Jacobs Idea to write down band names, one each and put them in a hat and the first name we draw we kept.

Amy: Yeah so I got to go first and I picked out Gold Scars. At the beginning we didn't think much of that name but it grew and grew I guess.

Thanks for having you guys on the show! Good luck in the future

 Jason: Thank you and see ya later!