OCR Media Studies – A2 Level

Unit G324: Advanced Portfolio

Mind Map and Research

Name: Asuka Young Candidate Number: 4149 Center Name: St. Andrew’s Catholic School Center Number: 64135

Generation of Ideas for Ancillary Product 1) –

TV Magazine Front Cover

Source of InspirationMy source of inspiration is the Inside Soap magazine, which is published every Tuesday. This magazine is published by Hearst Magazines UK, which is a company that was formed when Nat Mags and Hachette Filipacchi Medias UK merged together in 2011. The contents in this magazine include: interviews with actors where the audiences can email questions to ask the actors themselves, and these will be answered in an interview format. Other sections include: sneak previews, gossip, puzzles, weekly TV guide, an event presentation where the readers vote for the best soap actor and actress featured in this magazine. In terms of the circulation figures in the second half of 2013, Inside soap was ranked 85th / 100 with a figure of: 147,294, which means that this amount of the magazine copies is sold in the UK everyday. This is very low in comparison with other soap magazines such as what’s on TV, which was 7th / 100 with a circulation figure of: 1,051,129, published by ICP Media. Hearst Magazine has a main target audiences of women, as there are magazines published which target women mainly, such as : ‘ELLE’ and ‘Good House keeping’. The total circulation figures of the Inside Soap magazine in 2014 is 136,184, however the figures for last year was higher- it has gone down by -4.6. This suggests that the target Readership nowadays are most likely to be staying at home, engaging in other forms of media such as the TV and the internet, so the number of people who goes to stores to buy magazines are decreasing. This is why on the other hand, the digital magazine sell rates are on the rise. Inside Soap Magazine is available on devices such as Ipads and iPhones, through online music stores such as ITunes.

Source: most information from Wikipedia pages, company websites and Pressgazette.co.uk and other media journalism websites for figures .

Mind Map

Mind Map - Conclusion

Name: Asuka Young Candidate Number: 4149 Center Name: St. Andrew’s Catholic School Center Number: 64135

What I need to do next: I need to try and purchase a copy of the real ‘InsideSoap’ magazine, in order to have a good sense of it’s content, structure or layout of pages inside and what sort of language they use in their article. This will be beneficial to me because I can apply some real life magazine conventions and techniques to my own magazine. I also have to create some draft magazine cover to explore possible designs and house styles.

What I will need to arrange and prepare: For the production of my magazine, I need to organise photo shoots for the main image and all other cover line images (minimum of three images). This includes getting suitable people, arranging times and place of shooting, and preparing props and what sort of costumes they should wear. I should be very clear with the poses that they are going to make, so that the shooting will go smoothly without hassle. Other than that, I also need to look at / download different fonts and font styles for the masthead and the main headline, so that it will fit to the magazine convention.

What software I will use and why? My magazine cover will be made using Photoshop, as it is suitable to make a publication where features are not in particular order, but placed differently on a page. On here I can have many different font styles, as well as adding shapes and manipulating images. Oh Photoshop, there is also layers which is extremely useful when it comes to this, and helps me to organise little features and add details to my magazine cover.