EVALUATION

REISS BETHANNY LEE

Question 1 - Who would the audience for your media product be?

The audience for my media product will be people from the ages of 16-25, this is a wide age variety but I think it quite accurate for my media product. I think that this would be the age range because of the artists involved, not only are the artists new but there are old artists included inside my media product like ‘Mary J. Blige’ for example and she hasn’t really brought out much music recently so the people who will be reading the magazine will know of her because of their age.

I think the sex of the person that would buy my magazine or pick it up in a shop would be female and I think this because it is Hip-Hop and generally more of a feminine magazine. But on the other hand I don’t think just a female would pick it up and I think that the colour scheme does this, a girl would usually go for the colour pink but my front cover doesn’t include the colour pink so it wouldn’t just attract females. As you can see on my front cover there is a trip which you can win and this wouldn’t be available for the younger audience of the media product but it would be available for the over 18’s.

My ideal audience

People who listen to R&B

People who socialise

Men and women that go to concerts Both men and women

People who know about music in general

People who are most likely to use some of these social media and music apps (on phones) are most likely to be the people that would be my audience. This is because for people to know about music and want to know more about music they must listen to it. Then social media to keep up with music artists that they are interested in, on twitter for example.

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your

media product and why?

What is an institution? An institution is a company that

disperses a media product for audience consumption.

I would chose SpinMedia to distribute my media products because they distribute one of the biggest R&B magazines which is ‘Vibe’ I think that both Vibe and Lush would go well together.

My magazine will be a monthly issue which will go out mid month, so the 15th. The price of Lush will be £2.50 which is a lot cheaper than sister and rival R&B magazines.

This is Vibes official website and as you can see they have a lot to offer. As soon as you go onto their website you can see that they have videos and pictures that can be viewed by any user. Then at the very top they have icons for social networking sites and other things, this is to widen the audience and therefore in the long run they will sell more magazines overall.

Below that they have 4 sub headings which are links, news, music, entertainment and style. These are all things that match the genre, news on the magazine and stories on R&B artists and so on..

Social networking sites to bring in a wider audience

Pictures and Videos which when clicked on are linked to stories which are in the news section

Sub headings which are links where you can get a further insight on what’s happening in the R&B world including who’s dating who and who is wearing what

This section has the latest news coming in which will be updated every hour, including new gig dates, stories about upcoming pop stars and much more

There are other ways which you can distribute your products and this could be through;

Merchandise Apps

WebsiteFestivals

FlyersRadio/radio advert

Question 4 – in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and

conventions of real media products.

Billboard uses three different colours on the front cover excluding the colours used in the image, I used four on mine and this was to break it up from all being the same. My magazine cover compared to the real life magazine is a lot different and in many different ways. On my magazine I have a white background unlike the other magazine, I did this because I wanted it to be different, I didn’t want it all to be coloured, white is part of the colour scheme that I chose. With my image I wanted it to be placed to one side of my cover and not central, I picked out three real life media covers and all three of them were central, even though you lose more space to write more information for the magazine it seems to work rather well. Usually on a magazine you would get the barcode at the bottom of it but I wanted my magazine to be different, it is still at the side of the magazine but its been rotated and moved up so it isn’t situated at the bottom. One thing that you usually get with a R&B/Hip-Hop magazine is posters, so at the bottom left I included three pictures which were “exclusive”.

Overall I think that my magazine uses some of the conventions that are usually used in real life R&B/Hip-Hop media magazines but I also added some ones that are used in other magazines to make it a bit different compared to a normal one. Like the button for example where you can win a free trip, you wouldn’t usually use this on a R&B magazine. I also included a special offer which also wouldn’t usually be used but I think that it all works well together.

My media magazine portrays some of the conventions that would be used in real media products; magazine based. I am going to compare my front cover to another front cover which is from the R&B/Hip-Hop magazine Billboard. First of all my title is bold, stands out and takes up a big proportion of the page and is situated at the top of my magazine just like other magazines. On my front cover you can see basically the whole word of my title where as on the real life media magazine half of the headline is missing, this is because it’s a popular magazine and people who buy it would probably by it every week. Behind my headline I have a block colour, this is to make the headline stand out even more, the colours go well together so it also makes it look good too. The colour red which I chose to be the block colour is used in a lot of real life media magazines and this is why I chose the colour red.

The name of my cover star goes over her body just like Rihanna’s does on Billboard. Below the cover stars name on Billboard there is a quote of what she has said but on mine I didn’t want a quote because later on in my magazine where my double page spread is there will be an article on Frankie where she talks as an interview where quotes will be included.

Although I didn’t use a quote from my cover star I still included quotes on my front cover which were from celebrities but made up to sound realistic.

As you can see with the two pictures below they both have quite similar conventions and this would be some of the text that is included, I have used the words ‘upfront’, ‘features’ and ‘music’ just like Billboard have. This is because I wanted my magazine to look more like a real life magazine. Underneath the subheadings there is text which has a page number followed by what is on that page. Under the ‘features’ section you can clearly see that the name of the celebrity that the article is about is in bold on both, the real and my contents page.

Both of the magazines also use the section music to write more about but we both did it slightly different, although I took that connotation from a real life media magazine I didn’t want it to be the same I wanted it to be slightly different so I changed it and just wrote down some R&B singers/group with the page number where as on the Billboard contents page they haven’t just wrote artists names they have included other things related to music such as ‘charts’ which will talk about music that’s in the charts and not just artists that are making music, like mine.

Overall I think that my contents page looks more like a real life magazine compared to my front cover, I think that the conventions that I have used are very similar and make it look more professional. One thing I would have changed on my contents page would the font, I think that this doesn’t work that well on the page.

My contents page uses a lot of conventions that would usually be used in real life magazines. At the bottom of my page there is a large image standing out, usually in magazines on contents pages there is one big image then with text placed around it. Usually the picture is put with text but on mine I just added a caption with the photo. “introducing R&B’s new star!” draws in the reader because they will want to know more about this new star and it also breaks up the picture from being so large and dominating the page

Above this image there is another image which is about half the page, sometimes, well, usually contents pages include more than just one picture and again I think this is to break up the text that is on the page. On both of the images there is a page number and this tends to happen in real life magazines too and that’s why I did it. This is so that if someone opens it and sees a picture they like then they can go straight to that page to see more about that picture and read more about it.

Seeing as though it is a contents page this needs to be clear and it is on my magazine this convention is also something that is always used in Billboard and other magazines. It tends to be quite big and quite bold and mine is this is to make it as much as a real life magazine as it can be.

Another convention that usually occurs on a contents page is the name of the magazine but I didn’t want to include the name of my magazine because I wanted to use the space for other stuff so instead I just took the first letter of my headline which is ‘L’ and I put it on Photoshop and make it a bit opaque so that I could put it over a things and still be able to see what is behind this. I think this works well.

Although I haven’t added the text to my double page spread you can still tell what similarities there are and then also the differences. As you can see on both of the double page spreads there is a picture dominating half of it, but you can also see that they are totally different. On the real life media one you can see that the picture is more revealing and a shot taken from far away, probably a mid shot, where as on my double page spread there is nothing that is revealing but the picture is a close up of my stars face. I put my picture in black and white because I think that it fits better than with colour, this wouldn’t usually happen in real life media but occasionally it does. My double page spread is an interview where as the real life media one is an article. I chose to do an interview because as it is made up it will be easier to write the answers that are being asked rather than having to make up a whole article. I put the stars name on my double page spread and I did it in quite a big font and bold, I did it in black because later on the colour changes. I didn’t use the convention for this like a real life magazine because people who would be buying the real life magazine will know who the picture is of usually whereas because my magazine isn’t real we have to introduce the star with a name.The double page spread on the left which is the real life magazine is just black and white where the text is concerned but on mine which is on the right I added colour. Underneath the stars name I added a red line and this was to separate the name from the interview.

Question 5 – how did you attract/address

your audience?

I attracted my audience by a range of features in my magazine:

Font

Language

Colour scheme

Images

Masthead

Masthead

Unique selling point

Extra added pictures

Cover star

Main image

Quotes

Features

Free give away

Barcode and price

Date and issue number

LanguageFirst of all I attracted my audience with the language that I used throughout, because of the genre of my magazine I had to use formal language because of the audience that would be reading the magazine and then just because of the magazine itself. But its not formal all the way through, on my double page spread which is an interview I used informal language and this was to pull the readers in because it is more up to date. If I talk in a chatting language then they can relate to the magazine and can understand it better than if it was very formal. It also makes the text more interesting and less boring. I used some forms of slang in the magazine to make the text seem recognisable to the audience. On the front cover all of the language is formal and this tends to happen on this genre of magazine.

Font Secondly the font I used was different to a normal boring font, it was a font that is barely used, I didn’t want the font to look too unprofessional because my target audience isn’t the kiddie kind. The text I used was big, bold and bright to make it stand out above other magazines. I didn’t use the same font throughout the magazine and this was to make it a bit different from being just the same all the way through.

Frankie Jamieson

This is the font I used for my cover stars name on my front cover.

LUSH

This is the font that I used for the masthead of my magazine and it is different to the font above, although they both look bold when made bigger, they look different like this and adds more range to my media product.

The images that i used in my media product were big and bold especially on my front cover this is because the front cover is the thing that pulls the buyer in. The first thing that they look at is the front cover and it is usually the picture that pulls them in so it is a good idea to make sure that the main image is big and in colour, it’s not compulsory that the image has to be central so I didn’t make my image central just to make it different from typical magazines. She is looking into the camera addressing the audience. This technique is done by lots of popular magazines so I did this is mine to make it look more professional.

Images

Masthead

The masthead on my magazine was made big and bold and covered up a proportion of my front cover this is because it is the main thing on the front cover and if it is bold it will catch peoples eyes.

Question 6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the creation of my media product,music magazine, I’ve learnt a great deal about

technologies and they have vastly helped, and improved, my media product had I been without

them

To make my product I used a number ofdifferent technologies. Needless to say, I used acomputer but below is a list of othertechnologies I made use of for the task; -DigitalCamera, Adobe Photoshop, InternetExplorer(Weebly) Microsoft Word, MicrosoftPowerPoint and finally Microsoft Publisher

Digital SLR Camera This was used for taking pictures for my magazine and proved extremely helpful. The fact that it was digital rather than a traditional camera meant that instantly I could see what I’d taken and had the option whether to keep it or not. Due to the large amount of space on the camera I was able to keep all of the pictures until I could see them on the larger computer screen. The fact that I could see what I’d taken however was very useful as I knew if I was along the right lines of what I’d envisioned or whether I needed to change the camera angle to achieve a different end photograph. With this camera I learnt a number of things, namely how to use it but also how to use the features of the camera to get different effects for my photographs.

Adobe Photoshop is an imagemanipulation program that allows me to edit thephoto's I'd taken, it was extremely useful in thedevelopment of my media product and madepossible images which simply couldn't havehappened previously. I had never used AdobePhotoshop before taking media so it was all new tome and I had to learn everything from how to put apicture on to it to editing it so the picture had nobackground.

Internet Explorer The internet was immensely helpful to me during this project, not only during the research section of the project but also through the creation of the blog which allowed me to document the work that I'd done. During the research stage the internet was extremely useful as it allowed me to look into the forms and conventions of magazines and do some basic research about magazines before I went to look at three during my detailed research.

The internet enabled me to go on to my blog. The blog was also used to keep a track of the skills and experience I've gained through the production and post-production stages of making my magazine. This proved extremely helpful when coming to do the evaluation.

Microsoft Word and Publisher, this specific technology has allowed me to prepare the written feature for my double page spread and also to write down any information that I needed to add and to make notes on to edit my evaluation.

Microsoft PowerPoint, this programme has been extremely useful during my evaluation, as shown by the fact they're being used for this answer and one other. I've learnt these help to make the pages more interesting not only because more pictures can easily be included but also because people have to interact with the slide to read more and are therefore more engaged.

Overall technology has helped me with my task of creating a front cover, contents page and double-page spread in numerous ways and without it; the end product I created would be considerably less professional and of a lesser quality. It would have also resulted in me being less organised and showing less cohesive and clear research, planning, skills and evidencing.

Question 7 – looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learn in the progression to the full product

In the progression from one magazine to myother magazine I have learnt a great deal.I have learnt how to use different types of

technology to make the product moreprofessional such as Photoshop.

I have also learn how complicated real media products are and this is because;They try there best to make it look goodThey rarely leave any free spaceThey use bright colours, bold text and a catchy title And this is all to draw the reader in, so when going from my Aquinas Mag to Lush which is my final media product I learnt that I had to add more things to make my magazine look more professional and more eye catching. To do this research was included and a lot of thought and planning went into my final media product.

I also learnt that you cant get anything perfect the first time so that planning is essential when doing something like this because you will find on later that you will have a better idea and that it will need changing. Also when planning you have a rough idea of what you’re going to do, without planning you will have to start from scratch and that is never easy. Finally when planning you can research and see what you will need to add to make your product look good overall and I learnt this on both, especially my final media product.