Foundation Production Evaluation

In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use, Develop, or Challenge Forms and Conventions of Real Media Products?

My Masthead

My masthead can be seen as conventional as the font is bigger then the rest of the writing on the page. This is similar to all magazine mastheads on the market today. They do this to make the writing stand out from the rest of the page and so that the audience can instantly see what is the title of the magazine when they look at the page. I have made this the biggest as I consider this the most important element on the page and so the size of it should show this. Another conventional element on my magazine cover is that the title is at the top of the page. Magazines do this, as again, they want the title to stand out from the rest of the page and show its importance. I have done this, as the audience automatically know that if they want to know the title of the magazine they look to the top of the page and it would be there; this will help keep a sense of familiarity with the magazine. There are however conventions that my masthead doesn’t comply to; for example it is not on the left hand side, but rather the right. Other magazines put their title on the left hand side as the reader automatically looks there when they see a page so the magazine wants the title to be the first thing they see. I have put mine on the right hand side, as I want my audience to know that my magazine is a little bit different and that it doesn’t stick to the tired stereotypes of other magazine, but I still want them to know what the title is almost instantly. By making the title different it shows my audience that this is a magazine that doesn’t feel like it need to stick to the ‘rules’ of media, and in return neither do my audience. It could be seen that it is a little bit rebellious. Another convention that my masthead has challenged would be that I have added a microphone to my title. Most magazine mastheads don’t include any images as it distracts from the title but I have added a microphone as it goes with the title lungs. When a powerful singer sings it comes from the lungs and then it is projected even more with a microphone. Together it lets the whole audience hear what the singer is saying, no matter what the size. It also lets you know straight away that it is a music magazine by the microphone and it sets my masthead apart from the others.

The Design

The design has both conventional and unconventional elements. The conventions I have used include that throughout the magazine I have used 3 main colours, pink, white and black. Pink is a feminine colour, which once again represents my audience, white is a neutral colour that doesn’t distract from the pink and because the black is so different to the other two colours it promotes certain parts more clearly such as the masthead and the coverlines. Magazines stick to 3 uniform colours so that it matches and so the magazine looks more professional. I have done this for the same reason. Too many colours can make a magazine look messy and confusion, but too little can make a magazine look boring. I also want the audience to be able to relate certain colours to “Lungs Magazine”. Through the magazine the font is the same on the feature as it is on the front cover. Magazines do this so again it looks tidy and professional and the font can be related back to the magazine. I have once again done this for the same reasons, as I want the magazine to look realistic and something that could be sold in a shop.

My Image

My image is the biggest thing on the page and it is also in the middle of the page. Conventionally, the image makes up 70% of the page and my picture follows suit. Magazines do this as the image helps tell the story; it also establishes the mise-en-scene. On my front cover I have chose to also make my picture large as I also want the image to help tell the story, but I also have done this as it makes the page look more attractive and sophisticated than if there were a few pictures on the page. The image on my contents page is a live image that I took at a gig. It is conventional at they are low angle taken from up close. I have done this as I want the band to look powerful and it makes the reader l as though they are there. The images on my feature are also of live gigs, but one of them is from the low angle but the other two are from the second level, making it a high angle shot. I have done the low angle shot for the same reasons as before, I want the band to look powerful and I want the audience to feel as though they are there. For the other 2 shots, taken from a high angle, there was a lot on the stage and I wanted to capture this. For example on the Florence and the Machine picture there was a string section and a choir in the background; I wanted to include all of this in my picture and going from afar was the best option. The high shots are unconventional but I feel they are just as effective in making the audience feel as though they are there and in recreating the atmosphere. In the Horrors image there was a lot of flashing lights and I thought that getting the crowd in the image would make it look more energetic.

My Language

When writing my reviews I have tried to recreate the environment and the atmosphere of the gig. This is similar to most magazines that give reviews, as they want to make the readers feel as though they were there. They wish for the readers to want to be there and upset that they weren’t, or if they were there they want them to feel nostalgic about it. I have done this for the same reasons, as I want my readers to want to be there. However reviews I have given my own opinions and been intrusive in my descriptions of the gig. Other magazines don’t do this as they want to just tell the audience about the gig, but I have done this, as I want to build a connection with the readers. I want my audience to feel as though they are talking to a real person with feelings and opinions rather then just a computer. I think by giving my own opinions it makes the language seem friendlier towards the audience and they would be more likely to trust someone they feel as though they know.

My Layout

My layout has conventional elements within my design. I have my coverlines covering the image and they are surrounding the image. Magazines do this, as they want the reader to know instantly what the image is about. The first thing the audience notices is the image, if they like the image then they will want to find out what the image is about. They do this by looking at the coverlines. Another conventional factor in my magazine is that on my contents page all the information is within separate boxes. I have done this so that it is easier for the reader to find what they are looking for when they come to the contents page. By breaking up the writing it makes it easier for the reader to digest and to absorb. There are some unconventional elements within my magazine, for example I have no other coverlines on my front cover. Magazines would do this so that the reader may find something they are interested in on the front page and this will make them want to purchase the magazine. I have chosen not to do this as I believe my readers will be loyal customers and they will buy the magazine every week, no matter what is in the magazine this week. So the coverlines will have no interest to them. I also think that if I added anymore coverlines this would of made the page look messy and tacky. Another unconventional element of my magazine is that one my contents half of the page is in fact an image. Other magazines don’t do this as the readers will want to see images to attract them to certain pages, but I think my magazine looks more professional with just the one image and it makes the reader look more sophisticated.


How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups?

My magazine is aimed mainly towards 17-25 year old females in the B – D social demographic.

Here is an image of my particular audience

They will be from the indie/alternative stereotype and my magazine shows this. My coverstars are young middle class males and females, which reflects my audience. The main figure in the main image is the girl, which also shows how my magazine is aimed towards females. The body language of my coverstars is happy and simple.

My cover stars are in a “V” shape with the girl at the front; the girl’s hands are representing a heart shape. The heart shape links to the fictional title of my band’s song “live for love”. The people are either smiling or have a straight face; this represents the seriousness of the music fans and the love they have. I have dressed the two men in black and the girl in white. Black and white are very contrasting colours and I want to show how the girl is different to the men and that she is the dominant one. I have also dressed her in white so that she stands out from the others. This helps represent my audience, as they are proud females looking for someone to relate to in music. My audience also want to be the dominant one in a world run by males. I have the band placed in a V shape so that the two men are in the background and all the attention is drawn to the female. The female is again leading the image and the first thing you notice is she. She is in charge, she is the most important and the framing reflects this. I want my female audience to look at her taking lead and feel inspired to do the same. There are no props and the background is plain; this shows the seriousness the audience has for music that they don’t need silly gimmicks surrounding them and that all you need to know is them. They are dress very simple as well so that the audience can see that you don’t have to overdress to the style to fit in and be accepted. The audience love the music not the uniform.


What Kinds of Media Institutions Might Distribute Your Media Product and Why?

I believe it will be best to distribute my magazine independently. My magazine is all about being different and swaying from the norm, if I go with a major institution they may try to change the magazine to fit their house style and to follow their ideologies. Major distributors include IPC Media, Conde Nast and Bauer Media Group. IPC Media publishes magazines such as NME, Woman and Home magazine and Now. Conde Nast publishes Vouge, Glamour and Vanity Fair. Bauer Media Group publish Kerrang, Q and Take A Break. Another reason I feel I should go with independent publisher is because my magazine’s ideology is that you should be your own person, you don’t need to follow the norm and take charge, and I want to reflect this in my publishing choice. I do understand that with a major publishing institution there will be more money and marketing power, but I feel that I believe in my magazine enough that I know “Lungs” can become a success on its own. Different indie publishers can work together and use their connections and networks so in that sense; do major publishers actually have any more connections then indies? I also feel that if I go to a major publisher then I may be labelled a sell out and I may be a hypocrite. There are still a few risks with using an independent publisher, for example lots of indie magazines go under and this mean the magazine has to stop. This recently happened to “Plan B” which stopped publishing in May 2009. But I have faith in my magazine enough to believe this won’t happen to me.


How Did You Attract/Address the Audience?

My audience is of the 17–25 year old females of the indie/alternative stereotype. They would also be of the B-D social demographic. To attract my audience I would make my magazine feature many female artists and I would also make the design of my magazine very feminine. My magazine is aimed towards women and so the magazine should reflect this if I want them to buy it. The first thing the audience will see when they are looking for a magazine is the design and colours on the first page; by making the magazine feature pink the reader would automatically know that this is a girls magazine and men would then not be interested in purchasing it. By featuring band that have female members this would also help the audience understand this is a female magazine. Bands such as the XX, the Maccabees, and Doves are all bands of the indie/alternative genre and so this will let the audience know what genre of music my magazine will feature, and by covering recent and up-to-date bands this will help tell the audience it is for younger rather then older people.



What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process of Constructing This Product?

From the design and creating of my magazine I have learnt new information on how to use technology to a higher level. Some of the elements I have learnt to use or even improve my knowledge on include photography, photo editing, blogging, fireworks and publisher. My photography skills have improved a lot over the last few months. I now know more about how to frame a scene and how lighting can affect the settings atmosphere. When using photography I noticed a lot more about how to make the camera fit the scene and how I should be cautious of the people inside and how they look.

My first shots I didn’t have 2 coverstars at an equal level and this made the picture look messy, but just making one person rise and one lower so that they were of equal height made the picture instantly look more sophisticated and professional. When I was firstly setting up my background and people in the shot I had darker lighting. I noticed this made my image look dark and eerie; this wasn’t the atmosphere I was going for so by adding extra light onto the image it instantly changed to mood and it made the same picture look happy and light. I then continued with this skill throughout the photo shoot.

Another skill I learnt about was photo editing. I had never done photo editing before and so I got to learn about it by doing it. I first got some other images and I had a go at editing myself and seeing the results, after I was comfortable at doing this I applied what I now knew to my own images. I used fireworks as my photo editor. I learnt how to remove a background and change it to another colour, as seen on my cover image. Another thing I have never done before is blogging. I used blogger.com to learn the ropes about blogging. I learnt about how to set up an account and how to edit the page. A few other skills I have learnt are how to add links and attachments to my blog, how to edit the page to make it look improved. I first would write out what I want to say and then if I feel I could develop it further by adding links to other pages and websites I would do so by pressing the hyperlink button and writing in the page URL. I adjusted the page by going to the customise page and changing from there. I changed the colours so that they fit the house style of the magazine and that there was a continuous flow throughout the page. A final skill I improved was publisher. I learnt more about how to space a page, make my background transparent and how to make my text flow from one box to another. When creating my magazine I realised that the edge of the page didn’t quite print out, I don’t know if this was publisher or the printer, so I learnt to alter my design so that it fit inside the invisible border. This took a lot of altering and adjusting to make my design perfect. I noticed in some of my fonts a white background would appear and this would make my page look tacky and unprofessional, so I learnt about the magic wand. The magic wand would allow you to click on a part of the picture and make that colour disappear. This was very handy when fixing the cover. Another skill I learnt was to let my text flow from one box into another without losing any text and making it a whole lot easier to edit and write. By letting the two boxes flow between each other this meant that when I adjusted something further up in the paragraph the computer would automatically fix the writing so that all the boxes still fit together. This also meant that I could do a different shape to fit around the pictures and make it look more sophisticated.


Looking Back At You Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

Preliminary Task

Final Product

In my preliminary task I made a few mistakes that made my piece either look unprofessional or too simplistic. For example my puff is very large and it took over half the page on the preliminary version. However when I remade my magazine I made sure that my puff was a lot smaller and that it didn’t look abnormal. As I progress onto my main cover I realised that the puff made my magazine look childish and amateur, compared to what it would have looked like if it was smaller or even if it wasn’t spiky. From doing the preliminary task I discovered the mistake and I then knew that when I made my final piece that I should adjust this if I want the best possible cover. So in my final version I have a small puff in the top left hand corner of my page and instead of it being spiky it is a plain circle. Another element I felt I have learnt more about is composition. In my first attempt at a magazine cover I felt that some of my coverlines were too cluttered and that they made the page messy. By practising a lot and a few errors made on my preliminary and final versions I found an amount to use and where to use them without the page losing its mature feel. As you can see on my final version I have use a minimal amount of coverlines possible and I only have one to deal with the main feature and picture

Drafts for My Main Article

My drafts have not come out very clearly on the scanner. But you can get the general idea of what my original image was going to be. I later changed my mind. Below are the stages my feature went through to get the final product.

This was my original finished product. But I thought the writing just blended into the background and it didn't look to professional.

I tried to put my text in black boxes to see if that make the page look more filled and make the writing stand out, but i didn't like how the page looked.

I then expanded the Arctic Monkey picture to back it the whole background of page one and I made page 2's background plain black.

Drafts for My Contents Page

Below are all the stages my magazine contents page went through until I got to the final page

This was original finished product but I thought it was too plain so I tried different things to fill the page.

I thought about adding more pictures along the side would help fill the page, but i didn't like the way the pictures looked with the main picture.

I decided to fill the bar with the listings of people who made the magazine, but I still had an empty space at the bottom of the contents. I added an advert and ATP Tour at the bottom to fill the space.

Drafts of My Magzine Cover

This was the first attempt at my magazine. But there was some aspects of the magazine cover that I didn't like such as the banner and the tagline was too high.



After a few adjustments this was the second stage of my magazine. I lengthed the banner and I moved the tagline to the bottom of the page.

This is my final product. The top of the page still looked empty, so I added another banner along the top including the web address.

Planning/Sketching Page Layout

This is a sketch of my front cover and how I originally wanted it to look. The scanner quality is not very good but you can see the general idea.

This is a layout of one of my original ideas for the shoot of what was going to be my feature, but I later changed my mind. Again the quality is not the best.

Shooting/Choosing Images

For my feature I decided that I wanted to do a live review and that I should get pictures from gigs. I fist looked at some of the bands I was going to see live performances and thought about what angles would be best and how to shoot them. Here are the live clips I looked at.

Arctic Monkeys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs_vhA8wUyE

Florence and the Machine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWjmDk4pWYk

The Horrors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEIGU28GpGM

For my main cover I wanted to show the simplicity and how they include no gimmicks of the band so i had a simple cover involing no gimmicks. The shoot was taken in front of a white background and the artists were wearing either plain black or plain white clothing. They had easy poses and they looked natural.
After I took the pictures I choose which gig photos recreated the atmoshpere and the feel of the evening the most, and when I choose the cover picture I choose the picture that looked most natural and that looked the most symetrical.

Setting Up Images

When I was shooting my front cover image I wanted the background to be as plain as possible to make editing the picture simple. I put up a white sheet behind where I was going to take the picture to make the background just white. When doing some practice shots I noticed that I had a line of bright light going through the image due to the pacing of the sun. I then added some more lights around the scene to see if I lost the shadow but this didn't help as the sun was too bright. I then put up a sheet to block out the sun and lose the shadow. This worked meaning that we could continue with the shots, just making sure we watched out for where the sun moved to during the day and to fix the shadow accordingly so.

I took inspiation from a mixture of these images.

Planning/Sketching Images

Below is a sketch of my title, my front cover image and my original feature image, that I later went on to change.

As you can see the scanner didn't give my images the best quality on the computer.

Anazlysising Front Cover Images

The two magazines below I made notes on how the audience is represented by the image around the border but due to the scanner some have not appeared.

These are 2 magazine covers in which I took alot of inspiration.

Reseraching and Designing Mastheads

The first thing I did when I was deciding on a how my title should look for my magazine was to research other well known titles and see what made them so recognisable.
I looked at NME, Q, Plan B and Kerrang, here they are below.

For my magazine I thought that Plan B was the most appropriate for my audience and so i used this most as inspiration.

We researched what is suggested by different titles as to what could be inside of the magazine and what music genre it could be about.

After deciding on my title I tried to design it. Here is the original sketch.

Conventions of Magazine - Feature Page

When I started my feature I had alot of live images I had taken at gigs that I prefered to my photo shoot so I decided I should do a live review.
















There are many ways to set out a live review as you can see above but my favourite, and the most inspiring I found was Plan B. The writing going over the image I thought made the page look different and it would help fill all the space on the page without making the page look cluttered.


Conventions of a feature page include;

Images
Review
Quotes
"Live" title at the top of the page


I had featured all of these in my final product so that it is still a professional usable feature, even though it look unconventional.

Conventions of Magazine - Contents Page

When researching contents pages I realised there was a similar look to all of them, but as the ideology of my magazine is that it is independant and unique I wanted to avoid this.

From the images below you can see that a typical contents page consists of a couple of pictures with the features inside broken into separate sections.

I wanted my magazine to look different and I also wanted it to look more mature and sophiticated.

I then looked at a few more magazines such as Plan B and Artrocker. Their contents looked like this.

And I thought the single picture surrounded by the contents looked more mature then many pictures so this was the angle I went with. As you can see by my final contents page I took alot of inspiration from these.

Conventions of a contents page include...

Pictures

Features

Page Numbers

Multiple Colours

Title

Picture of the cover

I have still included most of these in my final version but I have changed the way the page looks to fit the ideology of my audience.