Question one
'In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?'
My media product uses many forms and conventions of real media product. My media final piece was done from looking at many different covers and interview pages and contents pages to get ideas of layouts and they way thing was set for example, the image below of a contents page. Using a lot of colour can be very costly and can effect the environment dearly so many media product use most of their colour on the cover page rather than the detail inside. So my product, just like this was very plain and black and white inside with a slight use of another colour to associate with the gender for example, this product here has used pink as its a girly girl magazine on the other hand I used red black and white because my magazine may have had a girl as the main story but she isn't girly girl so using the colour pink would have been opposite to the theme 'rock' which my magazine is about.
The link above is an example of how to make a magazine front cover, however I challenge what he says when he said that it has to be 'plain'. Out of every magazine from NME to KERRANG they were full of text and shapes and colour so I disagree that a front cover does have to be plain. Examples that challenging what he said.
Both of these magazine use primary colours and a lot of colour on the front covers, primary colours stand out more this why many big magazine companies use them as its more eye catching and hey both use a limited amount of colour just like my cover 'use of 3 colours' this is because to much colour could be a distraction.
Question two
'How does your media product represent particular social groups?'
Different social groups see things different such as rock is only liked by rock groups pop is only liked by pop groups older people prefer older music stereotypically. My magazine has used a lot of stricking colours on the front to grab especially young people's attention. Not many people would of heard of new releases as only people who watch the charts, which is stereotypically seen would have. Below is a link to the charts table currently and it shows that there are a number of different genres as socially every style of music can't be mixed.
http://www.officialcharts.com/uk-top-40-singles-chart/
Also, after looking at number of album covers on the rock page I notice a lot of colours stereotypically associated with rock is dark colours such as red and black which is also what has consistently been used throughout my media magazine. Link is below.
http://www.officialcharts.com/rock-and-metal-singles-chart/
Question three
'What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?'
I believe that IPC would be a good media institution to distribute my media product. IPC is the UK's leading consumer magazine publisher with more than 60 iconic media brands. Some of the brands inclue NME, NOW,Chat. An example of some of the brands the magazine distributes is underneith.
A great deal of these magazines are well known and popular well selling magazines which IPC have helped improve from the begining and funded. I noticed NME, which was a majority of the time used as my style model is distibuted by IPC and is a well seeling magazine.Therefore i believe they would be a good business to distribute my magazine as it's done so well for NME and has more contacts with rock bands meaning more artists would be able to share their stories in my magazines and there would be the funding aailible to make any needed improvements to make it one of the best selling magazines in the market at the moment.
Question four
'Who would be the audience for your media piece?'
The audience for my media piece is teenagers, this is because teenagers are more likely to listen to music of all different genres. Also, the only people who tend to buy magazines are teenagers and I did a questionnaire which is also on my blog to show that teenagers are more than likely bound to read my magazine.
I used a young girls for the front of the cover and the main page, pictures are below, because this could attract young male attention and also it's the fashion of girls these days as well as promoting her music. Most female artist are seen as 'gorgeous' and good looking so it was important I used a good looking girl for this as it will grab teenage attention. Also, by my model being seen as a popular character and as example is underneith my photo's.
Question five
'How did you attract/address your audience?'
I attracted and addressed my audience by using common words teenagers would use such as Win, every teenager likes to win things and its common now that clothing is most popular amongst teenagers so this would impact the attention my magazine would get.
Also, I wrote in a friendly tone just like other magazines because teenagers like to be persuaded and spoken to friendly so it was important I did this. The audience for my pice being teenagers meant that the style had be like 'OMG' or 'REALLY?!' like very gossipy for the audience and not seen as dead boring as they would get bored if it's just a piece of text that went like he did that or she did this as they would get bored.
This is an example of a link i used for my magazines which helped me throughout the making of my magazine.
Question six
'What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?'
I have learnt that technology plays a great part into the process of a magazine and that it's not as easy as it looks. There are many different buttons and techniques to do certain things for example editing the pictures and text there is so many buttons. An example of some ways to edit texts are underneith.
However, this program does make it look more professional than other programs such as publisher and word as there is my ways to do different things such as overlapping pictures and doing the layout of a magazine. An example is below.
In this example given above, the way the Q is around the text and the picture in the top right hand corner cant be done on word or publisher because it's not technical enough to be able to do layouts apart from the standard layouts. Also, you cant change the colour of the pictures for example to black and white you can only keep the picture as it is apart from changing the basics for example cropping it.
I also had to use a professional camera and a tripod to get better quality photo's, again this being something that i dont usually use and learning the buttons on the camera was tricky and where to position the camera etc. My photos went wrong a few times as i go where i had to aqim the camera wrong and cut half the model off so the photos were unusable, this software and camera are not easy to use and therefore it makes magazines more professional.
Question seven
'Looking back at your preliminary tasks (The continuity editing task) what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from the full product?'
I believe that i have learnt a great deal from the preliminary tasks to the continuity editing task, even though i struggled doing both as i couldn't get my head around the software photoshop, my final magazine looked a lot more profesional than the prelimianry. All my colours were messy and the pictures were not so good and it just looked a mess. My final magazne cover look dark but used the limit of 3 colours so it didnt look to distracting and it looked well getting the right amount of text on it.
The contents page i used a style model for which helped and guided me however only id pages 1-4 as we only did the first 4 pages of a magazine therefore there was only a limited amount of what could be said. I used the same colour scheme but did it on a white background as so much colour could be costly.
I learnt the way magazines produce and the limits to colour and the dos and what not to dos for example not to use so many different colours and too much text as it could make it look unprofessional and messy and would put people off the magazine rather than want to read it. I did the double page spread white and black as most magazines use white and black to keep costs down.
I feel i have learnt a lot of knowledge as well as learning how to use the software which was difficult. I don't feel confident with photoshop still but i feel a lot more confident than i did before when i was doing my prelimiary as i didnt have a clue how to use the software then so i believe my knowledge has grown and i have progressed throughout this time.