Media Essay

Media, Magazine Coursework. Essay.

My media product “I-Rock” uses, develops and challenges forms and conventions of real media products because although I have kept the forms and conventions of an every day magazine I have also tried to make mine slightly different and more exciting. First off I have got a brand new band on the cover as my main image, to sell the band and magazine, it also immediately shows something new and exciting. I have tried to include many aspects of real magazines that you see on the market today, although I have tried to make my magazine slightly different, a little original, I believe that would make my magazine different to any other and there is a gap in the market for a magazine like mine. My magazine includes the price, date and issue number on the cover, which is exactly what any other ordinary magazine has and needs, yet I have I have done my masthead, cover lines, primary images and secondary images in my own style and in my point of view in how I would like the audience to perceive the band in my image. I looked at many magazines before the project; I examined the cover, contents and advertisements within certain music magazines, this was to see how the represented themselves depending on who their target audience were. I looked at the connotations behind the images to see how they used lighting, props, make-up, actors, set and costume to get their point across. Obviously the advertisements related to the actual magazine and their target audience and how they wanted to put themselves across. The first thing I noticed in “Metal Hammer” was the “Grand Theft Auto” game advertised on the front page, immediately that tells me that the magazine was targeted at people over the age of 18, as the game is labelled an 18. I believe my magazine relates to other magazines as I have tried to keep my magazine simple yet putting a subtle point across.

My media product targets teenagers around the age of 14-19, there is no particular nationality or background that I am targeting it is a just purely teenage girl. In doing this I believe it would bring something very different to the magazines which are in the stores now, as the genre of music I have gone for is Independent/Rock music, and if you look at magazines that cater for this type of music such as “NME” and “Kerrang” they look as though they are mainly targeted at boys. The vibe that my magazine gives off is a “Never give up” attitude, and my magazine represents teenagers all across the world who believe that they can make their dream come true and they will never give up until they achieve their goals. My point is to make bands/groups/artists that are not so well known and are less mainstream to become more popular and more noticed to the public eye.
You can quite easily see by just looking at the main image on the cover of my magazine that the group I have starred on the front cover “Organized Chaos” are just usual, easy going, every day teenagers who received a lucky break but are still just having fun and influencing other teenagers just like them to carry on working as hard as they possibly can to get to their level of achievement today. I am totally inspired by musicians who build up their musical career by themselves without going on pop reality TV shows, so I made it quite clear that this magazine was for bands who wanted to make what they want happen by working as hard as they can by themselves and one day to hopefully be noticed. This magazine is for people from all different backgrounds and for people who want to know what the music industry is really like, and how amazing yet hard it can be, by realising the harsh reality's of it all and by realising this, are inspired by the people included in my magazine for becoming who they are today. I have made it serious yet fun, showing that you can work hard and benefit from it and get a lot of fun out of doing it. My magazine targets teenage girls around the age of 14-19. There is no particular nationality or background I am targeting. I expect my magazine to bring something different to the market, as the genre of music I have gone for is individual/rock, and if you look at other magazines that use this genre of music you will see that they’re mainly targeting boys because of the colour schemes/language/pictures etc. My magazine represents teenagers all across the country that believe they can achieve their goals, my main point is to make bands/artists that are not so well known, more noticed and popular. As I am inspired by musicians that build up their musical career by themselves without going on pop reality TV shows such as “X-factor” I thought I would make this known, and for teenagers to believe they can make it on their own as long as they put the work in.

If my magazine was to become massive and it was to be advertised on certain radio stations/television channels/other magazines and so on, I would like it to be put on radio stations such as “XFM” and “Virgin”. The music channels I would like my magazine to be advertised on are “Kerrang”, “Q”, “Scuzz” and “NME”. The reason I would like my magazine to be advertised in all of these is because the music I am promoting is the same genre as the music these certain publications promote. I believe these specific publications would represent my product in the way I would want it to be represented. The music many of these radio stations/Television channels play has a lot of meaning behind the lyrics a lot of the time. It is powerful, and that's how I want my magazine to be looked at. So I would like a big institution because they could fund and would give me the support to produce my magazine and while it was building itself up.

I attracted my audience by firstly making the front cover stand out. The three main colours I used on my front page were red, white and black. I used red for the background which you don't see much of because the main image covers it up quite a lot as it is spread across the whole page, but the masthead is placed in front of the red background and it stands out very clearly and boldly as it is in huge, black, bold lettering, next to it is a skull which is also in black which is rather large, these are just little things that are seen as soon as you look at my magazine. The actors in my main image are wearing white tops, so they stand out amongst the red. I have used exclamation marks and many quotes on my front cover to give the cover lines importance and to make it look as though it must be read. I thought through the main image quite carefully, and it took me many attempts to get my image perfect. I thought about the make-up, costume, lighting, set, facial expression and body language of my actors, because I knew that all of those small elements put together would be the key to making my magazine stand out the most. I finally come up with how I wanted my actors positioned, after many attempts I came to the conclusion that I wanted a medium-long shot image where Joe, my main actor was standing in the middle of the two girls reaching out to the audience, I felt as though this would make the reader feel more involved. The two girls were standing beside him leaning against him. I used dark eye make up for each of the actors to fit in with the cover of my magazine. I addressed my audience in a positive way, I used certain techniques which would make them want to read on, I asked them questions that didn't need to be answered yet needed to be thought about to make them feel a part of everything. I did an editors say, where I gave the audience a small on-site on what they should expect to be in this issue and the next issue of “I-Rock”. The language I used wasn't formal nor informal, it wasn't slang language but there were no over-complex words included as I realised the magazine was for teenagers and most teenagers just want to relax and feel as though after a hard day at school/college/university they can relax and go into a world of their own. If you look at other magazine using the genre of music I am using, you will see that the language, colour schemes etc mainly target boys, so my USP is a rock/indie girl’s magazine.

I have learnt many things about technologies from the process of constructing this product. Before I began the process of making my magazine I would have never of known how to make a magazine cover using fireworks, although I did find using that software surprisingly easy, and it came naturally to me, after my practice run, I felt as though I could now do anything. This all changed when I started to make my final magazine cover, as I wanted everything to be absolutely perfect. The hardest part was making the image look right, it was very fiddly to cut around the image and make the edges look smooth and not to look photo edited. The part I found easiest was the text, putting the text around the image was quite obviously the simplest part of the process, however getting the correct font for my magazine wasn't, it probably took near on hours for me to decide which font suited my magazine best, as most of the time it looked boring or out of place. I found publisher very difficult to use, it took me a lot of time to get the titles on my contents page and double page spread, but once I got into the swing of using the programme it became much easier. I believe if I had planned my magazine out more by writing all of the contents down and making a brief plan of how I wanted my magazine to look, I would have found using the programmes a lot easier to come to terms with. The part of the task I found easiest to make was the cover, this is probably because I have had previous experiences using fireworks before, so it made it much less effort to learn how to use it. Another thing I found very difficult was transferring the title of my double page spread from the “da-font” website, to fireworks, to publisher, as I couldn't get the colours of the background to match, but after a while of trying to get it to much, I got it right. Overall, the programmes were very hard to work, but in the end I got there and it was worth the time I put into it.

Looking back at the whole task and thinking back to what I knew then compared to now, I have learnt so many new skills about how to make a magazine, what you need to include and the software needed. I've also learnt to take control of my time more wisely, as my first draft didn't take me very long to do I thought the real thing would be a breeze, although I was completely wrong, there are so many aspects that need to be covered and thought through. Creating my draft compared to the real thing was completely different. Once I had completed my draft I thought that I was basically finished, but then I handed it in to my teacher and I realised actually it was nowhere near done and to improve it to the best standard it could get too I would have to put in a lot of hard work. I had to re-take the pictures because the lighting wasn't flattering, and it wasn't thought through well enough at the beginning, I had to consider the colours of my product and how I wanted to express them, and so much more. The contents page was a lot harder to do in the real thing then it was in the draft, I had to space out my writing a bit better and include more images as it looked a bit plain and boring, there was nothing special about it. The double page spread I had to improve by checking through my language, after checking through it and making a few minor changes I asked my friends if they would want to read an article like this to see if it was suitable for teenagers our age, and eventually they all agreed after they had told me to make a few more changes, so I'm pretty confident the interview is to the best standard it can be at. Overall I have learnt huge amounts in such a short space of time, at the beginning I didn't realise all of the detail that you had to put into making a magazine, after the first few stages, and getting the general idea of exactly how you want to present your magazine, there is still so much more to do.