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.

Media advertisement.

-The people in the advert are in their late 20’s early 30’s.
-Their clothing is formal.
-Their facial expressions are that the man is looking serious but hopeful that he will get the women.
-The woman has a serious expression with a smirk on her face.
-The woman is using direct motive address while the man is starring straight head at the women.
-The women is open towards the man while her head is turned towards the audience, the man is standing straight in front of her as she is in the door way.

-The relationship in the frame is as if they have never met, but he wants to spend a night with her.

-In the frame there are other people in the room (at a party) but they are blurred and are in dim lighting, the lighting is focused on the man and woman.

-There is also a doorframe it suggests that if you wear this particular perfume you will attract the opposite sex, and all the attention will be on the woman.

-The product being sold is Armani code ‘the secret code of women’ made by Georgia Armani, the product is pictured in the bottom right corner, it is enlarged with the title of the product, is to the left of the picture of it.

-The ad is set at a party, as there are other people in the background. This suggests that if you wear the perfume the only man in the room will notice you. The advert has used photography and photo editing to make her skin, hair and make-up perfect, these effects have been used to show the consumer that they will look like the woman if they put on the perfume and have the man she is going to have.

-The colours used are dark and black and the main light is focused on the man and woman.

-In the frame your eyes are immediately drawn to her eyes because they are bold and stand out hugely amongst everything else.

-The image cropped is a mid-long shot. Out side the frame you can see that she is about to go in to a party.

- The text is small in comparison to the photo seeing as it only takes up the bottom third of it where there is not that much to look at anyway.

- The brand name Giorgio Armani sounds very classy it gives out this image.

- The slogan is mysterious as it gives us this way that there is a code to women.

- The font looks like times new roman, it uses the lilac colour to match the bottle and the rest is white which goes with the black and white dressed theme.

Magazine Breif

Why have you chosen this brief?
I have chosen this target audience (sixth form) because I am a sixth former myself and I believe that I would generally have the same interests or near enough the same interests as people in my own age group. I know what interests them and what doesn’t interest them as opposed to the other years at school.

Briefly identify the core audience profile you are planning to target.
The core audience profile I am planning to target are of course, the sixth formers as I have already pointed out in the previous question, although I am targeting both genders so I will have to make sure the colour scheme, stories, quizzes, etc apply to both boys and girls. I will not be targeting any certain “stereotype” I will cater for all.

What is your working title for the magazine?
The working title of my magazine is in fact “Lessonz!” I have chosen this because I believe that it applies to the school highly yet I have added a “z” this is because it shows that the magazine is aimed at a younger person rather than a teacher. There is also an exclamation mark on the end of the title because it emphasizes it more and also seems as though it is shouting out to you.

Describe the general idea behind your magazine (The mission statement)
My magazine is going to not only help sixth formers achieve their goals in their A levels it is also going to keep them updated with the gossip of the school, it will also enable sixth formers to send their problems into the problem page and get advice on certain issues that they want to discuss. It will not only outline inside school issues, it will also have certain aspects of out of school issues involved within the magazine too. My overall aim would be to help the students with everything they want to talk about, and also include some fun.

Describe the lifestyle this magazine will promote (think brand values)
This magazine will promote certain revision guides etc that the average sixth former needs to get through school. It will also have entertainment promotions as well such as what’s on at the cinema, what new albums are out etc.

How are you planning to style the cover?
I am planning to make the cover quite colourful but colours for both sexes, so it will not be in bright pink or dark blue, it will have elements of both and the background will be a bold dark colour, but it will be a colour everyone would go for. It will have a big picture on the front and a few others around it. There will be text spread out over it but not too much as I do not want to make it look messy and crowded.


Describe your cover shot, including who your actor will be.
My cover shot will be of my friend who is in the year below yet posing as a sixth former. It will be a mid-shot and I am thinking of taking it of her as though it’s totally natural and had no idea the photo is being taken. It will be set in school yet I am not too sure on where the shot will be taken.

Identify examples of magazine content.
There will be roughly 10 pages in my magazine, a few of these pages will include:
“The problem Page” E.G “Dear… I am writing about an essay that is due to be in next week, I have no idea what to do…!” reply “Dear reader, I have just received your letter and I realise you have a problem on your hands, so I’ll give you a few tips on how to solve this problem”. Yet, the problem could also be over something more personal such as boyfriend/girlfriend trouble, they can also remain anonymous.
There will be pages that will include interviews with teachers, quizzes, a “Guess who?” page, where you have one part of someone around the school and you have to guess who it is, and so on.

Identify examples of language (words and phrases) you will use on the cover.
I will basically use English language although in certain things I will use “slang” shortened words that only people in our age group can understand, used mainly on programmes like IM, MSN messenger and used in texting widely, such as “OMG”, “LOL”, “IDK” etc.

How does it offer an alternative to magazines currently on the market for this audience?
I believe my magazine will be totally different to anything that’s on the market for this audience right now. It will include not only school issues, it will include every day issues, so it will be a mixture of both which you rarely ever see. It will enable us all to learn, but learn and have fun, be able to laugh at something while your working, and for revising to not seem such a drag. It will be exciting and be for everyone in the two sixth form years, something that everyone can get involved with and enjoy.

Questionnaire:

1. Would you be interested in a school magazine?

o Yes
o No


2. If yes what would you like it to include? (If any ideas give your own opinion)

3. What colour scheme do you think would be most interesting to the reader? (Considering the magazine will be unisex)

o Green, white and pink
o Black, white and grey
o Red, blue and yellow
o Purple, green and yellow
o Other

4. If other, give example:

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

5. Do you think it would be a good idea to have a educational “free gift” included with each issue of the magazine?

o Yes
o No

6. Would it be a good idea to have interviews with certain pupils and members of staff about their lives?

o Yes
o No
7. If yes, what about?
................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

8. Would you send stories to the “problem page” regularly? (you can remain anonymous)

o Yes
o No

9. How often would your like the magazine to be issued?

o Weekly
o Fortnightly
o Monthly
o +

10. Do you think there should be parts of the magazine relating to issues outside of school rather than just inside the school, appealing to your age group?

o Yes
o No

hello.