2. Q1. IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS
AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?
• My magazine develops and challenges form and conventions of real media products by,
first of all having the items/articles that I wanted to be seen and I want the readers to look
at and read in a different font, which is more eye catching and even more appealing to the
audience compare to my least important content which is placed within another font which
is just simple/basic and is a lot smaller then main headings, this showing that it not as
intresting as maybe the surrounding stories . I have also placed the colours of my
magazine slightly around the clothing of what my subjects are wearing, white and red can
be found in the jumper of one of my subjects and black and white can be find in my other
subject’s shirt, I decided to do this since it would bring the eye of the read to the front
cover of my magazine . I have placed least important things at the top and the bottom of
the front of my magazine and placed a background to it, this helped make them stand out
and yet at the same time its small text showed it was inferior to the surround objects as
some magazine have done before. With my magazine which is different to others I have
placed a smoke background to my image, I thought this smoke background would be a
great idea to use through out my magazine as you can see in my DPS as wellbut red
instead of white . I also took in the idea of what other magazines have done by making the
title of the magazine the same font as the band name, as shown throughout my magazine ,
this shows how important this certain band is to this issue of the magazine, it also shows
that this is the number one story to be read in the magazine .
3. • My contents page was slightly the samebut had one or two differences in it, first off , I took the font of the
band and the title of my magazine "New Generation" and I changed it a bit by changing the colours, size
and stroke of the bands name “The Hostel”, I also continued to do this throughout the whole magazine,
this was to show that the band was very changingand always up for new ideas , and also to show that the
content of the magazine is always different and always varies . I have challenge the real media products
here because with my magazine I have taken my photos and cut them out and placed them on a smoky
more abstract DPS, This is different compared to other magazine DPS since, they adapt a very simple
white/gray/black background, with very little going on, I thought that I could change that and make the
background more appealing and at the same time reflecting some of this band characterizes through the
smoke. I also adapted some contents of other magazines, I took the page number, magazine name and
the date of print on the bottom lefy hand side of the magazine in very small writing, I also placed
"Exclusive Article" at the top left hand side of the page in very small text again. I took the name of the
band "The Hostel" and I placed it at the very top of the page, this was to show that this page was
dedicated to this band, I then placed the writers and photographers name under that to indicate that
this/these people have done have written what is within this article and who took the photographs to place
within it . As in all magazine I took the idea of columns and I placed two of them in my article, one leading
on from the next.
4. Q2. HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT
REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?
• My magazine has represented the social group of Emos/Goths/Mosher, the dark kind of genre and
yet a bit of the mainstream genre.
• I have done this by first off making the colours appeal to this sort of group, I selected the colours to
represent the darkness within side of them, I thought these colours Red, Black and White would
work really well together since this made the other colours stand out against the background
colour. The colour black is a very dark colour and this is the colour of what dark bands members
wear and it shows that their music is very dark and full of meaningit also goes along well with what
this type of social groups where. The colour red represents pain, blood and love, and this show that
the magazine has meaning to, and that it wants to show it love for this certain band, its also like the
band wants to express meaning through their songs and white is very pure and straight to the point
which this magazine is, this shows that the magazine is very clean and very pure with its words and
contains no inapportate content for younger readers . It appeals to the mainstream genre because
of what the members on the front of my magazine are wearing which is very BMX and Indie style,
and this style would capture they eye of the mainstream kids, it also shows that maybe this band is
something new and something that would appeal to the modern society .
5. Q3. WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE
YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?
The type of music magazine that would most likely sell my magazine would be either Kerrang because
they are the rock/metal genre and their magazine is featured more at the younger generation which
I want my magazine to be aimed at but the magazine most likely to take on my magazine for its
content and its style of music would be Metal Hammer, this is because their magazine is all based
around the metal genre but their music magazine is more for the slightly older generation.
Music institution such as HMV will sell my product because they specialize in the music industry and
they sell all types of music magazine, such as indie, rock, metal and so on, so this would be the
perfect place to sell my new metal magazine since this shop gets a lot of attention from music
lovers that flood the floors, and hopefully my magazine colours and layout will attract the attention
of some passersby’s or even the social groups I am aiming it as.
Another good place that might distribute my product is supermarkets such as ASDA and TESCO, this is
because they sell a vast amount of different magazine such as garden, motor, music and so on, so
this would be a willing distributer since it gain missives of people from all over the place and not just
in one particular area, yet it does not attract just one particular audience, but it does main attract
mums and dads to the store, even though they might not like this kind of music or its magazine they
might buy they're sons or daughters it and that would attract more customers to buy this magazine.
6. Q4. WHO WOULD BE THE AUDIENCE FOR YOUR MEDIA
PRODUCT?
The audience for my music magazine would be the younger generation of people around the
age of 14-20, I decided to pick this age because 14 is the right age for people to be
listening to this heavy metal genre and 20 is still considered young and it would appeal to
them.Imanaged to do this by taking photos of my two friends who are both 18, I decided to
pick this age because this is the age that bands start to form and its also the mature age
where you know what you are doing and you know whether its right or wrong, also by
having these two people jumping on top of each other it shows that they are still in their
youth, also by having these two people being so young it helps for the readers connect
with the band member and help them understand what they are talking about and can
relate to.
The type of clothing my band members are wearing are very BMX and indie style, this help to
drag new people into my magazine and even drag people into listening to this type of
music.
7. Q5. HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR
AUDIENCE?
• My music magazines colour scheme, with its red and black colours would attract my
audience and catch their eye, this is because the colour represent/reflect the colour
of the clothing that they would wear.
• I put a "Free poster" on the front cover of my music magazine because no one can
refuse free things and this is always a good idea to drag people into picking up my
magazine and have a look inside or even buying it.
• I did a question in my research to find out which price would suit my audience the
best because I didn't want to make it too high that people wouldn't buy it or couldn't
afford it but not to cheap that it looked like it was just full of rubbish, and I also
wanted to make sure that the price of my magazine beat any competitors such as
Kerrang or Metal Hammer, so I decided to make the price between £2-£3.
• I decided to pick a font that would appeal to my audience and at the same time fit in
with my magazine, I picked a font called "Face Your Fears" and this was sort of a gory
kind, and I thought this was perfect for my magazine since it was very unique and
help my magazine stand out.
8. Q6. WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES
FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS
PRODUCT?
• At the beginning of this piece of work I had never used photo shop before so it was something completely new to me, I
had never used a system like it before, the closest I had ever used was paint. I soon start to practise with the tools and i
started to get used to them, as my skills were improving so was my eye for detail, and with these skills it help me to
produce quite a high standard for my magazine which in my opinion was pretty good for a first time attempt at anything
like this.
• The main tools I used within my magazine were the, magnetic lasso tool which helped me cut out people from the photos
I took and also the rubber with a soft edge to help get rid of any blue screen surrounds and to smoothen the image so it
doesn't look like it was just cut out of a photograph to make it look as though it was meant to be put on the front cover of
my magazine.
• I then found out that I could add brushes to my magazine, these brushes helped me improve the standard of my
magazine throughout, I also found out that I could download fonts and this helped my magazine out a lot and gave it
more of a better effect to appeal to my audience, I downloaded a font called "Face your fears".
• I also used a program called Quark, this program was amazing for adding text in compact places, and it was very simple
to use, at first I ran into some problem because I had never used this program before and I was very confused but as I
started to adapt to it I became better at it and improve in it by a vast amount and in the end I think I ended up with good
quality text.
• Overall I think I made an alright piece of work but if I had the chance to do it all over again, id scrap my old idea and
improve it by a vast amount to make it to such a better standard and to, maybe a professional quality, I think I would be
able to do this since I have a greater insight into photoshop and quark now.
9. Q7. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK,
WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE
PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?
• I think I have learnt a lot since my preliminary task, such as using Photoshop, my skills in this have
improved a lot and I now know how to produce an average quality magazine design that will be
appealing to my target audience. I have also learnt how to use a program called Quark, this
program is good for putting in text around objects and getting a text box just the way you want it to
be and this came in really handy with my music magazine, it also helped me produce a higher
quality magazine against my prelim magazine. Throughout the make of my magazine I also had a
chance to use an SLR camera, which I produced quite good images to use within my magazine, I
learnt that using a blue screen is very handy for putting photos into Photoshop to use on cut out,
which I did a lot, but over all I think the main thing that I have learnt and progressed in quite well is
my eye for detail, this has helped me produce my magazine to a satisfactory quality, and help me
with all the other programs that I have used.