1) In
what ways does your
media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media
products?
I attempted to follow the practice of conventions of the genre of my
music magazine (SUAV). I considered features of music magazine conventions such
as the format, mise-en-scene and the layout. The inspirations for my magazine
were mainly VIBE and Q magazine as they are both well suited for the genre of
music that I chose and also for my audience. I noticed that red, black and
white were the three colours mainly used in most of these magazines (through my
case studies) and this then lead me to use these colours as they were popular
and looked quite classy. Furthermore, I only used three main colours to keep
the magazine looking consistent and professional throughout (cover, contents
page and DPS). The three colours I used also worked well as they all stood out
against the black background, making it easier for the reader to see. I noticed
that most music magazines have their masterhead either on top of the model or
behind the model in order to show who is important, however I decided to
challenge this and have them both in the foreground. I did this to show that
they were both as important. Also through the research from my case studies, I
noticed that the masterhead of VIBE magazine was always bold, big and stood
out. I then tried to the same by having my masterhead in a large, bold font in
red, to stand out against the black background of the cover. Instead of just
focusing on one genre of music, I wanted to challenge this and focus on a
fusion of two types, this was so I could gain a larger audience of readers.
VIBE and Q magazine didn’t seem to have a lot of teasers/ cover lines on their
front covers, I thought this was a good thing as it didn’t give too much away
and it also didn’t make the magazine look to clustered. This then lead me to do
the same with my magazine and I therefore only used a few teasers. To
immediately show the readers what types of music would be included in the
magazine, I decided to make my skyline names of artists that would possibly be
included in the magazine. The main image on the cover is a medium close-up of a
young, black man, holding a mic and giving full eye contact with the camera.
The eye contact was an important thing, as I noticed that most magazines had
this as it makes the magazine more personal towards the readers. I decided to
have him doing a cheeky smile, in order to entice my female audience and also
have his chest showing with an unseen womans hand holding his chest. This was
to make the picture look ‘sexy’. I used a black backdrop in the picture to make
it look sophisticated and so that it would work well with my colour scheme. I
also noticed that in VIBE and Q contents pages, they generally have a large
image of the person on the front cover on one page, and then they also have
various other pictures that relate with the contents on the other. I tried to
do the same and therefore had two contents pages. In my double page spread, I had
a number of pictures of my artist doing various poses. I did this so that the
audience could feel a sense of his personality. I got this idea from my case
study of VIBE magazine. I used columns to write my story as this is a
convention of a DPS and I did not want to challenge this. I also used a pull
quote from the interview in the DPS to lure the readers into actually reading
the interview.
2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My magazine primarily represented black males; however it was aimed at both males and females between the ages of 16 – 35. This is because my main story was focused on a young, black male; however, using him as the main story would then attract young females. Also using the stereotype of a black artist helped me represent my target audience for an R&B and Soul magazine. SUAV would mainly appeal to this targeted audience as firstly the name was taken from the word ‘suave’, meaning classy. I used this as a title to show that the magazine is classy and can appeal to a mature audience, but also to a younger audience as the word ‘suave’ is also used as a slang word to similarly mean smart and on trend. R&B and Soul is known to be smooth and expressive and therefore, I chose to represent my artist in that exact way, using his clothing and pose to help push my intensions through and allow the audience to see this. The eye contact with the camera, the smirk and the unbuttoned shirt was all intentional as it made the magazine look sexy and sex is known to sell, especially in the R&B industry.
3) What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My magazine would be published by Len Bernett which is VIBE magazines distribution. They are a highly known and successful publishing company and would therefore help SUAV in the music magazine industry. They reach over 19 million consumers per month and this is the large scale of publicity I would be looking for. Created by producer Quincy Jones in 1993, the publication primarily features R&B and hip-hop music artists, actors and other entertainers. However my magazine would be R&B and Soul and therefore gain more readers.
4) Who would be the audience for your media product?
The audience for my media product would be both males and females aged between 16 and 35. This is because the magazine focuses on music that people within that particular age bracket listen to. The magazine focuses on both old and new music and would therefore give SUAV a larger audience. SUAV is also predominately targeted at a black audience however other ethnic groups could relate to some of the content in the magazine, i.e. the latest fashion or people of other ethnicities who just enjoy R&B and Soul music.
5) How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my target audience by firstly using an artist that sings R&B and Soul music. Similarly I used names of very popular and well known artists in this genre as my skyline and teasers in order to attract the audience as they would be familiar with these artists and therefore want to read the magazine more. By containing an element of fashion and also a ‘Top 50’ chart, this would appeal to people who are into fashion and the chart list would appeal to people that follow charts frequently. Also by having a website, this makes it easier for the audience to read and catch up on latest things in the magazine. Another way I attracted the audience was by my front cover. The masterhead is bold and stands out against the black background and the main image is also bold and immediately catches the reader’s attention. Finally by using psychological pricing to make the consumer feel that the magazine is way cheaper that is actually is, e.g. near the barcode on my front cover, the price of the magazine is said to be £3.99 instead of £4.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
While constructing my magazine, I have learnt how to use technologies such as InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, cameras, xtranormal and Prezi. When doing the photography, I learnt skills on how to set up lighting and also where to place my models. Doing my first shoot for my front cover, my lighting was first too bright and was almost washing out my models. I then learnt how to change setting and how to use/place equipment in order for me to get my desired lighting. Another problem I faced was my models standing too far back and being close to the backdrop. I found that the closer they got to the backdrop, the more their black clothing blended in with the backdrop. I picked up skills with the camera quite easily and generally loved doing my photo-shoots. Constructing SUAV was quite easy as I had used Adobe InDesign before to construct my college magazine. I had never used this technology before, but I was quickly able to navigate through it. However my problem was and still kind of is Adobe Photoshop, I found using this rather difficult and felt that I didn’t spent enough time on it during the construction of my college magazine. I also used Xtranormal, which was quite straightforward to use, however I tried to use Prezi for my pitch but it confused me so I ended up doing my pitch in Microsoft PowerPoint.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back at my college magazine, I feel that is was more amateur looking that SUAV. This was due to the fact that I had fully learnt how to use InDesign when making SUAV and I had also done a lot of research into existing music magazines at the moment, such as VIBE (media press pack and magazine news stand task). Through that research I learnt about what types of photos I should use, i.e. have a picture of the artist making eye contact with the camera on the front cover, as previously in my preliminary task, I had my model smiling with her eyes closed. Similarly I learnt about different camera angle (not only medium close-ups) and about appropriate lighting. I also learnt that keeping to schedule is highly important as there is so much to do in this task that if you don’t, things can get difficult. Using timetoast to organise my time and work really helped me with this. Finally I learnt about how little things such as the colour scheme of a magazine can change a suit different types of audiences.
