Reflective Production Diary Week 1

Monday 14th Feb:
 Photo shoot of my models done in college studio. props such as flower petals and guitars i used during in order to achieve the shots i wanted. Camera, Tripod, Lighting and White Screen background were used.


Tuesday 15th Feb
Today, i begun editing my photos in photoshop CS3 after deciding on some photos i am defiantly going to be using, and uploading copies of the raw shots to my blog.


Wednesday 16th Feb
Today i continued to Edit my photos in college and at home work on my blog some more (uploading a few more photos to my blog.)


Thursday 17th Feb
Today i drafted my article for my magazine and at home i added some more work to my blog.


Friday 18th Feb
Today i continued to edit my photos. enhancing the colour on some and cutting the image out on others.

Raw Photo shots.

Here are the un edited raw shots that i am going to use in my final piece :

<  This will be edited and used in my main feature article


> This will be used on my contents page.





























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The following four photgraphs i have take of Simone, i am aiming to use, but have not decided how i will use them at the moment. i would like to use some shots of her smiling and edit them onto a film roll that will displayed at the top of the article page.








 

             These three pictures will be used on the contents page and on the main feature as this character is playing the part of famous band member Davermouse and ex partner of Simone's character SimonSimon. 




















This is a picture is of my friend, Shannon. She is not a student at St Mary's college and is still in high school. for obvious reasons i will have to crop this picture so her school logo is not on show. i will be using this picture on the contents page under the fans letter section.





























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Individual page mock ups

Front cover mock up :

Contents page mock up:

Main feature article:

Media Photo-shoot Plan

I have been inspired by many different bands and their photo shoots. There are a selection of some of my favourite pictures on my mood board. One Picture in particular i would like to replicate is of Paramore's Hayley williams. The picture has clearly been manipulated in a programme, likely to be photoshop. there has been 2 initial images taken, with one layer over the other to give the impression that her eye is on her hand. i would like to replicate this idea as i think it is fun and unique.  




























I would like to replicate this image (Hayley alone) with my own model as i think that the idea is a unique and fun idea.


Other photos such as this one of Kerli (below) have been obviously heavily manipulated using software such as photoshop. Likely facial photoshopping to make the appearance of the subject seem more beautiful and flattering and create and 'Ideal image'.  The background displayed in this picture has obviously been added in during manipulation. a photo of this standard is most likely unattainable with my ability of skill with the Mac software Photoshop CS3 as i am new to this programme, i will probably not be able to create something like this in the time i have left. 


























I also with to use props in my photo shoot in order to create a more authentic and professional look. I am aiming to use props like fake lowers (Roses black and red). possibly balloons,  and guitars. I feel that the use of props will create a more porfessional look  and i woild like to use the shots including the flowers and instruments for the main feater, and the article iself will have a somewhat serious tone to it, therefore reflecting this in the picture will strengthen the impact of the article on the readers.
For my cover shot, and contents page, i would like to use something a bit more relaxed and inviting towards the reader, so i think in keeping with the genres general style i will dress my model according to the stereotypical post hardcore and rock style, but perhaps use bubbles as a prop to create a more fun and relaxed image.


Some images that incorporate the same ideas:

 To the left is a shot of Taylor Swift with flower around her. although her style of music is very different to the style i am trying to replicate for pictures, by changing some of the colours, position, and costume of the model, i think i could show a vulnerable side to my model.


To the left is s shot of Miley Cyrus ready to smash an acoustic guitar. I don't feel that i would have to change much of this picture in order to replicate something that would be genre specific for my magazine. Her dress and attitude portrayed could be seen in something like Kerrang. Therefore i feel that i could                                                        achieve a shot like this one.


For my main feature article  i want the photos to show strength but also vulnerability combined. in order to achieve this i will have to direct m model in a way that i think will capture this idea perfectly. the idea of vulnerability and strength will reflect the artists 'new album'  that will be being promoted throughout the article and will also help reflect the lyrics that will be on the album. ( I plan to insert a 'sneak preview' of some of the lyrics.) 


Below is a raw shot of the model i plan to use for my main feature and cover shot photos. My model is Simone Green. She is currently a year 12 student at St Mary's College, and is a friend of mine. I have chosen her as i think she has a rock chick look and will fit the genre i am aiming to account for.

                                                          (Year 12 student Simone Green)




here is how i would like the lighting to be for my shots :

My Reader Profile

The target Audience for my magazine is young people ager 16-25 years old. i have decided that the magazine will be a fortnightly magazine in order to allow readers to enough time to 'consume' the information at a comfortable rate without having to rush before the next issue will be out. As the readers of this magazine will be fans of the post hardcore/ rock genre, new music is not as frequently released as that in the top 40, therefore 2 weeks is appropriate time for enough new music to be released and put into a magazine for promotional sales.
With regards ti the ages of my reader i think that mild language such as swearing and sarcasm will be appropriate, in moderated amounts. in regards to the genre of music, language such as swearing is common within the lyrics of the music, so the readers are likely to have been exposed to swearing within lyrics of songs, therefore i feel it would be appropriate for mild use of bad language.

Organisation

In order to keep on top of the work i need to do, i will create a time table schedule to keep track of the work i need to complete week by week.

February 8th - 11th : Planning / photo-shoots, costumes, props, my model and casting shots

12th/13th : Produce mock ups of each page, Produce a reader profile and a draft of my main feature article.

14th february onwards : Photo shoots, picture editing/ uploading selected raw shots, Progression of work uploaded regally. 

Mood Board

Fonts used on my mood board 
> A Bite
> Riot Act 2
> Cold Night For Alligators
> Uncle Typewriter
> Retro Rock Poster
> Static buzz

As you can see, on my mood board i have included a few band images and a selection of text fonts that i think are for me a good inspiration for my magazine. All of the pictures are of bands that i listen to and like and therefore will be good inspiration for photographs and design when i come to the production stage of creating my magazine. I have chosen deliberately to display images i think that represent the genre i am trying to replicate for my magazine, so on my mood board i have selected images from bands that inspire me and that i would like to try and replicate. The colors displayed are typical of the post hardcore and hardcore genre. with the ADTR poster displayed towards the bottom of the mood board showing some of the colours i used on the text samples on the mood board.


Bands/ Artists displayed:
Kerli
Paramore
All Time Low
A Day To Remember
Evanescence 
Funeral For A Friend
Before Their Eyes
Taylor Momsen

Feedback 9.2.11

Well done Charlotte,

You are making good progress here. You need to ensure you get the planning complete this week and over the weekend ready to write your artcile next week and takle your photos. Any problems, see me.

Mrs A

Magazine Name - Audience Questionaire

I asked members of my class what name they thought would be best for the genre of my magazine
i asked:


What name would be most fitting for the genre of my magazine (Rock/post hardcore?)
Get Audio!
Cranked
Amplified 
R!




My results were as follows:
Get audio received 2 votes
Cranked! received 5 votes
Amplified received 3votes
R! received 5 votes
Retro Rock received 7 votes

Audience Questionair

1) For a music magazine aimed at a female audience with a genre of Rock and Post Hardcore bands, what kinds of bands would you expect/like to see?
Mostly well known bands like ADTR ect..? //
Breakthrough bands/ New bands? /  
Less well known / new bands
Well known and some new bands ///
A good mix  /////


2) With regards to the genre, what kinds of colour schemes would you like to see?
Blue/ Black/ White/ Purple /
Black/ White/ Red /
Magenta/ Black/ PurpleBlue //
Blue/White/ Black/Magenta ///
Purple/White/Blue/ Black/ Red     /////




3) As a female, what kinds of posters/picture would you like to see in a magazine aimed at a female audience?
 >Topless male band members /
 >Male band members / artists  only
 >Whole bands with male and female members ////////
 >Mix of the above //
 >Other

4) how often would you buy a magazine of this genre?
  >Once a week ///
  >Fortnightly /////
  >Monthly /
  >Every now and again //
  >Never

5) How much would you be willing to pay for a magazine of this genre?
  Between £1.00- £2.50//
                £2.51- £3.50 ///////
                £ 3.51- £4.50 //
                £4.51+

6) What kinds of font do you prefer?
 >Big and bold
 >Bold and small
 >Small
 >Small and stylish
 >Tiny
 >Mixed ///////////

7) What kind of look would you prefer on a magazine of this genre?
   > A classical look. (something simple and more 'clasic' such as the style that lifestyle magazine Marie Claire adopts)  ///////
 >Something more modern (such looks as lifestyle magazines like Chat, and Take a Break!) /////

With the results of my questionnaire, it is providing a good idea through audience feedback, how  the magazine will look.

Planning- Equpiment

In order to create my music magazine, i will need to use a variety of equipment in order to produce something that looks professional.
I will be using :
> My own personal camera from home
> Lights and studio equipment in colleges' studio
> InDesign  -  Apple Mac software
> Photoshop CS3  - Apple Mac software

Target Audience- Demographic and Psychographic profiling.

 A demographic profile is a term used in marketing and broadcasting, to describe a demographic grouping or a market segment. This typically involves age bands (as teenagers do not wish to purchase denture fixant), social class bands (as the rich may want different products than middle and lower classes and may be willing to pay more) and gender (partially because different physical attributes require different hygiene and clothing products, and partially because of the male/female mindsets).

A demographic profile can be used to determine when and where advertising should be placed so as to achieve maximum results. In all such cases, it is important that the advertiser get the most results for their money, and so careful research is done to match the demographic profile of the target market to the demographic profile of the advertising medium.

My ideal target market for my music magazine will be teenager aged 16 through to mid twenties (16-25 age range) 

G -  My target Gender will be females

R -   the race of my targeted female audience will be white females

A -   Age range 16-25

S - Socio economic status will probably be in the bottom bracket. E- unemployed. as it is aimed primarily at teenagers, it is unlikely that they will be unemployed as still in education. some of my target audience will have a job, therefore, will not be in the bracket.

Analysing the Journalistic style in a music magazine.

Here i will analyse the language used in one of Kerrang's articles. The particular article is interviewing paramore.


Text grabs with past tense abstract nouns such as "We hated each other" stand out to the reader when they are in the centre of the double page feature in large font. the graphology (Placement) of things on a page is important in oder to catch the readers eye. text grabs such as this one cant be highly misinterpreted out of context and can instantly make a reader decide to wither find out what is in the article or turn over the page.


This article has a mix of writing style. starting off with a prose style mixed with quotes form the original interview with the artist and ending with the other band members with a quick question and answer on thoughts and opinions.  'Today, according to Paramores label rep...particularly restful' This section demonstrates the journalists prose style of writing in order to create context so that the reader will understand the question and answer round. creating contextual background is important for the reader as without it. the question and answer parts of the interview would be hard to follow. 


Colloquial text such as "Literally, a week..." show to the reader that the question and answer round has been kept informal and is likely to have remained un edited and be the original words spoken be the interviewee. this is important as it makes a direct link between the reader and the artist that they admire.


The question and answer style of interview that comes in throughout the article creates a link between reader and artist, as it allows the reader to reach a personal level. "They're what brought our band back together"

Analysing Band Images For Target Audiences

Here are some albums form bands that i listen to that fit with the genre of music that i am aiming to incorporate in my magazine: 

 Flyleaf have a mix of genres such as:
 Alternative Metal, 
Hard Rock, 
Post Grunge, Nu Metal, 
Alternative Rock, 
 and Heavy Metal
With a female lead, Lacey, would prove to be a positive role model for my target audience Females aged 16-25, to be idolising with.























Arch Enemy however are different from most bands out there. their main genre is Melodic Death Metal however differ from other bands of this genre as they have a female lead whereas others in the genre would have a male vocal lead. 
Arch Enemy stand out from the crowd and i feel that having a band such as Arch Enemy in my magazine would be genre appropriate, in order to create a slightly wider audience appeal.






This is a band from Yorkshire who's genre is  focused mainly on Metal-core, Post Hardcore and Euro trance. this is a god representation of the target audience as the Post Hardcore genre is one of their main focuses with a couple of other genres mixed in to appeal to a wider audience

Metal Core, Post Hardcore, and Electronica, Attack Aattack! follow very similar genres to Asking Alexandria and will therefore appeal to similar audience groups, so having more that one band that have very similar styles will be good as each band have quite a large fanbase of support. therefore having them in a music magazine would be bennificial for sales.


























Posters


Popular Pop-Punk band All Time Low would be good to have for posters in my style of music magazines as the punk genre evolved into the post hardcore genre that i am aiming to achieve for my magazine. some females may also find the band members attractive therefore may buy the magazine purely for posters that are available inside




This poster of Paramore with front woman Hayley Williams would be a good positive strong female role model for a slightly younger audience (15-17 year old females.) As my magazine is aimed at a female audience, i feel that this would be an appropriate poster to have displayed in a music magazine like mine.

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ICP Media- Production of magazines

ICP is a media production company. The Company produces over 60 well known media icons with around 2/3 of of UK women and 42% of UK men (around 26million UK adults) 


 I feel that ICP Media would be a good and reputable company to have produce my music magazine as they produce similar products such as NME magazine. NME magazine is of a different genre to my music magazine so i fell that ICP MEDIA would be more than likely to take on a new music magazine with a different genre to the ones it already has in its extensive portfolio.

Investigation of popular music genres in current top 40

In recent years, namely the naughties, pop music tended to feature round white boy bands and girl bands with minor influence from the black music scene. With bands like Busted, Sugar-babes, blue, and names such Brittany Spears, Avril Lagvine and P!nk dominating the main music scene for so long, its easy to see within the last two years that the music scene has changed. with slightly older influences like Rhiannah coming back with new R&B hits like What's My Name and Only Girl In The World, it makes sense that if one person is doing well from producing several pop songs with R&B influence, that others will soon. 
More recent and new breakthrough acts like Bruno Mars with the hit 'Grenade'  and others like  Willow Smith with 'Whip My Hair',  Mike Posner with 'Cooler Than Me' and Jessy J 'Do It Like A Dude' seem to be proving popular with fans, and with demand and love for a product, the producers in this case the artists will produce more to meet the fans love of the new wave of pop/R&B combo.


In Saying that, Classic pop princess' like Avril Lagvine, Girls Aloud's Cheryl Cole and of corse Brittany Spears are still hitting the charts with pop songs with minor R&B influences, creating songs in the top 40 currently Avril's 'What The Hell'. Cheryl's 'The Flood' and Brittany's new hit 'Hold It Against Me'


It would seem as we are in the beginning of a new decade  we are also beginning a new music era with many mixed genres in the charts, with what I would currently say was predominantly a R&B scene.

Mock up of contents page

This is the second part to my preliminary task. a mock up of a contents page of the college magazine we had been asked to design for the first part of our preliminary task.
i have split the entire contents of the magazine into 4 sections. therefore making it easy for a reader of the magazine to find the information that they want to read easily. Page numbers are included in acceding numerical order to make skipping through easy.
college logo has been included in the top right with appropriate colours to attract the target audience. the colours are fun and young, therefore aimed at 16-19yr olds in education at Saint Mary's college.

Circulation Figures And My Unique Selling Point.

The circulation figures for Music magazines within the UK vary widely:    
( *indicates an anual calculation of sales)
BBC Music 42,810 (45,144)*
Classic FM 32,534 (35,751)*
Classic Rock 71,242 (70,301 / 70,188)
Computer Music 17,427 (18,261)*
Future Music 10,862 (10,860)*
Gramophone 32,313 (34,628)*
Hot Press 18,394 (19,387)*
Kerrang! 41,125 (43,253 / 52,272)
Metal Hammer 41,777 (46,004 / 50,269)
Mixmag 26,116 (30,159)*
Mojo 98,484 (97,722 / 100,507)
NME 38,486 (40,948 / 48,459)
Q 94,811 (100,172 / 103,107)
Terrorizer 11,641 (13,786)*
Top of the Pops 107,576 (119,739)*
Uncut 75,518 (76,526 / 87,069)
Word 26,555 (34,280)*


It is clear to see by theses figures that niche groups such as computer music, gramophone ect have lower sales figures due to targeting only a specific and small audience. therefore cannot be expected to reach the more widely aimed and more popular magazines such as Kerrang, Classic Rock and Mojo.


Looking at theses sales figures, there seems to be allot of magazines aimed at rock, pop music, underground and indie music, and post hardcore bands. The audience market for theses is mixed gender, however would most probably be aimed towards the male population, regarding rock and post hardcore bands. There is no specific  magazine on the market which is aimed at the female fans of Rock, post hardcore bands and metal. i feel this is a brilliant opportunity for me to use this space in the market. My unique selling point of my magazine is that its target audience will be a female audience. 
In order to do this, i will have to produce a questionnaire to ask females who are fans of my chosen genre of music what would make them buy a rock/hardcore music magazine aimed at a female audience.
Things to consider:
What females will want in the magazine i.e bands/posters/review wise
Colours that are appropriate - will appeal to females and conform with the genre
Layout of text
Price range

Main Feature Analysis

               > The structure of the articles is 3 to a page, however, in this case there is one colum on the first page, and 3 on the other, due to predominant pictures on the first page, the bulk of text has been displayed on the second page.

>The pictures displayed tell the reader a little of the story. the pictures are advertising to a reader success and the artists recent tour with a picture of the artist in stage, leaning out towards the crowd. the effect of this is to entice the reader to buy the artists music, or become interested in buying tickets to the artists next  tour. artists will not appear in a music magazine without something to sell or endorsing a product.

  

                 > Text grabs are used to draw attention to the text by selecting random quotes that will make the reader wonder what the context behind the text grab is. therefore hooking the reader in.

> Use of contrasting colors such as orange on black draw attention of the reader to that section of the page. in this case it is towards the pictures.