Thursday, 29 January 2015

Planning my photoshoot

Equipment

Canon 600D SLR
Canon 5D SLR
Canon 6D SLR

5mm lense
30mm lense

Portable studio lighting

Props List
Guitar 
Record
Microphone

Costume list
Model 1
Black Jeans
Black leather style jacket
Blue and red chequered collared shirt

Model 2
Black Jeans
White cotton shirt
Blue and White chequered shirt

Model 3
Black Jeans
Grey Jumper with padded shoulders


Models
Model 1
Aged 17 male and I used him in my contents page because of his outfit and hairstyle

Model 2
Male aged 17 and chose him to be on the contents page because his light colours and style of clothing seemed to be relevant to the pop genre

Model 3
Male aged 16 and chose him for my contents page because of his face shape and outfit which seemed to suit the pop genre.

Locations
Site with demolished building, rubble and fencing
Train tracks


Institution

The main publishers of music magazines in the UK are Bauer, IPC, Hearst and Conde Nast. Bauer publishes extremely popular magazines such as Q magazine and Kerrang magazine, which are both extremely popular music magazines of the rock and Indie genre. IPC publish magazines such as Teen Now and Woman’s weekly, which are popular themes for my target audiences. Cosmopolitan magazine and Best magazine are examples of magazines, which are published by Hearst UK. Cosmopolitan magazine may appeal to the female side of my target audience. Finally Conde Nast publishes magazines such as GQ magazine, which is a monthly men’s magazine.

I think that the best publishing company for my magazine Poppers will be Bauer as it has the most experience with the music magazine genre and will know how to effectively market it to it’s target audience. Bauer also has the largest selection of magazines so can easily produce it and distribute it to a large audience.

The advantages of using one of these big companies to publish my magazine are that they can distribute it to a wider audience, they can market my magazine better to this audience than I would be able to do independently and finally it will save money as a large company such as Bauer has connections with printing companies, which will give them a cheaper price.

I did look into being an independent publisher but I feel that the costs to purchase a printer or even hire the printer as well as the distribution costs where to high to make my magazine financially viable.






Impact of technology

In 2006 Toby Miller said “By looking at how culture is used and transformed by social groups, cultural studies see people not simply as consumers, but as potential producers of new social values and cultural language.” This basically states than in today’s society anyone who consumes the media can also be a producer of it. 

With todays society people are growing up with technology from a younger age which allows them to use it to great affect when they are older. This allows them to use the technology that they have grown up with and become accustomed to, to produce many different media products such as websites and pages on social media sites such as FaceBook.

The changes in technology has had a large effect pop music magazines such as Billboard magazine. The changes ad development in the editing software that is now available has allowed them to produce better graphics and produce better looking components of a pop music magazine. The quality of the cameras available to them have had a great effect on the quality of the images that they can produce.

The changes in the internet will have also had a great effect on the way in which they can market and distribute their magazine as almost everybody in the UK have access to the internet.

In my AS media coursework I have already used Blogger to start making my As media blog. I will also use software such as Photoshop and Illustrator to create components of my coursework portfolio. I will use the internet throughout the completion of my coursework, like I have used the internet to create my primary research post where I have used SurveyMonkey to do an online survey and collate all of the data together in easy to read graphs.

Flat Plans


The masthead on this plan goes against the conventions set by professional pop music magazines as it is on the bottom rather than at the top. However the size of the masthead does follow these conventions as it takes up around an eighth of a page.

This flat plan is good at representing my target audience because I had already chosen the person to use as my main image "Jess Barber" who would relate to my target audience because she is of a similar age, social grade, and ethnicity to my target audience. The idea to use a young female model may also appeal to a young male target audience as Mulvey said in 1975 females can be uses as "objects for desire by the audience".
The masthead on my second cover flat plan is good at representing the target audience of young people as the font I planned to use was quite bubbly and cartoony which seemed quite fun. This would be good at representing and targeting my target audiences because as Hedbrige said in 1988 "Youth as Fun".

This flat plan is also good at following the conventions set by professional pop music magazines such as Billboard as it includes one large images small amounts of text and the masthead only takes up about an eighth of the page.
The masthead on this flat plan follows the conventions set for the contents page by professional music magazines. Again the font is quite fun which may attract my target audiences as Hedbrige said in 1988, "Youth as Fun". 

The images however break the conventions set by some professional music magazines such as Billboard because there are only two used in a column on my flat plan where is some pop music magazines there are more images and they are played out differently across the page.

Another way in which I have followed conventions set by professional music magazines is by including the masthead of the entire magazine.


Here I have used tried to use an urban font as the masthead for the contents page. This may attract my target audiences as again this font can be seen as quite fun which again links with Hedbridges 1988. However this will also attract the target audiences possibly because of the social grade of the audience as they are likely be in the lower and middle class so this font may represent them as the urban font may relate to them.

I have followed the conventions set by pop music magazines such as Billboard and I have chosen to include a "Top Chart" section as part of my contents page. I have also followed conventions set by professional music magazines with the layout, images and the use of my magazines masthead.

With this flat plan I have followed the convention set by professional music magazines as I have placed an image on the right hand page, the text on the right and the masthead along the top of both pages.

Again I have used planned to use the main image to represent the target audience alongside with the masthead and article as it is about a girl of a similar age, social grade and ethnicity to my target audience. This will attract my target audiences as young females will relate to her and young males may use her as an "object for desire" as Mulvey said in 1975.
This follows the conventions set by Billboard magazines as the one main image spreads across the whole of the double page. The layout also follows the conventions with the text and positioning of the masthead.

This flat plan will attract and represent the target audience in the same way as the one above.

Wednesday, 28 January 2015

Draft Article

Draft 1
Girls, You'll Be A Millionaire Soon

"Jess Barber was nothing this time last year but her music career has rocketed. Last year she sang at home but now she can be seen singing in front of a capacity crowd around the UK in her first UK tour. 

It may be her first ever tour but she had had huge success, with tickets running out after just 73 seconds from going on sale. This makes these tickets harder to get than it was for the 2012 London Olympics.

In an exclusive interview with Jess she had this to say about her rise to fame; “ It happened almost overnight, I put one video on YouTube and the response I got was far better than I ever expected.”

Draft 2
Jess Barber was nothing this time last year but her music career has rocketed with the release of her first album and the single that smashed all the charts, ‘Girl You’ll Be a Millionaire Soon.’

There was a lot of noise on Twitter that she would not continue the success singing live on tour after a rather bitter family member leaked a story that Jess had once totally choked when trying to sing live during a pub open mic night but she has proved all the haters wrong during her first every UK tour.

After her first two live gigs at Eden and Wembley tickets started to sell out for her other gigs faster that tickets for the 2012 London Olympics; I should know I tried to get tickets for Reading only to find out tickets had totally sold out after 73 seconds!  

In an exclusive interview with Poppers, Jess told us this about her rise to fame; “It literally happened overnight, I put Girl, You’ll be a Millionaire Soon, onto YouTube after competing at Battle of the Bands and by the time I woke up the next morning it had had over 10,000 views. Then at 11am I got a phone call from Virgin Records saying they had seen me the night before and then again on YouTube and they wanted to sign me.” 

“After that everything has just moved so fast. I went from being an 18-year-old wannabe who was starting to think I would be waitressing for the rest of my life to someone who had a record deal and a new album to produce.”


“Producing the album was amazing, but I was not expecting the amount of fame it would lead to. I kind of thought that after the initial excitement for Girl, You’ll be a Millionaire Soon died down that would be my five minutes of fame over but then the tour started and each gig kept selling out and now I am preparing to play main stage at Glastonbury.”

Sunday, 25 January 2015

Photographers Research

Kyle Dean Reinford is a photographer who regularly contributes to Billboard magazine one of the best selling music magazines of the pop genre sold in the UK.


Here are some examples of his work for Billboard magazine:



Kyle Dean Reinford is a photographer who is based in Brooklyn in the USA. He is most famous for his music portraiture. In 2012 he was voted number 6 in the 50 greatest current music photographers by Complex.com.


Thursday, 4 December 2014

Analysing magazine double page spreads

 This magazine double page spread is from the magazine Billboard which is a pop magazine. The masthead is takes up almost a quarter of the page which may be used to illustrate the importance of this page. The font used is also quite fun which may have been used to attract a younger audience as Dick Debdige says "Youth as Fun". The font also seems futuristic and alongside the main image the page looks like it is meant to be set in the future or maybe used to show the future of the pop industry.

The main image as said above appears to be futuristic. This is because of what the person in the image is wearing. She is wearing what appears to be a metal frame around her neck which may be the photographers interpretation of the future. Also the choice of hairstyle can also be seen as kind of futuristic because of the original shape and design. The photographer has chosen to use a close up of this person possible to show that she is more important than what she is wearing. However the amount of make up used may suggest rebellion which ties in with Hall's theory about youths having a state of "emotional and behavioural upheaval"

The layout is also quite fun as the image is given almost a whole page to itself which suggests that the person in the image is important to the world of pop, and then the text is kept separate on the other page. This may be used to tie in with Hebdige's theory of "youth as fun".

The colours used a predominantly purple but also part of this double page spread includes white and black. The colour purple connotes power, authority and ambition. The colour purple may have been used in this example to suggest that the person in the image is a powerful and authoritative force in the pop industry which may suggest that she is not to be messed with. The colour purple may have also been used to outline peoples ambition to become this person in the magazine and have a career in the pop industry. The colour connotes perfection. It is for this reason that it might have been used to suggest that the person in the image is the perfect pop artist as she may have a good voice and some people may feel she is good looking. Finally the colour black connotes power and elegance which again may be used to suggest that the person in the image is a powerful woman. It may also have been used to show that this person is elegant.

The have used the word fiercely in the masthead to attract people to that story as it is a powerful word which people may want to see what the masthead is talking about. The word creative is also used to suggest that there is something within the story which may attract people as they will want to find out what this new thing is.

This second magazine double page spread is from NME which is a magazine aimed at the indie/alternative genre. The masthead for this double page is unconventional compared to most other magazine spreads because the masthead is in the middle of one of the pages unlike most other magazine double page spreads where the masthead is at the top of the first page. Also in the masthead the word "GOOD" is highlighted in orange. This may be used to show that the word good is the most important piece of information that the masthead includes and possibly the most important word on the page. The colour orange connotes energy and happiness. This may have been used to emphasise what the masthead is saying about the person being in good health because if someone is healthy the should be happy and full of energy.

The main image I'm guessing, is of someone popular in the indie/alternative genre of music. The image shows him holding two drinks one of which is beer or larger this may be used to emphasise the point of the article of this person being back to good health because someone who is unwell is unlikely to be drinking alcohol as it may make him feel even more unwell. This also may be used to show that he is back to his usual "party" lifestyle after a while being out.

The layout of this double page spread is quite formal yet fun on some occasions. The majority of the layout is formal as the story is written in columns as seen on lots of newspapers which may be used to connote that there is some news in the world of the indie genre of music displayed in the articles or it could show that they take their music seriously which will attract an adult market. However the layout is quite fun as they have made a whole page the main image and placed the masthead in the middle of the page rather than at the top. Also under this masthead there is a little bit of information given to the reader. However possibly the most apparent bit of fun with the layout on the double page spread is the way in which they have separated a part of the article from the rest of the whole story. They have done this by putting a box of text in the middle of the article which can clearly be seen as being separate to the rest of the article. This may be used to attract a younger audience because as Hebdige said "Youth as fun."

The colour pallet used includes orange, white, and a brown filter on the image. As said previously the colour orange connotes energy and happiness which may be used to emphasise the point of the person being back to good health. The colour white may be used in a similar way in which the orange has been used as it connotes perfection and some who is in good health is perfectly well. The colour brown connotes stability and masculine qualities  which are important to a man who is in good health as there health will stable and the masculine qualities will be working the their full potential.

The general font used is quite formal which may be used to suggest that NME takes their music  seriously. However at times the change in font size and whether or not parts of it have been made bold make it quite fun and also be used to highlight the importance of parts of the article compared to the whole article.




This is a double page spread from We Love Pop magazine
 one of the leading magazine in the pop music genre. The masthead for this double page spread is unconventional as it takes up half of one of the pages instead of about an eight of the page, they have separated it into two halves through the colours that they have used and instead of a title they have used a quote from the person that the article is based on. The size of the masthead used suggests that this quote is a very important part of the articles as it summarises what the article is based on. Also the fact that they have used a quote instead of a title may be used to show how important Cher Lloyd is to the target audience of the magazine as just a quote about something she has said is enough to attract people to the article. The fact that they have used to colours in the masthead to almost split it into two sections may be used to show that she is a person of mixed personality.

The main image is also unconventional as it is given the whole of the second page to itself so the audience can also use it as a poster which may attract an audience of her fans as they will want to get any kind of Cher Lloyd product that they can find. Also the fact that they have used the magazines logo on the image shows how proud the magazine is to have an exclusive image of her in their magazine. The trousers that she is wearing alongside the masthead's two halves may be used to suggest that she has two different personalities of that people have two contrasting views of her.

The layout of this double page spread is also quite fun because there are different colours used yet the magazine is also made to look like a newspaper article as the text is laid out in columns with black text on a white background  to make it look like a newspaper article which may attract a slightly older audience as they will not see this as kind of "childish".

The colour pallet used include pink, yellow, and white. The colour pink connotes feminine qualities which suggests that the magazine article is based at a female audience and also Cher Lloyd is popular with a female audience. The colour yellow connotes happiness which is something often associated with the young also as Hebdige says "Youth as Fun". The colour white as connotes purity which is often associated with young girls.