Thursday 24 March 2011

My Presentation for My Final Products


Music Magazine Production Presentation


Research for Music Magazines’ Front Covers

The research is to find out what codes and conventions music magazines use and how they use them. What I’ve noticed in which music magazines from my research consisted were: a front page photograph of a celebrity; the magazine title on top, which is made simple; mentioning other celebrity names; a promise of something good from the magazine; and adding somewhat an advertisement about the magazine.

My Front Cover
PROMOTION FROM
THE MAGAZINE
TITLE ON TOP AND MADE SIMPLE
ADDITIONAL PHOTO OF OTHER CELEBRITIES(NME Magazine)
PRICE MADE SMALL BUT LEGIBLE
FRONT PAGE PHOTO OF THE COVER STORY
PROMISE OF SOMETHING GOOD FROM THE MAGAZINE
MENTIONING OTHER ARTISTS
QUOTE FROM AN ARTIST
BARCODE ON BOTTOM LEFT
I made the colour scheme suit the front photo to make the front cover look more familiar and “in-flow”

Research for Music Magazines’
Contents Pages
The codes and conventions which I noticed in these music magazine contents pages which I’ve done research on were: contains “contents” somewhere on the top in the biggest text; photos where most have numbers on them; date added; photos about the story; numbers on the sub-headings; and limiting their colour scheme minimal.

My Contents Page
“CONTENTS “WRITTEN IN THE BIGGEST TEXT
DATE, VOLUME AND ISSUE
PHOTOS ABOUT THE STORY
SUB-HEADINGS WITH PAGE NUMBERS
PAGE NUMBERS ON PHOTOS
PAGE NUMBER, DATE, AND MAGAZINE NAME

Research for Music Magazines’
Double Page Spreads
I made my double page spread as full-on as possible, including a lot of photos to entertain the reader and idolize the celebrities through the magazine, therefore, getting them to admire the magazine. What I've noticed the codes and conventions were for these music magazine pages were: they add quotes from the celebrity/celebrities; sometimes they add reviews; they add a lot of photos; they use the interviewer's logo instead of the magazine's logo; and they limit the colour for the pages to about three or four.

My Double Page Spread
My double page spread follows as much codes and conventions as possible from my research. My photos consist of stock(from my friends’ gatherings) and some which are scripted to provide mise-en-scene of modelling. A title, adding “SHAKE LOVES,” is added to make the band seem more loved. Reviews on the right are also added, in where I’ve taken photos of different events where I’ve been in.
HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY – Photos makes the reader believe that the band does this every time.
TWO STEP FLOW THEORY – Katy Perry is added as a quotation to get Katy Perry fans want to find out more about this band.
USES & GRATIFICATION THEORY - Overall, I tried combining the photos, the colour, and the story to fulfil the reader’s needs.
RECEPTION THEORY - Teenagers should idolize them and thank the magazine for it, while ageist people may probably find them to be reckless. How I intend to persuade the oppositional readers is by making the ending give them a reputation which compliments the oppositionals

Friday 11 March 2011

About The Double Page Spread "The Joule Hitters"

I made my double page spread as full-on as possible, including a lot of photos to entertain the reader and idolize the celebrities through the magazine, therefore, getting them to admire the magazine. What I've noticed the codes and conventions were for these music magazine pages were: they add quotes from the celebrity/celebrities; sometimes they add reviews; they add a lot of photos; they use the interviewer's logo instead of the magazine's logo; and they limit the colour for the pages to about three or four.

My double page spread consists of some codes and conventions of music magazines' pages: I added an interview; photos related to the story, main celebrities, etc.; the interview title; quotes from the interviewees; caption; columns; pyramid structure; bylines; and more.

The colour scheme of this double page spread is made similar to the front cover and contents page to make the reader subconsciously aware of what magazine they are reading - SHAKE. Also, some research about purple, in colour psychology, suggests that the colour purple make the reader prejudice luxury, while the colour blue makes the reader feel calm, therefore, I used this certain colour-scheme to make the reader feel luxurious and not judge the band as much of being "rebels" or anything about how teenagers would be represented - to balance out the representation, to widen my target audience being happy reading the magazine.

The photos which I added are some stock, and some recent. The photos which I added for the fictional "Joule Hitters" are actually some photos which I took of my friends throughm the times we had together - I added the ones which I felt suited the pop band reputation. Some were scripted and edited to apply my use of the hypodermic needle theory, making the audience believe this is what they do, and some were natural to retain the authenticity of how it relates to the plot of how the band acts off-stage - applying the uses and gratification theory to make the reader not only read, but also to visualize what they are doing via photographs.

I tend to entertain the readers with my editing of some photographs and how they are layered out, I tend to inform the reader of how the band looks out of stage, and I tend to make the reader feel personally identified by different photograph types (invitational, outward gaze, etc.). Applying my graphic skills which I've learnt from doing AS level graphic design, I composed items which I felt would make the pages look more professional. I added items such as: the notepad which contains the "who, what, where, when, and how" about the band to not only inform the reader, but to also entertain them with a fun way of presenting the information, thus, gets them enticed to purchase the next magazines; fancy, gradiented, non-flat colours applied on the website links to make the reader judge the magazine's reputation as being very graphic-aware.

Manipulating mise-en-scene to the photographs, I applied my use of the hypodermic needle theory and the reception theory to gain certain effects on my target audience and beyond. Since some photographs have guitars on them and other specific audience targets such as the fallen cupid, this puts into the fact that, referring to the reception theory, other people may decode this in a different way in which I decoded it: oppositional readers such as religious people, formal people, etc. may see the representation of the models as demonic(fallen cupid dead) or slang teenagers(ageist people may see them too young for the industry) - the way in how I planned to put these certain people in negotiated or preferred reading is the story, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to fit that much so in reality, I would've added it on the other page - using the hypodermic needle theory, I could add certain sides of their representation such as being religious, having a formal side, etc. to persuade these types of readers(oppositional readers) and give the effect of a good ending interview story.

What I've noticed from the double page spreads from my research was that they add reviews on the pages. I added my own reviews on mine about upcoming concerts to inform the reader and make them feel loyal to the magazine, giving them the idea that this is a reliable magazine. I added rhyming and repetition of "know" to make the reviews seem fun and less boring to liven up the reader. Since they were reviews after all, I tried to add the magazine's opinion on these concerts and also applying the "who, what, where, when, how" to compliment the reader's needs.






Here is my final double page spread:

Thursday 10 March 2011

About The Contents Page

I kept my contents page simple and legible for the audience to be informed more easily. What I've noticed from my research is that the contents pages for most music magazines tend to be less "smashing."





The most effective factors of contents pages are how interesting the photos are, plus how the sub-headings interest certain audiences depending on vocabulary, language, etc.

I've added these photos to look more "rockstar-formal" - to interest first hand, referring mise-en-scene of the location and their costumes, a hint about the story. I've also added numbers on the photos to help the reader work out which story the scene belongs to and/or to initially make the reader flick to that page since music magazine readers would be used to knowing that numbers on photographs refer to the page - an advantage of following the codes and conventions and applying the uses & gratification theory to how the readers would expect a contents page to be. I made each of the photogtaphs have different effect to highlight my ability to manipulate mise-en-scene.

I made the top-left photograph seem as if the model is in a half-recording studio, half-home room. The effect which I was trying to achieve on this is to make the audience wonder what the location of the celebrity has to do with the byline about the celebrity winning - an application of an enigma code to get the readers suspense, and when it comes to the story, they should be told of what the location and quote was about. Also, this photograph is two photographs merged together: a background, and of me. Since I didn't really have access to the mise-en-scene of a luxurious room, I just took an image from the internet to achieve the effect of the hypodermic needle theory to make the audience believe.

The top right photograph was taken in a Valentine's party. The stage effect background plus their outfits seem to be very believable when I used the hypodermic needle theory on the byline of a real popular coming album.

The middle photograph was taken in a past school trip. The way my friends were dressed seemed "rockstar-ish" so I just took a photo of them. The flash was turned on in the camera setting because it was at night, now, it seems quite effective on making the models look VIP because it focused on the main models in the photograph - a new thing learnt!

The bottom photograph was taken just before a beauty pageant contest in my friends' school. This was a stock photo in my files. Since they looked like popstars, and the mise-en-scene at the back (chalkboard) seemed to come up with an interesting story, I thought I should just add this.

The biggest text, 'Contents,' is made the biggest in size to point out to the reader that this page is the contents page.

The title, 'Contents,' is alligned to the page numbers to keep neat, making the page more legible, using the rulers and lines in the design programme to layout in proportion.

The colour scheme for this page is the same as all of my products for the reader to be subconsciously aware that they are reading the same magazine and for the audience's advantage of adapting less in a change of colour scheme.

At the top right, I added a date and a volume and an issue number to inform the readers of how many issues the magazine has had and get them being interested and curious about when the magazine started. For the magazine subscribers or collectors, this informs them if they've missed magazine issues, and could get them to purchase the others which they've missed, most of all though, it informs the reader that it is a monthly magazine.

On the lowest part of the page, are the page number, date, and text written as "SHAKE MAGAZINE" to inform the reader of the page, partially the month, and to remind them what magazine it is.

I added a different coloured background(grey) on the text which containts the sub-headings to make the page look more busy, which should earn the magazine points of respect from the reader for graphic awareness.

In the sub-headings, i used a variety of language techniques for certain effects. In the Green Day sub-heading, I used an invitational question to get the reader in suspense. In Robert Vila, I added a speech from him to get the reader to believe the promise of getting more quotes from the celebrity, using the two step flow theory. The Maroon 5 & Cheryl Cole sub-heading is injected with an opinion, which weakens the non Maroon 5 or Cheryl Cole fans' oppositional reading to either preferred reading or negitiated reading using an opinion which the reader may decode as a fact (finally!).

The Ke$ha sub-heading is added with ellipsis to act sarcastic then an exclamation marked short sentence to stress out the idea and give the reader a sense of interest.

In the Katy Perry sub-heading, I used a first-person dialogue to make the reader feel involved, therefore, compliments the uses and gratification theory of personal identification.

The Deviate & Stiffler sub-heading is added with the magazine's opinion about the celebrities, using the hypodermic needle theory, to encourage the reader to believe that they're real celebrities and that this is what really happened.

I used taylor Swift's name in this sell line to attract Taylor Swift fans using the two step flow theory - since it promises "tips," it should get the readers excited.

In the Three Mean Gurlz sub-heading, I used a double suspense - a rhetorical question, thena supposed-to-be-shocking-event which happened - to get the reader being excited.

In the The Joule Hitters sub-heading, I used repetition to build up the reader's attention.

The Tina and Glenn sub-heading is in a first-person dialogue to personally identify the reader and make them feel involved.

Here is my final contents page: