Choosing Genre For Our Music Magazine.

Music Magazine Genre

Genre is the term used for categorisation of forms of entertainment, a good example of this would be music; it is split up in to many different categories with any piece of music fitting in to at least one of them. R&B, Pop, Rock, Hip-Hop and Indie music are some of the popular genres from the ongoing list.

In terms of various music genres, pieces of music are separated depending on the set of traditions or typical conventions of types of music, there are however several ways in which music pieces can be divided in to the different genres, they can be defined by the musical techniques and styles of the piece, the context and content of the themes of the music, geographical origin can have an impact on the identity of a music genre although a geographical category of music types can often stem off in to branches of sub-genres, for example there is  genre for Brazilian music that stems down in to a number of smaller sub-genres with the best known probably being Samba, which is popular in other countries as well as Brazil.

After looking at the different types of genres, for my music magazine me and my partner decided to go for teen pop as we felt it would be a bit easier to understand why certain codes and conventions have been used over others because we know as teenagers what appeals to us and what doesn’t. Also teen pop is nowadays one of the most popular genres around.

Music Magazine Analysis

'Q' Magazine

After reviewing the front cover for this edition of 'Q' Magazine I spotted many magazine conventions that have and haven't been used with the first being the masthead. On most magazines the masthead covers the entire width of the page, however on this magazine the masthead which is just simply the  letter Q is based in the top left hand corner. This 'rebels' against normal magazine conventions as most magazine readers will be expecting to see magazines with the masthead spanning the width of the page.

However, if the magazine was the width of the page the whole layout would have to be changed because the masthead would end up covering the person's face so the image would have to be lowered with the end result being the photo won't have the whole of the guitar in it which would sort of defeat the object of the photo as it's a music magazine.

The next thing I found on the magazine was the colour scheme used, the red background of the logo contrasts with the green/blue background of the rest of the magazine making the magazine stand out from the rest, I'm not sure if I think the colours used work as even though they contrast they don't look like they should be on the same page.

The colour of the background works well with the guitar as it is probably the most important part of the image so it needs to be easily visible, and the green/blue background contrasts with the red guitar.

The makers of the Q magazine use various fonts and font sizes to make the magazine look eye catching, appealing and interesting to look at and read.

School Magazine photos

Original Photoshoot

One of the tasks for my magazine was to collect some of my own photos to use that would relate to the school and the content inside. I asked some people if they would mind me taking photographs of them hard at work as I thought it related nicely to Sixth Form and what it is all about.
One of the main aims of this task was to gather a number of varying photos, for example a difference in what the four of them are doing or the angle of which the photos are taken from.

The photo above was the first one I took and is just a simple one of the four of them, I am planning to use this on my use on my front cover as it gives off a positive and happy image of the Idsall Sixth Form.

 

 

This second photo I will be using on my Contents page as it is very similar to the first one in terms of where the four of them are positoned and what they are doing, because of this I didn't want to have two photos on the front cover that look relatively similar and give off the same image of the Sixth Form.

 

 

This next photograph is also used on my Contents page, unlike the two before it this is an 'over the shoulder' shot which I think is effective as it shows the reader a lot in the photo, they can easily see all of the people but also what they are doing, in this case reading a magazine, studying etc.

 

This photo above is the final of the four that I took and is positioned on the front cover, this is different from the others as it was taken from a high angle, likewise to the one before it shows the four girls reading, studying and working hard which again gives off an image of hard working at Sixth Form which is why I went with this photo.

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Magazine Layout

For my first project I have to create a school magazine cover and contents page. I have researched the codes and conventions of a magazine, and from there I have planned how I think my front cover should be layed out.

Here is my plan.

 

Mood Board

Mood Board

In preparation for making the school magazine I had to create a mood board where I had to collect images that have colours etc. that I want to use front cover. When deciding the colours that are to be used on the front page I decided to stay along the same lines as the school’s colours, which are predominantly green but I also wanted to add white and black to make sure it’s not all green.

Sci-fi films and programmes

In sci-fi we expect fictional science and abnormal situations and characters as they tend to be very imaginatively and creatively made, a good example of this would be in Star Wars- a completely made up film which has hardly if any similarity to real life, one of the characters is Chewbacca, a big bear like creature but with the intelligence to communicate effectively with its human colleagues.

In many Sci-fi films because of the lack of realism viewers tend to use the characters in the film as ‘narrators’ in the sense that they use them to tell them what’s happening in the film and why it’s happening. This brings a closer connection between the viewer and the characters in the film as they using them to gain a better understanding of the film allowing them to enjoy the film without having to go through the whole film not having a clue what is going on.

In every sci-fi film the viewers are still able to connect to the characters, both human and fictional characters as no matter no matter how far fetched a film is compared to real life the viewers and on screen characters still feel the same emotions and feelings, happiness, sadness, anger etc.

Some sci-fi films reflect what is happening in our lives so viewers are able to predict what will happen further on in to the film and the story line/plot. The film will usually relate to the goings on of real life for example, a big part of the world today is war so you tend to see many films being released that involve war but are fictional. 

Photo Editing

Photo Editing

In media, photo editing is a common technique used to perfect or at least altar the image, before making my magazine I decided to try some editing for myself so I get a bit of experience and I know how to improve images, I'll know what looks good and what doesn't. To make it easier I got a photo off the Internet with something on the photo that I could clearly edit and improve.

I decided to get a picture of a person with something I could edit, I found one of a person with quite a few spots which I could edit out making the person look better in the image. In Adobe Photoshop I used the specific tool called the ‘Spot healing tool’ which allows people to get rid of all spots by clicking a part of the image and using it to ‘cover’ the spots. For this example I used a part of the person’s forehead to cover the spots entirely. It took me quite a while to perfect the image as it didn’t always turn out what I expected it to be as it didn’t look very natural which is part of the aim for editing.

Overall, even though this task sounds quite easy and simple it’s relatively far from it as you have to spend a lot of time making the image look better than before but also trying to keep it natural looking.

 

The two photos below are the original and edited photos I did, It's pretty obvious which one is the original and which is the edited picture, if not the first photo is the original one that I got off the Internet and the second one at the bottom is the edited one, as you can see all the spots have gone and in my opinion the image still looks relatively natural.

 

 

 



Audience theories

 

 

Audience Theories





The word audience is one of, if not the most frequently used words in all of Media, the audience is something we tend to analyse from a far and talk in abstract about. Usually when talking about it we never consider ourselves to be a part of the audience even though we are, when analysing the concept of an audience we find that it inovles many different things, depending on what you are looking at.

An audience is basically a target group or particular types of people of which a producer wants to reach or sell to. They are also members of a society who at some point will use the media, or a group of people who consumes a certain area in media, films, TV Programmes, albums etc. etc. Audience can also be known as an individual thing rather than group based as certain individuals use it to satisfy their own needs.

Media would not be the same without an audience as there would be no point in the media piece being made. The audience are able to influence the media as they give vital feedback which improves the programme, film etc.

Audiences can be split in to various different groups such as gender, age, ethnicity.


Definition: Audience is something that we are all a part of in some way or another, even if we don't mean to be. It can be sectioned in to different groups depending on the type of media or personal backgrounds(gender, age, ethnicity etc.)


Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles

Actualisers: High Income, High self-esteem and usually concerned about their image.
Fulfilleds: High Income, well educated but sensible with the money they earn.
Achievers: High resource consumers and always want to excel.
Experience: High resource consumers that need a mode of self expression, they also want to experience being different.
Believers: Have low resources and are less likely to accept innovation.
Strivers: Similar to Believers in the sense that both are a low resource consumer but Strivers still want to achieve.
Makers: Limited resources but also want self expression.
Strugglers: Lowest income and too few resources.

Codes and Conventions of a School Magazine

Codes and Conventions of a School Magazine

One of the tasks I had to do was to analyse a school magazine front cover in detail to find what codes and conventions are used and why, the purpose of this task was for me to be able to gain a better understanding of what codes and conventions look good with one another and to give the chance to get a better idea of what codes and conventions I will aim to include when I come to design my magazine front cover for the school.

Firstly the masthead, in my opinion the masthead has many good and bad points, the colours used could be improved as the white writing doesn’t stand out too much on the background that mostly consists of light grey and also the red and yellow colouring also looks a bit out of place in my opinion. However, one good point about the masthead is that it covers the entire width of the page, this is effective as it seems to add a bit more professionalism and quality to the magazine as it looks like it’s supposed to be there rather than the masthead just being on one of the sides not covering the width making it look odd.

 

 

 

Another code and convention that I noticed was the ‘puff’ in the top left of the front cover, this is effective as, first of all the blue stands out on the page as there is quite a drastic contrast in colours between that and the window that makes the background. Also, the puff will make readers want to read the magazine as they will want to make the most of the free gift.

 

The magazine also uses a strip down the right of the page which I think is effective as it gives the reader the chance to quickly see what is in the magazine enabling them to make an informed decision on whether to read it or not. The colour choice of the strip is a good one as the white writing really stands out on the page as that section of the magazine has a dark grey style background which contrast with the white.

Finally, the main feature article picture adds a sense of professionalism to the magazine as the image is of high quality. However, one major improvement that could be made would be the choice of background, this is because the writing is predominantly white and it doesn’t exactly stand out and ‘jump off the page’ at the reader, however the background was improved the magazine as a whole would stand out a lot more than it already does.

 

Overall, the editor of the magazine has done a good job as he/she was able to fit in a lot of the main codes and conventions making it a successful front cover.

 

Test Screenings

Test Screenings

 

Test screenings are used to ensure a film or a TV programme/ series reaches or surpasses the potential, they are basically when members of the general public are invited to view a small preview of the show before the official release, and this enables the film producers to get an idea of the viewer’s opinions and make improvements to the programme/film to make it better. After the preview has been shown the audience are given a questionnaire style sheet about the film which they are able to state possible improvements that could well be made etc. Changes after test screenings are usually quite major and influential ones, regular changes are often length of the film, endings or even a change of title.

The image below is an example of a questionnaire, as you can see it is quite a detailed information sheet that has various styles of questions, such as multiple choice and normal questions where you can have a specific opinion instead of being limited to only 4 or 5 answers.

 

 

 

One report that came out recently related to Test Screenings was about Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, after a test screening had been shown the director was almost forced to re-edit the audio as a lot of the viewers struggled to hear and understand what the villain ‘Bane’ was saying.

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, test screenings are very important in my opinion as they can have a massive impact on the end product, and they are extremely helpful to the producers of the film or programme as they are able to get a clear indication in to what the audience like and dislike.

 

Magazine Codes and Conventions

 

Codes and Conventions

 

One of the first tasks I had to do was some research on magazine Codes and Conventions. I found out a lot about the title, images and other features of magazines. This information will be very helpful in the near future as I begin to make my own magazine.

In every magazine there is always a main image that usually takes up all or a lot of the front cover, the camera angle for these images are predominantly close up or a mid-shot.

 

The camera angle for this particular example is a mid-shot, this is effectively used as the person, in this case David Beckham is looking straight at the reader which makes it look and seem like he’s talking directly to them which has an effect on them wanting to buy it, the image also stands out as Beckham is standing in a Red Tracksuit top in front of a plain light grey background which contrasts with the red making it stand out more.

The title, one of the most obvious things about the title is the font it is written in, the font has to be unique for a couple of reasons, the first one being that it is exclusively that magazines font, and secondly having a unique font will be easily recognisable to readers as they will remember the magazine title if it stands out from the rest. The title of magazines nowadays are usually only one or two words long, making it easy to remember and simple. The title always fills the width of the page, the title colour is also very important, as you can see on the magazine above the title is a bright orange colour which I think is effective as it works well with the image and stands out on the grey background. It is also only two words long meaning it’s easily recognisable and memorable.

 

A puff is something found on magazine front covers that offers something else to the magazine, an example of this is a gift giveaway, and this is effective as it gives the reader more encouragement to buy the magazine.

 

This magazine to the right is a good example of the use of buzzwords, these are short one word phrases that stand out on front cover, words such as ‘exclusive’  are used to make the magazine look more appealing and stand out more.  

Another common code and convention on Magazine front covers are coverlines, these coverlines are basically short phrases taken from the inside of the magazine, these are effective as it gives the reader an insight in to what is in the magazine. The main purpose for these coverlines are to entice the reader in to buying the magazine over others.

Coverlines tend to be taken from the main articles/stories of the magazine as that is more than likely what the majority readers will be interested in. On every magazine front cover there is always one main coverline, generally taken from the major talking point in the magazine.  As you can see in the magazine 'FourFourTwo' there are a couple of coverlines, for example near the bottom left corner there is a coverline taken from a story inside about the 'Greatest Club Goals'.

The final code and convention used on front covers of magazines are strips, these are used in almost every magazine and are basically just a simple list of what is in the magazine in terms of stories, gossip and news. Even though simple, if used correctly these can be one of the most effective codes and conventions as they can have a big impact on whether or not the reader ends up buying the magazine or not, for example if the list is full of boring stories etc. the reader won't see the point in buying the magazine to read things he/she don't really have an interest in.

Overall, codes and conventions are one of the main reasons magazines are so successful as the editor has the specific list of codes and conventions to stick to.

 

 

 

 

Course Introduction

Hello, my name is Tom and welcome to my Media Blog.

I am an AS Level student at Idsall Sixth Form and I’m currently studying I.T, BTEC Sport and Media Studies, for Media I had to create a blog, on which I will store and present all of my non-completed and finished work.

I chose Media alongside I.T and BTEC Sport as I think they will work well together but more importantly, I find it interesting as media is such an important part of the 21^st century and is used by most people nearly everyday.

Hopefully you enjoy reading my blog.

Tom