Front Cover Contents Page Double Page Spread 1

Front Cover

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Front Cover • Containing four pull-quotes, the minimal amount of pullquotes on the front covers researched. • The masthead being located at the top of the page and taking roughly an 1/8 th of the page layout. • The main image being based on the main headline. Contents Page Double Page Spread • Having at least one column • The Double Page Spread being of text. about the featured story to show • These columns containing continuity. important information to the reader e. g. page numbers of • The main image being about the featured artist from this story. specific interests. • Having several images of the stories mentioned, including one of the main story.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? Social Group is when a group of people have something in common and interact with each other whereas Target Audience is who you aim to address. Examples of people within my social group.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? I think media institutions like Anthem Publishing would distribute Life Beats. • • • Anthem Publishing is one of Britain’s successful media institutions that specialize in music magazines. Life Beats would be a great addition to Anthem’s portfolio because it would broaden the range of their target audience. My magazine is aimed at teenagers between the ages of fifteen to eighteen who enjoy Pop music and their current Pop magazine, Classic Pop, does not address these ages. Finding potential clients of my magazine would be easier as Anthem Publishing would already have many buyers. This is their logo. These are some examples of their music magazine portfolio.

4. • • • Who would be the audience for your media product? Young adults of fifteen to eighteen who like the Pop music genre (100% of the results from my questionnaire). A majority of these teenagers would be female. The socio-economic group of my social group would be middle to lower class with moderate income which was reflected in my questionnaire results – 70% of the people suggested that around £ 2. 50 was an appropriate price for a magazine. – This would mean that if they had a job, it would most likely be a manual or physical laboured job e. g. Cashier at Tescos. Other interests from my target audience may include socialising with friends, going to concerts of particular artists, relaxing at home by going on the internet to find funny videos or listening to music etc. I have not reflected this target audience very well. For example, my overall colour scheme of blue, black and purple does not represent Pop – they seem to present a Blues, Rock, Classical or even a Distant Techno genre. – Therefore if I had the chance to improve my magazine, I would have to alter some of my decision e. g. change the colour scheme of my magazine to have less black etc. However, I have made sure that my magazine is accessible to my target audience by making the price £ 2. 50 – the approximate price that was suggested in my questionnaire.

5. How did you attract/address your audience? To attract my audience, I have made my decisions about my magazine based on the most popular result within the questionnaire or focus group. • The colour scheme of white, black, blue and purple was chosen by around 60% of the people who took the questionnaire altogether. • The choice of a long-shot image for the Front Cover was made by my focus group though it was also present within the result of what the majority of the answers from my questionnaire, which was popular by 60%. On the other-hand, I also had to ignore some magazine conventions to satisfy the of my audience. • I chose to use the long-shot format as the Front Cover image is usually shot in medium-closeup or medium-long shot to show intimacy between the artist and the company or publisher. – • The abundance of unoccupied space within the image is supposed to represent the mysteriousness behind the artist. I have also decided to portray my artist in relatively casual and comfortable clothes.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? In the process of constructing my magazine, I had to experiment and develop my skills in numerous software and hardware devices. These included: Hardware • Mac Computer • Samsung Camera of various models • HP Laser. Jet Printer • USB Stick Software • CS 6 Adobe Suite – – • Microsoft Suite – – – • Photoshop – a photo editing software Indesign – a publishing software and my primary program for my magazine layout Word Excel Powerpoint Mainly for creating our questionnaires and focus group presentations and presenting our findings. Handbrake – a sound file conversion program which I used to compress and convert my focus group recording into something more tolerable for our computers to store and upload. Website • Weebly – we used it to create a website and blog to document our progress.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Overall, I feel that my work in my music magazine was better than the work in my preliminary project due to the amount of knowledge that I gained. • I learnt about how to use Photoshop in much more depth than I already knew. – • I discovered the use of In. Design. – • For example, I learnt how to alter the lighting levels and how to channel a specific colouring. Here, I learnt about the importance of having a 0. 5 cm boarder around my work – it is there in-case of the paper being smaller than the actual magazine design itself. I also learnt about the importance of media institutions – they ultimately provide the magazine with the resources they need but they also influence the style of the magazine itself. Preliminary Task Project