24/11/11 and 27/11/11

24/11/11
In todays lesson I reconsidered my front cover image. After consultation, I recognised that it did not look traditional enough of an indie magazine as the image was too bright to follow typical conventions. Not only this but it was decided that 'Lilly Howard' - who features on the cover - looked to typically pretty rather than indie. It is important to get the image right because my magazine is aimed to attract both genders and I therefore have to swap the image from being pretty and girly, to cooler and more rocky. There is a very similar image to the one I previously liked, but she is not smiling as much and her hair covers a larger proportion of her face which was decided to give a much more messy/indie-rock type of look. I will now edit this image to make it more appropriate to suit the genre of music magazine I am aiming for.

27/11/11

Today I have have completely re-done my front cover to suit the style more appropriately - not only did I change the image on it, but I altered the colour scheme for a darker, more sophisticated style. The magazine also looked too cluttered for this style as a magazine full of text and information is much more common on magazines for a young teen audience that wants gossip etc. I am very happy with the final. I have also edited my double-page spread which is also now nearly complete.

Music Industry

Here is a presentation about the current state of the music industry, and what factors are emerging to help the world of music back on its feet. 

Lesson 23/11/11

This is the work I have been able to do today. I have signed up for a mind-map website called 'MindJet' which allows you to produce your ideas on a spreadsheet to be able to clearly decide on a topic for my DPS. I also joined a podcast website called 'SoundCloud' which enables you to record and upload sounds to your blog.  

Double Page Spread Example

This is an analysis of a double-page spread featuring Florence and The Machine. The article has been very helpful in deciding how to choose the layout for my own double-page spread using different features and typical characteristics of a DPS. 

My Double Page Spread

Lilly Howard is a brand new emerging artist. I want my audience to envy her because of her new life as she can barely go anywhere without being noticed anymore. She is 22 and not used to all the attention; I feel as though this feature about her could relate to the target audience as she came from being a normal girl to a well-known artist in such a short time. 
The magazines discourse is going to be very simple. It will avoid using complex words so the magazine has the potential to widen its range of audience. Simplifying long words will make the magazine appeal to more ages as younger people will be able to understand and follow the story of Lilly Howard. Simple language will not only be used for the double-page spread, but also for the front cover and the contents page. It is true that the way you speak language reflects your perception on the world, and therefore people judge you for it; their first impression will be based on the way you speak. It is for this reason that there will be key words and phrases which will identify a particular audience; between 14 and 25. This is the key age for people who read music magazines and will therefore have a higher chance of success. The gender audience of 'TUNE' is not specified; but depending on who is featuring in the weekly issue, there may be more of one gender than the other each time. For example, boys probably won't want to read about the detailed life of Pixie Lott and what films she enjoys, but girls may not want to read about what Alex Turner's tactics are to get girls. 

Planning a DPS has to be focused on in two different aspects; 
1) The positioning of the reader and subject (the main back story of the article and its purpose)
2) Patterns of word choice which will reinforce the subject-reader relationship


The positioning of my reader-subject relationship is explained in more detail in the "Intertextuality" paragraph on my blog. The patterns of word choice is shown below in the sample of the lexical cohesion that are the kinds of words that will be used in my magazine. 


Indie  -  Rock 'n' Roll  -  Influence/Inspiration  -  Festivals  -  Relationships  -  Personal Life  -  Tour  -  Style  -  Individuality  -  Quirky  -  Confident  -  Laughing 


These key words and phrases will feature in my article to reinforce the relationship between the readers and the magazine. It will help to define a specific audience by seeing who is interested in reading the article, which my focus group will give feed back on. 

Semantic Field

INDIE ALTERNATIVE


Cool
Chilled
Individual
Messy
Scruffy
Films
Quirky
Cider
Confident
Funny
Food
Wine
Festivals

Intertextuality

What is my artist, Lilly Howard, influenced by?


Lilly Howard is a quirky, individual and funny girl as well as a talented, young, well-known artist. This means that she is still a person even though the other half of her life is lived in the public eye. She is still influenced, encouraged and touched by everyday things, despite that readers automatically dispose of her human side and see her as only a celebrity. 
Lilly enjoys watching "Russell Howard's Good News" every Thursday as she describes him as being "the most beautiful and hilarious man" she has ever laid eyes on. She admits through an interview that she copies some of his jokes and pretends that they are her own, even though she is "rubbish at telling them". She is impacted by the lyrics of every Coldplay song that Chris Martin has written, and tells us that she believes his words in a song are 100% true to every kind of situation people find themselves in, and tells us her favourite Coldplay song of all time is "What If" but has recently been threatened by "Up With The Birds" from their new album "Mylo Xyloto". She has always dreamed of many film ideas but says that as much as she wants to make the films, her love for singing overcomes the ambition of being a script-writer. 


The level of detail I will write about Lilly Howard in the DPS is important to show readers that information and level of intimacy about her that is hard to establish when most media forms focus on their life in the lime-light rather than their personal habits and experiences. This more personal approach to her life is my unique selling point because it is much harder to discover who celebrities really are when the majority of articles are about their career. This way, readers can establish who they are inspired by, what they do and what they enjoy in every day life. 

The Music Industry

I have recently made a conscious effort to keep up with the latest news about the situation of the music industry. After being in crisis for quite a long time (and still currently there), I have noticed that the media is really trying to turn the situation round and get the music industry back up and running like before. I have recently begun to notice efforts in Spotify adverts. With 'Spotify Free' after every few songs, your music stream is interrupted with a couple of adverts. These adverts used to always feature new artists and recommend different bands suited to the listener. However, recently, Spotify has been trying to introduce the idea of buying the 'Spotify Premium'  experience. This enables an 'ultimate Spotify experience' including unlimited music, no ads, mobile availability, offline mode (to use Spotify without internet), availability of Spotify abroad and enhanced sound quality. All these features have been produced specifically for 'Spotify Premium' which asks for £9.99 a month for access to all this. This very reasonable price gets more money for Spotify to spend on advertising for artists and therefore gets the word around that they are here with brand new albums etc. This money also goes towards more advertising for Spotify to make their deals sound more irresistible to the public. Spotify currently advertises itself as a 'music sharers paradise'. This is the newest feature of Spotify; to be able to share favourite artists and albums with friends and family either via Spotify or Facebook etc. Another new advert from Spotify focuses on encouraging people to purchase 'Premium' because of the dramatic fall in the music industry. It not only mentions all the new features or Spotify Premium but also talks about how free music on Spotify is all people need and there is therefore no reason for music piracy and illegal downloads. For the first time since 2004, album sales have actually increased. Thanks to Spotify, discounts and major releases like Lady Gaga and the brand new Coldplay album 'Mylo Xyloto', the music industry is on pace to see its first sales growth in over half a decade. The CEO of Spotify stated, "There's a clear rebound in music sales this year. We don't want to claim victory , but the music industry may be at a turning point."

Results to my survey

Here are the results for my survey to determine my target audience and get to know what they generally like and what their habits are.

Lesson 10/11/11

Todays lesson was used to take a screen recording of editing my new front cover photo. I have also created my survey establishing my audiences likes and dislikes, and what they enjoy. 

Questionnaire - My Audience Research

Link to survey on audience research

Screen Recording of Photo Editing

This is a screen recording recorded by QuickTime Player. It features the image for my front cover of my music magazine being edited so it is perfect for my magazine and its genre.

Photographs

There were 133 photos taken in total of my artist, 'Lilly Howard' on the beach on October 19th. However, I have chosen to upload only 20 images of 133 because a lot of the photos appear quite 'samey'. After consulting my focus group, I chose to upload the ones that I have because I got feedback that these chosen photos differ from each other, and they also display how I changed positions, poses and the appearance of Lilly, without boring the viewer that will be looking at the photos. 

This is the image I chose to be on the front cover of my magazine as it is a mid/close-up shot which is often used on magazines. 

On the right is the same image as on the left but it has been edited to become perfect for the front of a magazine. It is slightly closer and has been cropped either side to the main feature is the actual person in the middle instead of the surroundings. I have retouched the photo to get rid of all her blemishes which has created a generally smoother appearance and tone to her skin. Using the retouch tool, I edited out the hairband on her wrist because it didn't go with the  indie style she was pulling off, and it also looked like the person I use had just forgotten to take it off for the photo shoot. I used the 'warmer' button to give an impression it was a very sunny day instead of it being very cold and rainy which it was. However, by using the warmer temperature, readers get the impression that it was a lovely summers day. I only slightly edited the exposure, contrast and saturation to dispose of any rough edges and imperfections on the picture. I increased the shadow tool slightly, too so the left side of her face was not really dark compared to the right. I again heightened the temperature to give a little more element of sun to the image. Lastly, I changed the tint slightly so the image didn't appear too bright as before it was tinted it appeared very yellow. The tint tool gave a more orangey sun-set feel to the picture while also remaining sunny. The image on the left is the final, edited front page image.

The image directly below is the same image as above but it has been edited to become perfect to feature in the contents page of my magazine. I have retouched the photo very slightly to get rid of all her face-blemishes which has created a generally smoother appearance and tone to her skin. I used the 'saturation' after button to give a more sophisticated impression of the magazine's style. After asking my focus group, I learnt that using a black and white image with a hint of faded colour makes the image look 'more professional' and 'classy'. This is the reason I chose to 'pop' the colour of the girl's dress to make her stand out amongst the black and white colour scheme to make her the central feature in the image; the part that every reader will focus on. I increased the shadow tool slightly, too, because using black and white and having dark shadows looked too much and the focus was lost from the image as it was much harder to immediately identify what the image was. The image below is the final, edited image to appear somewhere in the magazine if not on the contents.

Front Cover, Contents and DPS Powerpoint - What Did I Learn?

The music magazine powerpoint taught me that;
            *The prime position for the most significant writing on the front cover should be placed in the top left-hand-corner because it is the place that the readers will look first and will therefore keep it in mind. This is important because readers will judge the whole magazine's contents by the top-corner writing. I am going to use an important feature of the magazine in this corner instead because my featured artist 'Lilly Howard' who is the main significance in the magazine will need more room than the top corner to be considerably noticed. I have therefore placed her name along the bottom of the page, how she is going to feature in the magazine through an interview, and what page the reader should go to.
            *Depsite the fact there are many different styles and designs of front cover, the first image of a front cover shown (slide 3/14) struck me as being very plain and very boring. It may have used colour and a unique image, but the fact there was only a title at the top and "Hey Ho Let's Go" at the bottom made the genre of the magazine undefined, and I therefore believe people in a shop will not be immediately drawn to the magazine because they will be unclear on who the target audience is meant to be. I believe on every magazine cover there should be at least a couple of buzz words, images or a feature to outline exactly who it is aimed at.
            *I already knew what an interrogative and a declarative sentence is, but from this powerpoint, I learnt the difference between the other two sentence functions and what each sentence is called because of their varied purposes; I now know what an imperative is (giving an order) and an exclamative (element of surprise or alarm) whereas I used to get them confused. Every magazine should contain a variety of these sentences to mix up the information so it is very short and catchy rather than explained in detail - this is why declaratives, along with buzz words, should be used on the front cover of most magazines.
            *Lastly, I learnt what intertextuality is and the effect of using it to remind readers of something else that may or may not be linked to the topic subjected in the magazine.

I am going to try and use all these techniques in my music magazine so increase the amount of typical magazine conventions featured to make it more realistic.

Reader Profile

This profile describes the ideal reader for my magazine as it describes the perfect life of a member of my target audience and what they like and enjoy. 

The Powerpoint Presentations - What I Learned

From the GCSE powerpoint 'Audience Profiling', I learned that a traditional method of audience profiling is known as demographics. Before viewing the powerpoint, I had not heard of demographics before and would have had no idea what it was about and what categories it divided people into. I also learned that there are seven main psychographic groups seeking different life satisfactions and feelings. I could have only named a few of these as I didn't know there were as many as seven. I also learned the an advertising agency called Young and Rubican invented a psychographic profile known as their 4C's Marketing Model stand Cross Cultural Consumer Characterisation. 


The 'History of the Music Press' taught me that 'Melody Maker' was published in 1926 and was one of the first magazines to feature music as a major topic. I learned that the 1970's was the decade where punk music was adopted by NME as writers moved away from simple music writing and divorced their topic towards issues of politics and philosophy etc to entice a wider variety of reader's to purchase the magazine. However, in the late 70's and early 80's, reader's began to abandon reading NME because it changed its ways and became too serious and obsessive about these serious topics. I also learned that 1990's was the year that new technologies were introduced into the media such as music videos, which then changed many aspects of how the music was/is consumed. 


The 'Youth Sub-Culture' powerpoint taught me that sub-cultures could be based around almost anything people may have in common, such as any conformities to do with attitudes, religion or race, whereas I believed it was usually only to do with hobbies or personalities. I was also informed that the pop-music audience was one of the hardest to define due to multiple interests and open minded-ness. This can sometimes make it difficult for marketing departments in recording companies to aim at a specific audience because the majority of pop-music listeners are so varied in taste. Finally, I learned that music can also conform to sub-culture groups as they sing about certain topics which different people will be most interested in; audiences can be defined by the subjects of the music. 

Audiences

YOUTH SUB-CULTURE

The youth subculture is a group of youth with certain characteristics. The youth subculture characteristics can be clothing, hair or foot styles that they all encompass. Lots of times the youth subculture can be around a certain type of music. With youth subculture groups it can be based on ethnicity, social class and gender. There are all kinds of things that the youth subculture groups might have, like special codes and other types of signs that they all use to communicate with each other. The youth subculture has their own way of doing things that other groups don’t do. That is how they can be found to be a youth subculture group.


DEMOGRAPHICS

Demographics is a common way to profile audiences. Every person fits into categoreis based generally on the work that they do. A is people in the higher forms of management such as bankers, doctors and lawyers. B is people such as teachers, the creative departments such as media-workers and officials who are categorised into middle management. C1 are 'white-collar' workers such as nurses and junior magaers for example, whereas C2 is slightly lower down in the scale including manual workers such as plumbers and builders who are labelled 'blue-collar' workers. D are people with semi-skilled positions and unskilled manual workers, and finally E include the unemplyed, the retired, students and casual workers. My magazine will be focused on the E group of demographics as the target audience is students generally between the ages of 15 and 25.


PSYCHOGRAPHICS

Psychographics categorises the public into one of seven groups. These include mainstreamers who tend to follow the crowd known for seeking security. There are aspirers who seek status and they tend to be materialistic and orientated to image and appearance. They are less emotional and seem to skim the surface of any deep meaning. They are the type where attractive packagaing and apperance is more important than the product itself, some calling them shallow. Then there are succeeders who seek control. They acquire strong aims and goals using their confidence, organisation and work ethic to reach them. Seeking survival there are a group labelled the resigned. They have rigid and authoritarian values and are interested in keeping to tradition. They keep to familiarity and rarely if ever take risks. Typically, the majority of this band group is the elderly. Explorers tend to seek discovery, They have bundles of energy and a zest for life, individualism and experiences. They value difference and adventure rather than familiarity and security - they are therefore usually the first to try new brands and are not afraid. They also tend to be a younger demographic (students). Strugglers seek escape as they are disorgansied and alienated. They are generally less experienced and have no faith in themselves or many others. They choose a brand by impact and sensation and are known for liking alcohol, junk food and buying lottery tickets hoping for a ticket to their freedom without making it for themselves. Reformers seek enlightenment by having the freedom of restrictions and room for personal growth. They are anti-materialistic but are still aware of good taste - they buy products only of high standard and good quality.

Flat Plans

This is the drafted front cover for my music magazine.

This is the drafted contents page for my music magazine.
















This is the drafted double-page spread for my music magazine.
(apologies for the bad alignment - it wouldn't work)

Focus Group

Music Press Presentation

My Prezi Presentation

Copy of Generic Research on Prezi

Sixth Sense Magazine Cover and Contents

Images for the Front Cover of 'Sixth Sense'

UNEDITED PHOTO

EDITED PHOTO

First of all I chose to crop the image because I had to make it a medium-shot therefore only having the upper-half of Jennie's body in the mise-en-scene. I enhanced the image to give it more of a vibrant look about it. I also used the retouch tool to get rid of the blemishes on Jennie such as a stray piece of hair that took the focus away from Jennie on the original image. I made the image 'warmer' so it gave a much more summery, warm look to the magazine so appeal to students as they may relate it to summer holidays and time off school. I used a very slight antique tool to give a vintage look to the image, too. 

As the latest fashion is vintage-style, this edit may be able to show who the magazine could be aimed at; young people are known to be most interested in the latest trends. I put the saturation up to 100 so there was a shine off some of the objects in the image such as school block and the bin to lighten the image a bit more. I put the highlights up only slightly because it showed the light coming from behind the tree which gave a nice edge and sepia-looking tone to the photo whilst also making it not bright enough to steal the focus away from Jennie. I also changed the sharpness level of the image because at first, the image was much more blurry than after editing. Now, the image looks as though it has been styled in focus. I put the de-noise tool up to 100 as well because it smooths over the surface of the image as a whole. When it it less than 100, Jennie's face for example looks a lot rougher than when it is higher. The tool also abolishes unwanted lines such as the dimple-line near Jennie's mouth that was previously apparant. The fact that the temperature has been made warmer also makes the sun shine over the side of Jennie's face and also reflects off of her whole left side which gives a nice, warm summer effect. 

Above is the image that first appealed to me. I liked the matching red lipstick with the folder against a brick wall that has connotations of a school building. However, as i studied the photo more and asked some students what they thought, i realised that the brick wall actually had more of a dull connotation that school is a dismal place to be. Obviously, for a student magazine, a boring connotation of school is not what i needed. Therefore, i changed my background image the other photo because it had a much sunnier, happier tone to it. 

Contents Page Flat Plan for 'Sixth Sense' Magazine

This is the flat plan for my contents page of my Sixth Form magazine. I think all the articles and features mentioned are relevant to appeal to the magazine's target audience (students) as they are all age-related. A negative on this draft is that i wrote the Ellie Goulding interview to be on page 3, which is a page that must be involved in the assessment as a double-page spread. After starting to plan the double-page spread I realised it was unrealistic and unhelpful to have the interview on the double-page spread because I will not be able to take my own photographs of Ellie Goulding which is essential for this task. To solve this, I will have to change the expected content of page 3 to a more mundane article of some sort.  

6021 Television Drama

Link to TV Drama Blog

Mastheads

I believe these fonts are the top three for my magazine because they are all messy and untidy which students will most likely be able to relate to. It will also give an overall informal tone to the magazine which will make buyer's feel more comfortable to purchase the magazine as they could feel it will apply to them more. 

I used alliteration of S's to draw in reader's, and used the pun of "Sixth Form" and "Sixth Sense" implying there will be gossip and all the information students need to know in the contents of the magazine. Because of the catchy conventions, I believe these are good reasons for the name "Sixth Sense" for my magazine.  

Front Cover Flat Plan for 'Sixth Sense' Magazine

Media Magazine Example - Analysed

20/09/11

The OCR AS Media Course


Today we had a lesson explaining different elements of the media AS course ahead of us. We learnt many different terms which will be key in aiming for a high results in media studies. 
The first thing we were told was 'diegetic sound' means the same and natural sound. Un-diegetic sound are noises such as music being played over a scene. Diegetic sound is the noises made naturally in the scene such as voices of characters, sirens on cars, and babies crying for example. 


We then looked at conventions of media and read "conventions are usually described as the ingredients of a particular form or genre." 
The term 'ingredients' in media was then described as the base of all forms of media. The ingredients in a piece of media is everything that makes the scene how it is meant to look. 
I also learnt about a theory called semiotics - the study of signs. This involves connotations and denotations which depend entirely on the audience and the context of which they are written. 



For example, for the image, the denotation is a skull and crossbones, but the connotation will differ depending on the audience. If a cleaner was cleaning a chemical cupboard and saw this sign, she would automatically refer to it as a sign of poison or danger. But for a pirate-obsessed child would probably look at it as a sign from pirates. 



"The basic meaning of the sign that most people can recognize and agree on is known as the signifier (denotation). The more complex individual meanings that people give to signs are known as the signified (connotation)". 


I also learnt that 'secondary audiences' is an important key term to use in exams to score higher marks. It means to not only look at the obvious target audience for a piece of media, but look further into who else it may interest. An example of this would be "Fantastic Mr. Fox" which tells the story of a puppet fox's life and the troubles he faces with people. Its obvious target audience is children as the story is puppet-made, and the content (including the story-line) is simple for children to understand. However, its sense of humour and a lot of the words used could be mainly aimed at adults. Although the story is obviously fiction, there are 'one-liners' and comical phrases that an adult would genuinely find funny. 


I also learnt about micro and macro elements, and that every small detail (micro elements) such as the style of jewellery a character wears, the shoes they wear, and the pictures they have in their room all add up to a macro appearance - a whole outlook of the scene so viewers can get an idea of the lifestyle of the character, what era they are in and what is happening in their life at that time. 


Today was full of new information to learn including what the form and style of a media text is, how important the small details are along with an explanation of different audiences.

Edited Images

I cropped the picture to get rid of the girl in the background which makes the photo more focused on their two main subjects.

I have retouched the photo to get rid of any spots or freckles on their faces. I made the photo 'warmer' in its temperature so the light looks as though it is on their faces which gives a nicer, friendlier feel to the image.  I also added a slight tint to the image for an even sunnier look. I changed the shadows, highlights and sharpness of the image to make them look more flattering. 

How to take a good photograph

Composition
     - what is include in the frame
     - rule of thirds
Here is a link to explain the Rule of Thirds in detail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds
     - colour (blend, balance, depth of colour)
     - subject (object, person or scene)
     - spatial arrangement (positioning of the subject and key points in the image)
     - light and shadow (where the light falls on the picture and where the dark areas are)
     - perspective (the angle of view)

Focus
     - using the correct depth of field (link)

Lighting
     - the direction of the sun

Camera Angle
     - experiment with different shots