Evaluation Activity 1‐ in what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products Conventions are why something has been done and how they have achieved it. Conventions are made up of 3 different headings these being ‘Symbolic codes’, ‘Technical codes’ and ‘Written codes’. Symbolic codes are made up of colour, clothing, props and language. Technical codes are made up of camera techniques, exposure, contrasts and lighting. Written codes are made up of drop caps, headlines, captions cover lines and language.
Masthead and Title A masthead is very important convention used because it is the title therefore it should be bold and attract attentions. It is the main focal point for your audience you are trying to attract evidently being one of the most important conventions used. For my masthead and title I decided to link it in with the rocker/RnB theme I was trying to achieve throughout. I decided to look on a few text generators online for inspiration on how I would like this to look. I decided to go on a website called ‘Dafont’, I like the theme ‘eroded’ for my masthead as I thought this would give my title a bit of an edge to it and then link with the genre of music I was focusing on. In my case this was RnB rock and rock music has quite and edge to it so I though that my title connotes this. By doing this I thought that this would also be more appealing to my target audience as they would be able to see that I had tried to incorporate the genre of music they liked and also the colour. I did this by conducting a music magazine question. After scanning through about 50 different
designs of texts I finally found one I wanted to use in my media product. I then had Lilly the difficulty to link it in with my colour scheme, which at that present time was red and black. I decided I would fill bits of the text red and have the majority of the text black so that they created the colour scheme I was aiming for. After I had done my contents and double page spread I realise that my colour scheme was not working and I didn’t like it so I changed it to a purple based colour scheme. One of the reasons I believed that my colour scheme was not working was because the red and black theme I had originally chosen seemed to male dominated I found this a bit disappointing as It was my most popular option on my music magazine questionnaire and I wanted it to appeal to both genders so I thought that the only way I would be able to do this was by changing it. I later then had to change my masthead for this to link in with the rest; I kept it black because I thought this would be easy if I wanted to change my colour scheme. I used my masthead as my logo on my contents page and double page spread so it had to be the same in each 3 pieces. My masthead attracts my target audience because it is black and bold and is the most prominent feature on my media magazine. I also think that the eroded theme I went for linked in with the genre of music I was focusing on. In my case this was RnB rock and rock music has quite and edge to it so I though that my title connotes this.
Kelly
Mise‐en‐scene of images
For this I decided to take a variety of images. I took roughly about 25 images at all different angles. I took some close ups, mid shots, long shots, extra close up and extreme long shot I wanted to make sure I had a variety of shots so that this could widen my choice when I came to deciding images for my work. I took all these images under a very bright light and on some of my images I took the photo so the light was coming down on my images and for others I would simply point the camera upwards so that the light would be shining up towards them. For my contents page the image I chose was a close up of Kelly, I decided I would up the contrast and slightly up the brightness so you were still able to see her but she wasn’t as prominent. I decided to do this because I though having a big image that stood out would take away the audience’s attention from the information on there and they would be mainly focusing on the image. By doing this I managed to link in the image with the work without there being too many focal points. For my music magazine front cover the image I chose was of Kelly and Lilly and for this I decided to up there contrast and lower the brightness I wanted them to standout because they were my main focal image but there was also a lot of other focal images on there too so I didn’t want it to be too overpowering. Originally I had them in black and white and I did this by lowering the saturation but I thought that they weren’t standing out at all by doing this hence why I chose to keep them in colour.
Costumes and props For the use of costumes and props throughout my magazine I avoided the colour pink, as I didn’t want them to come across as a girly sister band. I wanted them to wear clothes, which were a bit original and wacky to stand out against all the other girl bands. I dressed my first model Kelly in light wash faded jeans, and an Aztec patterned jumper she has her hair down messy, dark bold eyeliner and converses to try and complete the edge I was trying to give her. I dressed my second model Lilly in a grey vest top with a detailed tree on it, royal blue trousers, scarf, and a black cardigan with UGG boots. I wanted her to be wearing clothes that linked in with Kelly but were not totally identical because I wanted them both to be their own person in the band. I decided I was not going to use any props throughout my music magazine but instead do different poses, as I wanted Kelly and Lilly to stand out on my magazine. If I were to do this again I would use a microphone for one of the girls to hold so it seemed more like a music magazine.
Main cover image I had to choose people, which linked in with the theme of my magazine in order for it all to come together as a finished product. I decided that featuring on my music magazine there would be two girls roughly aged 16, 17 as this would then relate towards my target audience. My target audience that I was trying to aim my music magazine at teenagers aged roughly 15‐17 and if the models were the same age as my target audience I thought that my target audience would have been able to relate to them more. I decided that they would together make a band called ‘Upstage’ mainly rock/RnB band linking again to my theme. I decided to have 2 British girls featuring on it as it was a British magazine. I wanted them to
look fairly similar as I was trying to pass them off as sisters so I made sure they were roughly the same height, hair colour to show this.
Title font and style My main font colour for my double page spread way grey I used the font ‘Calibri’ as I thought this was a readable font for my work. For my title of my double page spread I decided to for my kicker I wrote this in black because I thought that black was quite a prominent colour and would work well against the other writing. I needed a colour that would stand out against the rest of my work so this is why I decided to go for black. I used a drop cap ‘M’ so that the readers would know where to start reading I also made this bold so it was easy to find against the other text. For my pull quote I decided to create a purple circle and use grey writing inside it so you would be able to see the writing and this would also link in with the main colour of my double page spread. I had created a purple, grey colour scheme and I intended on sticking to it throughout.
Written Content I found this the most challenging bit of the task, as it was hard to think of what to write and incorporate all the codes and conventions I needed to. I managed to write a story by looking at other magazines for inspiration but when I had complete my story it was too long and need to be shortened. This was very time consuming, as I had to spend an hour lesson trying to shorten my double page spread story when I could have been using this time to do something else. For my music magazine front cover I used Facebook to help me as I have a lot of 15‐17 year olds on their which was very helpful. I asked a few questions and came to the conclusion the majority of my target audience liked ‘Skrillex’ so I decided to feature him as one of my cover lines as I knew this would appeal to my target audience. For the rest of my cover lines I did the same approach as well as referring to my questionnaire to try and come up with a link between the two. For my contents page I linked this in with my questionnaire and research I had done previously. I decided I was going to have 6 cover lines and have a brief mention about what they were about so that the audience would know. I had to link my contents page in with some of the cover lines featuring on the front of my magazine.
How my questionnaire linked in with my final product For the written content on my magazine I linked this in with my music magazine questionnaire. On my questionnaire one of the questions was ‘what do you prefer listening to music through’ the most popular answer was iPod so for this I decided to research through Google and see the most downloaded songs and get the most popular artist to focus on my magazine as one of my three main cover lines. One of the most popular downloaded tunes was ‘Kill everybody’ by skrillex so I decided he would the artist that I would feature on my magazine. For my second cover line I decided that this would be the name of the band that was featuring on my magazine this was ‘upstage’ so this was this linked in with my cover
image of them featuring on my magazine. For the third one I thought about a subject that attracts males and females and is popular. I decided that this would be ‘summer’ I found out this was quite a popular subject talked about on Facebook and seeing as I have mostly 16‐18 year olds this would appeal to my target audience.
Music genre and how my magazine suggests it I decided to go for two girls to feature on the front cover if I was to do this again I would add a male to the front cover so it appealed to both sexes as I feel at the moment it is appealing more women than men. The type of music genre I was trying to go for was RnB I chose this because after getting my target audience to complete a questionnaire this was the most popular option. I decided that most RnB songs have a bit of an edge to them so I decided to go for a red and black colour scheme, this also linked in with the second question ‘what colours do you think would work well’ the most popular answers were black, white, purple and red. This is why I chose red and black because they were the 2 most popular answers and I thought this would help me create the edge I was trying to pull off. I later decided I would change my colour scheme to mainly purple and red as I didn’t believe that it linked in well with the two girls featuring on the front. For the masthead I decided to go for a font called ‘eroded’ and I though this worked brilliantly with the colours I had chosen and also made my magazine look raw and this was the effect I was trying to go for so I was pleased with this. I decided to use the font ‘eroded’ throughout my 3 pieces of work, for my contents page I used this font to write ‘contents’ and I also copied the masthead on my front cover through to my double page spread as I wanted them all to link in and have the same theme.
Layout and use of conventions like pull quotes, drop caps
For my double page spread I used two pull quotes. I used these to break up the text and to catch reader’s attention. For my second pull out quote on my double page spread I decided to go for a different approach and not use a circle or a drop cap. I made this bold and the font colour purple to stand out against the grey text of the story. I made it slightly bigger font size so you could tell it was a pull quote but it had been achieved slightly different this way. I decided that I would use a blue circle and wrap my text around this. For my sticker on the front cover I used yellow for the word ‘Win’ and for the page number and the rest I wrote in white. I later decided to put a slight drop shadow on the circle to make it stand out more and to give it more effect against the writing. I also used a drop cap on my magazine front cover for the masthead as I wanted this to stand out too. I didn’t want a huge drop shadow I only wanted a slight one to give it effect and make it stand out without it being to severe