EVALUATION ACTIVITY 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms a

nd conventions of real media products?

The music magazine indsutry has become very competitive over the past few years, making it a whole lot easier for me to distinguish and take into account ideas that I may be able to input on my own magazine. Brand identity allows to appeal to my target audience and genre.

The title I have decided to use is 'Broken Ghost'. Before deciding the final name for my magazine, I had a list of several names I could have chosen from. The names are as follows:

• Beats
• Trends
• New Edition

I thought that the name 'Broken Ghost' would appeal more to my target audience, which is that of a 'Indie Scenester'. I went for the colour red as it is a very bright colour which highlights attention to its readers. The colour red was used not only on the masthead, but it run

s throughout the magazine along with the colours black and white. I wanted my magazine colour scheme to be dark and bright at the same time. I used the coloursblack, white and red. By using these three colours, I feel that I have achieved the task of enticing buyers. In addition to the colour red of themasthead, the background of the magazine front cover is black, which equally allows the masthead to stand out amongst other magazines.

Many magazines use a feature called a 'cover mount'. A 'cover mount' can be defined as a 'freebie' which are placed on the magazine front cover acting as a selling point to its audience. A cover mount on a magazine is used to entice a reader into buying the magazine. For example, my magazines cover mount says, "4 FREE posters inside todays issue of the Broken Ghost + a chance to win FREE tickets to see Fugitive in concert". The word 'Free' has been written in block capitals to further illustrate the importance of this message. How I created my own cover mount to me about 10 to 15 seconds. I first had to select a shape which was an eliptical shape creating that of a circle. I then filled the circle with a red colour and made the circle slightly opaque giving it a see-through effect.

Here are several examples of cover mounts on other music magazines:

This image is that of my main image, cover lines and the cover mount. My main cover lines are, "Exclusive Interview", "Get up close and

personal with the members of Fugitive", "Photos from there tour in Miami". The cover line 'Exclusive interview', illustrates that within this magazine, there is something 'NEW' to read. The use of this cover also entices an audience into picking up the magazine and wanting to purchase it. Many well known magazines use this feature to attract its buyers, many frequent magazine buyers look forward to these new features. The main image of my magazine is that of my three artists standing side by side. The image has been altered to black and white following the house style of black, white and red. The black and white feature allows the picture to look more clear than it did with its original hue. The gaze of my artists are fixated on the camera which gives the audience the full attention of the artists.

As you can see, my magazine fits in perfectly with the other well known magazines such as; Vibe, Q, and Rock Sound.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 7

Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

When I put both my preliminary task and my main task side by side, it is clear that I have learnt quite a lot over the few months that I have been working on both tasks. As you can see, I have kept my likeness for the black and white effect into place both magazines. I felt that in both magazines, the idea of simplicity was best. For the first task, the preliminary task , I learnt that doing these things doesn't always quite go to plan. I had to think on my feet most of the time correcting things that needed to be changed on an area. I also discovered that it takes longer to do certain things on a magazine task and said to myself that on my main task I have to be more prepared than I was for the preliminary task. If i'm completely honest, I did believe that the easiest part of these tasks would be to take my photos as I saw myself 'proffesional' photographer. I did take quite a few photos until I got it absolutely spot on.

There are a few similarities between both my magazines. For example, the black and white effect on both of the magazines are similar. The only difference between this is the fact that the main image on the preliminary task has been given back its original colour making it stand out on the page. On the bottom of both magazines, there is a strapline advertising one thing or another. For example on my preliminary task, I've advertised that within this magazine, there are tips and hints on how to conquer upcoming January exams. Equally, on the main task I have put a list of artists that may feature in this magazine. Most magazines such as Kerrang for example also make use of such a feature.

Comparing my first magazine and my main task, I can see that I have learnt to utilise space on the magazine, giving my audience a chance to analyze what will feature in the magazine. Using the space attracts an interested audience, unlike an empty magazine which is less likely to interest anyone, as there is a lack of advertising of that magazine. An empty magazine doesn't look as attractive as a magazine with lots of content on it. On the right hand side, I have taken away some of the elements of my magazine and seen how uninteresting this makes my magazine look.

The contents page of my preliminary task is not quite to the standard of an average magazines. I used very simple methods whilst creating my contents page for the first magazine. In other words I didn't spend as much time on it as I should have on it. On the other hand, with further research, I was able to make my main task much more enticing than that of my first magazine. I looked at magazines such as kerrang, NME and Rocksound and found myself using a similar style that rock sound have used.

Over the past few months, I have learnt a great deal of things which need to be taken into accout when creating a magazine. Overall, I am happy with the progress I have made on both magazines, especially that of my music magazine. Considering I am new to using such software such as Adobe Photoshop, I feel that I have come a long a way from a person who was quite sceptical about creating a magazine. My preliminary task isn't all bad, but compared to my main task, there is quite a lot of work which could have been done to it. If I was to go back and change things on my preliminary task, I feel that I would be much more confident and comfortable making it a better product than what it is now.

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

There were a wide variety of technologies that I used, including both hnd looked at what they the 'Mise-en-scene'. Under this contains, clothing, posture, gesture etc. I Looked at all these things and tried to integrate that onto my own models. For the first photoshoot, I used a Samsung ES17 Inteligent LCD which is a very light digital camera. The advantages of using these camera was that it was very portable, very light and also efficient.

For my second photoshoot, I decided that I would use a more professional camera rather than the previous camera that I used. The Lumix 12.1 Megapixel camera, gave me a better quality image. It took me quite a lot of practice to get used to using this camera, as I was much more used to using the first camera, the more lightweight of the two. An advantage of the Lumix G1, allowed me to focus on certain images as it had an inbuilt auto focus lens, giving the focused image better quality. Another advantage of this camera is that it is very portable and light to carry around with you.

Computers were another source of hardware that I used. Although I mostly made use of the softwares on the computers. In the production of my magazine, I was fortunate enough to use two computers. The first of the computers was my Laptop, a HP G61-401SA with a Microsoft Windows 7 operating system. The second computer was used in school, this was an Apple iMac computer which had the all the softwares that I would be using. At first, I found it very hard to use the iMac as I am not a very big fan of Apple operating systems but as time went on I became accustomed to it. I still prefer my own computer though as I feel more free in terms of computer use.

In the creation of my magazine, there were several programs and softwares that I used. This includes, Adobe Photoshop CS4 and InDesign CS4. These two programs are proffessional softwares. Software such as Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are what they low level softwares, as most people who own a computer know how to use these softwares. Firefox, Safari and Internet explorer are software which allow us to access websites such as blogger and youtube. I am going to focus my attention fully on bothAdobe Photoshop and Adobe InDesign.

Photoshop and Adobe InDesign were the main technologies I used to create my magazine. I am fairly new to both these technologies so in the beginning I did struggle using them for the very first time. With much practice I was able to use both of them successfully to create two magazine front covers, contents pages and one double page spread.

I have used Adobe Photoshop to edit and re-design my images to create my magazine. I used photoshop to create both my magazines front cover and contents page. InDesign allows me to put together a finished product such a double page spread. Photoshop has allowed me remove any facial impairments on any of my models, making them look almost perfect. This is something that every magazine designer takes into account when making a magazine. My front cover image is in a black and white effect. As you can see, this is how I have applied the black and white effect to my image. Their were various different alterations I could have made to my images, and the black and white effect was one of them I used. The process of turning my image black and white, I needed to click image on the toolbar. From there I had to go to click on the adjustments. Under adjustments, their were several options I could have taken. The option I decided to click on was the black and white feature. Before doing this, I did try out several other options such as the desaturate tool. This allowed me to turn the image black and white with the option of restoring some of the color using the history brush. One of the other options I used was the Hue/Saturation tool, which allowed me to turn everything back to its original color.

I found that using Adobe InDesign, was going to be very difficult as I had already become accustomed to using Adobe Photoshop. Adobe Indesign is mainly using for written content on a magazine, for example the double page spread, which has the most written content on all magazines. The ways in which I became comfortable in using this software, was by playing around with the different tools. One of the features I used in particular was the text wrap feature. This allowed me to properly make use of the space on my double page spread. This is what many music magazines do to give it a sense of realism. What the text wrap actually does is allows you to fit your written content around an image, rather than trying to squeeze the written content on to your spread. As you can see, the album cover on the bottom right hand side of the page has some written content around it.

Evaluation activity 5
How did you attract/address your audience?

On the front cover of my magazine, I have done several things to try an entice my audience into reading or picking up my magazine. The various things I included on the front cover are as follows:

1. An interview cover line(Telling the audience that I have an 'Exclusive' interview of the band Fugitive.
2. Free gifts when buying my magazine
3. A chance to win tickets to see the band live in concert


4. Strapline at the bottom of the cover showing various bands an artists

Another feature used on my front cover is that of free gifts. I have advertised an offer that once you buy the magazine, on the inside of it, 4 free posters will be given. This is a feature that many magazines undertake to 'rake in' the buyers. As you can see, other magazOn the front cover of the magazine, a cover line saying, 'Exclusive interview' is one factor that would usually attract a frequent magazine buyer. The aspect of knowing something new usually enticesthem intobuying these magazines. Most frequent magazine buyers are mostly interested in latest news and the gossip columns. An exclusive interview could also account for the absence of these things.

Other magazines have also used this feature also: Mojo, Q, Kerrang, Nme etc. This feature attracts the audience into wanting to actually buy and read the magazine. The other magazines have used this feature on countless of occasions, and have done so to perfection. I have tried to manipulate there style like so:

The audience is not only influenced by these 2 features but by others also. One other technique used to attract the reader. The audience is likely to be most interested in content relevant to artists that they are more likely to relate to or are more familiar with. The way in which magazines such as Kerrang do this, is by illustrating other content that will be inside the magazine. Not only Kerrang magazine do so, but magazines such as: Q, NME, Mojo etc. The magazines NME and Kerrang are my two examples of how to tell the audience of different pieces of information that may be featured in the magazine. Both NME and Kerrang have their own particular house styles in illustrating such information.