In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?




 

Conventions are the typical traditions and rules that the audience expects. Some magazines are more conventional than others depending on the audience and the subject matter. The genre of my magazine is ‘rock for females’, some of the magazines that influenced me, and whose conventions I followed, were ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Rock Sound’.

Cover Analysis-For my masthead I decided to make it quite ‘scratchy’ and ‘graffiti like’, to show the magazine is quite rebellious and edgy. I also added in a purple colour for the ‘X’ to make it slightly different from conventional mastheads. My main image is of the band ‘Here I Stand’ and as Kyran is the main focus he is in the middle and is slightly
further forward and larger than the others. The other images I used were for ‘free posters’.  I have quite a few cover lines on my front cover, and ‘exclusive’ on the top, a ‘win’ on the bottom and a ‘+’ that has a lot of extras on the left. I decided to price my magazine at £2.00, I believe it is quite reasonable for my target audience's price range. The date is Dec 2010 and it is a monthly magazine. The colour scheme I have used is black, white, green and purple. I decided to use purple because Chris’ top in the image is purple, which made me come to the conclusion of using its opposite colour green to add effect to the cover. The other reason I chose purple was I wanted to appeal to females whilst avoiding a stereotypical pink, purple is feminine and cool. I have used a few shapes on the cover, such as the slanted rectangle around the words ‘Here I Stand’ and ‘Kyran Murphy’, also rectangle shapes for ‘exclusive’ and ‘win’. I also put a border around the posters to make them stand out a bit more. The fonts on my layout are slightly varied but not a lot, they are all bold and are sans-serif. Kyran and Toms heads overlap the title which shows its quite a well known magazine, also the text overlaps the boy's torsos to make it stand out. I think the language I have used relates well to my audience, the title ‘Kyran Murphy Screams Out’ shows will be talking to us and the readers, but he is also the ‘screamo vocalist’ of the band which makes the title easy to relate to.

Contents Analysis-I have used a lot of typical conventions on my contents page. For the ‘masthead’ I have used the same font as the front cover had but instead changed the word from ‘explode’ to ‘contents’, this ‘scratchy’ font also connotes ‘rebellion’ and ‘danger’. I also added a purple colour to the letter ‘o’ like I did with the letter ‘x’ in ‘explode’. For the information I have the typical ‘regulars and features’ but also an extra ‘live reviews + interviews’ to make it slightly different. My main image on the contents page is of Kyran because he is on the front cover as the ‘cover story’, I also added a pull quote to make it more interesting for the reader. The extra images I have on the contents are a few of Abi and Emily, as this is a girls magazine added Abi and Emily in to promote and talk about ‘hair and fashion’ which girls would like to read about other than music. I used four similar shots of them to suggest girls taking amateur shots with their mobile phones rather than a specific photoshoot. This adds informality to the page and helps the reader to relate to it more. I also added an ‘editor's letter’ to make the magazine relate to the audience and give it a personal side to it. I also added the front cover on the contents page so people can ‘subscribe’ to my magazine. I stuck to the similar colour scheme which is purple and greens, but also made the background pink for a more girly effect. I used quite chatty language to relate to my audience, it’s not completely ‘slang’ but the chatty language helps my magazine become more personal to the reader. I have rotated a few images to make the magazine look fun and a few of the images overlap other images on the page to make it feel packed and worth reading. On the photos of Abi and Emily I added in a purple colour box behind them so it makes them stand out more.

DPS Analysis-For my double page spread I have used a lot of conventions. I have used a kicker to start off and set the scene of the article, also a drop cap for the word ‘Here’. I also used gutters to separate the columns and the body of the text. I created a pull quote, but not typically in-between the text, I added mine at the top of the page, very large, so when readers flick through the magazine it would draw their attention to the article. I also added in a caption on the photo of ‘Here I Stand’. I used a serif font for the body text, to make it look quite sophisticated and easier to read, but a sans-serif font for the pull quote. I also added in a sidebar that has more information about the band as a whole and what dates their album is released. I decided to add quite a big photo of ‘Kyran’ to the left of the page, so it could possibly be used a some sort of poster for the reader, as a little extra. I didn’t use a lot of images as it might confuse the reader, the photo of Kyran is a subjective shot to relate to the reader. I kept to the colour scheme of white, black, purple and green, I thought this would be easier and it reinforces the overall house style of the magazine.

Aspects of layout conventions- My magazine name ‘EXPLODE’ connotes that it is full of life, that it is big and that it is in-your-your face. My images made it quite hard for the text to be seen on the cover, so I had to use the clone tool to crop out ‘text and images’ on Kyran and Will’s t-shirts. I took the boys to Carlton Marshes for my photoshoot and made them stand in front of a green barrel because it was different to using a stereotypical white background. For the poster special images I took Chris to the Uplands Field and took Reuben to the side of my house where I decided to use a brick background so I could have a variety of different backgrounds. Kyran, Chris, Tom and Will are all roughly about the same age (15-16), they aren’t really showing an expression on my cover which shows they have an attitude, preferably an ‘I don’t care’ attitude, they all also are using a subjective shot to grab the reader's attention. They are dressed fashionably and, with their good looks, are likely to appeal to the target audience of female teenagers. I placed the masthead at the top because it is typically conventional. My contents page has the typical ‘regulars’ and ‘features’ I also added in ‘live reviews+ interviews’ to make it more interesting. The music genre is ‘rock’ you can see it is because of the scratchy masthead, dark colours, also by the boys typical ‘long hair’. This magazine fills a gap as there aren’t really any ‘rock’ magazines for females. There is ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Rock Sound’ but they are mostly for males and it would be good for the female audience to have a ‘rock’ magazine all to themselves.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The publisher that is most likely to be interested in my magazine is ‘Bauer’. I was browsing through their website and I noticed that Kerrang and Q (both music related magazines) are in the ‘Men’s Entertainment’ section. As my target audience are females and there aren’t any female related ‘rock’ magazines around, I believe ‘Bauer’ would see this as a great opportunity to take my magazine on in their company. ‘Bauer’ are Europe’s largest privately owned publishing group, if my magazine was supported by ‘Bauer’ it would be more likely to become very successful because ‘Bauer’ magazines are very popular, which is an advantage. Also Bauer would be able to distribute my magazine in well-known shops such as WH Smiths as they have wide distribution deals already set up.

I have also considered the disadvantages of going with a large publisher. ‘Bauer’ are likely to want to take control over my magazine and change it to what suits them, which I wouldn’t really like, as this is my own work and they might affect my editorial independence.

I have also considered maybe going with IPC, Bauer’s biggest UK rival. Even though Bauer do a male Kerrang magazine, I could possibly go against the ‘male’ rock magazine and see if my female magazine makes more profit and becomes more popular. Like Bauer, IPC don't currently have a rock magazines for female teenagers.

I have also considered ‘self-publishing’ where I do all the work myself. This would help my editorial independence, but it might not get as popular as other magazines that are about and I might not get as much profit as I’d hope for. Distribution is difficult and costly and it would be much harder for an independent to get onto the shelves of W.H.Smith. However, I would use technology as much as possible to promote my magazine online which is cheaper and more direct and suits the interests of my audience.

But by going with Bauer and looking at their ‘tables’ I would still have an online website and maybe a television show to go with my magazine. Such uses of synergy are linked to success and profit and their is already a model as Kerrang is a magazine, a TV show and a radio station.  Also my magazine could get advertised/featured in other music magazines Bauer produced. This is known as cross-advertising.

6th Jan .. 2.30pm .. DPS

I have re-done the left hand side and changed the 'Q&A.. and also inserted Kyran's name in.

My Finished Drafts Of My DPS+Cover 13th Dec

These are my final DPS and cover so far, i havent completed my contents page yet as i need to add more photos.

Front Cover, Contents + DPS So Far 9th Dec 2010

These are my 'front cover, contents page, and double page spread' so far on the 9thg December 2010. At this stage of the project i think that equally these are quite good, they all relate to eachother, for example the colour scheme and the fonts. I still need to add in a few more images to the front cover and the contents page but i will be taking them this weekend. I have followed the marking scheme and have included everything i need into these pages, for example minimum of four images. I have also responded to my selected audience aswell, pink is usually a stereotypical 'girly' colour and i decided to add this as the background colour to my contents page. Also the greeting for my 'editors letter' says 'Hey Girls'.

2/12/10

Cover so far after about three lessons working on it. I cropped all four boys out of their original background, positioned them closer together and then re added the background back in. I also got my masthead font from dafont.com and coloured the 'x' purple. as you can see a lot of work needs to be done to it. But i think it looks good considering I've only worked on it for three lessons so far.

Double Page Spread Analysis

This double page spread is from Kerrang magazine. It has a simple white background that makes the text stand out. There is four columns of alot of writing and five images surrounding the left hand side which all have small captions on them. They also have a slightly grey/white border to make them individual images and so they stand out. Dave Grohl (man in the images) is holding an award which shows he is a vey successful man, next to this image is a pull quote which shows it is said by him.

This double page spread has a black background and white and red writing, by using three simple colours it doesn't over crowd the or complicate the spread. A pull quote is used as the masthead so it draws the reader in, it also uses strachty font which symbolises rebellion.. They have used one main image which blends into th background and three smaller images that have captions on them. This particular double page spread has an equal balance of images and text. It also has a separate side bar which stands out to show its also worth reading.