EVALUATION!

1. in what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My magazine follows the codes and conventions of indie rock magazines as I completed a large amount of research to do with different aspects of magazines. My style models for my magazine are Kerrang and Clash, I chose these after I had analysed my other magazines and I decided that the layouts and formats were best for my genre of magazine.

After researching I designed my own magazine and I included the research I had found and followed the layout, I decided I would go for a simplistic front cover with not too much text and images. I would have one main image for my front cover, as this follows the presentational conventions of Clash magazine. Then I decided that the colour scheme for my magazine would also be based around Clash, I chose a black and white image as this is the convention Clash follows, I then had to decide which colour I would like some of my text to be as Clash does this for their text, Clash used yellow, this has connotations of cheerful and happy emotions, this was not what my magazine was based around, I decided to use red as my colour, this brought connotations of danger and blood into the magazine and this represented my genre perfectly as the white that was also used showed a angelic but dangerous side to my demographic.

A typical convention of an indie magazine is to have a mid/long shot on the contents page, I used this to my advantage and also used a mid/long shot, and the attitude of the subject was reflected in the expressions and mise en scene. I made my subject look down towards the floor to show the ‘I don’t care’ expression, he also didn’t have a facial expression; it was blank so that it showed the attitude of the target audience. I also used the checky shirt to match my colour scheme.
I had used a recurring backwards R, this gave my magazine a running theme to show that I had thought about the used of a presentational value that my magazines used, for example in Kerrang they used the title of the magazine on each of the pages, I decided this would be following conventions too much so I used the backwards R in all of my titles.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product is aimed mainly towards older teenagers, I think it would be better suited towards this age group as it holds some explicit content, e.g. some swearing and indecent images may be used. Where as if I used younger teenagers parental control might need to be included with the magazine or parents may not be happy with their children viewing the images or text.
My magazine is indie rock genre, this could be aimed at any ethnic group, this has not secluded any ethnic groups, and it is more generally cultural based. This is so that I don’t exclude and minority from reading my magazine, if I did so it would mean my demographic was reduced and I don’t want that in my magazine.

My main sexuality it anyone from any sexual background, this is so that I can broaden my demographic instead of excluding anyone from my demographic, also the class and status is mainly just working class, this is because with my magazine being indie rock it is aimed at college and university goers, meaning that they would be more working class based instead of upper class. The vocabulary used is not of a high standard as I would like to make it easy for all of my demographic to read instead of using challenging vocabulary that not all of my readers may not understand, this means that I can still keep a wide variety of people for my demographic. My magazine is more male based, but also aimed at girls too; this is because most of my models within my magazine are male and only one female model. This is because by using the rock genre it shows male characters as being messy characters with plenty of attitude whereas females aren’t really portrayed within this genre of magazine.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
My media product would be advertised over a range of methods, I would firstly have my magazine distributed by Seymour, this is the same as Kerrang, this would be a good idea as my magazine was based around Kerrang, also by using Seymour they would have a good idea of how to distribute a indie rock magazine, for example which shops sell out of rock magazine and which area rock magazines are popular it, by doing this it means I can reach my demographic well and get my media product on the market. Also I would use television adverts to get my subscription across to the public giving them the first issue free as a taster, this would mean that my magazine would be read and seen, then by word of mouth my magazine would get more and more recognised in the area that they are distributed too.
Initially I would distribute my magazine nationally, this would get my product onto the market, as if I distributed it internationally it may cost a lot more and may not be as popular in other countries, but by distributing it nationally I can see if my magazine is popular and if so I would then progress to distribute internationally.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
My ideal demographic would be older teenagers, this is because of the content within the magazine that adults may find either rude or inappropriate for their children to read, by making it for older teenagers it means that I can use challenging terminology but not too challenging, where as for younger teenagers or children I would have to use simplistic words. Sexuality within my magazine does not matter, I don’t want my magazine to reject people because of their sexuality and would like my entire demographic to be accepted. Gender also doesn’t matter, rock is more orientated around males but also can be for females as the models used aren’t all male, also there is no content females would find inappropriate or offensive within my magazine so all genders are accepted. My magazine is more for working class social classes, this is because upper class would expect my magazine to have challenging words and large amount of text, whereas my magazine has a lot of images within it which upper class society might not feel is appropriate. Also with it being a rock magazine wouldn’t expect people from higher classes to listen to rock music as it has offensive lyrics that they may find offensive.

5. How did you attract your audience?
To attract my audience to my magazine I used a lot of feedback and got the demographic involved with the making of my magazine. I started off by asking a questionnaire of what they would like to be a feature within my magazine and what genre they preferred, by doing this it meant that I could see clearly what my demographic wanted from me. Next I created a rough cut and asked by audience to give me feedback on what they would like me to do differently and what they really liked, this gave me a good impression into what I could do for my final cut to really get my demographic interested into my magazine.
The language I have used all the way through has been formal and informal; I have used a mixture to show the demographic within the magazine, this is helpful as it gives the reader a sense of security. If my magazine was too formal it may put off some of my demographic as they may think it is not for them, but by using both it sows diversity across my magazine. Throughout my magazine I have made sure that I have linked in stories that sound interesting and images that are eye catching and different.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I used within my magazine a range of shots, I used close-ups for my front cover shots and long shots for my contents page, by using a range of images it gave my magazine diversity and a large range to look at to keep my demographic interested.
I used natural light for all my images as they were all take outside, I did not need artificial light to make the images brighter as this was enough. I didn’t need to use any element of Photoshop to lighten my image, this was good as my images didn’t look faded and washed out.
I have learnt a lot about Photoshop as I learnt all the methods to transform my images to how I wanted them, this will be very helpful in other aspects of my school work as it has given me a detail4ed insight into how Photoshop works.
Creating a blog was a very good way to present my work as I could also add images too it as well as text, but sometime the layout wasn’t as I had expected and then it looked untidy and messy.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
When I completed my preliminary task I didn’t realise the amount of time it would take to complete, this meant that I wasn’t prepared for all of the work,. So when I came to completing my final draft I made sure that I timed it well and didn’t run over on time and forget to add things in.
Also I learnt how to make new layers on Photoshop and I didn’t realise that was all I had to learn but this wasn’t correct I wasn’t expecting to learn about Photoshop but I got lessons to help with that.