Evaluation

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

My magazine front cover looks like what you would usually see a music magazine front cover to look like; it has a main image that shows a musician which is the general convention of music magazines. It also has a masthead, and a main coverline as well as smaller coverlines; which is what you normally see on the front cover of magazines. My audience research showed that my target audience generally reads Kerrang! so I used that as a guideline for an idea of what my magazine should look like to attract my target audience. I challenged the conventions of a magazine front cover by using a main image where the person is not looking at the camera, usually magazine front covers have midshots where they are looking directly at the camera; which are taken in a studio. However I chose to use an image I had taken at a gig where I could not control the lighting or how the musicians moved on stage which made it difficult to time it correctly to get the type of image I desired with the lighting highlighting his face. 
My front cover looks generally how you would expect one to look, with the page numbers then the titles of the articles. I also separated the articles subject to the type of one is was or whether it was one of the ones featured on the cover. 

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I think my project represents young people aged 17-25 as people who want to be able to access everything; they are interested in music and like to find out information about what is going on in their area. From the front cover you can see that the image was taken of someone on stage which then signifies that this is what young people like to do; go out to listen to some music and see live bands. From the contents page and the storylines in the magazine you can see how it represents this particular social group; for example there is an article on Mephadrone which is very relevant at the moment as quite a few young people have died from taking the drug and so people of the target audiences age would like to find out about the dangers more so they are aware. It represents them to be interested in having fun but looking after themselves at the same time; and reading indepth reports as well as lighter articles such as fact files. The font I used was quite rough which shows who the magazine is aimed at as if my target audience was older and a higher social group then I would have used a more calligraphy style font. This represents younger people to not need everything perfect as they might not mind if something does not look neat.  

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

I would like to think that Bauer magazines might distribute my magazine as they already distribute Kerrang and Q magazines which are of a similar style to my own. IPC distributes NME magazine however that has a wider range of styles whereas Bass is more directed to the Rockier genres.  

Who would be the audience for your media product?

The average reader of Bass is Sammi she is 17 and absolutely loves everything about music. She goes to gigs on average once a month and attends festivals every summer. She mainly listens to all genres of Rock music but also likes most other things except maybe R+B. She is studying Media, Art, Music Technology and Psychology at her local sixth form. Outside of school she has a part time job to fund her love of music; any spare money goes on new clothes from Topshop and River Island. She loves to socialise and meet new people especially those who have similar interests to hers. She reads Bass so she can find out all about her favourite bands and other up and coming ones who have a similar style to those she already likes. 

How did you attract/address your audience?

I made sure the main image on the cover was bold and stood out. I chose to use an image that was dark but still had the purple light coming from the top right hand corner I left space there so it wasn't covered with text, so that it would attract readers as it is still quite bright but is still obvious it is aimed towards people that like more rock/punk music rather than main stream pop. I also used the fonts of the coverlines so that they looked brighter against the dark background of the image. The font was also not an old fashioned style font  which would hopefully attract the younger audience I want for my magazine. I made sure that the coverlines would be of interest to my reader and that the bands mentioned in them are in my target audiences favourite genre. As my magazine is aimed at people who do not necessarily listen to music that is high in the charts I did not mention bands that are generally known to the world as a whole only those smaller that they would be interested in finding out about but aren't able to in other music magazines. 
From my audience feedback I know that my magazine would attract an audience who were interested in the rock/punk music; as from the pages that were displayed they could tell that was the type of magazine it was and that it was aimed towards a younger audience. The colours that I had hoped to attract the audience were mentioned a lot as something that they had liked about the front cover; that this was what brought them to look at it in more detail.

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

I have learnt a lot about computer programs Photoshop and Indesign. Before this project I had not used either before and to start with I found using them to produce my desired effect was extremely difficult especially when putting the final piece together in Indesign. However I not feel confident to use both after using Photoshop to manipulate the images I used for both my preliminary and the main task; and Indesign to add all the images together and the text to create the layout for the front cover, contents page and double page spread. I also use Imovie to edit my audience research, I had used this in the past but while editing my video I learnt to add transitional text and feel more competent with using the program.

I used an SLR camera to take some of the shots I used for my main task and in my preliminary; I had never used anything other than a digital camera before and with the SLR one I was able to adjust the focus and use the lighting to a greater advantage than I would with a regular camera.

I used Blogger to upload all my work and publish it on to the internet. It was my first time using the site and gradually I have become more adept at putting my work on it and managing the differnt posts.

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

I think I have learnt more about how to manipulate the images with ease using photoshop then importing them into indesign. While editing my preliminary images I found it quite difficult and time consuming to get the effects I wanted, but when it came to my main task it was quicker and easier to edit the images to exactly how I wanted. I also found that I was able to see the greater difference changing something slightly made; for example by making the contrast slightly higher, the image stood out more which would then in turn attract readers. I think that I have also learnt a lot about the importance of the layout on the front cover; as on my preliminary I only had a few coverlines but that might not have attracted many the audience might not have been interested in those few however in the main task I added a lot more to the cover so that there was something for everyone and it would attract more people to look at the page. I also learnt more about how the lighting of the image can attract people to look at the page as if it is a plain or dark lighting people might not notice it; with my main image on the music magazine front cover I chose one that had a different colour lighting, the image I chose had purple lighting coming from the top right hand corner I thought that this was effective as it was different.