Due to my own mistake I have been unable to work on my front cover during the Christmas holidays as I forgot to transfer the work onto my memory stick. Although I have been working on images that I could use for other parts of my magazine and making drafts for the article.

Front Cover Before Editing

This picture shows the first stages of my front cover, before all the editing took place. Below is how the front cover now looks.

Front Cover Draft

This is a draft of my front cover, I have edited the background to a dim grey/brown and made the head of one of the band members overlap a letter in the title. This adds to the realism of the magazine as many magazines also do this.

Photoshoot

My photoshoot went really well and I believe I got some really good pictures that will work well with my magazine. I researched some "Rock Chick" pictures to see what kind of props, positions, costumes, make up, settings and camera angle were used. I then saved these images and used them as inspiration throughout my shoot. Above is an example of what I did and how I used the pictures as inspiration.

Deadline

I now know that the deadline for my front cover is the 7th of January. I think this is a fair deadline, but I will need to pick up the pace and get on with my front cover.

Arrangements for Shoot

As I previously blogged I have organised a photo shoot to take place this Wednesday. I have made some more specific arrangements for the shoot, below is a list of specifications I have sent to the actresses I am using;

Location- Beechwood Views
Time- 4:30pm
Costume- A dark outfit blacks, greys, deep purples etc and a second outfit which would suit a party location but also to suit the genre of the band, (Rock). So not too short with lots of flesh showing.

I have also made note of what I will need to do to ensure the shoot goes well and I get good, useable shots.
Props- I will use many props that I have handy at home, for example; a microphone and a microphone stand, drum sticks, electric guitar and an amplifier. These props will help make my shoot look more realistic and also reflect the genre and style of the band.
Equipment- I will need a camera that takes high mega pixel shots, it will need to be fully charged with a large capacity for many shots. I will also need a suitable background and appropriate lighting. These two factors may be difficult as I am using my own home for the shoot and I do not have professional lighting and backdrops, so I have come up with a solution to help my shoot look more professional. One is to use a plain white painted wall with a white bed sheet on the floor to mask the beige carpet that may be seen otherwise. The other to have helpers stood holding large torches and pulling blinds up or down to create the desired lighting.
The organisation of the shoot will hopefully pay off and I will have some good quality pictures to use in my magazine.

Drafts

These are images of my drafts, although these styles of magazines may not be a true reflection of what my finished product may look like they helped me experiment with styles, fonts and headlines. The first draft is a front cover similar to NME with anchorage aimed at 18-30 year olds. Whereas the second draft is based on magazines like Smash Hits and Top of The Pops aimed at a much younger generation of girls ages 9-13.

Shot List

I have created a list specifying what shots I will need for all parts of my magazine.

Front Cover
I am planning on having just one main image on my front cover as I am hoping for my magazine to be sophisticated yet laid back take on NME. Therefore I am going to need a shot of an artist or group on a plain background.

Contents
I am hoping to create a girl group to feature in my contents; I already have the ideal people in mind for this. Although I have not yet decided if the photo will be set in an exterior location or on a photo shoot set. I will have other pictures on my contents page, approximately 3 or 4. One of them possibly being a Leeds and Reading festival logo.

Double Page Article
I am going to create an article for my double page spread and for this I will need a large posing picture of the band/artist I am interviewing. I will also need a few other smaller random pictures to dot around the page.

Fonts & Colours

Fonts and colours

View more presentations from Stacey.

Arranging Photo Shoots

As I will need a selection of photos to choose from for my magazine I have started arranging photo shoots. I recently sent out an email to a group of girls asking if they would mind creating a girl group image for my magazine. I have copied the email below.
Hii guys,
I am creating a music magazine for my media work and putting together a bundle of pictures that could potentially be used for my magazine. I have selected you guys as i though you would look like a girl group if you all got dressed up and did your hair. If you are all willing please let me know and we can arrange a time and place.
Thanks, Meg x


I am still trying to upload the "Fonts & Colours" powerpoint but due to problems uploading i have not been able to. I will keep trying to upload the powerpoint.

Progress

I have completed a slide on the various fonts and colours I could use on and in my magazine although I am having trouble with the uploading programme Scribd. I will attempt to upload this again later on.

Progress

I am currently playing around with fonts and layouts. Powerpoints of theses various fonts and layouts will be uploaded as soon as its finished.

Questionnaire Results

Questionnaire Results

Questionnaire

Questionnaire

Progress

As I have now completed one of my research tasks on other music magazines I need to find out what the public want. I have chosen to do this by creating a specific questionnaire for members of the public. This questionnaire will enable me to find out what music magazine genre the public think is missing, what price they would be willing to pay for a magazine, what age groups prefer a certain genre and much more useful information which will help me create the perfect music magazine.

Analysisng Two Magazines

Megan's Magazine Publishers Research

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Megan's Magazine Publishers Research

View more presentations from whslaura.

For the front cover of my school magazine I used a mid shot as mid shots fit well onto an A4 page and don't look streched or distorted. Similarly when creating my music magazine I will use a mid shot because of these reasons. As i will have much more time to plan and create my music magazine it will obviously be to a much higher standard with eye catching titles, colours and a relevant main image,

This is the contents for my school magazine, the pictures are poorly placed and are not cut, this is due to my lack of time to prepare the contents. The contents has an 'On The Cover' section as do most magazines. As the audience buy the magazine because of what is on the front cover this section of the contents is perfect for helping them find one of the cover stories quickly and efficiently. When creating my music magazine my contents will also have and 'On The Cover Section' along with some other useful sections for the audience.

Coursework Portfolio

Preliminary Task

As part of the course I have to create two pages of a school/college magazine; the front cover and contents. This rough creation is not marked yet if uncompleted 15 marks will be lost from the course.

Music Magazine

Producing a music magazine is the main and most crucial part of this course. We are expected to create a front cover, contents and a two page spread of an article or feature.

Research will be needed to complete the magazine, for example; which magazines target what audiences, how various magazines use imagery etc.

Planning and creating mock ups of each page will also have to take place to ensure I have created them to my full potential. For instance my first mock up of my front cover may not look exactly as I wished therefore for future reference i will know how not to lay it out.

When happy with my rough/mock ups I will then put each of my rough ideas together to create a music magazine I am happy with. This stage of the construction is when I will be looking at fonts and anchorage and ensuring they capture my desired target audience and many more small details that play a big part in the magazine.

I will then finally evaluate my work and conclude what I personally think I have done right and wrong and also what I think i could have done better to improve my magazine.

The Marks..
Up to 60 marks for the construction and sample pages.

Up to 20 marks for research and planning.

Up to 20 marks for the evaluation.

When i evaluate my product i will have to take in to consideration 7 questions:

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


How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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

Who would be the audience for your media product?

How did you attract or address your audience?

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

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