Production Diary: Week 3

Hello and welcome to week three of my production diary. There have been a few steps which bring me closer to the start of my coursework. In last Monday and Tuesday's lessons, me and my fellow classmates started and eventually completed our proposal for the magazines that we are going to create. For those of you who don't know what a proposal is, it is a simple layout for what you want your magazine to include. Here is a basic checklist for what a proposal should include: Style of magazine. Genre of magazine. Name of magazine. Regulars. How the magazine will appeal to your target audience. The target audience for your magazine. How much your magazine will cost. There are many more things that should be included in your proposal, but the ones stated above are perhaps the most important features of it. In addition to making my proposal, I was also asked to create a profile on the type of person who would buy and read my magazine. We were allowed to be as creative as we wanted, giving them names and all sorts. But this task wasn't to just create a fictional character, it was to relate our magazine to the real world. To show that there are people who really would read these magazines and that would enjoy them. My profile was based on a young man named Tony who works at the supermarket. You can read more about it on my blog. Just to delve a little deeper into context, I have gone about creating a social media account for my band, "Roode Pelikaan" - who are featured in my magazine. The link is here - http://instagram.com/roodepelikaanofficial This is to show the effort in my work and to show that I really do want this magazine to be as real as possible. Feel free to take a look at the page for Roode Pelikaan. It is all for the magazine. No social foolery or anything of that sort.

Target audience profile.

Tony is a young man, still at school and working part time at the local supermarket. His job is to simply stack shelves and print out order forms from online customers. He is passionate about many things; Football, Reading, Politics etc. But not his job. He is however, extremely passionate about music. Yes, the beautiful, powerful alternative to life which makes emotions full of life and life full of emotion. For Tony, work is boring. Bending down to stack shelves and stand by the printer all day isn't fun. He has nobody to talk to and nothing else to do. But wait! Music. Of course! The sound of many instruments, talented voices and melodic tunes. The perfect medicine for a boring day at work. Tony loves all kind of music. He will go to any gig available to him and is open to most new songs and artists. But his favourtie genre is alternative/Indie. Tony is the stereotypical Indie fan - He dresses well (Differently to others), he plays an instrument and loves going to gigs. These gigs include Reading and Leeds, Isle of White and Download. He is fully aware of the mulit talented bands and artists within this genre and this is one of the main reasons that he loves Indie. As a working lad, Tony gets some time off of his boring job. This time is usually filled with texting and repeadtedly refreshing his Facebook feed in the hope that something interesting or even new will crop up on the page. Tony needs a different pass time... and we have just the thing. A magazine. A music magazine. A music magazine dedicated to Indie. A music magazine dedicated to Indie that is just £2.30. Fun... yes. Affordable... yes. It is perfect for young Tony. A little something that he can spend a small percentage of his wages on, that wont empty his pocket! Tony will be absolutely chuffed with this. What a result. But its not only Tony who would be happy with this. Any Indie fan would be melting inside with the feeling of love at the thought of a lovely, cheap magazine that is rammed with information regarding their favourite artists and songs.

Magazine Proposal.

Proposal for my magazine. Hello. I believe that in today’s music industry, a lot of the same is happening. Music is not being appreciated for what it really is. There is no sense of respect for the raw talent of some artists. I have had enough. I think that there is a gap in the market. A gap that needs to be filled by people who appreciate music for what it is – an escape from reality and a sense of personal identity. This is why I am proposing this new magazine, a new, stylish and interactive magazine made for those who love music. By me saying that music should be loved, that includes all genres and what better genre to make a magazine about than Indie/alternative. It’s a stylish and classy array of talent and skill which can be displayed in a variety of mannerisms. I know for a fact that people will agree with me and will enjoy reading this magazine. So please, just take the time to read through this proposal… I’m sure it will win you over. I have decided to call my magazine – Indi-vidual. The genre of Indie/Alternative is an individual genre itself, there is nothing quite likes it out there. The same goes for the readers. Each reader has their own specific needs and interests. This will not only look clever, but will instantly build a distinct relationship between the reader, the magazine and of course, the genre. Every magazine must have a slogan, it’s a sense of identity that every successful magazine must have. Our slogan is: “An Alternative look at music”. I have put the word “Alternative” in bold and italics because it is another link back to the genre of the magazine. It is also contextual as many people have a different view on music these days. Unfortunately, most people think that music is all about the “glam” and “fame”. So our view on music (The way music should be viewed) is alternative to the mainstream idea. With our magazine, we want our target audience (Fans of Indie of both genres aged 16+), to feel as if they are being treated as fans and not just people who we want to spend money. We want them to enjoy reading our magazine. We want to entertain them with our wide range of articles and information. Ultimately, we want this to be a magazine that they simply cannot put down and will not give up on. To do this, we want to make our tone clever, funny and with a hint of sarcasm. The tone throughout our entire series will be informal, because as already said, we want the readers to feel part of the magazine. Their happiness is the most important thing. Anyone can pick up a magazine and read it, but to enjoy it is another story. To get the target audience even more involved with our magazine, we will incorporate three social media accounts with our magazine. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We have decided to use three because the usage of these accounts will spread throughout the spectrum of our wide target audience. The younger people in our target audience are most likely to have all three, whilst the elders may just have one or maybe two. The Facebook and Twitter accounts will be used to provide information to the target audience. This will include sneak previews of upcoming issues, even more competitions and much more. The Instagram account will be used to give a behind the scenes view of the magazine. We will include pictures of the bands/artists. This will entice the audience into reading more as they will be able to see what goes on before the magazine is publically released. The magazine will be fairly priced at £2.30. This will suit my entire target audience as it is a realistic price for them to pay. For the younger people in my target audience, this price will suit them well as they will either have part time jobs or will certainly get pocket money of some sort. For the elders, they will almost definitely have a job of some sort, meaning that this magazine is affordable for all of those who wish to purchase it. Regarding freebies – There will ALWAYS be free posters and small collectables which the readers can collect over the calendar year. This will motivate them to buy the magazine every week so they can complete a project by collecting the freebies.

Album cover for my featured band - Roode Pelikaan.

As part of our coursework, we need to include a featured band or artist who we will be writing our main article about. After writing a shortlist of names and deciding for hours for a name, I finally reached my choice - Roode Pelikaan. Dont ask me how I got this name, I'm not even sure of that myself. I want this magazine to not only have a real look to it, but a real feel as well. One way which I plan to do this, is by creating many contextual items such as album covers, single covers and social media accounts for the band. This post is to not only explain my plans, but to show you the first completed extra - The album cover. The album is called "Climbing just to fall". The name and layout of this album cover are simple yet effective. There is no need for a fancy, colourful album cover. The cover depicts a man standing on the edge of a huge mountain. This shows how tiny he is compared to sheer size of the mountain, which is a metaphorical representation of how new bands (Like Roode Pelikaan) have to face up to the biggest challenges as soon as they enter the world of mainstream music. Clever ey? I hope you enjoy looking at this album cover, maybe a few of you will even invest in it... There will be many more posts regarding extra content soon! Connor Evans

Analysing three different contents pages.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/170092483/Analysing-Three-Contents-Pages-in-Magazines

A song which has inspired a possible article.

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As you may already know, my coursework task is to create a music magazine. I have settled firm feelings on the genre of Indie and Alternative music. One of the most recent and widely respected Indie acts are the band "Bastille". This song, taken from their album "Other people's heartache" is a fine example of their talent. The song, named "No Angels" got it's name due to the fact that Bastille and Ella Eyre combined the songs "No Scrubs" by TLC and "Angles" by The XX together. The song itself is much better than the original "No Scrubs" due to it's stylish range of editing skills and raw singing talent from Dan Smith. This song has been ringing through my head recently and I knew that I had to incorporate it with my work somehow.

Connor Evans.

My survey - "Survey Monkey"

Before we start our real task on the coursework side of the subject, we have been asked to create a survey in order to get some rough ideas of what we want to do with our magazines. Here is the link to my survey,  please feel free to have a go at it!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/MySurvey_EditorFull.aspx?sm=BYKJw%2b50QAKuSBERmnXp2ewvWMYRbRKCVxcaLDaFd6Y%3d

I wanted to make this survey in order to gather some ideas of what people want from a music magazine and how they feel about them. It is vital that I receive positive and negative feedback so I know what to include more of and vice versa. As my target audience are genuinely young, the language and tone are relatively informal so they can relate to it further. In addition, the questions make them really think about their answers, which is good as I want them to give answers which are relative as well as helpful. I have asked questions which cover the main talking points of magazines. For example; "How do you think the internet has affected the readership of original magazines?" I addition to this, I have also asked questions that cover things such as freebies and posters etc. All of which are things that people of my target audience age would usually like to have within their music magazines.

Initial magazine ideas.

Hello, for my coursework this year, I have been asked to create a music magazine based on any genre I would like. It didn't take me long to chose my preferred genre of Indie. Personally, I am a huge fan of Indie and alternative music, having purchased the albums of artists such as Bastille, Two Door Cinema Club and Noah and the Whale. Here is a shortlist of my magazine's information, covering everything from the name, to the band featured and their background information. Names for the magazine. Indi-go. Indi-vidual. Indie culture. Alternative reading. Names for featured band. The Jacobeans Roode Pelikan. Treading water. Crisp and crackle. I have decided go with the name, The Jacobeans. Background information of the Jacobeans. Album released: Treading on the wrong slab. Songs in album: Alphabeti Spaghetti Treading on the wrong Slab Red Running Tinted window call. Sunshine Terrance and the crowd Pressure point. Suede Climbing to fall Pelican Hit the ground. Band members: James Coots - Singer, keyboard. Daniel Tyne - Guitar Harrison Spyde - Drums. Shaun Evans - Bass. Tony Latuane - Sunthesizer. Possible bands to feature: Bastille. Red hot chili peppers. Two door cinema club.

Evaluating magazine covers

http://www.scribd.com/doc/168658040/Media-Covers-Evaluation

Production Diary: Week 2 (Premlinary task)

Week two has seen the completion of my preliminary task and it is safe to say that it has turned out to be quite a success. Despite panicking about not having even finished my front cover at the start of the day, I managed to get a lot of work done in the double media lesson which I was able to work in this morning. It was no surprise to me that I had some difficulty, I am not the best with computers or detailed software (I'll leave that stuff to the clever people).But no matter how low on confidence I may be, I managed to pull through it and in good time too. As already mentioned, the whole theme of my preliminary task was to cover the topic of "Cold feet" - an issue which many A level students face. I feel that my magazine has metaphorically linked to the topic with the use of a well taken picture (If I do say so myself). As for the content on my magazine, well - i'll let you be the judge of that - however I did slip in a sly little remark which i'm sure Mr Fisher (Being a southampton supporter) will be happy to see. From the second I started designing this magazine, to the very last letter that was typed onto the page - I knew that I had done a decent enough job at this task. Even though it may not get marked by anybody, it has really given me the confidence to go on and do well in my real task, which is to produce a new music magazine. I may not be the most technically wired person, but I sure do work hard and even though this was a fairly average attempt at a magazine, it just goes to show that with hard work and determination, you can achieve a lot more than you think! Thank you, Connor Evans

Preliminary Task evaluation.

Media preliminary task evaluation. Task(s) – to create a front cover and contents page for a fictional school magazine. Front cover: I created my front cover by using Adobe In design. When creating this fictional front cover, I didn’t use too many tools other than “Rectangle” and text and colour changes. The boxes in which the text is written have many purposes. First of all, I have used them to give a more professional look to the magazine, despite the fact that this is a fairly average attempt at one. My second reason for using these boxes is to make the articles and texts stand out to the reader, with not only the use of contrasting colours, but big, vivid shapes that fill up the page. My full bleed image of a fallen signpost is used to metaphorically represent the loss of direction that some students feel when chosing their options. Contents Page: Just like my front cover, my contents page was also created using In design. My full bleed image of St Mary’s gym has no real link to any of the articles, but is still a recent event in the new year. I stuck to the same house style of blue and yellow colours which are not only contrasting colours, but are also the colours of the Haydon School badge. I have written the website along the bottom of the page as it is not particularly important to the magazine, but is a feature which lots of successful magazines have. I have used a main stories column to give a more professional look, as well as including a competition and an editor’s note!

My Preliminary Task.

Here is my front cover for my preliminary task of creating a fictional magazine. And here is my contents page for my preliminary task.

Production Diary: Week 1 (Premlinary task)

10.11.13

Work has truly begun on my magazine today. It's safe to say that it is nowhere near finished or even looking like a BAD magazine, but it's getting there. As you may have seen from my design sketches, my magazine is based on an issue which most A level students have to over come... "Cold feet". I have displayed this problem with the metaphorical use of a signpost that has been knocked over! 

When taking a few pictures last Tuesday, I instantly knew that the signpost would hold some significant value to my magazine, so I snapped it up straight away.

My drawings don't do the image any justice, so here is the actual picture itself:

The sign not only looks damaged, but also neglected. Though to be honest, since when has that sign ever been properly looked at since being put up?

Hope you enjoyed reading my joyfully entertaining blog. More to come next week, this is probably going to be an every Tuesday blog!

Connor Evans.

Preliminary task design 2

The contents page for my magazine. I did struggle a fair bit when thinking of ideas. I can assure you that the real thing will look a lot better, however I do have some form of page direction and competitions in there already.

Preliminary task designs.

Front cover design!  I have used an image of the fallen signpost to metaphorically represent the loss of direction and overload of confusion that A level students face when getting "cold feet" over subjects. Enjoy.