Critical Evaluation
How the media product uses, develops and challenges conventions
The media product I created uses and developed on conventions used by real media products. My media product also challenges forms of conventions of real media products.
The magazine pages uses and develops conventions of real media products because of the layout of the pages and the features used on them. On the front cover of the magazine for example, I stayed true to magazine conventions and featured a masthead which was unique to the magazine this was also designed to represent the product’s target audience. I also featured other conventions such as cover lines and main cover lines. The layout of the magazine is a key feature of the product which I kept true to conventions by designing the magazine pages using informal balance I developed this further by incorporating he principle of thirds into the layout by making use of the left third on the front cover and on he content page though on all of the pages I made use of the Gutenberg diagram to attract the audiences attention to certain part of the pages. When taking my images I also used the principle of thirds to establish eye contact when the image has people in it or to establish balance when I captured the image of an object. This is also staying true to conventions of real media products.
I challenged conventions of real media products by how I showed young people in my images which suggests that classic rock is not just music by ageing rockers. Challenging conventions in this way helps the product appeal to my target audience of teenagers.
How my media product represents particular social groups
The social group my media product represents are teenagers around the age of 15 – 18 years of age who like the genre of classic rock
The media product represents this social group by through a number of factors. These factors are how the magazine pages are designed. Through their layout the pages reaches its intended social group by getting its message across thought the Gutenberg diagram, informal balance and through the principle off thirds. Another of these factors is the house style of the magazine. When I carried out my audience research I found out that my audience wanted the colours red, blue and black to be the colours of the house style. So through the colours which were directly chosen by the audience it goes away to represent the social group through the media product. To represent the social group even more I designed several mastheads all of them different wit the house style colours and asked my target audience in a questionnaire which masthead represents them best so again the masthead represents the social group directly. Also another factor which the media product represents the social group is the way in which the photographs were taken for the magazine. On the photo shoot I made sure I included the principle of thirds to establish eye contact with the readers, this allows a connection between the audience and the band member in the picture allowing the reader to relate to the magazine. So this shows that through the principal of thirds the magazine is able to directly reach and represent the social group.
How the media product uses, develops and challenges conventions
The media product I created uses and developed on conventions used by real media products. My media product also challenges forms of conventions of real media products.
The magazine pages uses and develops conventions of real media products because of the layout of the pages and the features used on them. On the front cover of the magazine for example, I stayed true to magazine conventions and featured a masthead which was unique to the magazine this was also designed to represent the product’s target audience. I also featured other conventions such as cover lines and main cover lines. The layout of the magazine is a key feature of the product which I kept true to conventions by designing the magazine pages using informal balance I developed this further by incorporating he principle of thirds into the layout by making use of the left third on the front cover and on he content page though on all of the pages I made use of the Gutenberg diagram to attract the audiences attention to certain part of the pages. When taking my images I also used the principle of thirds to establish eye contact when the image has people in it or to establish balance when I captured the image of an object. This is also staying true to conventions of real media products.
I challenged conventions of real media products by how I showed young people in my images which suggests that classic rock is not just music by ageing rockers. Challenging conventions in this way helps the product appeal to my target audience of teenagers.
How my media product represents particular social groups
The social group my media product represents are teenagers around the age of 15 – 18 years of age who like the genre of classic rock
The media product represents this social group by through a number of factors. These factors are how the magazine pages are designed. Through their layout the pages reaches its intended social group by getting its message across thought the Gutenberg diagram, informal balance and through the principle off thirds. Another of these factors is the house style of the magazine. When I carried out my audience research I found out that my audience wanted the colours red, blue and black to be the colours of the house style. So through the colours which were directly chosen by the audience it goes away to represent the social group through the media product. To represent the social group even more I designed several mastheads all of them different wit the house style colours and asked my target audience in a questionnaire which masthead represents them best so again the masthead represents the social group directly. Also another factor which the media product represents the social group is the way in which the photographs were taken for the magazine. On the photo shoot I made sure I included the principle of thirds to establish eye contact with the readers, this allows a connection between the audience and the band member in the picture allowing the reader to relate to the magazine. So this shows that through the principal of thirds the magazine is able to directly reach and represent the social group.
What Kind of Media Institution might distribute my magazine?
My media product might be distributed by media institutions such as future .plc or Bauer media group who publish other leading rock magazines which are well known through out the industry.
The media producer Future .plc is a British based media producer and publishing company which was established in 1985 in Bath, England and produces a leading classic rock magazine named classic rock magazine. This company publishes other magazines none of which are music magazines so this company could distribute my magazine. Even though the company already distributes a classic rock magazine, it may still produce my media product because my media product is aimed at a younger demographic and their current classic rock magazine is specifically aimed at an older demographic.
The German Company called Bauer Media group may also be a company which might distribute my media product as it already distributes two popular rock magazines called Kerrang! and Q Magazine. This media producer could distribute my media product because Kerrang! Magazine is a general more main stream rock magazine aimed at teenagers where as Q Magazine is also a mainstream rock magazine is aimed at an older target demographic. This means the company could distribute my media product as it would not directly compete with their other rock magazines as they are both main stream rock magazines and my media product is niche to the genre of classic rock.
In conclusion a well known media institution such as the ones featured in this section would distribute my media product because they already distribute rock music magazines but are either mainstream or aimed at a different demographic to that of my media product.
Who would the audience for my media product be?
When I designed my media product it was designed with a niche target audience in mind and carried out research to find out what was the best way to target my intended demographic.
The media product is a classic rock magazine with conventional and unconventional features to appeal to my target demographic.
The house style proposal written after the research section of the project was completed which specified that the audience for my media product will be teenagers around the age of 16 to 18 years of age, who like the niche music genre of classic rock.
How I attracted and addressed my target audience
I attracted my intended target audience to my media product by carrying out research about my audience through a series of questionnaire. I also used a number off other conventional methods to attract my intended target audience to my media product.
From carrying out these questionnaires I found out useful information such as which age group to target, and which house style colours would suite the magazine best. I also found out other useful information such as what genre of music to target and what type of layout appealed to my target audience. Through another questionnaire I found what style of masthead (using house style colours) suited a magazine of this genre best. So through the questionnaires and asking my intended audience what they want to see on my media product through questionnaires it goes a long way to attract my intended target demographic to my media product.
I also used other conventional methods such as the band I chose for the feature article and the way I did the photo shoot to make the audience feel and look better when they see the photos of the band members they aspire to
be like. The band I chose to do the feature article on is a quite young classic rock band which the young audience of this magazine can relate to and will aspire to be like. When organised the photo shoot I took the photos in a certain way so that the audience feel that they are on the same level as the band members and I achieved this through eye contact using the rule of thirds and also positioned the band members to stand in natural positions so that the audience can relate with this band further and make the audience look better as they can relate with the band through the pictures of them through out the magazine. So it is through these conventional elements which I found in the research section of my product attract the intended target audience to my media product.
Having attracted my target audience I addressed them through the way in which the magazine was written and also through layout. I wrote the article for the magazine using informal language but at the same time I also kept the magazine organised and structured. I also addressed my audience through the layout of the magazine. I did this by using informal balance to make the magazine have a natural and relaxed look about it. By doing these two things I was able to address my audience in the correct manner.
What I have learnt about technologies from the construction process
Through the construction process of the project I have leant how to use the technologies such as Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Publisher to create my media product. Have also learnt how use a digital camera better through processes such as the principle of thirds and I have also leant how to create a Blog to document my progress not just through the construction phase but through the rest of the project.
I used the computer design software Adobe Photoshop to construct the front cover of my media product, to edit the photos I took on the photo shoot and to design mastheads for my media product. When designing the front cover of my magazine I learnt how to use layers when building up the page. Using layers made the page a lot easier to layout in the way which I specified in my research section of the project. I also used Adobe Photoshop to edit the photos taken on the photo shoot. To do this I used tools such as the magic wand tool, the eraser and magic eraser to get rid of the background on the images and make them have a transparent background this came in useful when applying the images throughout the magazine pages. I also edited out red eye that appeared on the some of the images by using the red eye tool this gave the image better quality for use on the media product. I have also used Adobe Photoshop to design masthead ideas for the magazine front cover using the text tool along with using different effects such as emboss etc… and layers to create unique mast heads which the magazine can be easily recognised by any one who views my media product.
For the other two pages of the magazine (the double page spread and the contents page) I used the desktop publishing program Microsoft Publisher when creating the double page spread I leant how to create columns on I also learnt how to use the transparency tool on the picture tool bar this was useful so that the background of the edited pictures remained transparent while from when they were copied from Photoshop to Publisher. Though there is no layers function on Publisher I learnt you can set each object in an order this was useful when constructing the contents page as an image had to be ordered with a square border and word art page number I used the bordering function to lay this out appropriately.
When collecting the images for the media product I learnt how to get more out of a digital camera by using the principle of thirds to establish eye contact ad to make the image look natural. This was useful for getting good quality images for the magazine pages.
I learnt how to create a blog during the construction phase of the project. I used the blog as an e-portfolio and to document my work. To create the blog I went to www.blogger.com and created a blog I then learnt how to create each post and how to upload images onto the blog. This was useful as I an the examiner can view my project remotely from any where.
Overall the technologies I have used have helped me a lot during the construction of my media project and have helped me get a better quality project than if I had not learnt how to use these technologies appropriately.
What I have learnt in the project from the Preliminary (Ancillary) task to the full product
Looking back at the ancillary task I have come a long way, through the way I would design the magazine through to how I would edit the images captured on the photo shoot. I have also progressed in my ability to use Photoshop and Publisher to maximum effect.
After looking at my ancillary project then looking at my finished project you can clearly see that my knowledge of Adobe Photoshop has progressed and so has the standard of my work. An example of this is on the ancillary project the editing of the image around edge is quite rough due to the fact that it was not taken on a single colour background and I used mainly the eraser tool and the magic wand tool where I could. How ever on the final product the image was taken on a single colour back ground so the magic wand and quick select tools were employed to great effect with minimal use of the eraser to clear the unwanted background off the image leaving just the subject in the image. This shows that it is not only my Photoshop skills that have progressed but also more thought has gone into where to take the pictures when on my photo shoot which is another progression I have made from my ancillary task.
I have also made a great improvement in the way I used Microsoft Publisher to create my contents page and double page spread. From my ancillary task only Adobe Photoshop was used to make the magazine pages so to make the pages look more professional in my final product I used Publisher to create my contents page as you can make the layout of your page look a lot better than you can on Photoshop. My knowledge of useful tools available on Publisher also increased, such as the transparency tool and also the ordering tool.
Overall looking back at my preliminary task I feel that I have leant a lot and progressed massively with my Photoshop skills in particular when comparing my ancillary task to the final media product. I think that if I had not done the ancillary task then my media product would have been of much less quality than the final product turned out to be.
The Finished Product
The Front Cover
The Contents Page
The Double Page Spread
