Straight 8, short film analysis

Stiffy:
I thought the short film was entertaining yet sinister. The soundtrack of a young girls voice as if like a nursery rhyme added a feel of happy times and love. Yet the story of the man falling in love with the ‘stiff’ was quite peculiar and not something that you see everyday.
The camera shots were quite interesting; as the creators, Jacqueline Wright and Alice Lowe, used a wide range of editing, such as zooming in and fading out. Plus the low lighting and soundtrack adds the strange feel of

Audience feedback

I showed my music magazine ‘Play.’ To my friends who are in the band on the image on the front cover. As the primary target audience I thought that their opinion would be valid. I asked them for positive and negative criticism. They really liked the front cover and they said ‘it looks really authentic of a real music magazine; I would definitely buy that…’ They liked the colour scheme and the sell lines and the overall genre and ideas I put into it. They did however say that the contents page didn’t quite fit to the same professional level of the front cover, which I agree on. I found it hard to develop the contents page and it certainly shows, but I am happy with the final result. As these are my friends and the main feature of the magazine they could be biased towards it.

I then showed it to the director of MOJO music magazine Mark Wagstaff, who came in to talk to us about all our music magazine and to inform us about his input to MOJO, this was a very useful insight. He said that he liked my colour scheme and coherency throughout my piece of the theme of indie and colours. He said it looked professional through the use of only three main colours in my colour scheme and the sell lines on my front cover. He then said that I thought about my target audience well, and that I have addressed it in my magazine. He then followed on to say that my feature needed more work on the interview questions to give the reader exactly what they want to hear from the band. But I used lots more aspects in my writing that would want the reader to read on and he said my flow of writing was very professional. He encouraged I put more depth (shadowing and blocking) to my font to make it stand out and change my contents page to correspond with my front cover (that is when I began my new contents page, which he looked at at the end of the lesson).

I was pleased with his input and the constructive criticism helps me to develop my ideas and makes me think more about what my audience want and how I can cater to everyone.

Evaluation

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

My media product challenges forms and conventions of real media products as it is very busy compared to most music magazines. Looking at the front cover the reader would presume that it is a magazine only directed at a certain age group, but no, this magazine could be read fondly by a range of age group, that all share the love for this genre of music. My magazine challenges media product by giving lots of information, giving most things away, but yet keep the reader in suspense. Most magazines give only one liner as sell lines to intrigue the audience. I developed my magazine by using Photoshop which is commonly used in the magazine making industry at the moment; I used this and go used to it as a tool to create my magazine.

My magazine also holds ideas of real media institutions. On the front cover, I have used a bright, eye catching image of four rather good looking musicians to sell my magazine. In the industry they would do this a lot to entice the reader; to buy and read and then buy again. The use of sell lines, barcodes and layout also make it look as authentic as possible. The use of my colour scheme throughout my magazine shows coherency and follows the conventions of a magazine. The use of the CD available with every copy, follows these forms and conventions too as many music magazines these days do this to attract the reader and wider target audience. It also makes the magazine look more professional.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents a particular social group of 14-30 yea. The image on the front with the band of a certain genre and social class represent the magazine, what is in it and the coherency of it? The genre of this kind of music is commonly liked among the youth of this generation and especially in London, Camden where youth have grown up with this kind of genre of music and are accessible to gigs all around them in the Camden area or around London. A magazine that attracts such a wide age range is hard to do, but will work with the genre of music around today.

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

My music magazine would be distributed around London, in newsagents and shops, also bookshops and music shops to attract the full audience. IPC media is one of the United Kingdoms leading consumer magazine and digital publishers. It was created in 1963 as International Publishing Company. They publish over 80 different magazines that are of various genres at attract all audiences. They publish NME music magazine which is the most similar to my music magazine; therefore making them a possibility for publishing my music magazine. As they specialise in different genres of music this would also be ideal as my magazine covers two main genres. It is alsoconvenient as it is based in the United Kingdom therefore easily assessable.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for my music magazine would be aimed at teenagers or young adults who are into the more indie/rock and roll style music of today’s generation. This magazine can be directed at both boys and girls, but primarily attack a more masculine feel to it. The boys, in the band, on the front of my magazine would attract males who think about being musicians and also girls who would be attracted to them and their look. The reader profile I aimed for was a boy aged 16, like indie music like ‘The Libertines’ and ‘The Maccabees’ who would appreciate band members being able to play their instruments well. They would also be a frequent gig goer, who enjoys music and studies bands and up and coming bands.

I have made my magazine quite cheap for what it is, so that the audience at this age will be able to buy it. I also included the CD, which attracts this age group as this generation listen t CDs and put them on their “Ipods” now to listen to the music all the time. The attraction through my unique selling point of the band on the front cover is important as they attract different sex as well. The colour scheme would also attract different people from different genres.

With inspiration from other music magazines such as MOJO and NME, I have developed a piece that will attract this primary audience in all areas of it. The questionnaire that I took around students my age at school also helped identify what age group is buying or listening to what?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

There were many techniques that I used to try and attract and address my audience: I used bright colours to attract the audience for if the magazine was on the stalls, their eyes would wonder over all the magazines and be attracted by this one. I also used large bold writing of everything on my front cover to attract the audience. I used a catchy, short title of my magazine, ‘Play.’ to make it simple and easy to remember from the audience. The use of the band members on the front also helped, as it displayed a well took photograph of bright colours to attract the audience, and the band may either be well known or might entice someone to read more about them. The band is also roughly the same age as my target audience so that the reader could relate to them and show that anyone at any age could achieve their dreams.

The sell lines on my magazine would attract my audience as they promise bands of the same genre, gig line ups which would be useful to audience who listen and enjoy going to gigs. They would also be attracted by the free CD given away with each issue, so they can have their own opinions, and the latest gossip around.

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

I used a digital camera to develop my image of the band and all the images used inside, I put them through a memory stick straight onto the computer to edit and correspond with my colour scheme and layout. To edit them I used Adobe Photoshop, I find this very hard to do as I have not had much knowledge of it, but with some practise while making my magazine, I have got the hang of the simple ways of editing to still make it an effective piece that would look professional to the target audience.

Using ‘stroke’ on Photoshop, I was able to develop fonts and shadowing, dimension and colour, this gave my piece much more depth and made it look like a real magazine as it looked very professional. I also learnt to ‘duplicate’ items and images so that I didn’t have too do it all over again and that I could use the same font and structure of the title more than once. This was done using ‘layers’ in Photoshop. Using the skills I had learnt from making the front cover of my first magazine, I was able to make my own barcode according to the magazine and generally just develop and become better at using Photoshop to create my magazine, front cover, contents and feature. Sometimes I found it harder to do something, but I was determined to do it alone, so without asking anyone I would use the training videos that they have for Photoshop on ‘Youtube’ this helped a lot to control my ability on Photoshop.

This is the final draft of my feature, below I have the front cover to my feature, the rock and roll theme with the boys sitting up above showing power in their music with a range of outfits to correspond with their personalities. I then created a large font of what I wrote on the front cover introducing the band. Then changed the font and created an effect around it on photoshop to make them and the band look more rebellious. I used quotes from the text and enlarged them to create an effect that if someone was skimming through the magazine, they would hesitate and read these quotes and therefore would want to read the magazine. I put the interview into columns of 3 per page, but that changed a bit once I placed it onto the A3 page and included the single images of some of the band members. This fits to my colour scheme of red, yellow and black. This corresponds to my front cover and contents page.

This is a scanned in version of my sketch of my feature. It s a clear layout and fun to look at. I liked the use of the halo to represent one of their songs, then the ice around 'Audiovisuals' to give a feel of their music. It also made their name stand out from the rest of the feature. I used a quote from one of their songs and gig photos. This would be on a double page spread, and could possibly go over more. Putting this into real life, developing it on photoshop it was harder than I thought it would be. I couldn't use any images I hadn't taken myself so that would involve having to draw the extra images myself on the computer which would look as professional and make it look immature. I then had to write the feature, which I knew was going to be a interview. I made it into a 3 column spread, that (including picutres) reached over 3 A4 pages.

Here are some examples of my planning design for the contents page and the front cover. The rough sketches based on the photographs I had already taken of the band, give me a clear view of what I would like my magazine to look like.

For my front cover; I used the potential to have just one of the band (the lead singer/guitarist) but I thought that as a band they would want to stay as one, so having a whole image of all of them would be best.
After deciding the image, I sketched a few ways I could place the title, the sale lines and bar-code. I positioned these all around the image to create a focus point to the boys either playing their instruments or standing together. At this point I also hadn't decided on a colour scheme or the actual sale lines so it was hard to imagine it. I also did not want there to be just a plan background and I had to prevent it from looking too child like.

The other image is a scanned in sketch of what I thought my contents page would look like. This was harder to visage as it would have more writing and the layout was more complicated. I immediately didn't like this, it looked too simple. The spacing of the layout was too ridged and I wanted it to fit to our genre of indie/rock and roll which would look better more relaxed and loose layout. I also included too many regulars and features, I could keep them to a minimum and keep the audience guessing what is inside. There is also no much space for more images, which would create a rather boring and dull contents page.

This is my questionnaire to have a look at what is my target audience. The questions I asked were about my magazine genre and of other ones, how to attract as much audience as possible to make my magazine successful.

I wrote this questionnaire at the beginning of my project to get a clear idea of what is my target audience and what can I do on my front cover and title page to attract this audience.

Deconstruction of Contents page

What is interesting about NME is that they don’t have your standard contents page. It consists of a picture ‘snapshot’ and a couple paragraphs about this picture. Then a list down the left hand side of the page that is ‘what’s inside’ this consists of band/artists names in alphabetical order with page numbers by it.

An actual contents page I found had a picture, the same list down the left had side, but this time called ‘band index’ and on the right side a list of page numbers with the headings; ‘News, Radar, Reviews, Live!’ and ‘Features’. This seems quite boring compared to the front cover. The font and colours stick with the front cover style but seem blander with whiter page used. This unites the magazine and not mixes it up or confuses the reader with bright unnecessary colours. It isn’t too much, it is simple and effective.

contents page

These are two versions of the contents page of my magazine. The smaller picture was the first contents page I constructed, it uses the same font and colour scheme of the front page and shows the simple layout. I decided against this as my final contents page because I thought it looked juvenile and too simple for my magazine and did not correspond with the front cover well. The collage of pictures did show the range of my photography during the session but the scatter of them wasn't what I was trying to interpret. I also didn't think about the colours of the artists outfits they clashed with my colour scheme so I had to change it.
After analysing that contents page, I decided to start over fresh and begin a new and more sophisticated contents page that corresponded with my front cover and the later pages of the feature. I used a large A4 picture of the lead singer with his guitar and put it in black and white to control the intense clashing of his red shirt and guitar. This picture adds feeling of the bands genre of 'Indie'. The averted eyes of the singer shows the modest and intense sytle of their music. I used the same list of regulars and features as I had constructed before. Then I changed the colours of it to correspond with the background of the picture. Using the same fonts I arranged the writing around the centre attention of the picture and also placed the 'Play. Contents' on two lines to give more space to the surrounding areas.

Front cover

This is my front cover of my magazine. I used the colour scheme of yellow, red, black and white. This colour scheme is a recurring one in my magazine through contents page and feature which puts the magazine in sequence. I used large red writing with a black outline to stand out on my yellow block background, so that this is eye catching to the readers on the magazine stands. I used the same font through the front cover and the whole magazine to show consistency.
The sale lines are in white to make them stand out on the background of the picture. I staggered them around the A4 page to space them out and not to block the faces of the band.
The picture I used is of the whole band outside their recording studio in Camden on Hawley Road below a bridge. This adds cultural reference to the north London boys and the audience that they hope to attract. Their average day clothes show their personalities. The added accessories such as sunglasses and the head phones to show individuality. The use of another box next to the title shows another band in the same genre of the band I am looking at. I used the same font but in a double line way with a change in the colours to give a bold and eye catching title to the band. I also used a circle coloured in in yellow to make it stand out and outline the important thing in the magazine. This technique is almost like a sticker which adds a more believable feel to a real magazine.
Also to attract my reader I have stated that there is a free CD inside of the bands first 7 songs in a demo form. This would make the audience want to buy the magazine to have a chance to listen to this new up and coming band that is AudioVisuals.
To make is more realistic magazine cover I also used a date, issue number, price and bar code.

Analysis of Music Magazine's front covers

NME uses their typical colours of red, black, yellow and white. This selection of colours works well together to connote the indie/rocky style of the magazine. This front cover of 11^th April 2009 has a picture of ‘The Horrors’ on it. The five band members are in a triangle shape, with the lead singer at the front and the other behind. This shows the band as a group but represents the hierarchy. The band are also dressed all in black, this connotes their type of music, which is slightly dark themed. Their hair also shows this as it I long and distressed, the look altogether shows they fit to the genre of the magazine.

The front of the magazine is in blocked capitals for all of it, and the font does not change anywhere on it. This shows the consistency of it and the importance of its contents. There are other pictures on the front of ‘Arctics’ and ‘Kasabian’ to show other important bands within. This shows the large range of genres within. The splatters of paint look around the title of ‘The Horrors’ adds an arty overview to the magazine and the art that the band create. T also adds more colour to their black outfits. The use of the explosion represents ‘the psychedelic return’ in a modern indie way which is clever to attract the reader.

The audience that would be attracted by this music magazine front cover is a large age range as the way they are dressed is not narrowing but the hair is modern to teenage boys. The magazine as a whole would attract more teenagers, both girls and boys.

Initial Ideas for Music Magazine

Front cover ideas...

• Genre of music - indie, rock, pop, country, classical, jazz, disco, dubstep, r 'n' b... etc
• Colour scheme - Red, white, yellow and black
• Image - band/artist, 'Hella Better Dancer', 'Audiovisuals' or 'Tamara'
• Font - bold, straight, big text, same font throughout (consistency)

Contents page ideas...

• same band, font, colour scheme of front cover to show consistency!

Deconstruction of A School Magazine

This school magazine has a large picture of a school boy in uniform which connotes a private good school, as he uses a microscope, which shows the type of school it is and the courses that would interest people. The title 'Parent and School' is in big bold red letters, the 'Parent' is in a slight italic writing that looks more like handwriting to show their input. The 'School' is straight but in the same colour, to connect the two, but set the rules for the ethos of the school.

Along with the microscope and the lab coat, of the woman in the background, the words 'The Science on Energy Smart Schools' shows the type of school it is. This type is in Times New Roman which is a common type and it is green, this connotes the "green" message it is putting across.

The magazine front cover also shows some of what is 'also inside' this makes the reader want to look more into it, if they are interested by the front cover. This is good as if makes the reader more interested to read the magazine.

The magazine cover also has a little logo at the bottom left hand side of the page. This fits with the colour scheme that it holds of green, white and red. this signifies the unity of the school and how professional it is. The black strip at the bottom of the page makes the information easier to read as it is on a block background.