Contents Page Conventions Analysis

Images from front cover photoshoot

These are a selection of the final images that I took for the front cover of my music magazine. I set up a key light to left of the model and used only this light to leave one side of the mask in light, and the rest in shadow. I felt that this enhanced the mysterious look of the model wearing a mask, enticing the audience to find out more. I did this because my artist on the front cover believes that popular music is becoming too much about what the artist looks like and not what they sound like, and that audiences are too used to being able to judge whether they will like an artist simply by how they look. My artist wants to break these barriers by wearing a mask, so that to the audience, it could be anyone under the mask.

Mock Up (using found images)

This is a quick mock-up I did using found images to show the ideal colour scheme and to look into the logistics of actually creating the front cover. I encountered problems because the main image on the front cover is a close up, therefore I needed to make it bigger to fit it onto the page. I will use a medium-close up instead as this is more conventional to magazine front covers and also will mean that I will have more room to include other content like headline stories.

I took the inspiration for my colour scheme from the NME front cover I used on my mood board, showing a black and white image with other content in red on the front cover therefore they stand out and will catch the readers eye on the shelf.

I also took inspiration from the NME front cover by having the information about a competition in the magazine inside a coloured bubble, in my actual front cover I will make this smaller as I feel it is a little too dominant on this mock-up front cover.

Practice Shots

These images are before I adjusted the lighting in the room, they show the contrast and effect of the lighting.



Location/Mise-en-scene

The location and mise-en-scene that I use for front cover will need to be iconographic of the genre of music that my magazine represents. With my magazine falling under the ‘alternative’ genre, the location and mise-en-scene needs to also be unique compared to other genres. For inspiration, I tried looking at album artwork of a few of my favourite artists within this genre. While doing this, I found that I enjoyed the majority of album artwork for a band called ‘tame impala’ and that they were all in a similar style. I researched further into their album artwork and found that they were done by an artist called ‘Leif Podhajsky’. I found that he is an artist that has created album artwork for the majority of ‘tame impala’s music and for a lot of other artists that I have listened to in the past. Instead of having a clear location in the background of the model, I could edit the image in a 'Leif Podhajsky' style manor so that it becomes unclear, therefore showing my magazine's alternative style. The actual logistics of this idea may be a problem however, as 'Leif Podhajsky's' work is actually at a professional standard and may prove extremely challenging to make my image look anything close. Furthermore, if the background of my image is too extreme and confusing to the eye, it may become hard to read the text placed over it. Here is a link to his page, showing his recent work. To see all recent work follow this link, a splash page will appear showing his most recent work, simply click anywhere on the page and his portfolio will appear. http://www.leifpodhajsky.com/

Mood Board & Editing Ideas

Costume Ideas - Mask

MF DOOM, an artist famous for wearing a mask reveals why he wears his mask in an interview. He believes that music should not be about what you look like and that the coroporate idea of trying to make what the artist looks like appeal to an audience to make it sell is wrong. He believes that music should be about how it sounds and the artists 'straight skills' as he puts it. What he liked about the idea of a mask was that it could be anyone behind the mask, no matter what gender, 'race' etcetera, which I find inspiring and therefore my idea of my model wearing a mask has been confirmed. Furthermore, in my article for my double page spread, I could have my artist talking about why they are wearing the mask and say similar things to MF DOOM.

Costume Ideas - Inspiration

One idea that I have found simply while watching a music video, was one of artists wearing masks, particularly of animals. This is an idea that I haven't seen used often, making the artist stand out from the rest. Here is a link to the music video that I found this idea in, 'About You' by 'XXYYXX'

Costume Ideas

As

alternative music artists are usually trying to break some kind of boundary, which is what makes them fall under this genre, their costumes/style of dress usually reflects this also. A good example of this is when ‘Tyler, the creator’ appeared on the front cover of NME magazine during the time of the royal wedding. On this front cover he is shown wearing two crowns, one around his neck and another slanted on the side of his head. This is clearly an unconventional way of wearing a crown and this connoted his carefree attitude towards the royal wedding, going against the social norms of the majority at this time. A pull quote from the artist says “I don’t give a sh*t about a royal wedding”, I will use a controversial pull quote from my model on the front cover as I feel it is effective in catching the readers attention and enticing the reader to find out more. Therefore as my magazine would fall under the ‘alternative’ genre, my model on the front cover will need to break some sort of social norm, i.e. do something that isn’t conventional for a model to do on a front cover while sticking to conventions of a music magazine to make it look professional.

Reader Profiles

NME Reader Profile

Readers of NME are predominately male. This means that the majority of content will not be based around subjects stereotypically aimed at women like what would be in a women’s magazine for example ‘Cosmopolitan’ or ‘Grazia’. Instead, content will be more strongly aimed at men with most reviews written by males and with NME’s first female editor only starting in 2009.

The median age of readers in the magazine is 23, which makes a large percentage of reader’s students at 42%. This can relate to my music magazine as my magazine is within a similar genre of music and also has a similar target audience. With my audience being predominantly of the younger generation, most will still be in full time education and therefore will not have too much disposable income.

Readers of a music magazine at this age will be considering going to the year’s music festivals therefore adverts and promotions for these are effective in NME.  Furthermore including these festivals and big names means that it will be in the consumer’s interests to find out more about the festivals and therefore makes the audience of the music festivals, the customers for NME.

I could also incorporate this idea into my magazine as I could also include information or even competitions with respect to the music festivals in the country, possibly widening my target audience.

MOJO READER PROFILE

MOJO is seen as a High quality magazine, with expert opinions on both new music and all-time classics. The highest percentage of readers comes from the age 35-44 range, meaning that the majority of readers will be earning a steady income, years into their career and therefore a higher wage than the younger generation and will have more disposable income. Therefore, MOJO’s audience can afford to pay extra for a higher quality magazine.  MOJO has achieved this status with a 20 year heritage.

Content is also aimed at this age range, as the magazine contains the latest news on older, classic bands that the majority of are retired. This is because these bands will have been most popular around the time that these readers in this age range were young.

Source(s):
-NME Reader Profile
- www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/31/nme-first-female-editor
-http://magazines.bauermediaadvertising.com/magazines/detail/mojo

Front Cover - LIIAR ANALYSIS

Double Page Spread - LIIAR ANALYSIS

Contents Page - LIIAR ANALYSIS

 

 

 

 

Focus Group

Questions Asked:
1) How many of you actually buy music magazines and does anyone have a subscription to one?
2) If not, it this because it is too expensive to pay weekly for a magazine?
3) If you were to buy a music magazine, what genre would it be?
4) Would you be more likely to buy a magazine if it had free gifts included?
5) Would you be more likely to buy a magazine if it mean you had the chance to be entered into a competition/ you had a chance of winning something?
6) How much would you be willing to pay for a weekly magazine?
7) How often would you buy a magazine - weekly/monthly?
8) What sort of content would you expect from a music magazine? For example gig, artist reviews etcetera...
9) Would you be more likely to buy a magazine if it included one of your favourite artists?
10) Would you prefer the information you could get from a music magazine in a different format e.g. Apps, twitter, a web page...

Demographics

Demographics is defined as the statistical information of a population mostly with regard to income, age and education etcetera. Media producers will tailor their products to appeal to certain groups of people through research into the demographics of their audience. For example, MOJO music magazine is a little more expensive than other music magazines because it is of a lot higher quality, both physically (through the actual materials it is made of) and through quality of the articles as they are written by high standard writers. MOJO music magazine can afford to charge this higher price as the majority of their audience are much older, towards 40 years old. This means that the majority of their audience will be well established, with secure jobs, years into their career and will therefore have much higher amounts of disposable income compared to that of a younger audience that are still in full - time education or at the very start of their career. For this reason, as my target audience are of the younger generation and towards the bottom end of the grading table, I will price my magazine at a cheaper rate and sell issues weekly. Similar existing products such as NME sell magazine's weekly at a cheaper price while they appeal to a similar target audience as mine.

It is important to understand the demographics of your audience because it is much easier to reach your target audience if you understand their characteristics, what they have in common, and what motivates them to buy/consume media products. You can tailor your marketing efforts/products so that they cater for the specific needs and challenges of your target audience. This make it possible to appeal to niche markets like for example younger people, towards the bottom of the socio-economic scale interested in the alternative music genre.

Uses & Gratifications theory

This theory focuses on why audience actually use media rather than the actual content of what they are using. It is more concerned with what people do with media, not the content of the media they actually use. For example, a large part of the audience for soaps will watch them as it gives them gratification watching other people stereotypically just like them in high drama storylines. Another god example is that cinema and the film industry has become so popular over the years as it gives the audience the gratification of escapism, allowing them to escape from reality for a few hours and live in the world of the film they are watching.

This theory first appeared most prominently in the 1970s within studies of social sciences. Blulmer and Katz, two famous theorists from the 1970s, stated 4 main reasons as to why audiences will want to consume certain texts. Gratifications can be obtained from a medium's content (e.g. watching a specific programme), from familiarity with a genre within the medium (e.g. watching soap operas), from general exposure to the medium (e.g. watching TV), and from the social context in which it is used (e.g. watching TV with the family). Uses and gratification theorists argue that people's needs influence how they use and respond to a medium. They argue that the audiences needs have roots within psychology and sociology, leading to differential patterns of media exposure which results in audiences finding gratification through media. This does assume an active audience making motivated choices.

 

Source(s): http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/usegrat.html