Peer assessment of my magazine

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My Magazine

My pictures for my magazine

These are the selection of pictures that i have for my main cover artist. Out of these i will pick the most appropriate for my magazine to make sure its as good as it can be. First of all with any of the pictures that use i will manipulate them in Photoshop first then bring it into in design when i'm finished. 

Organisation of costume and props

I knew straight away that my character was going to be a late teen, male and indie. This meant to me that I cannot have him wearing something very branded that you would see rappers or hip hop artists wear. So I felt that it was best to put him in a grey woollie jumper and dark jeans. This is because I have seen artists such as ed sheeran and jack Johnson wear the same type of clothing. Also of course I felt that the guitar was very necessary in bring his music and personality to life in the picture. So this is items that I have focused on for my pictures. 

Organisation of location

I had lots of ideas for this at first such as the beach and get a view of the sea with my star in the middle or maybe even the city centre to get a view of the public life. But in te end I really wanted like a plain background so I could have a simple setting as if my character is in a blank room with just his guitar. The best place in the end for that was in my house. So I have decided to shoot my pictures in front if a blank white wall so it is easier to edit on Photoshop and produce a good standard picture. 

Organisation of actor

For my magazine I decided that I wanted a teen male who was about 6 foot and mature. I decided that my friend Scott was the best person for the job as he fitted in to the list I wanted. Also I wanted a simple but effected name for my character as well so people will be able to remember it and for it to be Iconic. This is why I went for Jake Green. the well know star Jake Bugg is very similar to my character as well so I feel that it fits in well with my genre.

Mock up Front Cover

This is my very first draft of the mock up for my front cover of my music magazine. I have decided very carefully where everything goes and so everything has a reason and a point of being on my front cover, whether that being the pull quote by my headline artist or the cover lines that draw you in. My cover is inspired by issues of NME, as i have looked at a few different magazines to make this overall front cover.
First of all i have decided to make my masthead big and bold across the top of the page.

Font Ideas

 The 2 fonts above are the ones I feel would be the best font choices for my Masthead for my chosen magazine name 'Upcoming'. They are named 'Brain Flower' and 'Geo Sans Light'

 Jake Green will be my main cover line of my Magazine front page as he is the main artist that will feature in my magazine. The above pictures show the possible fonts I may use for this cover line.  They are called 'High Thin Light' and 'Kakawate'.

The text that I will use throughout my whole mag as my house style text will be this one I have chosen named 'Linuz Libertine'

Mag name

At first I was thinking on naming my Magazine 'Acoustic' but after researching it I realized that acoustic was already a music magazine in the media. So I have been trying to think of a name which still has the same feel as 'acoustic' did. Then I started to think I wanted to name the magazine to show a feel of artists starting from low down in the music industry, but working them selves up. After a lot of thought I felt the name
'Upcoming'
would be the most appropriate, as it indicates that the artists included will be more underground and wont be in the mainstream eye, but they will be working their way up towards it. An example would be Ed Sheeran as he did hundreds of lower end gigs in bars and pubs before making it as an international artists, the performers included in my magazine will be characters just like Ed, before he hit the big Record labels.

Mindmap

This is a picture of the Mindmap that i created that all things to do with my chosen genre, Indie Pop. I have included elements such as fashion, artists, colour and more. This will help me as i try and create a front cover page for my magazine.

Moral Panic

Moral Panic. 'A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges as a threat to societal values and interests: its nature is presented in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media: The moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnosis and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to.'

Features of Moral Panic

Concern - Behaviour of a particular group represented as having threat.

Votality -  Short-lived. Panics erupt dramatically but are difficult to sustain. Results in negative consequences for the rest of us.

Hositility - 'Folk Devils' constructed to create a clear division between 'them' and 'us'.

Consequences - Widespread acceptance of the threat posed by this group. Not necessarily reflecting national concern, but the campaigner will be very vocal whilst the opposition will be weak and disorganised.

Disproportionality - Wild exaggeration of evidence. Not only the number of people involved but also the scale of the problem.

Magazine ideas

Acoustic
Acoustics
Underground
Upcoming
Unleashed
Individual
Revealed

Indesign

 InDesign allows for ease when creating layouts, magazines or other media.  It allows the user to easily and professionally create pages, covers and double page spreads for the media of their choice.  Above is my design for a contents page.  InDesign allowed me to add grids, collumns and boxes so that I could position text and images in alignment and where is thought they would look the most professional.

Target Audience / genre choice

I have chosen to go for the Indie-pop genre as it is the type of music i enjoy listening to and i feel that choosing that would help me benefit as i would produce my magazine how i would like to see a music magazine. People who listen to artists like Ed Sheeran and Jack Johnson would enjoy my magazine. My aim would be a male teenager of the age 17-20 so my would be more male orientated with the colour and design of the magazine.

Media Terminology

Masthead - the name and logo of the magazine.
The Lead - the introductory paragraph of an article.  Usually written in bold or capitals.
Body Copy - refers to the text of your written articles, which should be produced as a printed presentation to accepted industry standards, e.g. correct use of language, font, size, word limits etc.  Usually written in columns with a font size typically between 8 and 10 with the same style kept throughout.  
Serif font - fonts which have little bars (serifs) on the end of the letter.  Used to make bodies of text easier to read.
Sans Serif font - fonts which do not have little bars (serifs) on the end of each letter.  Used for Headings, captions etc.
Drop Capitals - really big letter to introduce the article.
Cross Head - small sub-heading used to split up a large block of text.
White Space - white parts of a page other than text or pictures.  An efficient way of separating areas of the page.
Mode of Address - how the magazine talks to the audience.
Sell Lines - text on the cover that helps to sell the magazine to the audience.
Banners - text which stands out because its on a coloured background.
House Style - a magazines distinctive design that distinguishes it from its competitors.
Borders - the gaps at the edges of the page.
Gutters - the gaps between the columns of text.
Leading - the space between lines of text.
Kerning - the space between letters.
Strap lines - a smaller headlines, printed above the main headline.
By-lines - name of the person who wrote the article
Anchorage - the way in which text helps to pin down the meaning of a picture and visa versa.

Prelim Task - School mag

This is my finished prelim task that i chose to do as a practice for my main music magazine that i will complete. I used all the different skills on both In-design and Photo shop. My chosen target audience was a sixth former, the same age as me. I chose to do it like that so i can put in what i would like to see if i bought a school magazine. I wanted to keep it at the same school scheme using blue, red and white. Ive gave it a simple feel so you can easily read and understand the text.

My Media Moodboard

Click picture to enlarge

I have aimed my moodboard to resemble the types of images you would see for my chosen target audience which is going to be indie pop. I have chosen to include some of the artists and bands that you would link in with indie pop, performers like Ed Sheeran and Bon Iver. I have also included a picture of NME which have artic Monkeys on the front as that is the type i want mine to look like as that is a professional magazine that would be similar to how i would like it. The use of guitars is seen throughout my moodboard is the main instrument that you would be seen within Indie pop.

Semiotics

Semiotics study the linguistics in signs and non-linguistic sign systems such as, the use of colour and symbols.  The word was invented by the linguist and philosopher Saussure.  
assure was a swiss linguist and semiotician.  Semiotics is very closely related to the field of linguistics, which studies the structure and meaning of language more specifically.  Semiotics is usually found divided into three main branches:
Semantics: Relation between signs and the things to which they refer their meaning.  
Syntactics: Relations among signs often in formal structures
Pragmatics: Relation between signs and sign-using  agents

In this example is the Nike logo a very recognizable logo that is seen and admired across the globe. As its just as simple as a tick then it is easily noticed by anyone. also the fact its only two colors, white and black makes it that even more simpler. The white on a black background helps that tick really stand out and helps anyone see it from a distance.

Deyes High Newsletter annotation

 

Feminism in Media

Throughout history women have fought hard for the equality of men and the rights that they have. Through getting the vote down to the overall rights women possess such as education and batter wages, women have always had it tough. As women go the vote, they had more importance in society. The range of debates spread from sexuality, family and the work place. But today women are still seen as sexual objects in the media. A women called Laura Mulvey believes in 'The Male Gaze'. This is the explanation that men are still in the highlight to women, saying women are more of a passive role compared to the mans role in media. It also believes that women are there to be an object of desire sexually rather than a more serious role. She once said "Women, then stands in particular culture as a signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command, by imposing them them on the silent image of women still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning" in simpler terms, this quote says we, as cinema goers, are almost voyeurs , watching the people on the screen.

In this picture you can see 'The Male Gaze' as Batman, obviously the man is standing right at the front of the picture showing his dominance and strength, with the woman (Catwoman) in the background as his "Backup". This helps prove the male gaze is right, as the women is playing in the passive role towards the man. I feel that with the woman having bright red lipstick on, the directer of this photoshoot is trying to make the woman more attractive and maybe more sexually presented, this is a prime example of 'The Male Gaze'.

Ideology and Deyes High Mag

Ideology is the idea of the publishers are trying to stand out and give the overall message for the audience that they are aiming at. I feel that this is really important because with out i feel that a magazine can become off topic and have a varied their audience rather than having a whole set audience. For example with a school magazine if its focused on different topics for different people, the audience may chose not to read it. If a parent sees news about exam timetables and after school clubs that they may not necessarily need to read, then they may feel to chose not to read the magazine all together, this may mean loss on sales.

Ill be producing my very own school magazine for my media project and i have to produce my own ideology of what i want it too give out throughout the magazine without necessarily seeing it clearly on the page. I have chosen to have my ideology as enjoyment. The reason i have done this is because you hear many children complain about school and how bored they can get, so i plan to design my magazine to have people who genuinely enjoy their school life within Deyes High School to be the highlight on the page. This will hopefully show the public that this is a good school to attend and that the kids have fun and succeed at the same time.

Photoshop and Indesign

Photoshop and Indesign are both software tools made by Adobe that will let me enhance my media work for the forth coming year. Photoshop allows you to play around with pictures with its hundreds of the features allowing you to play around with it making it any way you can. Indesign is slightly different whereas its very similar to Microsoft Publisher, helping you create different things such as leaflets, posters or in our case for this year, a magazine.

The first feature I found useful on Adobe Photoshop was the feature to crop pictures. for example if there is a space of a picture that i do not need i am able to delete/crop that out and focus on one specific object of my choice. Below you can see that the top picture is the original but i have decided that i wanted to get rid of the unnecessary sky and just focus on the main feature, the planes.

Another feature that i found useful was the lighting. On photoshop i am able to change any parts of light on the picture to make it brighter, darker or maybe even a completely different colour. It allows for many colour alteration, a feature that can help you get the effect and highlight detail that you want. for the pictures below the first picture wasnt what i wanted, so i decided to make the picture brighter, clearer to make the pitch and players stand out more than they did before.

The feature that i used for the below pictures is a tool that i struggled with and was hard to get used too and thats the clone stamp tool. This helps you get rid of the bottles and leave behind what you want. As its a static picture and the computer doesn't know what the background is then the clone stamp helps. As the back ground is a nature setting then you are able to clone of a picture of the nature in the back and this allows you to wipe out the bottles leaving you with a realistic nature picture as you would find believable.

 Finally the last picture is the spot healer tool. This allows the user to get rid of the small parts of the picture that can be erased to make something look more clearer and purified. Many magazines use this tool to make sure that the celebs that they are photographing are as perfect as they can be. on the picture below is a before and after picture of a young boy who has many spots, but using spot healer has now been cleared up and looks more professional.

Questionnaire

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12MYG4RjpzVUptwttFeIyfLJECT--4yC3cADGUz8ZGno/viewform

 This is my questionnaire to help me towards finding my right target audience for my very own music magazine.

Homework- Interests

Above is my favorite music video that has recently been brought out named 'Not Giving In' by Rudimental. I enjoy this video because not like other music videos this draws you in, this makes you want to watch as a story is being portrayed whilst the music is going on in the background. I feel that with music videos, you can see what artists but there effort into the videos that represent their single and here with Rudimental you can see that a lot of cooperation and time was put into filming it- that i enjoy.


This link is of the film trailer for the Disney film 'Up' the reason i like it is that i first of all enjoy Disney films and i was looking forward to this film a lot, so straight away i was looking forward to it. i like the fact there is a narrator is talking you though the basics of the film and what the story is about. Its humour and fun feel to it makes this a very enjoyable video that i feel people of all ages can enjoy.



 
 This is the video game that i enjoy the most as i am a huge football fan and also a keen fan of the Xbox 360. I look out for every fifa that comes out and always look forward to the new update and improvements that they make every year. the new Fifa 14 is out later this month and i will be looking forward to buying and playing that.

https://www.facebook.com/
  This website, 'Facebook' is one that i thoroughly enjoy as it helps me keep connected with my friends and also lets me talk to new people. A lot of interaction is available such as pictures, videos and more. i use this website at least once everyday and i can speak for most people in this country or even the world that they use it a lot too!

Introduction

Hello my name is Kieran Givens and will be taking media as an AS for the year 2013/14. I am currently resitting year 12 as i feel that the results i got in the summer where not at a level that i know i can achieve, so even though this decision was a tough one, I certainly hope it will be a good one for my future. I am a very approachable person and l always try and have a laugh when i can but do try my best to keep my serious face on at the best of times. I took media for my AS option as i enjoy the sound of the topic and i have never thought of taking in the past for either GCSE or my year 12 last year. So this will be an new experience for me but one i am thoroughly looking forward too. when you look around it is very hard to see a place where the media world is not heavily based and i feel that with the qualifications in a subject such as media, it will push me on for better things in the future, because as some people may not know there are hundreds of thousands of different routes that media can take you and that's what i hope to achieve at the end of my time taking media with the qualifications. As everything i do i will put all my effort into the work i produce for media because i do want to achieve the best grade i can in this subject.