Wasp

Wasp is directed by Andrea Arnold in 2003.It is a short film lasting only 24 minutes, set in a suburban area. The plot was about a young single mother with 3 young girls and 1 baby boy. Zoe the mother is invited by an old friend to meet him at the pub, Zoe is unable to find a babysitter so brings her children along.
There is a long shot of Zoe and her kids crossing a footbridge over a main motorway, the diagetic sound of the traffic represents the

Virus

The short film virus lasts six minutes, it was made in 2002. The film's genre is a psychological thriller/horror. The film was clearly on a low budget as only three actors starring in it.
The title of this film "virus" could have multiple meaning for example viruses can occur in computers and life itself. The directer keeps the causes of death relatively unknown.
The lighting in this film is dark and all the light you do see is artificial again emphasising the theme of machinery.
There is no dialog, this has the viewers on there toes throughout.
The diagetic sound of the vacuum hoover has a creepy affect as if can be such a normal noise however in the context of this film it becomes an other indicator of disaster about to happen.
We are constantly shown normal Innocent objects such as a picture frame and a cup of coffee, i think this is done to show us the views the normality of the situation the characters are in.
Over all Virus is affective and certainly achieves what it wanted to.

What kind of media institution may distribute your media product and why?

As I have considered this as an independent music magazine that features unknown talent there would be a limited amount of people interested in it and would there for not be that commercially attractive to a big media institution.  I thought that by using music venues and universities I would be able to attract the right crowd, and that the magazine could be sold by subscription if it became popular. I Think that a music publisher might be interested in distributing my magazine as they are always on the look out for new talent and this could be a good thing for them.

How does your media product represent a particular social group?

My media product is aimed at a young and aspirational group who are interested in independent music. It is likely to appeal to aspiring musicians and people who like to discover music outside what is offered by the commercial side of the music industry. Socially this group could come from wide ranging backgrounds as the music itself is the unifying thing. 

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

Since I started studying media studies at the beginning of this year my skills on photoshop have greatly improved and my confidence to use the program has grown. My ability to use the program at the beginning was very minimal. But I have learnt to do a wide variety of things for example use a bitmap or how to merge two photos together to make it look like one.

As a class we went to a photoshop workshop, there i learnt how to overlay photos and how to create different effects on photos to alter them. 

I have learnt a little bit about photography too, from taking all the photograph in my magazine myself i have discovered what is an ideal photograph for the font cover of a magazine is or what lighting is most flattering. 

I am happy with the skills I have learnt through doing this project. 

Who would be the audience for your media product? And how did you attract/ address my audience?

During my research and planning I carried out a questionnaire, by doing this I found that females were much less likely to read music magazines. I wanted to create a magazine that would appeal equally to a both male and female readership and so needed to discover what would make a magazine more attractive to female and there for balance out the readership, without putting off the core consumers. Established music magazines  are advertised and designed  in a way that is much more appealing to men, and tend to be very male oriented in their content. I considered this information and attempted to make mine a unisex magazine. The most important element to this would be my primary image on the front cover. My main feature is Milo Snow, who features largely on the front cover. I thought that he would be appealing to the young  female audience, as he is attractive and the in the age range of my target audience. The overall design as well is uncluttered and stylish so would appeal generally to both genders. I also carefully considered pricing when designing my magazine as I thought that it must be affordable for a young readership and offer real value. The point of the magazine is that it featured unsigned musicians and bands and so needed a credible and underground edge. The price of the magazine also became a design consideration as I decided to use cheap paper and basic printing in order to save on printing costs. This also gives the magazine an independent feel and differentiates it from the other glossy commercial magazines. The price was 50p, so around the same price as a daily newspaper. As my target audience is young they may not have the money to spend 3-4 pounds on a weekly magazine.

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

The media product I have produced follows the forms and conventions of real media products. I constructed my final magazine cover design to echo recognisable techniques used in magazine design that I had observed. I was interested by magazines such as NME which speaks to a fashionable readership who are interested in music, and OK which is a gossip weekly which trades in celebrity news. Both of the magazines and many others box the title treatment in a strong colour which makes it stand out, so I used this technique and put a box around my magazine title. This does make the 'Unsung' text jump out and it also creates more of a logo with the use of a secondary colour .  When following this conventional layout I only wanted to use one primary image without  secondary images and very minimal text. I made this choice  after looking at other music magazines, and I found that the magazines who used minimal design were the more arty ones. The magazines front cover is its biggest advertisement  for the publication so they are commonly very cluttered with sell lines about the contents.  The point of my magazine was that it was aimed at a more discerning and sophisticated readership who would be attracted by good design rather than clutter. I was therefore keen to keep my front cover minimal as the cover feature was the magazine's biggest selling point.

When constructing my final contents page I also looked at the forms and conventions of real media products. As the purpose of the contents page is largely practical, there are very good reasons to following conventional form in this instance. The challenge is to make each item seem interesting while keeping the layout clear and easy to read. I used a sort of 'scrapbook approach to make it more interesting and  I introduced a musical agony aunt in order to add extra value and personality to this page. On the whole, I was happy with the result and felt that the Front cover and the contents page both related well and served their purpose and I think over all I have used the exsisting  forms and conventions of real media well when creating my own magazine design.

This is the original photo of Milo Snow before I put the on bitmap or photoshopped it at all.

Deconstruction of final front cover.

When constructing my front cover,  I thought what could make this magazine stand out from the rest? The Front cover is the magazines biggest advertisement. I created a big red box on photoshop and put text on top of it, to create the "Unsung" logo. I chose red because it stands out and contrasts against my black and white photograph of Milo Snow. 

When researching i had decided to make my magazine a cheap weekly magazine at only 50p, which is roughly the same price as a daily Newspaper. The way i was going to make my magazine so affordable was to cut back on printing costs and use Newspaper paper instead of the glossy polished magazine paper. To create this effect on photoshop i converted my photograph i had taken of Milo into Grayscale and put on a mode called Bitmap. This gave the effect that it had been printed using a cheap printing method, like a newspaper. Another way i set out to create this cheap paper effect was to put a picture parchment underneath my photograph and "overlay" the two. This gives the effect of the paper being slightly crinkled and worn. 

I used a three colour palette of  red, black and white. With only a splash of yellow for my price sign. Most magazines work on a three couloured palette, i kept my colours very minimal with the majority of my front cover being black and white, but used bright colours to highlight the price, the logo and the main feature.

The most conventional front covers of magazines will be packed with sell lines and goodies convincing you to pick it up and purchase it . When deciding what mine was going to look like i decided to have no sell lines apart from the main feature "Milo". I had a couple of reasons for deciding to do this. The first one was that all the focus would be on Milo Snow, I wanted this because Milo was the exact sort of acts i wanted in Unsung. The second reason was it makes the magazine look more classy and smart which would make up for the paper quality.

I used six different fonts in this front cover, although that was more than i had planned, I'm happy the way it looked in the end. For the logo i chose a very plain and bold font, to make it stand out. For the price sign i found a font on dafont.com again its bold and looks almost faded which i really liked because it went with the theme of the magazine. For the sell line about the main feature i used a western style font, i did this because it is different and not what you might expect which is what Milo Snow is all about.

Although it is not the most conventional looking magazine i was very happy with the way it turned out and i fell like it does look professional and realistic.

Where do you hear about upcoming gigs?

The results to this question were also very shocking. Almost no one in my sample goes to a magazine in search for a gig. I had always wanted to do gig listings in my magazine but after seeing these results I really wanted to try and encourage people to look for gigs in the music magazines. This was also another factor of changing my magazine from monthly to weekly, if I were to do gig listings in monthly magazines their validity would soon run out, unlike a weekly one which could be updated regally.

How much wold you be willing to spend on a Monthly magazine?

At first i was planning on making a monthly music magazine but i then changed my mind when studying my questionnaire. The results show that people are reluctant to spend more than £2 on a magazine. This made me decide to completely change my idea around. It seemed a good idea to make a weekly magazine that was low in price, cutting back on things like paper quality. My target audience is 16 to 24 year olds who perhaps would not be willing to splash out on a weekly magazine. I was going to make my magazine 50p, the same price of a down market newspaper.

What genre of music would you most like to see in a music magazine?

The Majority of my sample said they would like to see a mixture of genres in a magazine. So when constructing my contents page, i was sure to include as many different genres of music as possible.

How often do you read music magazines?

After plotting the results of this question i found that are a hugely bigger percentage of men than women who read music magazines. I started to think of ways i could encourage women to read my magazine. I chose to put an attractive man on the front to try and encourage women to buy my product.

Questionnaire

I have made a questionnaire on Word about Unsung, my main reason for doing this is to get a feel and some ideas of what people look for in magazines. I gave out my questionnaire to 15 different people both boys and girls, they were all aged roughly from 16 to 24 (my target audience). I got some quite interesting results from my questionnaires, so decided to make graphs of the results to some of the questions. I took the percentages of all the results and made the charts on excel. By doing this my results were clear and this really set me to know what to do for my final construction of my magazine.

Sketch Of Front Cover

This is my first sketch of what I would like my magazine front cover to look like. I wanted it to look not to over photoshoped and quite minimal. I was following the most conventional magazine layout, with one medium close up of a face, and the title of the magazine at the top. I didn’t want to many sell lines and wanted to use a three-colour palette.

After looking at NME, I really wanted to create a magazine which focused on unsigned bands or rising bands. I wanted these sort of acts for a couple of reasons, after looking around in the shops and researching the current magazines for sale and looking at the results from my questionnaires, I found that the only way people really find unsigned music is through social networking sights. so there is definitely a space for this sort of music magazine in the market.

Now i know what sort of magazine I want, what do I put in it? Well obviously unheard bands but also gig listings, ratings of new albums, advice on how to get your music heard and many more. I brainstormed about what my magazine was going to contain. By doing that I came across my main feature idea. A friend of mine had recently left a band and was starting up a new solo career that was looking very promising for him. This was exactly the kind of acts I wanted to be in Unsung and so got in contact with him straight away.

evaluation of NME music magazine

The most eye catching thing on the front cover is the main title and the logo of the magazine. It immediately catches the reader’s eye, and as NME is a widely known magazine the readers become interested. The only photograph takes up the whole front cover and has a bright mustard yellow background. The magazine uses a three colour palette, red yellow and white. The main feature is Pete Doherty, his name and face is the biggest thing on the magazine. Apart from the NME logo, the thing that sells the magazine is the face of the front cover, they are always famous with an interesting sell lines. For example all the typical NME readers would have heard Pete Doherty’s music, so therefore would be curious to learn and hear about what new sound Pete may be producing when the saw a quote from him saying, “It’s completely different to anything else I have done”.
There a lot of well known band names which are all slightly different types of music shown on the front cover which is done to attract every possible potential reader.
After looking at NME which is a widely known and popular music magazine, I started to look I at how I could make my own magazine and I decided to go in the opposite direction. I decided to study and concentrate on the same sort and genres of music as NME but on a different level, I wanted to find out about acts and bands before they were signed, still following the basic ideas and style of NME.