Evaluation question 1edited

Evaluation Question 1

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

The Title of the Magazine

Originally I planned to give my magazine the name ‘Opus’. I came across this name after searching ‘musical terminology’ in Google. The definition of this title was ‘Convenient method of numbering a composer’s works where a number follows the word “opus”. For example, Opus 36, No. 2’. This seemed like an appropriate title for a music-based magazine because it had some sort of musical reference behind it. However, after doing a little more research of more conventional magazines I decided to change the name of the magazine to ‘Temperature’. This was because it is more of a modern and relatable title. Not many people would know the meaning of ‘Opus’ off of the top of their heads, so might not understand the title, whereas ‘Temperature’ is more of a simple and easily understood title. I also decided to change the title of the magazine because ‘Opus’ is a rather short word, where I preferred a longer title that would stretch across the top of the page in the more conventional way, also seen in Rolling Stone magazine.

Mise-en-scene

of Images

With the image that I used for my front cover, I wanted to use a relatively plain background, which is why my first idea did not work, as the background was too crowded and in places where I tried to add text, it would get lost in the background. Also the costume used in the first cover photo shoot did not work particularly well, as you could tell that it was part of school uniform. I used natural lighting in the first set of photos that I took, and I think this worked well because the pictures turned out well without shadows that you would get from artificial lighting.

My second lot of pictures worked much better. I tried to capture Josh in areas where there were no intrusive objects in the background. The only real issue in the picture I chose was the radiator, which was easy enough to cover up in Photoshop. The setting of these photos has worked in the same way as seen in ‘Vibe’ magazine, where the background is a plain, single color. I chose to use artificial lighting here, as used in most conventional magazines which I think worked well as it creates a shadow which defines my model against the background. This is an aspect of how my magazine has followed the conventional format, however, in other covers that I have seen, such as in NME there is more of a background to the front image.

Costume and PropsI tried to keep my magazine product quite simple throughout. The only props I used were a pair of headphones. The headphones have been used in the picture on the cover, and also in the picture on the contents page, and I chose to use them to give the more of a magazine a music-type feel. I also kept the simple-theme when selecting the costume for my model. In my double page spread I chose to use a colorful shirt because I knew that it would be against quite a plain background. Most magazine covers I have seen stay quite simple when it comes to props, although many do dress their models in more extravagant clothing, and in some cases the clothing can be used as a substiute for props, such as in the Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj editions of Billboard where the clothes and wigs have been used like props to fill up space on the cover.

However, I think the props/clothing I chose to use in my magazine are similar to those used in the Chris Brown edition of Vibe, where he is wearing plain clothing with a few accessories. The headphones used in my magazine are similar to the way the hat has been chosen for Chris Brown in Vibe.

PeopleInitially I was going to use my friend Lauren as the feature for my magazine. However we were unable to arrange to take pictures out of school time, so from the photo-shoot that I did with Lauren she would have been dressed in uniform. Obviously this was not ideal for a music magazine.

I then decided to take pictures of my boyfriend, Josh. Because I decided that I wanted to create a hip-hop/R&B music based magazine I felt that Josh had the ideal look of a rapper/hip-hop singer, such as Jay-Z or Trey Songz. Josh seems to follow the same trends of today’s hip-hop and R&B singers, for example through clothing, so I think this helped to make my product successful. I used Photoshop to edit out a few blemishes, just to make him look a little fresher, but as you can see he fits in well with the concept of the magazine, and is appealing to look at, which would attract people to buy the magazine.

Title Font and StyleOriginally I planned to give my magazine the title of ‘Opus’. However I changed my mind as I decided that I wanted a longer masthead which would spread out across the top of my magazine. This is why I changed my title to ‘Temperature’, which works in a similar way as the masthead of ‘Rolling Stone’ does.

For the masthead font I went to www.dafont.com, and the font I used for ‘Temperature’ was called ‘Lobster’. I think it looks like a professional masthead font, is conventional in the way that it stretches across the top of the magazine cover. Even though VIBE magazine has a short title, it stretches across the whole of the top of the page. I have seen that ‘Billboard’ magazine also does this, and I have already addressed ‘Rolling Stone’ which does the same.

For the font on my front cover which is all in capitals I used the font ‘Kozuka Standard’. This is because it is quite a simple font that is easy to read. I have seen this on most other conventional magazines, such as NME and Q. however I have also seen thicker, lower-case headings and subheadings used on magazine covers.

Throughout the magazine, on my contents page and double page spread I carried on using ‘Kozuka Standard’ for the capital letters, and used ‘Kozuka Mincho’ for lower-case letters. This is because it was thinner, and the ‘Kozuka Standard’ looked more pixelated when in a smaller font size.

Written ContentFor the front cover of the magazine I researched the latest music news, so that my magazine would have relevance in the real world. I made sure only to include artists/subjects that would influence my target audience, and included artists such as Nicki Minaj – a hip/hop singer/rapper, and Kanye West who is also a rapper. This means that my magazine contains conventional content as commercial magazines would only try to appeal to a specific target audience.

Again I researched more music news to contain in my contents page.

For my double page spread I read some articles from magazines such as ‘NME’ and ‘Kerrang!’ and tried to incorporate the style of writing into my own magazine. There are links that I have made throughout the magazine, about the ‘JMW’ article.

I have taken the sorts of questions that you find in conventional magazine interviews, such as the Madonna article from ‘Interview’ magazine, and incorporated these into my magazine. In this way it is similar to an industrial magazine because the same sorts of questions have been asked. On the other hand, it has been set out as a sort of Q&A format, which is

dissimilar to many other magazines as they are normally

written in paragraphs.

Music Genre and how your Magazine suggests it

I chose to do a hip-hop based magazine. This was because after research into the industry I found that pop and hip-hop/R&B music were the most popular in today’s modern society, so I knew I would have a wide ranging audience. This is also the same type of music that I enjoy listening to so I knew it would be easy for me to talk about and incorporate into a magazine product.

The genre of the magazine is predominantly suggested by the artists that I have featured in my magazine. For example Rihanna, Eminem, Kanye West, Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj are all considered as R&B or Hip-Hop artists, so this is why I mentioned them on the cover of my magazine.

Another way that I tried to give the feel of a Hip-Hop/R&B magazine is through my model. Today’s Hip-Hop/R&B scene is largely dominated by black Americans, which is why I feel that Josh was suitable for the cover.

I think even the strong colours that I used throughout the magazine suggest it’s genre. Red is the most dominant colour on the front cover of the magazine, which is a very striking colour, and it has been used in many hip hop magazines that I have come across over the past few months. My colour scheme consisted mainly of red, black and white. VIBE magazine often uses the colours black and red, and so does popular Hip-Hop magazine XXL. Although ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine is not particularly Hip-Hop-centric, it too uses red as a strong part of their colour scheme, and has featured Hip Hop artists such as Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent in numerous editions.