Evaluation

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

My media product uses forms of conventions of other real media products. My front cover follows pretty much all the conventions with the masthead along the top, the main cover-line near her shoulder, I have model credit in this case artist credit.However my image is not quite central so it adds a slight quirk. I don't feel she follows any of The Majorie Ferguson Theory facial expressions, she is blank so you can read into her expression however you like.I used a similar colour scheme which matches well with the main image. However I used the Laura Mulvey male gaze on my front cover. I sort of unintentionally had her shoulders out sprayed giving the impression that she was naked due to the way the picture was cut.I have all of the headlines spaced evenly around the image like a normal magazine. I didn't want to challenge conventions to much just because magazines that following the conventions do so well so whats the reason for doing something completely different.I slipped in a hint of a fashion magazine aspect to my front cover photo shoot but then put the headphones on her to remind my readers it was a music magazine.
Overall my magazine doesn't particularly challenge the conventions of media products just because I like having conventions in media.

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine represents quite a big social group. No particular race or religion for my magazine just young people who love music and are constantly on the search for the latest and the best. They want to be the first person to know the charts or the number one hit. 

You could say the social groups excluded from my magazine would be no-one supposedly. Every week would bring something completely different I reckon even older people would grow to love it.

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

A media institution is 'a company that owns large numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, radio,publishing, movies, and the Internet.

There are two types: institutions and independent publishers. Institutions is a company that owns other large companies and produces a mass of media. An independent publisher is one company that produces a small amount of magazines. My magazine would  most likely be published by an institution. 

My media product would be quite popular as its POP music,POP is one of the top music genres. So a big institution would distribute it. This is because big institutions are the ones that bring in the most money and I feel my magazine would get top sales just because of the target audience. It has a big range of ideal buyers, its also a magazine which appeals to most,everything in it is what they want.It doesn't challenge conventions so its a typical magazine and easy to the eye. 
If I had the chance to pick a institution to publish my magazine it would have to be Bauer Media. This is because of the previous successes it has had plus it is based in the UK so would really know how to help me in reaching my full potential with my target audience. However they do get magazines out all over the world so could potentially help it go global.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience for my media product would be teenage girls and slightly older ranging from 12-24. This is because I felt there aren't that many good music magazine for this age group and of the pop genre so I chose to have a go at making one. However I did try to leave the door open as much as possible for boys to read it too.

Pop music has a massive potential for readers however I really wanted to approach it in a different way to the typical pop magazine producer. The music itself is fun bubbly and very current/modern so the magazines style needed to fit that idea. Fashion has always been a massive thing in everyone's life. Fashion magazines do very well year in year out so I wanted to use abit of that to hint the music industry. I used the conventions of a fashion magazine as I learnt they attracted a lot of people. Simply from having a good image on the front would then mean people would want to buy it more. 

• How did you attract/address your audience?

I did a survey around my school which happens to be a girls school. I asked them a series of questions which really impacted in the making of my magazine. I asked questions such as whats your preferred music genre and what colour scheme would you like. I then did most of my magazine around their answers. However I did adapt some bits so it would attract an even wider range of people.I used bright colours so it stood out on the shelf in a shop,as my surveys showed the bright colours attracted the younger age group and good front cover pictures attracted the slightly older age group.

I was interested to hear the views of my magazine from a teenage boys perspective so I went and asked the following questions. Surprisingly the overall comments were very positive but however something the would change was to add in some masculine tones.

In contrast I really wanted to ask people of my target audience what they thought of it. The feedback was great but did also have some very good criticism that I would definitely take on board.

My overall language was quite friendly and basic. I didn't use too many big words and just stuck on topic. 

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

THE MAIN TECHNOLOGIES I USED

Within the making of my product I used the following devices:

So starting with my pictures, I used a canon camera as it produced the best quality pictures. It also was very quick and easy to use so i managed to get all the moments. Lots of the pictures from the double page spread photo shoot where just natural unexpected shots.

I then uploaded all my images on to a mac to then choose and edit my pictures.

I used fotor and pixlr to edit with different filters on my pictures. I then aligned them and started to figure out my texts. I used pixlr for the text part as I thought it had the best font.

I played around with fonts and sizes and my masthead is actually just the word over the top but slightly to the side of another.

I used these in my preliminary task so I already knew what to do with them. It made the whole process a lot easier as I had a rough idea of what the images needed to have done. As I felt the websites were quite easy to use I then began to play around and try out knew things.

I felt all these technologies really helped in the making of my magazine and really enhanced my final product.They weren't necessarily the most technical websites but they were easy to use so nothing was confusing and it got the job done.

• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

For my preliminary task I had to produce a school magazine.My preliminary magazine didn't go as well as my music magazine but did however teach me how to make the best media product with the facilities and capability.

        MY PRELIMINARY MAGAZINE                     MY FINAL MAGAZINE

My preliminary was very boring and basic and almost rushed as I decided to take my pictures on a green screen.Taking away the green took up most of my time. My colours were very monochrome and my fonts were very uninteresting. However within the progression I tried out new techniques like putting the masthead behind the head which I didn't use in my final product as it didn't go that well with my title name. I realised what sort of things people want for example colour. I then came up with some really interesting image ideas.I took my time in taking the pictures, I didn't rush into actually taking them I spent a lot of time planning. This was because I wanted to make sure I had the best location, I had everything I needed and I had chosen the best models. I took more pictures for my final product than I did in my preliminary task. This is because I wanted to have a wide selection and make sure I was getting all the angles and poses because as I learnt from my preliminary its hard to work with few/similar pictures. 

In comparison I used a very bold front cover on my music magazine. I used lots of different bright pastel colours and different fonts as I learnt this would attract teenage girls (my target audience). In my preliminary it was very blocky and basic that it didn't attract girls and I didn't get good feedback on it.

I've learnt how men look at women and women look at women (the Laura Mulvey male gaze)so on my front cover you could say I have sexualised my model by having her topless.The way its cut also gives off the perspective that she is naked. I didn't go out of my way to sexualise I just had a cool idea of spray painting her. 

I personally feel my final product went a lot better than my preliminary task because it looks more professional and it looks like more effort went into the whole overall product. It also went better cause I had more understanding on how to do things and I had already trial ran things such as the green screen and learnt what i was good at and bad at.This meant I could spend more time on the things I was good at and complete it at a standard I am very pleased with. Although my preliminary was very bad it motivated me into making my music magazine the best I possibly could.