Evaluation

1. What ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

A: Well firstly, I used my style models to help as inspiration for the codes and conventions to use which I would see in an every day magazine in a front cover, contents page and double page spread. I mainly focussed on the Terrorizer magazine because it had the same genre, register and design I had originally intended to use.

I had managed to place photographs in convenient places where magazines would normally position them, for example, a double page spread would normally have the images on one page and the article text on the other.

I tried using the appropriate mise-en-scene by adding the right colour scheme. I also had to choose the right people and correct costume, the best I could get was leather for my photography partners, as they made the poses which were close to my style model because of the occasional humour added into some of the pictures.

Also, I used the accurate language to fit the register for my intended audience, for example, ‘Rockin’’ is given a bit of clipping to represent the jargon of a fan of the metal/rock genre, as well as ‘freakin’’ which can be considered a slight taboo term, and sometimes the social group is familiar with the type of speech.

Next was the illustration and texts; I had to make them fit for the codes, conventions and connotations of the magazine.
My magazine was given the title Deci-Rebels because it was a mixture of neologism and blending two words together, which were Decibels and Rebels, which suggested an ‘awesome’ and ‘loud’ feel to the music magazine, as if it was a way of ‘defying the limit to loudness’.

I was aware of the type of fonts and text size I used for my magazine.
For example, I made my title large, with a type of Horror font which was called ‘Brutal Tooth’. This text helped my magazine fit to my style model, because the cover was suggesting a horror genre to the magazine. I made certain texts large to help capture the eye of the audience, because they will notice the text and realise how major, exciting or important it is.

I also considered my magazines subheading slogan, which says ‘Where music is TRULY experienced’. Notice the emphasis on ‘TRULY’, which suggests it guarantees the magazine will be vivid.



2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

A: My product helps represent the particular social group because of the mise-en-scene used in it, for example, the dark colour scheme and the photographs of the ‘Band members’. The gestures the band members show can show the attitude represented, which gives and empowering status, as well as the title Deci-Rebels.

My aimed age group for the magazine is roughly for the older teenagers, because some elements in this magazine can reflect the dangerous conventions, such as some of the quotations used in the double page spread. They can convey the strong representational device found in social groups.

I did not represent any particular ethnicity, gender or sexuality because my style model did not make any notions of gender or etc. However both my piece and the style model do not appear precisely unisex and they are mainly aimed for the males.

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

A: I believe that advertising my magazine via radio and internet are the best ideas for distributing my magazine, because radio and internet are some of the mostly used resources for music, information and media purposes. I would distribute my magazine internationally because countries such as America like to know about the news about certain bands, as most bands would normally tour internationally, and that would be information for countries that bands would go to on tour would to know.

I have researched a company to help distribute my magazine and that company is Seymour because they would help accomplish publishing the magazines and sending them overseas to over 70 countries, as quoted on their website. They can also help with developing ‘circulation strategies’ for invoices, budget etc.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

A: My target audience would be young adults, mainly males. I did not aim for any sexuality or ethnicity for my magazine, however, if anything, it would have to be the heterosexuals, because that is something you would usually see in this audience. The following images show what the target audience may look like.

(Please see the Evaluation video for remaining questions)

Audience Feedback

We, as a class, went around the classroom and written our strengths and weakness in our magazine which we could improve on,
The good parts of my magazine were;

• Use of images
• Background
• The type of text used

The improvements were:

• Some texts are unreadable
• I was missing a barcode
• Some images looked cut straight off from the photograph

Final Cut images

Rough Cut images

Diary Entry Week 4-8

From week 4-8 I was focussing on finishing my Rough and Final Cut.

Week 4- I was organising the layout and colour scheme to my magazine. The colours did not fit the mise-en-scene at first, but as I kept modifying my work, it was taking shape.

Week 5- I was continuing in adding more features and beginning to create my Contents and double Page Spread.

Week 6- I was taking the photographs for my magazine, then I added them on and setting them in my magazine.

Week 7- I came back from my easter holidays, and the Rough Cut was already finished, we were resuming finishing off our Final Cut

Week 8- I had applied the final touches to my magazine and am currently adding everything to my blog.

First Draft Pictures

Diary entry week 3- Music magazine analysis

This week, we were analysing different genres and types of music magazines along with the features in them; we looked at the articles and texts used in each magazine and how they would suit the codes and conventions. We also looked at how the producer would shoot the photographs for a front page making it attractive and interesting for the audiences, such as the colour scheme, lighting. Over the holidays we analyzed five magazine covers, contents pages and double page spreads.