My foundation portfolio allowed me to demonstrate my technical, photography and research skills through the creation of a front page, contents page and double page spread of a music magazine of my design. I used only original photographs taken by myself, as well as studied the conventions of other successful music magazines (which focus on the same genre of music which I was focusing on), ultimately allowing me to decide whether or not to follow these conventions, or purposely overlook them. In this evaluation, I am going to refer to media language, institution, ideology, audience and representation, and how my media product is influenced by these.
The target audience of my Music Magazine was 13-21, but focused more upon teenagers, and teenage trends. To further deconstruct my target audience, I intentionally aimed at certain social groups, my chosen group being 'alternative'. My music magazine delves in to unsigned rock bands, hoping to gain them recognition. This would appeal to my target audience directly, as the genre of music is the genre which they listen to and enjoy. It would equally be appealing to talent scouts, working for record labels across the globe, and therefore would do well to partner itself with a larger, successful record label and/or the conglomerate which owns it. Through my past experience, I know that teenage girls tend to like an artist/band if the front man is good looking, well-dressed, and follows the same style as them. I used this information to my advantage, using mise en scene to attract my audience. Costume such as a leather jacket, 'hoodie', black skinny jeans and a lumberjack shirt are all iconic of the rock/alternative genre and exemplify my use of new trends and style to appeal to the target audience. This is similar to the tactics used by NME magazine, a popular British alternative music magazine, as I took direct influence from the NME reader profile, which states that NME use new trends and style to attract their target audience. During the research and planning process, I decided to come up with my own reader profile. The representation of the 'alternative' social group, in most media, is stereotypically biased, and unfavourable. In contrast to this, I decided to look favourably upon my target audience, and therefore decided to represent them as happy, and fun. I did this through the use of, for example, a mid-shot, which allows my cover model to be seen smiling, as well as the female model in the bottom-left corner of my front cover, represented in mid-shot, and therefore can be seen smiling. In reflection of this, I used the same tactic on my double page spread, taking advantage of the mid-shot to reveal the huge grin on my models face, and adding a small, toy guitar as a prop to connotate that the model is exciting, different and fun. This, henceforth, contrasts the usual representation of 'alternative' social groups as sad, depressed and suicidal; a theme which I decided to disregard completely.
I formed my media product on the basis of whether to follow conventions of other rock music magazines, or challenge them. For the most part, I decided upon the former, however, there were some slight changes to the conventions, which I made to create a 'punky' atmosphere around my music magazine. For example, the text on my contents page, for the list of contents, uses all capitalised letters, except for the first letter of each word, which is in lower-case. This is a contrast of the conventions of rock music magazines, and serves as an icon of my challenging of the conventions. In addition to this, on my front cover, I added an "also inside" list. The contents of this list have a lighter shade of black as the background colour, which allowed me to create a messed up look, whilst also situating the text in a scruffy manner (some being close to each other, and some being farther away) which also helped me to achieve a messy look. The conventions I did abide by, on the other hand, include the use of a large central image on the front cover, the use of a dark, gothic colour scheme (in this case, black, red and white). Whilst I have added a tagline to my magazine, conventional of any magazine, I have converted it to an unconventional aspect of my magazine through the use of taboo language, the tagline being 'This is the shit!' However, to allow my magazine to be sold on shop shelves, I have added a star in replacement of the "t".
Throughout my main task, of creating a music magazine, I had in mind what institution would produce, market, and, most importantly, distribute my media product. I decided I would take advantage of being under a conglomerate company such as Time Warner, a company which, if my magazine begins to decline in sales, would be able to bail it out by taking profits from another area of its business (i.e. MTV advertising profits) and transferring more funding in to my magazine. I initially intended my magazine to be 'indie' and without corporate ownership, but I realised that it was in my best interests to be under a conglomerate, if I was ever going to get successful distributors. Distributors of my magazine will include WHSmith as well as local shops and supermarkets, whilst publishing would be undertaken by IPC Media, the publishing company behind the popular NME magazine. Whilst going through the process of the main task, I learnt, most importantly, how to perfect the use of Adobe Photoshop. This desktop tool was essential for creating my music magazine components as it allowed me to airbrush and crop photos as well as allowing me to position my different components of my magazine with perfection. Another tool I became familiar with, during both the preliminary and main task, was blogging. I had never done this before, and learnt how to arrange all of my work in to one, safe location which could be seen by any spectator.
My initial plans of my finished magazine differed greatly from my final product. This is because I had issues with placement of images (I assigned too much space to images on my double page spread and contents page) amongst other issues, such as the general simplistic look, which I was aiming for, would've been lost if I had stuck to my initial drafts and plans. The transition between the preliminary task and the main task was very educational for me, as I gained more knowledge of how a conventional magazine looked, I realised that my Wyke College magazine (which I created for my preliminary task) looked amateur, and too simplistic in terms of the front cover. The colour scheme also added to this unprofessional look, which allowed me to realise the true importance of an effective, straight-forward colour scheme which abided by the genre of the magazine's conventions. In relation to technology, the transition between both tasks also saw my advancement in Photoshop skills. This, overall, saw a dramatic change in the quality of my finished product, and allowed me to create my own fonts, previously not attempted on my preliminary task. The use of fonts on my main task demonstrated the need for a conventional font, which integrated well with my colour scheme and music magazine genre. I also incorporated different angles and shots of my models to create an ideology. For example, my cover model is represented in a low-angled mid-shot, creating a sense of power and dominance. The use of costume within the mise en scene, such as a leather jacket a 'Hoodie' creates an ideology that it is cool to wear this clothing as a lead singer of a band is wearing it. The same applies for the use of costume on my model featured on the contents page. He has long, black hair, is wearing Converse boots, black skinny jeans and a red, black and white lumberjack shirt, all of which are iconic of the alternative style, and represents the model as cool as he is wearing the latest trends. The prop, an Acoustic Guitar, creates the ideology that it is cool to play an acoustic guitar, and represents the model as soft and innocent in nature. The progression between both tasks can be clearly seen through the difference between my college magazine and my finished music magazine front cover, contents page, and double-page spread.
Word Count: 1,414
