Draft Idea For My Magazine

Front Cover

Contents

Double Page Spread

What to do in the double page spread?

First Draft of the interview..

1) You are part of a three person girl group, how was it that you all met?

B: It was back at school. We were always friends, but then we realised we all had a mutual love for singing.
M: Yeah, it seems so long ago now. But really it was only a couple of years ago that we were in the music lessons, messing around.
K: Oh bless our cottons.

2) How do you feel being called famous?

K: I still don’t see that we are, I just think of us as any normal 19 year olds.
M: Same, it doesn’t feel any different. Even though I know it is but, we still do the same olds like shopping in Primark.

3) Have you got any freebies yet?

B: Yes I got my first Big Mac Meal the other day. It was amazing!
M: (laughing) That was so funny, you were so excited. I think the best freebie that I got was an iPhone, which I am so grateful for!

4) Who is your inspiration?

K: My main love of music came from watching groups like the Spice Girls. I always thought they looked so happy and the songs were so fun. Catchy and easy to sing a long to.
B: I always loved Steps, H was my favourite. I remember going to see them live and thinking WOW.
M: I was always an S Club 7 girl, it was all about Hannah and Paul! There songs were such fun to just have a cheeky dance to in your room.

5) Who would you love to compose with?

M: I’d love to do something with Calvin Harris. All of his music just makes me want to dance and sing a long, which is what I want the audience to do. I want everyone to be on their feet and getting involved.
K: (thinking) I’d like to do something with Florence and the Machine, her vocals are so powerful it’s just beautiful.
B: I think it would be so much fun to do something with Tinie Tempah, he just looks like such a fun guy.

6) What are your fans like?

K: There so kind, they are always leaving us supportive tweets and messages on our website.
M: They are what makes the gigs so worth it. Seeing a crowd full of people singing your song, there is nothing better!

7) You always look so nice, where do you get your ideas from?

B: Well a lot of it is with thanks to our stylist Sally. But today we managed to dress ourselves and I think we lot alright you know.
M: Sally is amazing, some of the dresses she gets us I could have never imagined ever being able to wear.

8) The band name that you have is so interesting, where did you get it from?

K: It’s so ridiculous, I think it’s what makes us, us. Definitely original.
B: I think it came from a YouTube video which we found really funny at the time. It seemed like a must have name after that.

9) So when are we all going to be able to get your album?

M: Well our album New Examples, will be available to buy and download from the 30th of December.

Final Questions to ask in the interview..

1) You are part of a three person girl group, how was it that you all met?

2) How do you feel being called famous?

3) Have you got any freebies yet?

4) Who is your inspiration?

5) Who would you love to compose with?

6) Most embarrassing story since getting where you are today...

7) What are your fans like?

8) What is it like having come from Essex, to now have the chance to play in Europe as the supporting act for Girls Aloud?

9) You always look so nice, where do you get your ideas from?

10) The band name that you have is so interesting, where did you get it from?

11) So when are we all going to be able to get your album?

Questions that I could ask them..

I am going to..

I think for the magazine which I am proposing, the best kind of article to do is a one on one interview. This will engage the girls, of the right age. By doing a one on one interview, I will be able to get the right response from the artists, so that the audience are interested and excited by it. This will help to ensure them to keep buying the magazine as they will be getting the stories and news about the artists which they want.

Methods that could be used for the article...

- expose - in regard to the media expose is an article, book, or statement that discloses a scandal, crime, etc.

- exclusive - mainly talking about something which hasn't been known or seen before by the public.

- a day in the life of - tell you about someones typical day, why you would want to be them.

- profile - told the basic facts and interesting things about an artist.

- one on one interview - the writer talking to the artists getting to know things they don't know and things the readers of the magazine will want to know.

Indie/Pop and Publishers Research

To get help of what indie and pop really was I searched the internet and this page helped me a lot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indie_pop. It showed me the types of people involved and the things that you need to be part classed as indie/pop.

- NME were one of the first magazines to pick up on indie as a brand and London's Rough Trade Records were one of the first labels to produce a CD of anything indie.

To help define my band as well this helped me a lot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indie_pop_artists. It is a list of all indie/pop artists, it helped me by looking at pictures and things about certain people associated to the label as well. It was very useful in helping me think of how to make my pictures look and how my band should look as well.

- Lily Allen
- Florence and the Machine
- Lady Gaga
- Spice Girls (pop)
- Girls Aloud (pop)


Media Institutions...

Publishers like:

Bauer Media Group

The Bauer Media Group represents magazines like Q and KERRANG. As well as that it has a number of music channels as well like; Q TV, 4Music, Kiss TV, Kerrang! TV, The Box, Magic TV, Smash Hits TV. This gives it a wide set of people and places to target. All different kinds of music not focussing on one.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauer_Media_Group

As it represents music magazines like Q and KERRANG. Although who I am targetting for my music magazine is in not the same as the music magazines in which the Bauer Media Group represent does not mean that wouldn't want a change in appearance. They might want to target a whole new demographic. However you know that they are not picky as they have a wide variety of music channels which they represent.

IPC Media

Although IPC media is not known for music magazines, it has been known to be linked to NME magazine. It is also a leading publisher selling many hundreds of thousands worth of magazines a year. As it is a British publisher as well it will be better for the magazine as it will be central and as they have magazines which are known in Britain, then it could get good advertisement.

IPC Media groups titles under five magazine divisions: Women's weeklies e.g. Now Magazine, leisure and specialist, men's lifestyle and entertainment, women's lifestyle and home interest and portfolio of television titles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPC_Media

Magazines Brainstorm

I made this brainstorm to help me think about what I have noticed in music magazines, that I would like mine to take after. I found it very helpful to brainstorm this as well as things I had seen I thought of things that I had seen and things that I would like to see in this type of music magazine. It made me think what I would like specifically as a reader, and what things about music needed to be in the magazine to get the readers wanting to buy it.

First Ideas

How I am Going to Manage My Time

Throughout my music magazine project i need to set out to manage my time wisely. I am going to take the photographs needed for the magazine, with the help of my friends. I then intended on taking full advantage of the school facilities and using the Photoshop program to create my magazine. I will use Microsoft Word to do my double page spread and then copy over the work when it's needed and in the relevant places onto Photoshop, so that I can make it look like a real magazine. I will make the double page spread after taking the pictures as then I can have worked out what the band is all about and how they might talk about themselves in an article. Then I will go onto make the contents page.

The Front Cover

On the front cover I would like to have...
- a group of 3 people
- the lead singer standing out
- then the other two members standing behind the lead
- 3 females
- maybe a purple/blue theme
- L!STEN in the top left
- the main story at the bottom of the page

The Contents Page

The contents page needs to take on the theme of the front cover. Therefore the contents needs to keep to the same fonts and colours and way in which pictures are edited.
- needs to have the front cover on the inside and what on the front goes to where on the inside
- there needs to be pictures inside as well that are going to be relevant to the whole magazine (not many though)
- what issue number it is
- the title of the magazine again
- a clear layout that makes sense
- correct page numbers
- might have a note from the editor

The Double Page Spread

The double page spread needs to be displaying the artist in the best possible light. For example using the best pictures and editing them to make them look perfect, you also need to keep it in theme.
- same colours through from the front page
- same fonts from the front page (maybe a little different)
- a good picture of the artists in the band (not making someone look better than the rest, making them equal whilst acknowledging their own roles)
- who the artist is big and bold
The Pictures
In the magazine I would like images of...
- a shot of 3 people from a band (one more prominent than the other two, all with their instruments)
- a shot of the band in casual clothing, being as normal as they can be (appealing to the reader)
- an image of all of the band in somewhere with more people, maybe a gig like picture
- one image of the individuals and a profile on them?

Survey of what type of magazine to do

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Preliminary Task Evaluation...

For my tasks I had to make a magazine with a front cover and contents page. For the video task I had to make a short sequence including someone walking through a door onto a chair and exchanging dialogue.

I preferred doing the magazine task, as it is something that I might like to do when I am older. As I had never done a video before, I found it quite hard to use a camera and the editing equipment, and software. I did find it a good experience though as otherwise I would have never used those things.

For the magazine task, I started off by using desk top publishing but I found it too hard to use for what I wanted to do. It was making simple tasks quite strenuous. I went on to use Photoshop which I had never properly used before. It was fun getting to grips with it and I would like to get more used to it to see what I am capable of. For the film side of the project, we used two different kinds of camera, as we thought we had finished filming when we hadn’t. To be able to edit the software we used iMovie and it allowed us to sort out the clips we had to how we wanted them. However the process was very confusing and time consuming at first.

For the first time I used a digital camera and the software to be able to edit it. I did my work in a group and I didn’t do much with the iMovie software however it was hard to get to grips with it. We almost lost all of our work at one point, but we managed to find it in the end and made sure we saved it all the time afterwards so that nothing would happen to it. Photoshop was another piece of software which I had not used before, but that I had to, to make the work that much better. Photoshop is new to me but it really does amaze me as to how much you can manipulate the images. I think that our work ended up quite well for our first project as media students.

For the magazine task I stuck to the brief quite well I think. However it is one bit where we didn’t stick as a group on it, we came up with the name of it together and the pictures but that was about it. I went on to use what I think is a medium close up image of two people for the front cover. Then I had the contents where I put in some more pictures to liven it up. All the pictures I manipulated some how. The pictures I had in the contents page I changed the filter of the image, and the on the image on the front cover I changed the contrast. Throughout I made it a blue theme, including the background of the paper and some of the titles. I used the same fonts, and colours to make sure that none of it looked out of place. With the video we made I’m not sure if we stuck to the rules of some of the things we were supposed to put in like the 180 degree line rule. Saying that we put in everything else, someone walking in through a door to sit on a chair and exchanging dialogue with another character. We did use the 180 degree rule however we are not sure if we used it correctly.

With the magazine, I was and am really pleased with it and how it turned out. I’m not sure that it looks really professional and how a real magazine would look like but I was pleased with the end results, considering I had never used Photoshop before. The video task I am also pleased with but I do think that it could have been better in places. As the software and equipment was new to me I didn’t completely understand what I was doing with it. If I choose to do a video task again I think that I would read more into it to be better informed with the software.

For my main task I am more likely to choose the print based one. This is because I would really like to learn further on how to use Photoshop. From doing this task it has made me think about maybe doing a job in something to do with graphic designs.

For this task when creating it, I didn’t particularly think of a target audience. If I was thinking of a target audience, it was mainly being aimed at me or my class and if they would like it. Using myself as the target audience isn’t right and I know this now as my opinion isn’t necessarily anyone else’s. Even though I was thinking of my class a target audience I never asked any of them their opinion, looking back I should have done.I did work in a group, and my contributions for the print when we were talking about it I feel was quite a bit as I was generally more interested in it. However we didn’t all do the same thing for our magazine which we should have, but this has made us think of working in different groups now to do it separately and get all our points across. All of our magazines however did end up good as they were all how we perceived them to look. When it came to the video task, I don’t think that I contributed as much as I could have which looking back probably annoyed my group. Even though I didn’t contribute as much I think that it ended especially well for a first time attempt. Overall I think we did work well as a group.

When I am approaching my own main task, I need to know and research it appropriately. I need to think of a target audience and keep them in mind of what would interest them and what they would like. I need to research influential music magazines of all different types of target audiences to see how they lay it all out. I will also need to research bands and read up on magazine articles and interviews they have been a part of to see how I should write.