Question 5; How did you attract/address your audience?

      When thinking about what will attract my audience, i had to take into consideration what sort of things they would want to see on the magazine and according to research what things would they be interested in the magazine containing. the main element was colour schemes and style of magazine which is what catches the eye of the consumer first and foremost  therefore i knew i couldn't have anything dull on the front page, hence why i used a very bright obvious 'red' for the writing.i insured that the model for the background related to grime as an underground genre and asked a boy who was a grime artist to be my model therefore he already  had that 'grimey' look and it was more natrual than a costume he was wearing dull clothing , black and grey however he had a very enthusiastic ,inviting facial expression which was used to portray that grime as a genre is very dark but expressive also positive.

Question 6; What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product ?

    When i was taking pictures for i learnt in order to get the pictures in focus and get a good quality picture i would have to use a good quality camera so i used a Canon Eos 400D digital which had a shutter speed of 1/100 seconds and aperture at f5.6 , this was a good camera and had a focal length of 50.0m. Using this and photographing these pictures in a studio with a blue back drop , a large circular reflector, enlinchrome radio trigger and Gemini Espirit Gm500 flash i was able to get a very strong focus on the models face on the front cover.

    

 Another thing i learnt about technologies from this process of producing my magazine was that when photos have been taken that came out to dark or bright , Photoshop can be used to adjust the brightness levels and contrast levels. i also learnt how to open different images taken and place them on my original magazine front cover photo and scale it so its smaller, i gained the knowledge of saving my front cover as a jpeg and rotating it and putting near my editors letter on my contents page. 

Question 2; How does your media product represent particular social groups ?

    I would not say my magazine is diverse however more for a specific group of people as it has a very niche audience, it has been made to represent a urban group of teenagers aged 15 to 21 mostly from a background, however more of a male than female audience hence why I created my magazine with a male representative on the front because from research I’m aware my males would relate.

Seeming as my magazine was made to reflect underground UK music and the genre was created and inflated in areas of east, west, north and south London all the artist that featured represented my target audience because those are the artist they grew up listening to. My magazine represents people from a subculture who’s attitudes and values differ from those of a mainstream culture from my research according to deprivation theorist large sections of working class have different goals and beliefs from the rest of society this means they are likely to share similar views and behaviour patterns as each other which has emerged through the way the genre has been labelled this made it easier for me to create my magazine because i could relate to everyone that would have bought the product.

My magazine represents boys and females who do not want to be labelled no longer and have made an interest in grime as it is a form of lyrical expression and is not restricted.  

The model on the front of the magazine was chosen to fit my magazine social group, his facial expression is very subtle however not dark and angry however his dressing is very dull and represents the music he is presenting. The way his eyes are can be used to portray how serious he is.

As props a microphone and headphones were used, the microphone represents what he does from it being in his hand consumers can automatically tell that he is a musician and is used to using a microphone the fact that he has big chunky headphones and not the small ‘in ear’ headphones presents his love for music, also his passion which relates to the social group of the mag.

Question 1; In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?

When making my music magazine I didn’t really look into challenging the original music magazine conventions in order to gain a bigger audience and for the magazine to be unique, because the information I gained from my research was that magazine consumers were more interested in seeing the normal magazine conventions and features and therefore would not really be attracted to a music magazine with completely different style and structure to it. Looking at other magazines such as Vibe, NME and Kerrang for guidance on the normal conventions I learnt that these magazines include and always have a masthead which is the logo for the magazine normally displayed at the top of the front cover and usually on the contents page as well Which is there for the branding of the magazine.

Another convention I came across that was on these magazine was the month and year that it was published and a price that it is being sold which is normally found around the barcode used for retailers distributing purpose’s. Also on the front cover of these magazine are a number of cover line’s placed around the main image but not that it takes away the main focus of the main image which always occurred to be a medium close up.

When I took a look at conventions of a contents page I found the colour schemes and fonts was usually produced from the colour schemes used in the front cover and page organisation was all based on what the front page had. However unlike the front page whereby just one photograph is used contents pages tend to have more than one of these smaller images placed around the page with their page numbers.

As for double page spread conventions that the main image is normally spread across the whole double page or a main image on one a4 side of the page and is normally a mode of address image and then writing on the other side and is written in columns 3 or 4 of them consuming space on the double page.

In the three magazines I looked at they all had a strap line before starting the article or the interview or whatever the double page is based on explaining what the subject of the page is along with a by-line normally placed and the bottom left corner of the page. 

I did not really challenge the norm music magazine conventions when creating my front cover ,double page spread and contents page because of what i had observed from professional companies products also because its what my target audience were looking to see in a music magazine. like other magazine i used sans serif for my writing because its modern whereas serif will make the magazine look old fashioned and that would not appeal to my Grimey underground audience because its urban and very up to date with society.

Feedback- Q4.

Keep up the excellent effort Elizabeth- but can you go back through this question and seperate it into paragraphs. Add illustrations also.

Question 4; Who would be the audience for your media product ?

    Who would be the audience for your media product?  

My magazine is not for a wide ranged audience due to the genre of my magazine, being based on underground UK music therefore the magazine has a niche audience. The target audience for my media product would be aged around 15 years to around 21 years old teenagers, whereby majority are from a black African or black Caribbean background .

        

     The audience are more likely to be boys a rough percentage of 79% boys to 21%  girls or less. Because Grime as a genre is underground, the music is from the “streets” and the “hood” of                  

  London this reflects why they wouldn’t really be from middle class families but working class families living in the rough areas of Southeast London and East London. My audience for this magazine are likely to be in education and if over 16 carry out a part time job, to back up family earnings. Grime is urban and does not give a promising future career for artist as appose to R&B and Hip-hop, Grime artist are less likely to become famous or even less likely to become famous nationally unless going into mainstream music which most grime artist choose not to do, whereas are more likely to have a part time job and pursue making grime on the side of their job.  

       Magazine target audience may be involved in a gang or have a friend who is involved with a gang which is sometimes reflected in the music being produced. The target audience and consumers would probably be interested in the magazine because they are grime artist themselves or someone who doesn’t make the music at all or produce beats and just wants to gain and insight on what its like for an artist in the grime scene, which is why  the magazine ‘the real grime’ would appeal to them.

However if I managed to feature or give away photos or have an article about an artist well known with a large fan base, one would use this to gain more readers who are fans of the artist and would be up for buying anything or involving themselves in almost everything the artist is involved in due to their interest in the person, grime lovers who will purchase the magazine because looking at the front page and contents page they can clearly see the magazine will benefit them in their music or just basic enhancement of their knowledge of Grime for example my use of top tips, also tips from well known artist which will definitely make the group of targeted people more egger and makes my magazine a “must have” .

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