Contact Sheet Analysis

These pictures above our the product from my music magazine photoshoot. I followed the checklist I made for this and I believe it went rather successfully. I used 2 models for different purposes as this is what I planned to do at the beginning.

The top model with the headphones, I am planning on using for my magazine front cover. The reason for this is because my magazine is based on the genre of house music. As you can see, I made my model where beat headphones as they are related a lot to loud music and a lot of DJs use them. I asked her to look like she is playing DJ decks so when it comes to doing my front cover I will crop it to make it look like she is and this will be a famous person in my magazine. I asked my model to do happy and excited faces for my photoshoot. The reason for this is I want my target audience of my magazine to see my 'Sound' magazine as fun and exciting to read. I used a spot light to take my photos and I did this with a torch as I didn't have the right equipment. This gave an effect that the model is DJing at a club with lots of people watching her. I also as a prop gave her sunglasses to wear on her head as I felt like it gave my model a more of a festival and club look.

For my second set of images I used a different model and decided to go for a different approach as I wanted there to be variation in my magazine and not just the same type of images, which would most probably make my readers of the magazine bored. The look I went for in these images was a young, fun, happy teenage girl who enjoys herself and likes to listen to music. I made a mistake in these images by not giving her a prop of headphones as these pictures could be used for anything and don't really relate to my magazine. On the other hand, I wanted my readers to look at these images and want to be like this model, as I have tried to make the second model be like my target audience. I dressed up in a lace pink top which would usually be worn in festivals and is rather girly which is what I was aiming for. I decided to put fake glasses on my model so she looks quite cute and innocent.

Planning my photoshoot

For my magazine I need to do my own photo-shoot. To make sure I am prepared and my photo-shoot will be successful, I am going to make a check list so I don't miss anything out.
Photo-shoot checklist:

• 2 female models
• white sheet to use as a background
• camera
• headphones
• battery's
• smoke machine (if we can get hold of one)
• lighting from 2 directions

I'm using 2 female models as I want a variety in my images, not just the same people in every image. For the photo-shoot I decided to have just a plain white background. I'm doing this because I thought it looked good in my mock-up magazine. another reason is if you have a plain background in a magazine, you cant get distracted from the main image which will be the cover model.
when I do my shoot I am going to think about what time of day it is and look out for how light/dark it is outside. The reason for this is I would like natural light to be seeping through on my photo-shoot as I believe it gives the model a glow and is more natural looking. I'm also going to use a professional camera which catches the skin tones and little details around, which is better than a phone camera.
My models are going to be young and beautiful as I want my target audience to idolise them. The models I plan to put on the front cover are going to stereotypically be my target audience, which is young women who like music.

As I am going to use the images I take for different purposes (cover image, contents page, double page spread) I need to make it clear that they all relate to each other and are linked in some way. I plan to use the same model for the cover image and double page spread as I feel the cover model is then relevant in the magazine. I am then going to use a different person for the contents page.

Music Magazine Mock up

 

The reason I chose to do a big chunky masthead is because the masthead means everything for the customers to purchase the magazine. This is so when customers walk into a shop and see all the varieties of magazines, mine will stand out because of its big, thick chunky masthead. I decided to do rather squared letters for my masthead font so I could place a part of DJ decks in replacement of the O. I feel like this gives away the genre of my music magazine, which is house, as there is a lot of house DJs and song remixes done on the decks.
I used a faint light pink background for my magazine and put certain bits of writing around the magazine a brighter pink, The reason I did this was because my target audience for this magazine is girls, so to make it more obvious to the audience who this magazine is targeted at I decided to add pink.
My cover line for this magazine is the name of this famous DJ 'Hannah wants'. I made her name bigger and anchored onto the image so it is clear who the name is related to on the front cover. I decided to do two different fonts for this in different colours so add to my pink theme and also attract the readers to the fact who the star of the magazine is. I decided to flip on the the 'Ns' in 'Hannah' round to
In this magazine I also added some green coloured font in certain areas. I did this because green is the sign of youth and as my target audience is younger women I thought this would go nicely.
To promote a competition that's taking place in my magazine, I used a puff. I did this because its noticeable for the readers to see and it attracts your attention to it. As its in a bubble shape, its clear this isn't to do with the other information on the front cover.

Questionarre Results

Advert analysis

Target Audience

My target audience for my magazine is 16-24 year olds. I have set this as my target audience because the type of music which my magazine will be based on (house) is usually listened to by a younger audience. The type of people I expect to buy my magazine is people who go to lots of festivals and night clubs, who are young, lively, and like listening to upbeat music and DJ remixes of songs.

Imaginary Entity

Saskia is a young girl who is 18 years old doing her A levels at collage. She enjoys listening to music and her friends and social life mean a lot to her. She goes clubbing most weekends and has a part time job in Topshop which she used to save up all her money. She is the typical trendy teenager who likes everything the same as her friends.,Music is a big part of her life and she loves DJ remixes of songs and house is her favourite genre of music. She goes to music festivals and as many concerts as she can as that's what she enjoys most. Her favourite DJs are DJ Fresh and Hannah Wants.

Understanding Audience Profile

Target audience profile refers to a detailed appraisal of a customers characteristics attitudes and behaviours. It enables the supplier to target the communication to best effect.
Types of audience profiles:
Demographic Profiles: this is quantifiable statistics of a given population. The most commonly used variables from demographic are age, gender, job, location, marital status, education level, income and nationality.
Psychographic profiles: this is reflecting common activities, interests and opinions as well as attitudes and values of those people.
Using and checking these profiles together can save you from making huge marketing mistakes so is always useful to do this.
 
ACORN is a geodemographic (which means geographical and demographics analysis combined) classification of British social classes and is commonly used by marketing professionals, entrepreneurs and researchers, this is to measure and target the consumers and characteristics.
 

 
 
 

This table shows the official social classifications in the UK

Semiotic Analysis of NME Front Cover

School magazine contents page

Final school magazine

Photo shoot photos

I took a variety of pictures that I could use for my cover image.


In this first image I have captured an A level student doing some research in a media lesson for there blog. I thought this was a good image to take as it represents the school as hard working and intellectual, the glasses make the student look more intelligent.














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This is a duty student occupying his time by reading. I thought this would be a good image for the cover image as all students have to do this duty and will be able to relate to it. The boy is positioned the way he is as its a natural position and he looks relaxed in his environment.















I took this image to show off the schools uniform and logo. The student looks very happy and is dressed very smart with the blazer and her school shirt buttons all done up. This is a good role model for younger students to dress presentably as this girl is one of the oldest in the lower school.
















This image I decided to take because it shows the students doing something different than just working, It shows our school has a variety of enjoyable lessons and the 2 girls look very interested in what they are doing. These students are year 7s so I thought this would be good to show we got them confident at an early stage in their school.











Planning my photo shoot

For my school magazine I need to plan who the cover model for my magazine and what they are going to represent. I have decided I am going to use a year 11 student that goes to St Gregory's for the central image. She will be in her school uniform showing the school logo so its a clear representation of what the magazines about. I will do her standing either with a plane background so the student stands out in the image.
I want the student to look like she shows a good representation of her secondary school so she will look very smart and well dressed. I have decided to do a year 11 student as my cover model as she is going through her GCSE's which everyone has experienced. She has been at school for a while now and is quite well known within the school. This means other students will be able to relate and will want to have a look at this magazine. Students that are in a younger years are soon going to experience these exams so may read the magazine for this reason. Also some parents may read the magazine as their children already go to the school so they can also relate.

Deconstruction of heat magazine front cover

Representation of women
On the front cover of gossip magazines, the celebrities are usually women as the 'female victims'. they are usually objectified for males eyes or made victimised and shown in a negative light to satisfy the audience.
Target audience
Primarily the target audience are working class females. People that read it tend to be interested in celebrity gossip and 18-35.

Heat communicates with its audience by using bright colours, normally red blues and yellows. These anchor the codes of the conventions of the gossip magazine which attracts the target audience.

In general all gossip magazines have a high ratio of photography to text. In the heat magazines the masthead is red and a block lower case serif font which is shadowed and this will stereotypically appeal to female audience.

In the corners of both magazines, the mode of address is upbeat and is targeted to the audience in a excitable way. This makes the reader feel is exclusive and the reader feel inclusive.

The main cover line story for this magazine relates to members of the audience as its about falling for a boy. This is emphasised by a pub which is a vibrant blue which makes you attracted to it.

My Mock up magazine

This is my mock up magazine. I'm going to change the cover picture and maybe change the layout, but this is basically an outline of what it will look like. I have used the dark blue colours as this is on the theme of the school I am using, the school uniform is navy blue. I have called my magazine ethos as its all about community and aspirations which hopefully people will be able to relate to.

School Magazine Conventions

 

This is a school magazine that I have annotated. I have identified the conventions and they are different from a normal magazine. they do not contain a bar code or a price. The cover model of the front is not someone famous but a school girl. They target audience of a school magazine is different to a more mainstream one like cosmopolitan.

Cosmopolitan conventions

Cosmopolitan is a classic ladies magazine for woman to relate to and enjoy reading. It is high up in the magazine industry and is very popular with woman. I chose this magazine because I like the style of the cover and it makes you feel like you are being specifically spoken to by the writer with "love your body" written in bold.

Conventions of magazine

Conventions of a Magazine

Today in class I learnt all the definition's of the conventions of a magazine

The masthead is the name of the magazine which is always displayed at the top. It is always carefully picked in colour and font which will then help sell the magazine and give an indication to the audience what its going to be about.

Another thing I learnt was what a tag line was. A tag line goes next to the masthead and it shows what the magazine is about or who's it aimed at, slightly like a slogan for the magazine. This is not on all magazines, for example cosmopolitan because it’s a famous magazine which everyone knows about so it doesn’t necessarily need one

The central image on the front cover is on of the mist important parts. Its there to catch the readers eyes before they read anything. It will be always relevant to the magazines purpose and audience. A lot can be denotated (direct meaning) and conotated (an idea associated)  from the image.

A cover model will be used on the front cover of a lot of magazines. It is normally a celebrity or a well known person which is connected to the magazines genre, or it can be a photographic model like a car. As an example a magazine that’s aimed for men, may have a pretty looking woman as the cover model doing a seductive pose and wearing not many clothes, this would be linked to the content aside and appeal to the buyer.

Anchorage is the term in which images are referred to. The images are anchored by captions explaining the picture, this could be a cover line, article and headlines. This helps give the image meaning and helps the reader understand the significance.

Secondary images are sometimes placed on a magazine to promote features inside and they are usually anchored by a cover line

Cover lines are put at various points in the front cover. It tells the readers about the content inside the magazine and what articles they will find. To catch people’s attention they will often use language and presentational devices to be more effective.

 The mode of address refers to the way that magazines connect with the readers. Some use direct mode of address which is communicating with individual readers (through the cover model) or use of 2^nd person (you)

A puff helps draw attention and promote a certain element in the magazine. There normally positioned against a strong colour and are shaped. Regularly they advertise a freebie or a special feature.

 Pugs are positioned on the top corners of a magazine on the front cover. They display a promotion from the magazine or the price.

A Barcode, the price and edition all need to be placed on the front cover carefully. The barcode shouldn’t cover any important features and the price is always typically places nearby. How the edition is formulated depends how frequently its published. Most magazines are released monthly and so the month and year will be stated.

Use of colour in a magazine adds great affect. Some magazines change the colour scheme each editions, theirs keep the same colours to coordinate the central image.

Font choices are displayed in a varieties and are usually adapted to infer meaning to the text they’re displaying

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First Blog

This is my first blog that I've made which is going to be for my AS coursework for Media. Hopefully making a blog will be more fun than writing essays like I am doing for other subjects.