Cihan Ozduble 1.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? When I was first give the main task, I researched and looked at some existing music magazines to see how a typical magazine presents the different kind of conventions to attract their target audience. I found that most magazines used the same type of conventions some just developed and some challenged the conventions. In my music magazine I first used the basic conventions and then developed on these conventions using the different tools and effects on Photoshop, I did this to make my music magazine look professional. One of the conventions I used in my music magazine, which is also used in most music magazine is a large masthead, which is placed at the top of the magazine. I did this as I wanted to imitate real music magazines to make it look professional, placing my masthead in a large font at the top of my magazine will make it stand out from the rest of the cover-lines on this page. I did not develop on my masthead as most people downloaded a font to make it stand out even more, but I used a basic font which is written in capital letters. However, to adapt my masthead I used my skills and created my own play button to suit the masthead Replay this made my masthead look more professional I also did this to attract my audience as it has the theme of the genre. The font I used for my masthead was Franklin Gothic Demi although the font made my masthead look very simple I think the play button I created gives it to dance theme which will definitely attract my target audience. The idea of creating a replay button came from when I was researching into music magazines; a magazine used a disc as part of their masthead which really attracted my attention.

The next conventions I worked on was the cover lines, this is also one of the main conventions needed on a magazine front cover. Cover-lines are very important as it depends if the audience will or will not buy the magazine as this convention gives the audience an insight of what will be inside the magazine. Cover-lines should mainly be short and eye-catching, as to imitate real magazine cover-lines I used interesting cover-lines which will attract my target audience as this convention is the main selling point so I had to make the cover-lines stand out from the page. As another convention the left-third on a magazine front cover is the main selling point which attracts the audience to buy the magazine as I tried not to overcrowd my front cover with cover-lines I used the left side of the page for my left-third, this helped me because I had more space for over cover-lines and therefore my image did not look squashed with too many cover-lines.

Cihan Ozduble Another convention I used on my music magazine was a barcode, dateline and price. This convention is usually on all magazines it is used as barcodes are used by retailers. The barcode was the only thing that I used off the internet; this was because I could not create my own barcode. I looked at existing music magazines and looked at where they usually place their barcode and dateline, and I saw that they are usually place right underneath the masthead. But I decided to place my barcode on the left-third with all my other main selling point cover-lines.

One of the typical conventions used in music magazines is a medium close up image to be used in the front cover, this convention is very common. And as to be following this convention I also used a medium close up on my front cover page I did so my target audience will know that it is a music magazine. Using a medium close up image uses a strong pose that the model is looking directly at the camera makes it seem as if the image is an eye-level shot this gives the audience a feeling that they are at the same level as the artist which is presented on this page. This image has been taken using professional camera and lighting to give the image a strong outline which will draw the audiences attention which I feel that this image suits my target audience.

Cihan Ozduble Not only my front cover followed the convention of a music magazine, my contents page also followed conventions that are used in real magazines. Firstly when I first started my contents page I researched different layouts of a music magazine contents page and I really like one of the contents page layouts so I decided to emulate the design but using my own skills. I then structured out a typical layout of a contents page which I then included categories that were arranged vertically all around the page, this is one of the most popular conventions on a contents page. Organizing my categories vertically made my contents page layout look well structured and neat.

Another convention I worked on was taking the images for my contents page; this took a bit of time as I had to get the exact image it has to be perfect, with the right pose, camera shot/angle, and lighting. Once again for my main subject Sultan I took an medium close up as it is very common to use the shot on a music magazine I used her on a white background to make it stand out from the rest of the page. The other smaller images used, one was took on a black background with professional lighting whereas the other I took it outside college using my own camera, I took it in during the day where I would get good lighting in the image. I choose these three very strong images to use on my contents page because I thought these were the images that will appeal to my target audience as the image I included associate a lot with my front cover page. This makes the content page and front cover have the same house style and it also gives the sense that the continuity has carried on throughout.

Cihan Ozduble Similarly, I did the same for my double page spread too I used and developed the common conventions. First I used the same colour scheme as I did for my front cover and contents page to keep the continuity going throughout all my three pieces of work as this made my double page look professional. One of the main conventions used on a double page spread is an image that takes up one side of the page; I used a professional camera and lighting to give my image that professional look. I developed the conventions for my double page as I added a quote on the main image and in real music magazine they do not do this often.

The second main convention used in my double page spread was using double columns for the article. I emulated real music magazines to make my double page spread look more professional. So in Photoshop I used the rulers to guide me to make straight two columns, these were perfectly done. In the two columns I used a headline and a stand first these are also one of the main conventions these also my double page spread look more professional. However, to develop my convention skills I added three different type of image of my main subject at the bottom of my article this made my double page spread different from the other music magazines, it was unique. I then added an important information in a different colour right next to the images this also made my double page spread look different from the others as this made me develop my conventions.

Cihan Ozduble 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? When I first started to research and plan for my music magazine, I had a target audience in mind which was people that are interested in dance/hip hop at the age of 16-25 but mainly targeted at teenagers; it is also targeted at both female and males. The way I represented the particular social group in my music magazine was through the images I took and the colour scheme I used, the main subject used in my music magazine shows and represents the particular social group through her NVC and costume. The way she represents the particular social group through her costume, is because she is wearing an addidas hoodie with leggings and converses, this costume connotes the typical look of the hiphop/rnb dancers and singers such as the Rizzle Kicks. The clothes are the main subject is wearing is very fashionable especially the addidas hoodie, I feel that this gives the overall representation of the particular group as most of the people that listens to t these particular social groups all owns at least one pair of an addidas hoodie. Its not only the costume that represents the particular social group, but the main subjects nonverbal communication (NVC) also does this, in all of the three pieces she has three different poses as all of them connotes different things. The front cover image has a very strong eye contact with the audience, as mentioned before it is also a medium close up to connote a music magazine, the way the front cover image has a strong eye contact with the audience connotes that she is one task and ready for whatever is coming this is a typical style of this genre as most dancers are very independent and are also on task. The contents page image gives a totally different view, as in this image the subject look very happy and bubbly this is also another typical style of this genre as the hip-hop/rnb dancers as this connotes that they are very hyper and bubbly at most times. And the final images is on the double page spread, I think the double page spread has the best image as the subject looks very focused and has an eye level shot with the audience connotes that the audience can also be at the same level as these dancers if they work hard.

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

When I was on my planning and research stage of my media coursework I did a publishing house case study and in reference to this, although Cond Nast does not publish my type of magazines I thought that it would be good if Cond Nast could distribute my music magazine. I have many reasons why they should distribute my music magazine, firstly as Cond Nast doesnt publish music magazines, by publishing my music magazine Cond Nast would gain a lot things such as a wider range of age and different ethnics/people, as more people would be reading their magazines. As Cond Nast distributes such magazines as Vogue and GQ are the only magazines that have the closest age group these two magazines both involves fashion and culture. Although my magazine is mainly about music, fashion and culture plays a big part in the hip-hop/rnb dance genre. As most of the Cond Nast magazines target an older audience, Cond Nast distributing my magazine will get them a wider audience as my magazine will target a younger audience (16-25) therefore Cond Nat distributing a my music magazine like mine would expand the company by having a wider range of audiences. The second reason why Cond Nast should distribute my music magazine because, it would give Cond Nast a huge amount of financial benefit, they would have a massive financial benefit because of the wider range of audience they will have when none of their magazines are targeting at the moment. Cond Nast will see their profits increase very quickly as they have no competition within the company as they are gaining popularity. The long term financially beneficial effect that Cond Nast will be also be that their marketing, advertising and also their sponsorships would increase extremely because, as said before my magazine will target a wider audience than any other Cond Nast magazines. The increasing of Cond Nasts profits and marketing will make their magazines more popular as they will be more recognizable all over the UK, and also to their audiences. I would distribute my music magazine is different music shops that has the same theme/genre as my magazine and retail shops that are the most well known such as WHSMITHS, so I will have customers going in and out of these retails shops noticing my music magazine, it would also make it easier for my audiences to access my music magazine. I will also distribute my music magazine in youth clubs and dance centres/clubs that have mainly my target audience this would also be a good way to distribute my music magazine as this would be a place were most teenagers would hang around after school or even during the weekends.

Cihan Ozduble 4. Who would be the audience for your media product? My music magazines target audience is teenagers and young adults around the around of 16-25 which are mainly the British audience. I chose this audience because its mainly teenagers and young adults who are interested in hip-hop/rnb dance genre, I also chose the British audience because in Britain they have a very strong hip-hop/rnb genre and most of the times British music bands are the ones who represent this genre worldwide. I choose to target a young audience because as in my music magazine the content of the magazine is more likely to appeal to younger audience than appealing to adults, also in todays society most of the music magazines that are published are all mainly targeting at young audiences as most of the music artists are also young. However, my music magazine would also appeal to younger adults like in their 20s because in my music magazine I included things like concerts and joining clubs as this is a common convention o the hip-hop/rnb dance genre all my music would also be based around this genre. Although hip-hop/rnb genre is usually associated with black people, in terms of ethnicity my music magazine will target all different kind of races and both genders male and female. As most music magazines has black boy models of their front cover I wanted my music magazine to represent different ethnicity so as my main model I used a white/British girl to shows that it targets different races and gender. My magazine would also have different access like social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr), the internet (official website) Blackberry and IPhone apps I would do this as I will have a younger audience they would prefer doing thing on technology and online so it would make it easier for my audience to access.

Cihan Ozduble 5. How did you attract/address your audience? To attract and address my audience I feel I have used many things to do this including my audience research this is where my target audience states the things they like to see in a magazine, using the audience research I could have put a lot of things to attract my audience such as the colour scheme and masthead title. Firstly, the main way to attract my audience is for my magazine to be eye catching in stores for them to pick it up. Choosing a model to use of the cover that is roughly the same age as my target audience is another way I feel I attracted my audience, because I feel that my target audience will want to pick up an magazine thats got to do with their everyday life using their language. The costume the main subject is wearing also connotes the hip-hop/rnb dance genre; this is also stated in my audience profile as most people that are interested within this genre would usually conform to their friends like most of the time they will be wearing sporty brands such as Nike and Addidas, this is one of the reason I used an Addidas brand as an costume this would increase the amount of people that would buy and be attracted to my music magazine.

There are many ways that I have attracted my audience, and one of the other techniques I used to attract my audience is by using a very typical convention in all music magazines which is cover lines. I did this my keeping focus on only the hip-hop/rnb dance music scene as I included the things on my cover line that I found out in my audience research questionnaire, this would attract my audience widely as these are thing things they wanted me to include. However, I also used a sticker that would stand out on the page which reads top 10 music band posters this means that the money they will pay for the magazine they would also be getting free posters inside to add to their collections this was one of the way to attract my audience, also the cover line I included which was about bb(blackberrys) I included this because when I was doing my audience research I found how most of my target audience was on using Blackberry phones this would also attract their attention more as they own this phone and be inserted in the new music app to download. I also included well know artist within this genre such as Rizzle Kicks I did this to keep my music magazine up to date with their audience new artists.

Cihan Ozduble

I have also used the same font throughout the whole of my music magazine, however although I have used the same font to make it attractive I used different font sizes in different colours and adding effects on them such as a drop shadow and as stroke this would be very eye catching to my target audience as it would attract their attention. I did not download any fonts for my masthead or cover lines because as most magazines all have an download font to make it look better, I thought in using a simple but attractive masthead and cover line fonts to make my music magazine look unique from all the rest of the magazines. Similarly I also used a basic/simple font for when using the main feature of the cover line but using different colours and adding effects gave that eye catching attraction to the target audience, I placed this font in a big font size and different stroke colours to separate that cover line from the rest this creates the genre theme while its very eye catching to the audience.

I feel that the colour scheme of my music magazine has also attracted my target audience as the colours scheme is based mainly on the colour purple, white, black and yellow. I feel that these are the colours that will attract my target audience, as when I was doing my audience research I use four (4) different examples of colour schemes and asked all my participants that took part in my audience research which colour scheme looked the best, as the participant were roughly the same age as my target audience I feel I had a reliable result as this colour scheme is associated the hip-hop/rnb dance genre. These colours are also very strong and bright that it would easily attract my target audience; I also used these colours to appeal to both genders although my main subjects costume is more likely to appeal to a boy costume the colour of her costume relates more to a girl colours this is a good way of attracting boy genders.

Cihan Ozduble I attracted and addressed my audience through the type of language I used throughout my music magazine; I used formal standard English throughout although most of my target audience would not use formal standard English when talking with friends, but I wanted to my music magazine to be easily read even with people that are not interested in this genre because I used language within this genre then I would restrict other audiences as they will not know what such words mean. By doing this I am not just attracting and addressing my own target audience but I am also doing the same thing with other audiences.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? Although I knew how to use Photoshop from before, from the process of constructing my products I still have learnt a lot of things about technologies. For example I learnt how to take pictures using the camera Canon EOS 400D, although I used the camera when taking pictures for my preliminary task I learnt that when taking pictures of my music magazine I learnt more skills using this camera. I also used the Bowen Flash Kit with the camera in a studio with black and white background learning how to use both of these technologies together was very interesting the quality of the images was very good as it looked like professional pictures, even on the feedbacks of my music magazine my target audience really liked the quality of the images. My images was also all taken in the same location as I wanted to emulate real music magazine as most of them the images are taken in one location. However one of my contents page image was taken in outside of college to give my contents page more colour not just using the same background it also made it look more realistic although I used a different location for this image I still used the same camera to still give my image the professional look but this time I did not use the flash kit.

Cihan Ozduble From the process of constructing my product another technology that I built my skills on was Photoshop, although I knew how to use Photoshop as I was using it in GCSE Media, during this process I developed my skills on using Photoshop. Through the process of my music magazine I used both CS5 (at home) and CS3 (at college) Photoshop, I did this to construct my music magazine by using different tools. However, most of my work was done using CS3 Photoshop as I found it easier to use as this was the Photoshop I used in past courseworks too, however using CS5 also made my build my skills as this had more tools and options to add more quality effects to my music magazine. One example on using this Photoshop was when I used the Spot Healing Tool; I used this tool to make my main subjects face clearer by clearing away the spots on her face. I also used the Magic Wand Tool when I was only selecting my main subject to move it away from the background. I also had to use the Quick Selection Tool because when using the magic wand tool the image would not always crop out the way I wanted it to so I would use the subtract from selection for the pieces I wanted to include.

As I mentioned before, although I used Photoshop in GCSE Media I never knew how to create my own icon. And through this process of constructing my music magazine I learnt how to create my own play button, I did this by using the Line Tool and adding a layer style this layer style included things like adding a stroke, drop shadow, inner shadow, outer glow and a colour overlay. Doing this made my play button look more effective and professional.

Cihan Ozduble 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

As I mentioned in the question before, although I knew how to use Photoshop from GCSE doing my preliminary task I have learnt to do more effective things to make my main task look professional. I kind of knew what a magazines front cover convention looked like but I had no clue what the conventions of a contents page and double spread was, so by doing my preliminary task has helped me to learn these conventions to make my music magazine look professional by presenting them on a page. When I looked back at my preliminary task I could see that I had some sense of magazine front cover conventions, but totally no idea about contents page conventions as my access to these conventions was really poor I noticed this on my contents page on my preliminary task because it looked more like a poster or leaflet instead of it being a contents page. As my preliminary task I only included a front cover and contents page I was only able to use my skills on an A4 canvas, however while doing my main task, this task included a double page spread and therefore I was able to use my Photoshop skills using a bigger page. Using an A3 canvas for my double page spread, I learned how to work on a bigger canvas than A4 and also learned how to present and layout my conventions on an A3 canvas. Looking back at my preliminary task I feel that I have learnt how to use more tools effectively on each piece, as on the front cover of my music magazine I have learnt how to make my own play button using different tools and effects, on my contents page I learnt how to layout all my conventions to make it look like a professional contents page and finally on my double page spread I learnt how to download fonts off the internet and also to layout the conventions of double page spread and to make it look professional. In my main task I have also learnt how to use all the tools on Photoshop more effectively; unlike when doing my preliminary task I was less knowledgeable of using these tools. This helped me a lot when creating my music magazine because it helped me see what I did wrong before and how I could improve my skills this was an big advantage when

Cihan Ozduble producing my music magazine, because I did not have any of these advantages or skills when producing my preliminary task. Throughout the progression of when doing my preliminary task and my main task, I feel that I have learnt more about how to attract your audience, I feel this because while doing my preliminary task I really didnt know how to design and attract my audience in terms of my magazine conventions, colours, layout etc. My preliminary task also included a wide range of audience, as it wasnt aimed an specific student it was targeted at all students, however unlike my main task I had a specific audience which this would make my music magazine more focused on one genre and therefore it would be more suitable for my target audience and I could do my research of this particular genre and people interested in. When doing my preliminary task, we only had a week to finish both the front cover and contents page, so I could not spend a lot of time doing my research and creating my college magazine at the same time as my time was limited I really couldnt manage my time but I proceed a good piece which I got an B for. However when doing my main task we had 6 weeks to complete it and therefore I had more time to spend on research, layout and putting my music magazine together, I even had time at the end to show my final pieces to my teacher and my target audience and get some feedback to improve my work, and I think I did a good job in doing this as I managed my time perfectly. Managing my location, costume and props for my photographs was not that hard for my preliminary task but was quite stressing for my main task. When taking my photographs for my preliminary task, I had to use someone in the class as we were in groups and took turns taking pictures the model for my front cover I gave her some books (prop) to hold in her hand and took the photograph in the corridor of college (location) I felt this was a good location as the magazine was based on colleges it was an important part of mise-en-scne. However, doing all this for my main task was more difficult, I took the image in a media room which has professional camera, lighting with a white and black background I used headphones and microphone as props and made my model where clothes that suited the genre of my topic. Although I had everything I needed the way I took my photograph would have affected my final outcome a lot, as I could not use all the photographs I wanted because in some images I didnt have enough space to write my cover-lines etc, therefore this affected the outcome of my final pieces a lot.