Evaluation – Joel Macauley
This is the evaluation to
my media products that I have produced by myself; first of all I produced two
contrasting magazine covers for my pre-production. The first one I produced was
a music magazine which was called ‘IMN’ and the second one was a film magazine
called ‘Take2’, I followed all the codes and conventions which is what a person
would expect on the chosen media product they are viewing. I looked at the
codes and conventions of the music magazine NME and I looked at where the
masthead was located on the front cover and I then looked at where the images
where located and also where headlines and sub articles were. I then looked at
a contrasting magazine type which was a film one called Total Film and this had
more or less the same and codes and conventions of the NME cover and this
helped me immensely in my pre-production and main production.
At first I was undecided on
whether to create a music magazine or an album cover so I decided to look in to
existing products. First of all I looked at indie music magazines such as NME,
Q and Rolling Stone then I looked at some album covers of bands such as
Courteeners and Kasabian. This research allowed me to take note of the
different types of codes and conventions of two different types of media
product such as where the album title is placed, what kind of images are used
and also the types of colours that would normally be seen on a album cover and
where mastheads and other topics features that are on a magazines. After having
a think about what I was going to do I decided to make a music magazine due to
my knowledge of the codes and conventions of them, as I had studied magazines
the most so I felt as though I would be able to create a professional looking
magazine cover. Once the decision was made I started on my pre-production which
started with me creating a music magazine which was made easier following my
research into other music magazines and helped me follow the codes and
conventions of this particular genre of magazine. Therefore on my magazine I
made sure I had a cover star who was a musician from the genre of indie music
and also the headlines and sub headlines were of the same genre. My second
pre-production was a contrasting magazine genre of film which led me to looking
at Empire and Total Film, I found that this research considerably helped me to
follow the codes and conventions of film magazines such as what kind of cover
stars are placed on the front of this types of magazine such as a movie star or
a teaser for a upcoming film. I also looked at the types of headlines and sub
articles that were placed on the covers, as this genre of magazine is one that
I am rather unfamiliar with. Following this research I feel as though I have
done my best in order to try and make my pre-production products to look as
realistic as possible as I focused on denotation and connotations of magazines
and also the colours which are usually found on these magazines. The colours on
the cover would usually depend on what the genre of the film was or what type
of genre of film the actor usually features in. I then looked at IPSO, which
handles complaints about breaches of the Editors' Code of Practice; I did this
in order to make sure my magazine covers followed the rules of IPSO for example
I made sure I didn’t add any false information on my magazine about someone who
features on it. Once I had done this I researched Time Inc. the product
portfolio they had and the background to the company and I found out that they
own the magazine NME. I started to research who my target audience would be for
my pre-production; my demographic audience would be males and females who are
aged between 16 and 25. Then I decided my psychographic audience would be
people who are fans mainly of indie/alternative music. I then decided to ask
someone who fits into my target audience a series of interrogatives to find out
what they would expect to find on a music magazine, I found that they would
expect to see an indie band who are quite small at the minute but are going to
get big soon, or a big band who have just released an album or are about to
start touring also they expected to see quite dark colours such as black and
blue with a bit white. Following this I then went back to the pre-production I
had already started and I then started to change some things about it such as
the colour scheme and the content on the cover.
Following this I started to
focus on my actual production of a indie music magazine. First of all I looked
back over my pre-
Production and all of the
stages I went through in order to make my magazine look as realistic as
possible. However where my pre-production was just to create a magazine cover,
the main production would be to create a front cover but also a double page
spread inside the magazine. As a result of this I once again decided to look at
some professional examples of magazine double page spreads from magazines such
as NME, Q and Rolling Stone, and I found this very useful in helping me create
my double page spread, as a result of this I found out what a typical double
page spread would feature such as an interview with a band or a solo singer, or
perhaps a review of a gig or a festival. After I had done this I started my
front cover and I tried to address my target audience by following the colour
scheme that they would expect to see and then I focused on the cover star which
was a new band which is on the verge of becoming big. I feel as though this has
hit the needs of my chosen target audience, as this is what they would want to
see in a magazine. Following the completion of my front cover I moved on to my
double page spread. For this I decided to conduct an interview which was of the
cover stars the reasoning for this was because from the research of existing
music magazines there tended to be lots of interviews in them. As this only
covered one page I had to create a second page and on this page I decided to
put a large picture of the band and below this was tour dates for them, tour
dates is another thing I found that was heavily used in professional magazines.
Throughout my double page spread I addressed everything that my target audience
would expect to find in order to make it look appealing for them such as the
colour scheme. I feel as though that my production followed the codes and
conventions of a typical indie music magazine, I believe this because my front
cover had a indie band on it and surrounding it was sub articles of music which
is usually found on this type of magazine and also the colours were rather dark
as well. I also feel this is correct with my double page spread as well because
interviews are heavily used in music magazines and the questions I asked were
all related to music and the band, also the tour dates that I gave are also
prominent features in music magazines.
My magazine has many
strengths to it but it also some areas where I could improve it. The strength
of my magazine cover is the layout of it as I feel as though it does look
rather
Professional which is what
my main aim was, furthermore the content of the front cover is also
professional as I have shown knowledge of the music genre I am focusing on and
also the style in which I have wrote my articles and sub articles is
professional. Also the colour scheme on my cover was good because it was mainly
dark colours which really made the cover stars stand out which makes the
magazine look more appealing. Moving on to my double page spread I also feel
that this is professional due to the content of it because what has been wrote
wouldn’t look out of place in a professional magazine such as NME as it follows
the codes and conventions as the content is relevant for this particular genre.
However there are areas of my production which are different from a
professional standard. I believe that the fonts used on my front cover are
different from the ones used on professional ones, I found it difficult to get
my font right in order to match professional standards as the variation in font
styles wasn’t large enough in order for me to find the correct font in order
for my magazine to look like a more professional standard. On my double page
spread I had to make last minute adjustments such as the tour dates, I changed
the background colour to black in order to make the tour dates really stand out
on the page. Also I added the logo of the ticketing firm ‘Ticketmaster’ in
order to make it look more professional furthermore, I made sure that all the
tour dates lined up together correctly and none of them looked out of line.
