Pre-production 2nd redraft

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.