Contact Sheet of Second Photoshoot

Here are all my photos taken on the second photo shoot with my model, Cassy, in a more compact form of a contact sheet.

Second Photoshoot

I felt unsatisfied after carrying out my first photo shoot, and so I decided to do another one, where I had more time to get a wider range of different shots at interesting angles. In my second photo shoot I styled my model in a range of different outfits, from leggings and t-shirts, to skirts and dresses. This shows more variety of the pop star throughout the magazine, and I feel makes the photo shoot overall more professional and realistic.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine is aimed at pop fans, who enjoy a little bit of everything, and love to just have fun. After closely studying magazines similar to my own product, such as Q, I came to the conclusion that my target audience would have an interest in musical artists with characteristics such as being fun loving and carefree. For example, music artists I found my target audience to enjoy reading about were people like Katy Perry, Jessie J, Calvin Harris and Rihanna. This is due to their upbeat party music and colourful artist images.                 I wanted to make my magazine appeal to the same audience as these magazines; because of this is chose to use a cover model that is young and attractive. Her long blonde hair conotates her innocence whilst the action of the photo, pulling on her cross-ridden necklace, shows a more rebellious and daring side to the music artist. The minimalistic make-up on my model represents many pop/indie fans - not too out there, but certainly not plain. This cover image will instantly appeal to my target audience as her little black dress is glamorous yet looks affordable.
                I used colours such as teal and purple to keep the magazine eyecatching throughout - not just on the front cover. These bright colours reflect the personalities of pop stars and their fans. I included a pull quote in my article that mention X-Factor - a very popular TV programme amongst my target audience. X-Factor is known for producing some of the biggest pop stars, especially in the industry at the moment, such as Olly Murs. The second pull quote I’ve used is: “It’s not about the fame or the money, it’s about doing what I love most - making music”. My targeted social group will instantly feel they can relate to this quote, as pop fans enjoy an artist who is down to earth, and doesn’t show off about being famous. The large photo I’ve used on my first double page spread displays how spontaneous and fun this artist is, along with the fans that follow artists of this type.The general tone of my article is gossip-like and secretive. This helps to make my target audience feel the information they are reading is exclusive and makes them feel special as if they are the first to read it. This tone will also relate to my target audience as they will enjoy hearing gossip and secrets about inspiring music artists, forming a personal identification as they will aspire to be like them.
My cover model’s facial expressions are generally cheeky, as she will slightly smile whilst deeply gazing into the camera, or pull funny faces, looking imperfect, and therefore normal. This will satisfy my targeted social group as they will appreciate this relatable side to the artist, and is effective as the reader will be drawn to look at the page. This also creates a realistic appearance for my feature artist, helping to sell the article further as the target audience will feel curious about her and want to read on. Her body language is dominant and confident, with poses such as her hand on her hip (shown on the cover) and her range of cute and fun faces (shown on the first and second double page spreads). This will also appeal to my target audience as they will be able to form a personal relationship with the character, as my target audience will also be confident and able to ‘let their hair down’.

Production Log - 25th January

Last lesson I worked on the double page spread of my magazine, and decided to create a box of text separate from the actual article, which is still related to the topic of the artist and links in with the article. This helps to break the double page spread up so that it isn't all just a big chunk of text, and looks less daunting to the reader. Inside the box I included comments from twitter users that are fans of the featured artist, Scarlett's music, to make my target audience feel they can contribute to the magazine, too. Twitter is commonly used across my target audience and so I feel that this box will be appreciated by my target audience. The box keeps to the house style, and rather than being just a plain line I changed it to polka dots to make it more attractive to the reader's eye, and this also adds the glamorous celebrity effect as it almost mimics a celebrity's dressing room, with a mirror surrounded by circular lights.

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

The logo I’ve used in the top left corner of my magazine has clear similarities to the logo used for Q magazine, as the text is white on a bold coloured background and is boxed into the corner. The subheadings are each separated with lines in between to make it clear that each is featured in my magazine. The larger pieces of text, which are the names of music artists, are followed by a brief descriptive line underneath in smaller text to catch the eye of readers so that they can spot the artists that they’re interested in reading about or are fond of. The circle in the top corner is used in the same way as Q magazine does, as it highlights the text inside it as readers might find this factor attractive and would convince them to purchase the magazine. I decided to place a sell line for a freebie in the circle as professional magazines, especially for music, often give away free posters, CD samples, etc. for their readers. I featured a quote by the main focus of the magazine in the corner to give a preview of what the article will be like and influences readers to want to read more inside.
I’ve used the idea of ‘Inside this week’ from NME magazine as I found this title more interesting for a contents page than just ‘Contents’. I’ve made page numbers larger than all of the other text to make them stand out, and this makes the magazine easier to navigate around for the reader and they can easily find what they want to read quickly. To improve my contents page from my first draft, I added page numbers to the artist list so readers know where to go to read about the ones that interest them. I wrote catchy contents lines to attract the reader to visiting each page, like professional magazines do. However I may alter these in my next draft to have a title and description, like on the front page, as Q magazine does. I could break my contents up into sections e.g. ‘on the cover’ and ‘regulars’ to make my magazine even more similar to a professional one, and again making the magazine more accessible to readers as if something catches their eye on the front cover, they are then able to access this straight away from the contents page.
My first double page spread of my magazine is largely inspired by an NME article featuring Mike Skinner. I chose this article to go by when making my double page spread as I found, as a reader myself, that the headline is very eye catching and the large image covering the left page is striking towards the reader. The font used for the headline is simple yet bold, with the music artist’s name standing out more than anything else on the page, so it’s made incredibly obvious what the focus of the article is. I chose to fill one whole page with a photo as I feel my target audience will appreciate an image this large of the music artist if they are a big fan. As my magazine is aimed at teenage fans of pop music, readers may use this photo to stick up on their bedroom walls to idolize their favourite singers, as my target audience typically do. The pull quote is surrounded by two boldly coloured lines, fitting in with the house style, to emphasise the quote. Professional magazines do this in order to attract attention and also to break up the text, so it doesn’t just look like one big chunk of text. This is also why I’ve added a photo within the text, with text wrapped around it. Readers may notice the pull quote and base their decision on whether or not they shall read the article on this, so it’s vital to have bold clear pull quotes, in the recognisable house style.

Production Log - Monday 14th January

I added a new colour to my house style as I felt that just the teal and grey was too boring, and not eye grabbing enough. Also, the majority of my audience feedback mentioned the fact that another colour could be added in to make the magazine more attractive, so I decided to act on this. I thought a purpley/burgundy colour would match well with the teal and wouldn't clash. I didn't want to use red as most music magazines do, because I think it's overused, and then my magazine would look too much like Q or NME.

Feedback On My Magazine Draft

I asked several people of my target audience to give me feedback on my first draft of my magazine..

I really like the colour scheme Faye has chosen and think the colours mix together very well. It will look even better once an image has been chosen for the front. The front cover layout is very stylish and attractive. All the sell lines are related to the genre of Faye’s magazine and interest her ideal target audience. By Faye keeping her contents quite simple it makes it look professional and not too busy. If I were to give any constructive criticism on her contents page I would say maybe use one more colour to make the artist names stand out more or put their page number in a bold colour. The double page spreads are well designed and will look even better once images are inserted. Overall i think that Faye has made an excellent start on her magazine but finding images to fit this design may be tricky!

I think the layout works well and looks professional, just like real magazines. However the colour scheme could be stronger, using colours like red or orange would make it stand out more and look even more like a real magazine.

I think that Faye’s magazine follows the conventions of a real magazine. He ongoing house colours of grey and teal-green work effectively as they contrast each other and aren’t the ‘normal’ colours you’d expect in a magazine therefore it would stand out compared to other magazines. On the front cover, the ‘Q’ logo would be easily recognisable and is similar to the typical layout of a real magazine. I like the idea of a double page contents with the different sections for each page as it creates easy navigation for the magazine so it’s easier for the reader – this is positive for the reader as it would attract them for this reason. If I were to give some constructive criticism I would try and use different images to give it a bit of variety so it is entertaining for a reader to look at.

I think throughout the magazine there is slightly too much grey used, and maybe another colour should be added to the house style. The teal on the contents page needs to be darker to stand out and so does ‘party’ as part of the quote on the front cover. The font of the quote on the front cover would look better and would make more sense if it switched to the other font used.