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

After performing extensive research into current publications and materials that are out today, I felt that I had gained a clear and deep understanding of the conventions that are included in real media products on offer to the public. Kerrang Magazine was a huge influence for my magazine because it is a current and popular Rock Music Magazine that is currently on the market and as I have purchased this from the age of 14, over the years I have become familiar to what appeals to the target audience and the language used in order to relate to the reader. Hammer Magazine was also quite influential for the making of Crowd Surf, as this magazine goes for a scrapbook style layout, and I wanted to use elements from this issue to incorporate into my pages. In order to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the genre of music my magazine is covering, I have made sure the content included is completely relevant to the Rock Music World, so for example, I have covered factors such as:

- Interviews with Rock Band Members - Reviews of the latest Rock Shows- Advertisings for coming up Rock Shows- Exclusive Stories on New Music - Mentioned Rock Bands; Blink 182, A Day To Remember etc.

Covering these factors will enable my magazine to appeal to people who like this style of music and who are familiar with the featured Rock Stars. Throughout my issue, I have included the generic conventions of a magazine to make my product look more professional and enable the reader to be familiar with the layout. For example, on my Cover Page, I have used:

- A Skyline; with information regarding free posters that are in the issue

- A Puff; this tells the reader about one of the competitions in my magazine

- Masthead; the title of my magazine is ‘Crowd Surf’ and I have put this at the top of the page in clear font for the reader to see

- Bar Code; with this, I have included the price of the issue, date of release and issue number, this is so the reader knows all of the relevant information about the magazine without opening it

- Images linking to my stories; as well as having some words to describe the content of my issue, I have also included relevant pictures to make the cover more appealing to the reader

- Cover Image; my cover image is related to my main double page spread and I have went for a Medium Close Up, so my model can clearly be seen and her pose isn’t too distracting

- Background; my background also links to my main article and makes the page look more interesting

- Font; all of my text is in capital letters, I have done this to enable it to be easier to read, and some parts of my text are in different colours, this is to make the page look more interesting, and the colours I have used are in my chosen colour scheme

I developed basic conventions of a magazine by basically adapting the features to my own way to suit my personal preference and my magazine. I challenged these conventions by positioning things not in the expected place, so for example; I added a three-word headline right above my barcode that provided the reader with very little information ‘Toro-Post MCR’. I did this because I felt it was different, also it could draw more attention from the public. Overall however, I would say that Kerrang magazine has been a big inspiration for the creation front of my magazine, and as you can see in my flat plans is my initial layouts were very similar to Kerrang, this is because I know the pages appeal to the public and I want my product to also appeal to the public who are reading the issue.

2) How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I have planned for my magazine to have a target audience of Rock Fans between the ages of 14-20, and typically these kind of people are stereotyped as being quite rebellious, depressed, quite artistic/creative, gothic (wear a lot of Black) and very angry. With regards to this, I have also tried to create a product that will appeal to the sub-cultures within these categories, so for example, people who do not particularly follow a specific trend like Emo and Goth, they just simply like the music that Crowd Surf is focusing on. As well as this, I have tried to adapt my product to appeal to all genders, I have done this in order to attract more attention and buyers, I feel that if a product is unisex, there is a higher chance of more units being sold, to result in a higher annual revenue. And I found during my research

that most of the participants, who filled out my questionnaire and informed me that they answered it were girls, so this tells me that girls are more likely to buy magazines than boys, but if I was to advertise Crowd Surf as an al gender magazine, then maybe I could attract the attention of boys as well as girls. I have tried to make my issue look slightly crafty/scrapbook like, my chosen main font is quite rough and graffiti like and I have used vocabulary choices that often comes up in songs from this music genre (awesome, sound, rad etc.) in order to match these standard stereotypes that people aged 14-20 are commonly judged as by others. My model Beth is also 18 and falls under the target age range, throughout my issue, she is pictured wearing a Blink 182 shirt and posing doing various mannerisms that are seen as ‘Rock things to do’ such as holding up two fingers, pulling quite stern faces and stood with her leg out to the side in Vans and Black Skinny Jeans. I wanted Beth to model for me because of her age and look, and I hoped this would make my issue appeal more to my target age range because Beth is of a similar age and in the magazine. Plus, the colours Pink and Blue are typically referred to as ‘Boys and Girls’ gender specific colours, so I decided to use them both in my colour scheme. I also picked Yellow, White and Black. I selected Black and White as they are both very popular shades to use in a magazine (I found that when looking at other similar products, the use of Black and White are very prominent). I also wanted to use the colour Yellow because this is a typical unisex colour that isn’t associated with a specific gender. So, having Yellow almost acts as an invitation for any gender to read my magazine and hopefully like the look of it. After finding an issue of Kerrang with a similar scheme, I felt that these colours worked very well together and I would like to include them in my issue. I also did this in an effort to make my product appeal to all genders and not just one. As I want my product to appeal to the target audience as much as I could possibly make it, I sent out a questionnaire to people who fell between these age brackets to see what they would be interested in seeing in a new magazine. Also being 18, that puts me in the target age range, and this was very helpful as I know what appeals to me in a magazine, so most of the creation was based off my personal opinions as well as what other people said from my feedback.

3) What kind of Media Institution might distribute your media product and why?

Publishing Houses are companies that work on getting information out to the public in forms of Magazines, Books, Adverts and Newspapers. Examples of these companies include Bauer Media Group, Future PLC and Immediate Media Company. I have selected the Bauer Media Group for the distribution of my product; this is because they are responsible for Kerrang Magazine and they have many representatives all around the world, including places such as Germany, The United States of America and Russia. I found out whilst doing my research that during 2013, Bauer’s yearly revenue was 2.6 billion Euros, which converts to 1,872,966,075.90 Great British Pounds. In the same year during June, Kerrang sold 37,603 issues, and I worked out because they are a weekly publishing, that equals to around 9,400 issues a week; making on average 82,725 Pounds a month on just physical magazine sales. Bauer also work with music channels and radio broadcasts as well as printing physical copies of issues. I feel that Bauer is a good company to work with as they already haver Kerrang, and I think that having another Rock Music Magazine will strengthen the company and provide younger people with a similar product (Kerrang looks at all kinds of bands, old and new, like Metallica and ACDC, and Crowd Surf looks at newer bands in comparison, like Knuckle Puck and A Day To Remember). I have a set price of £1.50 for a monthly issue of Crowd Surf. I have decided this on the grounds of Kerrang Magazine comes out every week and is £2.20 an issue, and after reading reviews online, I found out that some people think that it is too costly to spend every week; coming to £8.80 a month for people who buy every issue. My target is to sell at least 10,000 issues within the first year of my product going onto the market, which would generate a sales total of £15,000. Plus, many people have access to smart phones, tablets and laptops with internet connection, so I would like to have on offer a digital version of my product, this could potentially result in more sales and having the digital option would keep the company up to date with the latest technology. I also think having this option would give people who maybe don’t have a shop nearby who sell Crowd Surf the chance to have an issue. Having a digital option is also very convenient, as you can just download it when you want and have access within five minutes.

4) Who would be the audience for your media product?Shortly after I conducted my market research (which involved me making a Questionnaire using Survey Monkey and having conversations with my friends) I quickly decided that I wanted to

create a magazine that would appeal to people between the ages of 14-20. I wanted to do this because I feel that there are hardly any Rock Music Magazines available on the market as it is, never mind ones that appeal to people of such a young age. Back to Kerrang, they are a Rock Magazine, but they have a wider target age range (14- at least 35), and I want my product to precisely be for 14-20 year olds. I decided on this target age range as I feel that there are already Rock Magazines on the market that appeal to people of a similar age (Kerrang), however as Kerrang is aimed at people up to the age of around 38 and possibly above, I wanted to create a product that would relate more so to younger people, but isn’t too childish. After looking at Kerrang, I feel that especially on the content front, there is a lot covering older bands in particular, so this is why I want to feature in comparison, newer and more known bands to the younger generation. I want to have my magazine appeal to all genders, this is why I have carefully selected the colour scheme the way I have (I previously mentioned about using both Blue and Pink as these two colours are seen as being strictly for Boys and Girls). Having my layout quite scrapbook like helps make my product appeal more to my target age range I think, because I know for myself that I like having interesting things to look at, and not just text and image. I think the scrapbook layout links to the nature of my Double Page Article also, this is because some people are often embarrassed when it comes to admitting what kind of music they listen to (I have been there myself, when you first start liking a certain kind of music that doesn’t really suit your image, it can be a bit uneasy to tell people because you worry what they think). Plus, having my pages like a scrapbook could reflect that my Super Fan doesn’t go around shouting about her obsession, and the diary like presentation represents how it is a very personal issue to Beth and sometimes she keeps it a secret because she is worried about what people think of her. I also wanted to show how many teenagers who like Rock Music are very creative, I have seen amazing fan art of Rock Bands on a website called Tumblr and many musicians such as Gerard Way and Mark Hoppus promote Art on the internet. So I think the arty take to my product makes it more appealing to the eye, but I haven’t went overboard in order to make it look slightly childish. As I am in the target age range, I am familiar with language choices that people this age often use, colloquialisms such as mint, awesome, woah and erm are quite popular, so I have included this style of vocabulary register suits my target market, therefore relatable to audience in my text to make my write ups appeal more to 14-20 year olds, and like the art, I

didn’t go overboard as this could have made my writing not make sense, or sound stupid. To keep the audience’s interest in my product, I have stated on my front cover that there are Headlines for exclusive stories and interviews in the issue, and that they can’t be found anywhere else, this adds to the impression that you will not find out information about the best Rock Bands unless you buy my magazine. Also, I have on offer in every issue at least four competitions; they range from winning vouchers for merchandise websites, to winning tickets for the latest gigs. I believe that having these kinds of competitions will attract more buyers, especially if somebody really likes a band who are playing a sold out show and you can win tickets to, also if I am offering VIP tickets for a band who a member of the public loves, having the chance to potentially meet them would definitely make my magazine worth buying I have selected these kind of competitions because I feel that more people within my target audience will be drawn in. I have displayed this information using Puff’s; this is to make it stand out more to the reader so they can see it. I also included a Skyline that has inside my offering of the free posters in the issue, as well as this I have a Reverse Sky Line that advertises one of my main stories in the magazine. Many 14-20 year olds attend gigs and shows, and sometimes they can’t go because they don’t have enough money for a ticket; so having on offer a competition to win tickets would more than likely draw them in. Also, many teenagers wear band merchandise and it is known for not being very cheap, so a competition for free merch essentially is worth entering. Because of the diversity of my competitions, I believe that this will attract attention and result in more purchases. On my advertising poster, I created an offer for subscribers of my magazine, for £28 the subscriber will get:

- £25 I-Tunes Voucher - Delivery of every issue - 50% off at HMV (music store)- Early Access to every issue - Digital Download

As well as all of this, I am planning on having on offer a bonus mystery gift for people who subscribe during times such as Christmas, Halloween and summer.

5) How did you attract/address your audience?As I previously said in question 2, the people in my target audience range are stereotyped as an angry, rebellious, artistic and depressed group of people, so I have adapted my product in certain ways to

follow some of these stereotypes in order to make my magazine appeal more to the target buyer. With me wanting to have my issue appeal to all genders, I have carefully selected my colour palette to create something that will attract the attention of all genders, and not just one. Also, with my vocabulary register, I have went for a slightly informal tone to my text because not only is Rock Music seen as a rebellion against the world, lyrics to the songs aren’t exactly well spoken. In order for Crowd Surf to relate to the reader, I have used words that people my age often use in every day conversation colloquialisms (awesome, cool, sick etc.) because if I didn’t and my body of text was very formal and well spoken, the target reader would probably not be able to relate themselves to the text, which would result in them not liking my product. Throughout my magazine, I have used images that will appeal to my target audience because of a couple of factors, which are:

- My model is wearing a band shirt with skinny jeans and vans; this is what people in my target audience range often wear or are stereotyped to wear anyway, Beth also has piercings on her face, which is a common thing for people who fall between my target age range

- I have included images from gigs that I have been to; I think that having these in my issue will give the reader a clear picture of what it would be like to see a certain band live if they haven’t before, also they are relevant to my stories

- I had my model pose in certain ways, for example, there is an image on my double page spread of her with her two fingers up and she is pulling a pouting like face instead of smiling; after years of having social media accounts, I have noticed that this is a very popular pose amongst 14-20 year olds

The colour and style of my font is also very important, for my Masthead and headlines, I went for the ‘Old Press’ font, I picked this because after my research, I felt that this was the font that looked the best and would work for my product. It is a very jagged and rough font, it also looks like it could have been spray-painted on a wall, and therefore I think that it will appeal to my target audience very well. I also made sure that the font was different colours throughout my issue, most magazines that are already on the market often keep their font colour as Black or White, and there is no diverse range; and I feel that this makes each page look slightly dull. And because my age range is slightly younger than most magazines, I think the use of a variety of colours is necessary. I think the ‘Old Press’ font also links with the Rock genre because the word ‘Rock’ to me suggests rough

and un-even, and Old Press font is exactly this. Plus, comparing my title to Rock Magazine, Kerrang, I feel that our Mastheads are quite similar in the way that they are both very rough looking and broken up. Looking back at my audience feedback, people between the ages of 14-20 picked Crowd Surf to be the best name for a Rock Music Magazine out of the selection of answers. Also, the results came back and told me that people between the ages of 14-120 would be greatly interested in receiving free posters in an issue of my magazine, so I put into my issue free posters for the buyer. As well as market research, we did a peer evaluation in class, and they said that I have really good story ideas and they really liked my layout and Masthead idea. It was mentioned that my font was sometimes hard to read however, but I found this feedback very helpful in the way that it helped me improve my magazine to create a product fit for a person between the ages of 14-20.

6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?

When I first started the media course in September, one of my weakest points in my personal review was my Photoshop skills. During the construction of my product, I gradually became better on this program, and I am personally very happy and overwhelmed with how much more I know now about Photoshop, so this was a personal best for me. In order to develop these skills, I downloaded Photoshop onto my MacBook, this way I could practice various things in my own time, and also get used to working on my laptop as I had just got it at the beginning of construction. I felt that this project acted as bonding time also for my laptop and me as I was slowly figuring out how to properly use it. It was also very useful as I had all of my work on my laptop ready to work with whenever I wanted. Plus, we have Apple Macs in the classroom which I used for some of my construction as well as my own. At the start of the year, I had had very little experience from a Mac point of view and I personally highlighted that I needed to improve on this. Now, I am more confident with Macs and I feel that you achieve the best results on Apple Computers, this is because everything to me is set out in a professional and smart format, you can print screen easily, use Photoshop as well as other softwares, and have your work located on the desktop so it is easy to find (you can do all of this on most standard laptops and computers, but I just prefer Apple) Also, I had never heard of the program ‘InDesign’, and I had no idea how to use it. I managed to then create a

product on this software, and I also figured something out that everyone using InDesign had an issue with, and I was very proud of myself for this. Within Photoshop, the Magnetic Lasso tool and the Curve tool were very useful for me and helped the construction of my product easier, the Shape and Fill Tools were also beneficial. And with InDesign, I would say that knowing how to wrap text around your images is crucial for a successful creation, if I couldn’t do this, then my pages would have been deeply affected. And, knowing to change the quality of the page from standard to high is also very important. Otherwise, your work looks blurred and unclear (this is what I figured out). In both of these software’s, it is important to know about the different layers and how the order of them can affect your product. Luckily, I have previously used Photoshop and I know from experience how important it is to make sure your layers are in the right order. I feel that both Photoshop and InDesign contributed to the success of this task for me, InDesign helped me with lining up my text in even columns and enabling clear reading for my reader, also Photoshop helped me with creating the smaller details for my product, such as page numbers and Mastheads. I initially had no idea how to use InDesign, but after watching tutorials on YouTube, I gained more of a better idea of how to use it, and it took time, but I eventually got the hang of it. On the photo front, I had no issues with this as I have been doing Photography for five years now, so I am familiar with equipment and how to get a good result from an image. If my images didn’t turn out the desired way, I would simply re-shoot. Having my twin sister as my model was very convenient and if I needed her, she would always be ready within ten minutes. I would then go into Photoshop to edit my images, and I rarely did anything to them besides increase the Curve, this gave my images a nice light result that wasn’t too harsh or bright to the reader’s eyes, it also made my images look more clearer than they already were. I used a Nikon D3200 for all of my images and I really like this style of camera, as the image quality is amazing. For most of the images, I used a standard setting as I had all of the lights in the studio to support the camera and brighten my image. However, when I wasn’t in the studio, I experimented with the aperture settings on the camera, this altars how much focus is in an image, it also changes the lightness of the image if it is too high. I went for a setting of around 11-12 for my images of Tom’s Pick and the Merch Collection and I was very happy with the results. I also used the lens to zoom in on many of my photos, I did make sure that I didn’t zoom in too far

however, as this would have made my images look slightly out of proportion and uneasy to look at.

7) Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

If I were to compare my Preliminary Task to my final product now, I would probably laugh. I feel that I have came a very long way with this task and I have excelled myself on the technology and creativity front. I have become more aware of the generic conventions of magazines, how different styles of text make the look of a product different, how images can improve the quality of a piece and how important it is to base everything you do on your target audience; because they will be the ones reading it at the end of the day. The panning stage for my product was very important, as I wouldn’t know what I was doing unless I planned it out. I created several flat plans inspired by other magazine layouts prior to creating my final piece, this was a key part of my planning as this enabled me to work out where everything was going to go, and a rough idea of what my magazine was going to look like when finished. I also created many samples of potential features for my issue to test out my idea to see if it would be right or not. Before any of the planning stages begun, I conducted research into the following:

- Publishing Houses; this is important because it gave me an insight of magazines that are already on the market, how different publications can be formatted, who would be best to publish my magazine, and how the businesses work to create successful products.

- Already Existing Rock Magazines (Kerrang and Hammer); I also performed two analysis’s of these magazines to gain more of an understanding of what I should be putting in my issue.

- Generic Conventions of a Magazine; as I didn’t know much about this, I felt that this specific part of research was very helpful, otherwise I would have not known what to put in my magazine.

- Audience Research (questionnaire); I wanted to know what the public would like best in a magazine and which of my three Masthead’s they preferred, this was very beneficial.

- Peer Feedback – I feel that this was one of the most helpful parts for me, as it gave me more of an idea of how to improve my issue based on what people to a similar age thought of my product so far.

The use of call sheets and risk assessments was crucial to the success of this task, because without them, I would have not thought about the possible issues that I could have had to face during construction, or how I wanted my photo shoot to go. The call sheets especially helped explain who was involved, what I wanted to achieve, when the shoot was going to take place and if there was anything specific I would need to improve the shoot (props, costume etc.). Comparing my prelim exercise to my final product, you can clearly see how my Photoshop and InDesign skills have developed over time. With my prelim, I used the same font for all of my text, I used the full image and not just my model on a background, I left my image un-edited, everything looked flat and it was very basic. In my final product however, I created my own background, I used the magnetic lasso to use only certain parts of my images, I used various font styles, sizes and colours, I used drop shadows on my Puff and Masthead to make them stand out more to the reader and I edited my images. As I mentioned earlier, I certainly think that my skills within Photoshop and InDesign have improved dramatically. Thanks to online tutorials, Sally and basic trial and error, I managed to achieve what I think is a good product that suits the brief perfectly. Comparing what I knew during the Preliminary Task and the Main Task, I have gained an understanding of how the target audience affects practically everything you do in a magazine, so for example, the colour scheme has to suit the target reader, along with the content and how the models/featured people are dressed. As well as this, my Photoshop/InDesign skills have came on a long way as I have previously said, I think that creating my magazine has helped me become more aware of the various features that are on these programs (such as refining edges on Lassoed Images, Importing Texts from the Internet and putting your writing into columns in InDesign). And finally, I have become familiar with the following websites:

- Slide Share - Prezi - Padlet - Blogger

Overall, I believe that my product suits the brief as I have created the Cover, Contents and Double Page Spread of a Rock Music Magazine with my target audience kept in mind the whole time. I believe that I have kept with my genre throughout and based parts of my product from previous research and experience.