Research and planning: Double Page Spread Analysis

Double Page Spread Analysis

The double page spread mirrors the British indie/alternate theme of red, black and white. This is shown in the clothes she is wearing, the writing and the background. This layout also conveys that it is an indie/alternate magazine as it is more formal than a pop magazine, which is filled with bright colours and usually speech bubbles etc. But the layout is less formal than a factual magazine. The image shows what the writing is saying, as hit says 'I'm just honest' which suggests she is true to herself and wont let anybody else change her. You can tell this in the image as a typical thing for a girl in a magazine is a dress. where she is wearing a shirt. This shows that she is going against stereotypes and just wants to be able to be herself. This also link in with the genre as the 'indie' genre is also about being individual and wearing and doing what you want to, and not caring about what others think. Lily's face in this picture also represents the genre as you can tell it is not pop (all smiley and cheesy) but it is not a factual magazine as she is still posing. The layout is formal and easy understandable, and is very orginised. There is a heading, subheading and image on this double page spread which there will also be on my double page spread.

Research and planning: Double Page Spread Analysis Worksheet

Double Page Spread Analysis Worksheet

In our lesson we completed this worksheet so we know what to analyse when analysing a double page spread. We analysed a double page spread of the internet and did it all together so we learnt what we needed to include when doing my analysis for the double page spread. This is the worksheet:

Research and planning: Contents Page Draft

Contents Page Draft

Here is my contents page draft for my music magazine:

Research and planning: Contents Page Analysis

Contents Page Analysis

This contents page follows the common 3 
colour rule for alternate magazines, which is black, white and red. It also is easy simply understood and easy readable, which is very similar the alternate front covers I earlier reviewed. You can tell that the target audience for this magazine is young adults, ranging from 16 to anywhere in the persons 20's. If I had to be specific I would say 16 to 25. I can tell this because the magazine seems formal, but not overly formal (the type of magazine's that older people may read). This is because it is neutral colours, and not bright pink/blue etc, what a magazine for a younger audience may use to draw in individuals attention. But it isn't too plain so that it doesn't seem like a magazine a older person may read to be informed about factual information, such as sifi/technology magazines etc. You can tell that this magazine is a indie/alternate magazine as it is very informative about music, and even though it is a contents page it still has plenty of information on, all of it including music. The picture also conveys that it is a alternate magazine as it is a picture of a band and has a grunge/undercurrent to the picture, which suggests alternate, for example a pop magazine would not have a picture of a band what has a grunge undercurrent to the picture. The contents page has a picture, list of the contents/stories in the magazine and a bold heading. My contents page for my magazine will include all of these things.

Research and planning: Front Cover Final Draft

Front Cover Final Draft

Through research I have found out what my masthead, shot type and cover stories should be. I found out, through research, how exactly my front cover should be. Here are the decisions:
Image/shot type: Mid shot
Masthead: 'Roughcopy' in Engravers MT or  Orator std
Cover stories:
'Win tickets to the arctic monkeys sold out tour'
'Exclusive interview with ……'
'Top 10 new song releases shown inside'
'Upcoming tours/Upcoming artists to look out for'
'Fall out boy's tour dates released here'

Now I have that information I can do a final draft in detail to see exactly what my magazine front cover will look like. Here is a image of my final draft: 

The background will be an image, The masthead in black. The writing will be red/black/white and the models clothing will be sticking to my colour scheme of red white and black.

Research and planning: Deciding My Masthead

Deciding My Masthead 

To decide my final masthead I put this post on twitter to help me decide which final masthead to use:

Here are the replies and feedback I got: 

I had no votes for the first masthead, which means I will definitely not use it. I got 7 votes for the second masthead which was in font 'Engravers MT' and the third masthead got 3 votes, which was in 'Orator std'. I will most likely use the second masthead as thats what is the most popular, but I will try both the second and the third when creating my magazine to see which font goes with the design of my magazine etc. 

Research and planning: Deciding Cover Stories

Deciding Cover Stories

When doing my questionairres people said they would like to hear about new songs, new releases, news, stories, gossip, interviews, new artists, upcoming artists, tour news and gig dates in my magazine, therefor these will be my cover stories:

'Win tickets to the arctic monkeys sold out tour' 
I have decided this cover story as when doing research over 50% of people said they would like to see or hear about arctic monkeys in the magazine.

'Exclusive interview with ……'  
As over 50% of people said they wanted my main story to be a interview, this is what I will use as my main story and a cover story.

'Top 10 new song releases shown inside'
This is where people could find out about new songs/new releases.

'Upcoming tours/Upcoming artists to look out for' 
As there was numerous people say they would like to hear about upcoming tours+artists to look out for, this is how I will show that.

'Fall out boy's tour dates released here' 
This is something exclusive that will draw people to the magazine, as they would be newly released which means nobody else would see them and would be an exclusive.

Here are the stories what I will use on the contents page but not go into detail about:

Win tickets to the arctic monkeys sold out tour
Exclusive interview with ….
Top 10 new song releases
Upcoming tours and artists to look out for 
Fall out boy's tour dates release
Will historic musical '…..' be demolished? 
Social shocks 

Research and planning: Deciding Shot Type For Cover

Deciding Shot Type For Cover 

I am not sure what shot type I will use for my front cover yet but as most people who did the questionnaire said it should be a mid shot I will use that for my draft and will most likely use a mid shot for my magazine front cover. A mid shot is from the waist up, like this: 

 

Research and planning: Shot Type Research

Shot Type Research

Research and planning: Production Schedule Week 7

Production Schedule Week 7

I have started my production schedule for completing my music magazine. The schedule is from Monday 20th October until Sunday 18th January. I have highlighted box's for over the coming week of what I want to be completed by the end of next week. By then I want my production schedule, voice thread analysis, social networking feedback, camera shots sheet uploaded, decided a photo, decided cover stories, a final draft of my front cover and a contents page analysis and draft on my blog.

Research and planning: Music Magazine Interviews

Music Magazine Interviews

Research and planning: Interview Questions

Interview Questions

The interview questions I will ask are: 

1. Do you think RoughCopy is a good name for an indie magazine? If you do, why?
2. What type of cover stories or stories would you like to see in the magazine?
3. What three colours remind you of an indie or alternate magazine?
4. What artists in alternate music do you like?
5. Do you think my magazine should have a slogan, if so, do you have any ideas what it could be?
6. Do you think my main magazine story, should be an interview, news or a story?

Research and planning: Target Audience Presentation

My target audience.pptm from aliciasumner

Research and planning: Questionnaire Results Analysed

Questionnaire Results Analysed

I found out from my questionnaire results that: 

• People like Roughcopy as my masthead for my alternate/indie magazine 
• The thing people most would like to see in my magazine is new songs/releases 
• People would also like to see News/stories, Gossip, Interview, New artists/Upcoming artists and New tours/Gig dates included in my magazine. 
• The three colours that remind people most of an alternate magazine and the three colours I am most likely to use are black, white and red. 
• Over 50% of the questionnaires said they would like to see or hear about Arctic Monkeys in my magazine. 
• People would also like to see artists such as Ellie Goulding, Stereophonics, Ed Sheeran, Linkin Park, The Script and Fall Out Boy. 
• The majority of people think my cover should have a male on and not a female. 
• 50% of the questionnaires said I should have a slogan and 50% did not. 
• Over 75% of the questionnaires said my main magazine story should be an interview. 
• People thought the photo on my front cover should either be a medium close-up, mid shot, long shot or mid-long shot. 

Research and planning: Results of questionnaire

Research and planning: My Questionnaire

My Questionnaire

To find out what people would like to see in my magazine I made a questionnaire and gave it out to 10 people. The questions I asked in the questionnaire were- 

 1-  Do you think ‘Roughcopy’ is a good masthead for an indie magazine? If not then what masthead would you prefer?

2-  What type of cover stories/stories would you like to see in the magazine?

3-  What 3 colours would remind you of an alternative/indie magazine?

4-  What artists/bands would you like to see in the magazine?

5-  Do you think my front cover should have a female or male on?

6-  Do you think my magazine should have a slogan? If so do you have any ideas?

7-  Do you think my main magazine story should be an interview, news or a story?

8- What shot type would you like to see on the cover? 

Research and planning: Masthead Designs

Masthead Designs

Now I have my final masthead decided I have started to play around with fonts for my final masthead on my music magazine. Here are three of the fonts I used: 

My favourite masthead and the one I will most probably use is the last one, as it sticks to my theme(alternate) and as I found when creating my masthead collage, most mastheads for indie magazines are in this style and easy to read. 

Research and planning: My Masthead

My Masthead

To make a final decision of what masthead I will use I wrote up a tally chart and asked different people which masthead they preferred. I had a choice of 4 mastheads which were Undone, Blankcopy, Roughcopy and Shadow.
Here is my tally chart:

 

Blankcopy had 2 votes, shadow had 1 vote, rough copy had 8 votes and undone had 6 votes.

Therefor my masthead for my alternate magazine will be Roughcopy.

Research and planning: Front Cover First Draft

Front Cover Draft

I have only done a simple draft with not a lot of detail, until I decide the photo, coverstory, masthead etc. Then I will draw a final draft of my Magazine Front Cover. Here is the first draft of my front cover:

Research and planning: Voicethread Front Cover Analysis

Voicethread Front Cover Analysis

I have tried to record in my voicethread analysis numerous times, but it will not work or show the comments I said. Instead I wrote some notes of what I said and I will put my voicethread up once I have had help of my tutor.
- stuck to common alternate 3 colour room, red black and white.
- Image, black cloths, matches colour scheme.
- Informative about music(persifically bands and alternate artists) shows that it is a alternate magazine
- Alternate magazine, target audience young adults, matches this because more formal than pop magazine, less than factual magazine.
- Alternate artists mentioned, matches genre
- Headings to draw in readers (exclusive's)
- Quote, draws attention, makes people wanna read more

Research and planning: Masthead Ideas

Masthead Ideas 

To create my Masthead I did a mindmap on paper with all my ideas what I could possibly use for my masthead. I came up with my ideas in different ways such as getting ins parathion from programs and some just off the top of my head.

When I finished my mindmap I circled my four favourite masthead ideas. 

To decide my final masthead idea I will ask people around college and friends to see which they think would suit a music magazine and the genre best.