Evaluation task 1

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

Title

The title of my magazine is a word specific to music, especially to the genre of music I have used in order to create my magazine. It is an indie/rock genre, to bring in a specific niche market, but to also attract other readers in order to sell large quantities. The word ‘live’ can be interpreted in 2 different ways, which means the audience can interpret it in their own way and which way they’d prefer. It can be interpreted as in ‘to live’ which insinuates it is a modern magazine that is fast flowing keeping up with life. But it can also be interpreted in the way of ‘live music’ which is one of the traits of the niche market I’m appealing to. It still conforms the codes and conventions of a music magazine as it is in bold and capitals, it is also placed in the top left of my front cover. The exclamation mark on the end of the word draws in the audience as it connotes and element of surprise but also loud. Because the title is the main thing that the consumer see’s when the magazine is on the shelf in the store, it needs to grab the attention, which is why I used bold colours, the red and black is the main colour theme throughout my magazine

Mise-en-scene of images

In the image as they’re jumping adds an element of fun to the magazine, it also links to the caption of the image ‘was it all shits and giggles’ which is slang for fun. In the image you can see the lines of a football pitch, this shows they’re masculine boys, and other boys who see the magazine can relate to this and be more eager to read the article about them as they may be able to relate to the way they act/talk ect. The clothing in this image shows a variety of tastes, it makes the image reach out to different kinds of audiences so that they have someone they can relate to themselves as they can see themselves in one of the boys or the sex appeal of the boys means the girls may have a favourite.

Props and costumes

In this image the props used are in convention to the genre of music I am marketing my magazine to. It links with the name of the magazine, to do with live music. The props also show to the audience who do not know the band the instruments each of the girls play. The instruments are also used to cover inappropriate area’s but it is also very suggestive, the see through drum shows the shortness of the t-shirt but nothing inappropriate is shown. This links with the by-line as the initial reaction to this image would be diversity, but the by-line ‘do they even care?!’ shows they’re not bothered about what people say.

People

On the bottom of my contents page I collected images from Getty of Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys, I used a well-known face, singer and band so that it draws in the audience, as it is a face that is recognised. The band Arctic Monkeys fits the conventions of my magazines very well as they are an indie/rock band, who have a big fan base, this brings in more consumers to buy the magazine. It also fits to the codes and conventions as the genre is mainly dominated by males, the same with my magazines, however in my double page spread it shows the uprising of females in this genre of music. 

 

Fonts and style

The font I used in my front cover is used throughout my magazine, because I know it is easy to read and it fits the codes and conventions of a music magazine as it is bold. The majority of the magazine is wrote in capital letters, this is so that it stands out more. The content is more important in the magazine than it being a first issue, this is why the text on the very top of the page is types with only capital letters at the start of the word. The colours I used of black and red for my text are throughout my magazine as it is the colour scheme, however I changed the colour of the headline to suit the name of the band as it has more of an effect like that.

Written content

From DPS.

From contents.

In my contents the text fits to the codes and conventions of a music magazine as the main title of what is on that specific page is backed up by another few lines. The bottom descriptive lines are in font size 10 which fits to the conventions of a magazine. However my double page spread does not fit to the codes and conventions, instead of having the text in 3 columns, it is places around the image, this is so the image is seen as the most dominant thing on the page. The colour scheme is kept throughout, the red text is the quotes, this is so it can be distinguished as what they actually said.

Music genre and how my magazine suggests it.

My magazine’s genre is indie/rock, this is suggested in the front cover as the boys on the image do not look like a boy band, the clothes e.g. the shirts and leather jacket conform to the genre of my magazine. Also, none of the boys are smiling and indie/rock is seen as quite a moody genre. The headline also looks broken which hints an element of rock. On the bottom of the page, the text reads artists/bands such as Miles Kane and Foo Fighters, these are well known bands in this genre. In the contents and DPS the genre is shown through mise-en-scene and content.

Layout

The layout of my contents page has elements that fit the conventions of a music magazine, for example the 3 columns that the content of the magazine is wrote in. But it also goes against them as the image is placed in the middle of the page and makes it unique. This is so that the audience notice that it is different and automatically notice it is different to any other magazine and buy it. Instead of having the initial ‘Contents’ in the top left, I changed it to ‘New This Week’ this is so that the audience know the magazine is up to date and it is new information this week. It is in the middle of the top of the page so that it is one of the first things consumers see as they open the magazine.