The End Result!

This is the front cover of my music magazine 'It's All Country':


This is the Contents page for my music magazine:



This is the left hand side of my Double Page Spread:



This is the right hand side of my Double page spread:

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

The title of my magazine: Looking at other country magazines when doing the research before creating my own, I found that most of them had references to the genre in their titles. For example, 'UP Country' and 'Southern Country' magazines. This helped me when deciding on my magazines name and I came up with several options in my earlier post. 'It's All Country' fits in with the conventions of these magazines.


Mis-en-scene of images: This is the image I used for my front cover. I thought this most represented a country band out of the photos taken. They all have quite calm, sombre expressions which I think fits as country songs are quite like that. My contents page is filled with poloroid images and a large image of a guiter which I think helps increase the country genre. My photos in general portray a close knit feel, not a poppy, obviously put-together band which is how most country bands are.

Costumes and props: The acoustic guiter in the centre of my front cover is a popular instrument in country music and the one most identified with it, so I thought it appropriate to use that as a prop. Two of my models are dressed in red, blue and white which is the england flag colours. This i thought appropriate because country magazines all seem to be very patriotic. The middle model didnt wear these colours because i thought it would be abit too bright in the background. I could have had them wear cowboy hats to make it even more obvious a genre, but I thought that might be a bit too much.


People: I thought the people i used as models in my magazine were appropriate because they were an all girl group (appropriate for the band they were representing; The Dixie Chicks) and also because they all listen to country music already and have the sort of background.



Title font and style: I thought this an ideal font for my magazines look because at first glance it reminds you of cowboys and quite old times, which is perfect for Country music because it is quite an old fashioned genre.


Written content: The written content in my magazine is based on a question and answer system. I could have done it by way of their story instead of strict questions but i liked this way better - I've seen it done in my magazine research. The questions I asked were based on the band's (fake) return to music and their lives surrounding that.

Music genre and how your magazine suggests it:
My music genre was Country and everything in my magazine suggests it. Everything above helped in someway to show the country genre. The main things were the font on the front page (The title as well as the masthead), the instrument shown in the image (acoustic guitar) as well as the bands featured on the cover (The Dixie Chicks and Dolly Parton).

Layout: The layout of my magazine is quite bare for normal covers, but normal on country magazines. My research showed that the covers are't generally completely covered with articles and images, its quite simply featured.

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

Above to the left is an image i took for my magazine (the front cover) and to the right is a cover of the magazine 'Time' featuring The Dixie Chicks, also shown by the anchorage text 'Radical Chicks'. The models in both images are looking directly at the camera in quite a serious manner; which immediately attracts viewers attention as it draws them in. The models are also all connected - touching in some way to show that they are in a group together, that they mean something to one another. This attitude fits my magazines country genre, as it is all about close groups and family. Both magazines have a plain coloured background; one blue and one black. This shows that all the attention is fixed on the people, with nothing to detract from them.
My target audience is women in their early twenties and the models in both images are young nearing that age which immediately attracts the target viewers - people are always interested in those of a similar age range to them. The models have a clothes colour scheme in both images - the real dixie chicks are all in black whilst my models are in the flag colours with hints of black as well. They are all clothes that my target market group would wear - in fashion but still unique to them. All of the girls are wearing similar dark eye-make-up but not a huge amount of anything else; which is the trend among the target viewers.
Both images have a feel of togetherness, of being quite a tight-nit group which is what I the target audience have alot with their friends/family.

3: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

To find out what media institution could distribute my music magazine 'It's All Country' I had to research what companies are distributing other country magazines. I found that 'Proper Partner scheme' distribute 'Country Music', 'Froots' and 'Maverick' (who also did a front page feature on The Dixie Chicks). Another company I discovered was 'Bauer Media Group' who are a very successful company that distribute magazines such as 'Kerrang', 'Empire' and 'Q'. This company wouldn't be very appropriate to my genre magazine as they focus on Rock bands with males audiences. 'IPC Media' is the third company i looked at and they distribute magazines such as 'NME'.
From these three companies, I think that 'Proper Partner Scheme' is the most appropriate company to distribute my magazine as most of its other magazines are quite country or around that sort of genre.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The target audience for my magazine would be quite a broad range of people because of the celebrities that feature it. For example, young teenagers would be attracted to the likes of Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift; but and older audience would like Dolly Parton and Billy-Ray Cyrus. I said previously in an older post that the audience would be between 13 and 30, but I think that, that is too wide a target, so in this reader profile I will average it out.
'It's All Country's' target person would be in their early twenties/late teens and doesn't tend to keep up with the latest chart hits. They still buy their albums from the stores instead of on modern downloading programs like 'itunes'. They don't tend to go to many gigs and concerts and the ones they do go too are treats and ones they would enjoy immensely. They don't buy into the dinking, partying, exclusive lifestyle; preferring to stay in with a small select group of friends with a classic movie. They like the summer festivals (like the Leamington Peace Festival) and things you can just go to and relax in the sun listening to their favourite country music. They particually like artists like 'Kenny Rogers' and 'Dolly Parton', a favourite song of theirs being a collaberation of the two, 'Islands in the stream'.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Here are some annotated diagrams describing how features on my magazine attract my target audience:







Click on them to make them bigger.

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

Apple Mac: I had only vaguely used a mac before being asked to create a magazine on one. I found it quite easy to use and I liked being able to drag things across. The ease of the documents to stole and view files was really good i thought, especially when tranferring images across onto Photoshop for example.



The Program I used to actually construct my magazine was InDesign. I found it really difficult to use when I first started out, opting to use Microsoft Publisher for my first magazine instead. I still find it difficult but as time went on I grew more familiar with the tools offered. I liked how you could layer things and swap them around with ease and how you can change pretty much anything. I like how you can resize the images without them blurring and pull them into basically any shape you like. Some things still confuse me on Indesign but i managed to create my pages to the standard i wanted them to be.

The Program i used to edit my images was Photoshop. I preferred using this to Indesign because i had a bit more experience using it in my other lessons and such. Using this program, I edited my images to the high standard you expect to see on magazine covers. I brightened it up, changed the background colour whilst keeping the same texture and changed some of the flaws on my models - hair for example and skin blemishes.

Other programs I used whilst making my magazine were the website www.flickr.com and its editing program 'Picnic'. I found that a very useful place to store my images so that i could edit them at home as well as at school and because it is a site that is familiar to me. I used www.Photobucket.com to store more images and create the slideshows seen on my blog. using that, i transferred the slideshows to Blogger with ease.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

On the left is my music magazine 'It's All Country' and on the right is my origanal project, the school magazine 'Chenny D'. I think I learnt quite a lot since making my first magazine. To start with, i learnt how to use Indesign and Photoshop properly; I avoided using them in my school magazine, preferring to use Microsoft Publisher and Picnic. I also spend more time planning everything in my music magazine, from the photoshoots to the layouts.

Photography: In my school magazine, i didn't plan my shoot, I just found some photos that I had recently taken and liked and just used them. I didn't edit the photo very much at all, preferring it as it was, when I could have given it a magazine polished feel. With the music magazine, I planned my shoot, prepared my models and thought about the kind of things i wanted them to do in it. I sorted throught the images and chose the ones I thought would look most effective in a country magazine. I spent a lot of time editing them and generally thought about it in a lot more detail.

Layout: The layout for my school magazine I just guessed at. I fiddled around with it and just placed the text and photo's where I thought fitted best. In my music magazine, I researched how my genre of magazine tended to present theirs and used that as inspiration to my own. I didn't try to crowd my page with as much as possible, preferring to space things out in a seemingly casual way. I like the layout of this magazine better.

Fonts: The fonts i used in my school magazines were just ones I found on Microsoft Publisher. I didn't try and find any interesting ones, I used ones familiar to me and the program. In my music magazine, I searched through a few websites looking specifically at fonts that i thought would fit into my magazines genre. I spent a lot more time finding the right ones and i previewed quite a few before settling on the ones chosen.