My last post

Introduction to my magazine:

Autonomy is the basis of an Indie music magazine that I am creating for my Media Studies Coursework. It has a kicking vintage feel and is for all the Independant young people out there that enjoy the freedom to listen to music that suits them. I think it's going to be very revelatory indeed! Go ahead and have a nose about, to see what has gone into the production of a double page interview spread, a front cover and a contents page.

I have had loads of fun creating this blog and will miss it dearly :(
goodbye.

Final Evaluation

The presentation above was a slide show and has been compressed to JPEG images.
The Information may not be clear because of the many layers on each slide.

Notes for evaluation

The following are notes I produced and used to discuss the choices I made in my magazine and why I made them.

Who my audience are:
My magazine will be read by people of the C1 social demographic.
This will be mainly University and College students who are in full time education.
My magazine appeals to British students because my magazine has influential British artists.
They could possible study Music, media or film as their courses.
They are constant consumers of music, especially downloading from places such as iTunes or purchasing from websites such as We7.

How my magazine represents social groups:
My magazine as mentioned earlier appeals to a more male dominant audience; however, there are still a high percentage of female readers.
The social group have fashion as well as music interests and this is incorporated in my contents page.
They buy from online retails that sell graphic T’s like the ones RizzleKicks wear in my Interview page.
They may have fashion blogs and spend a lot of their time socialising in the Indie night life, for example gigs.
The language of my magazine is cheeky, edgy which represents this easy going social group.
Furthermore, the mise en scene in my pictures conveys angles, furniture and lighting that represent their lifestyle of fashion and the nightlife.

Conventions used and challenged:
Large main image on cover and contrasting image on interview page.
Autonomy is mentioned consistently throughout the magazine. The ideology behind my cover was an almost yearbook feel, the vintage colours and rough cut out, almost like a scrapbook to convey why it’s “class of 2010”.
Interview columns and sections with text wrapped around images. Encourage audience to buy single, go onto RizzleKicks Myspace.
How I attracted/addressed my audience:
Price is affordable and fair, especially as it’s a monthly mag.
Popular bands and artist in the Indie genre such as Bloc party, Ladyhauk, Pete Doherty and Ellie Goulding attract a variety of people, both male and female.
The colours scheme is consistent and gives the magazine a vintage yet a fashionable and trendy vibe.
The freebies and competitions give audience something extra and more value for money.
The regulars welcome the usual readers whilst the features give readers new and interesting articles monthly. The ‘PLUS’ conveys extra features and the iTunes vouchers will effectively attract my audience because they are avid consumers of downloaded music from iTunes and majority own iPod.

What I have learnt
Correctly cropping images when printing. Analysing camera angles and changing lighting with turning flash on/off. Loads about the music industry, audience and institutions.

Further TA research

Work Experience

This week I had an amazing opportunity that really benefited me on building more inventive ideas on how to expand and evaluate my magazine. I was able to do work experience at ‘LIVE’ magazine. The magazine covers a broad amount of issues in society, from politics to music. I was able to work on the magazines music section. This enabled me to read through the drafts of the magazine and suggest changes, additionally I wrote an album review for Rudi Zygadlo’s album (due to be released in May 2010) which will be in the actual print of the magazines next issue. I’m a fan of dubstep and this made writing the review easier. I worked on several other activities such as creating a ‘LIVE’ hand book, being photographed for the magazine, attending meetings and emailing, phoning and sending addressed letters to external institutes that support the magazine.

Doing work experience at ‘LIVE’ allowed me to see the day to day running of a real magazine and what goes into editing, creating and distributing a magazine.

Working with the writing team helped me understand how to write in many different styles that attract and reaches out to a particular target audience (in this case young adults).

The HQ was really stylish and they used the latest equipment (Macintosh OS X hardware and software) that I loved!

This is the daily political poll I created and I also created another section that stated the Manifesto of each political party(see above).

Everyone in the office got involved, the question caused a bit of a stir, as you can see, a comments section had to be added!

Target Audience: Indie music in my magazine

The previous video I uploaded of The Special K's was very bad quality, mainly because I took it during a rehersal (soundcheck). So the video above gives you a taste of the music of the band who are on my front cover. They are sooo TALENTED, it makes me jelous! I'v also got some good news! Sortly after I interviewed the band, they announched that they got signed to a record company. Which is amazing stuff!!

Indie artists in my magazine: RizzleKicks (Interviewees)

(Don't watch this video if you are offended by expletives :))

‘RizzleKicks’ are the band I interviewed for my magazine double page spread. On the bottom of the interview I used a banner that said the following (in a rather cheeky tone that the mimics the bands personality):"If you're itching for more ‘Rizzle Kicks’ gossip and news, hit up http://www.myspace.com/rizzlekicks for everything else rizzle". I think it’s simple but effective.

I had many options such as putting their website or their personal ‘band blog’ (http://rizzlekicks.wordpress.com/) on the interview page, yet I deliberately chose MySpace because it is a Music focused social networking site, that is still highly popular amongst my TA, (even if Facebook seems to be taking over now) especially as MySpace now have their own record label after being purchased by ‘the king of media institutions’ (just in case you don't know who I’m talking about, of course it's the mogul himself Mr Rupert Murdoch).

I think I'm really lucky to have interviewed them (and have a good banter at the same time). Giants like the BBC got to do so a while ago (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/153645). When I interviewed them they said the BBC interview made them "sound like idiots, who were up themselves", so I had a tough job in hand. They are mega talented and have performed in some AMAZING places and like all famous people these days they have a Twitter: http://twitter.com/RizzleKicks