Homework Over Weekend

To Take pictures for my work.

Lesson Objective 24/04/09

To Import the interview into the double page spread

Pictures Needed for my magazine:

Front Cover:
Single Person for the main front cover image
Three people for the image in the bottom left

Double Page Spread:
One Large Image Of Either Group or solo person, depending on which appears best for the format i have decided for the double page spread.

Contents page
Picture of Myself as the editor.
2-3 smaller pictures for contents images.

Front Cover Sticker Change

I have realised that on my front cover, i am using a sticker which says free cd, due to not having room on the front cover to display the cd that would be included i am changing this to free poster.

Lesson Objective 23.04.09

To change my front covers sticker, and to arrange a picture shoot, and be in a photo shoot

Double Page Spread Text/ Interview Attempt.

They have managed to capture the madness in this years tour, and after several years working towards producing the album, it appears that producing newer experimental tracks, and having the conflict of a full commitment for performing every night some months, will take its toll.
We’re here with the band “Atomic Unknown” and talking to them about their recent success in their tour and album release this February.
Formed in Nottingham over 20 years ago, and huge fans of guitar virtuoso’s of what was 20 years before they had considered the pact between them, Atomic Unknown set out as a metal band, who would aim to capture what metal encompassed at the time; their “hair rock” like music; based on bands such as whitesnake and Bon Jovi was short lived, and when they began to discuss what music that brought them into playing their instruments, they soon realised after a few small pub gigs, that they would have been more accustomed to the fusion Genre’s of blues to acid rock.
So lets take a look at what they think of their own current success, and how they sometimes didn’t reach the goals they wanted to.
Here’s what three of the members had to say when we caught up with them:

When you first met, what where you’re impressions of each other?
David Galloway: I felt uneasy at first, we all kind of met up and I felt almost like a child at their day of school, I was very unsure about what people wanted to do, it took a while before we knew where we were going.
Mike D: It didn’t concern me too much, I’d felt uninspired for many years, and I wasn’t concerned with what we where going to do, but I guess I’m the drummer.
Jamie Ball: I felt positive, by the sound of it, I was the only person who was, without blowing my own trumpet, I’d like to think I turned the attitude around pretty quick.

From this where did you go, how did you decide what type of band you wanted to be?
Mike D: I sat back and just let things go wherever, if I could hit the beat I’d play it, which kind of pushed us into the popular metal scene at the time. It took me probably 10 gigs before I realised my playing didn’t need to be all about speed.
David: I think that was part of the problem, we just wanted to prove ourselves as who was going to be the alpha male, and we all constantly tried to outdo each other; the solo’s on each instrument kept trying to get harder and harder, it improved our playing, but definitely pushed us further apart at the time.

From here, how did you manage to turn things around from this skill boasting to actually being a band, which some of the current tracks could even be described as Chilled out, and that we’d want to feature here in Acid?
Jamie: We definitely reached a boiling point from a stressful type of music, look at Eddie Van Halen, that guy smokes a hundred a day for a reason, it was too much stress, and from here we knew we needed to almost fight against stress, and become a band which had variety and a better atmosphere.
Mike D: There definitely wasn’t a set day where we changed, I think it was a progressive change, literally, from clear cut 3 minute tracks, into a song where we could relax for a few minutes, and then jam for 6 minutes.

Once you where established as what you wanted, how did you re-promote yourself and finally take the band to where you are today, an unrecognisable image of what you would have been when you started out?
David: I don’t think any band excepts to come out looking as they went in, we certainly didn’t, and I think it helps us represent the music we’re now playing, we’ve progressed like a track we could write for the next album, or one after that, I except us to leave this industry probably completely different as to what we are today.

From this, how did this years tour get arranged, was it a mutual agreement between you?
Jamie: We knew it was that time, we’d been discussing it whilst the album was in production, and we all felt like the tracks where ready to become gig worthy, I was insecure at first that some of the tracks wouldn’t be suitable for gigs, if people had come to our previous gigs, but I’m convinced things went down better than ever
Mike D: (laughs) I never really saw a need for insecurities with music, its what we feel and its what we play, if people didn’t like the album, they wouldn’t have wanted to see it live

From here, where do you want to go, and what messages would you want to give to the fans?
Mike D: I want us just to keep where we are, and let the music take us wherever, and I want the listeners to know that without them, this really wouldn’t be possible.
Jamie: I couldn’t agree more, its listeners that have took us to where we can do this, and I feel that we’ve got the capabilities to take this wherever we want, which is really a great feeling, I’m confident about a future tour similar to the one we just did, but with newer material.
David: I’m looking forward to seeing the band on a dvd cover in a HMV somewhere, that’d be pretty awesome. (Here I will put the magazine logo to show this is the end of the article.)

Double Page Spread.

This is my final piece of draft work, from here i will work on the real thing, and using the drafts i have done to act as a template for this.

Treatment

Treatment
I am creating a magazine which will focus on genre's of music focused around a niche rock audience, this would be that of acid/psychadelic rock, therefore resulting in a prodominately older, male audience. 35-55, but hopefully be able to feature bands which could appeal to a younger audience as sub-genre's have emerged such as Neo-psychadelia which seems to be unknowingly popular ammongst younger people, which could also open the audience to people of all ages, but due to its genre specificness, the magazine still has to be classified as Niche.
This magazine will feature a front conver, a contents page and then a double page spread - 4 pages in total.
The magazine will be called "Acid", most obviously for one of the main featured genre's Acid rock, but the name also has multiple connotations.
Acid has a drug connotation to the narcotic substance LSD, a psychodelic drug which is heavily assosiated with the time period (1960's where these genre's emerged and still influence today) , and due to the genre's of music which feature strange irregular sounds and timings, this assosiation would seem appropriate, and the drug connotation give a very underground feel hopefully establishing the magazine as niche.
Acid (in its literal form) also Distorts metals(Metal a genre of music too which can be combined with genre's featured i.e. acid metal), which also reflects how the new effects of the time period (such as distortion, and other distrorting affects) where featured for the first time in this genre of music which still influences today.
I will take photo's for the magazine, which will be identified when took for where appropriate, as i will need to shoot for A Front cover image, a double page spread image, and multiple images that will create the magazines verisimilitude, e.g. pictures in contents page, on front cover to show what will be featured within the magazine.
I did reaserch into how to lay the magazine out, and did this by observation of other magazines, (i used "Kerrang", "NME" and "Q") and through trial and error in my draft which is posted on the blog. A specific layout is not currently decided for the magazine, but i will probably look into how my draft will look with the photo's i plan on taking.
Before carrying out my task of producing the magaize, i will ensure that health and safety can be taken into account when i start my project, before any photo's are taken i will ensure that lighting is not overpowered or facing someone's retina directly to avoid damage to the persons eyes, and make sure that wires on the floor are in a safe position that is away from where people will be walking so they cannot fall over the wires.
If anyone is hurt in the production, i will consult the first aider Vicky Rowntree in M138, and if a fire is to occur the evacuation assembly point is the Front Football Pitch.

The Tasks i need to carry out to finish my final production are:

• Find suitable characters to feature for the photographs, and also use appropriate outfits and propps; camera filters may also be used.
• Take Photographs to use for my front cover, double page spread, and contents page.
• Produce a layout of the magazine, which will be roughly based upon the draft magazine i have produced.
• Evaluate my work when relevent, to see how it can be improved.

Font Reaserch

I viewed several fonts on the website dafont.cpom
I looked at the fonts on the site, but due to difficulty importing the fonts and the website not featuring sufficient fonts which have a retro 60's/70's look i decided to use the font which is already on Quark.
The font i chose was BellBottom.Laser
Excluding this one font i chose to list page numbers on the pictures featured on the contents page, all the other fonts used for the text where in Arial a sans Serif font.
The Font used for the title of the magazine will be explained in the Treatment.

Acid Front Cover

Sticker For Cover Idea

What I want to do

i need to make a sticker for my magazine draft.

Music Magazine Idea's

Possible Magazine names:
Metal Magazines: Hardware, Ingot, Agency, Mechanism.

Blues, Psychadelic, Prog Rock Magazines: Theremin, Acid,

Ingot - Hard Metal Magazine, Focusing on modern day metal bands in the alternative/nu metal scene, but also featuring bands which inspired these current bands, with infomation on past popular forms of rock, This Would be mainstream.
Target Audience - Metal/Rock/Hard Rock/Nu Metal / Alternative Metal...
Gender - Nearly all male
Age - 17- 30

Acid - This Magazine would be niche, due to covering limited genre's and having a specific target audience, and a specific number of age group. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, Pink floyd etc, would be featured, but also with newer bands which find influence from these bands, which could also follow
Target Audience - Older prog/psychadelic/blues/rock fans and younger fans which follow the music (Niche Audience)
Gender - Prodominately Men
Age - Not age specific

Objective

To define Niche and Mainstream, and Progress with IPC and Bauer.

Definitions

Niche: The Term Niche, is that given to a audience, or genre specific product, in this case magazines. A niche magazine shares the same ideologies and has a small audience that is specific.
Financially Niche magazines sell less magazines, but have less funding into them, and in multiple cases are published far less frequently apposed to mainstream, for example fRoots magazine, is only published 9 times a year.

Mainsteam: Is the term given to a mass audience targetting magazine, which is frequently published, and has large funding resources, from which it can produce more frequent, high spec magazines.
Kerrang! would be a prime example of a magazine of a mainstream magazine, as 52,272 copies are sold each issue, and 26 issues are sold a year, or Q which sells 103,017 copies per issue, but only 6 issues a year.

Music Magazine Industry Research

The companies Bauer and IPC media, both deal with magazine production within the media, i will look specifically at the music magazines they produce.


Bauer's magazines are targeted at both niche and mainstream audiences, with Q being a mainstream music magazine, and Mojo and Kerrang being aimed at a niche audience.
Q magazine is one of the highest selling music magazines in the UK, and due to its popularity and large audience topics discussed in the magazine can be derrived from the world of sport, comedy, film and even politics, these intrest area's can also contribute as a defining factor to who the audience of the magazine will be, the price of Q magazine is
More niche audience's are targetted by the magazines Mojo and Kerrang. with mojo's audience being those who enjoy classic rock, and due to its latter production and affiliation with Q magazine, mojo can be seen as an almost sub genre of Q magazine.


IPC Media are the company which produce NME magazine, a magazine which aims at a popular audience (mainstream) and focuses on what is considered fashionable amongst music culture, and the genre's of music within the magazine, change over periods of time to whatever genre's is popular. The name itself "NME" when read out sounds like like the word "enemy" which connotes the attitude held by the audience of the younger generation, and as in some cases the genre's have been indie music, a sence of fighting capitalism maybe held.

Contents Page

Media Cover Analysis

Media, Magazine Cover Analysis
Q.

The
title of the magazine “Q” is significant, as the letter “Q” has the same sound
as the piece of musical terminology “Cue”, which in the sense music could mean
cueing up a record, getting the record ready to play.
This title may also be
relevent to the genre of music featured, which is generally Indie and older
bands, a mixture of new upcoming bands which will be succesfull, and looking at
those who are now succesfull but where once in a similar position to those
upcomers, due to this vast array of times regarding music lots of artists will probably be featured in the magazine, and therefore in relation to the Masthead,
lots of these artists are Cued up.

The Audience targetted by the magazine is a hybrid of who the mixture of genres appeal to; by this i mean i mean generally older generations, in this particularly people above the age of 30, due to having Roger Daltrey on the front cover - the lead singer of the who. Also a mixture of newer acts are featured like "The Ting Tings". Through this mixture, an almost niche itself is created of mainstream mixtures, e.g. Younger audiences who may listen to bands like "The Fratellis" also find a cult following in older bands that had a similar impact in the past; in this case "The Who". And working as the other side of the niche, is older audiences taking intrest in newer indie bands that would not normally have appeal to this. A juxtaposition is created also in this range of acts; i.e. the links of newer acts like duffy and Mark Ronson juxterposed with Paul Weller and other most mainstream acts of previous decodes. The gender of this age bracket dicussed is prodominately male.

The main image used on the front cover featured four men at a medium long shot, this is so that the majority of the figure can be displayed; i will now look at the mise en scene featured in this shot. Facial Expression is encompassed with mise-en-scene- when looking at the facial expression of Roger Daltery his smile and by putting him at the front of the shot, this connotes an introducing like stature ammongst the men in the shot - a "Proud to present" style towards the intodruction of the younger acts, which also links into the niche cross market of older and younger acts. All the males behind the front man, are almost expressionless and in relation to there relaxed body language and also proud stature, a connotation of masculinity is put forward onto the audience, and looking at the intended or prodominate audience of the magazine, this ideal self is connoted to the audience, a masculine person who takes intrest in music.

The use of font, colour and choise of words helps denote a sence of power and greatness amongst the magazine, the authors choice to use gold as the colour on the largest words, and the most well known of acts mentioned connotes this; and gold the colour itself has connotations of wealth and power. The General colour scheme is very simple and consists of only three colours, Red, White and Gold, all with connotations to wealth, and by using a simple colour scheme this makes the magazine appear quite sophisticated, which helps link in with the mode of address chosen by the author to speak to the reader; by using sophisticated colours which are simple and using a clear sans serif font, it helps put into context the Teacher/ Student mode of adress, lots of factual infomation. Items featured in the magazine would be featured such as using a Gold box again with Duets written inside in white, apposed to when it was written in Gold, this is a further connotation of importance to the concept being discussed in the magazine, and by having the word "20" written in gold it helps show the importance across all 20 acts that will be featured. Another Item used in the front cover is the masthead, "Q" is recognisable despite its simplicity due to mass popularity and its easy to remember logo, by having this ease of remembering a feature used in the cover is to have the front primary image overlapping the "Q" logo, because we know even when we cant quite see it is a "Q", we know it is "Q" magazine through the Serif Font and the use of trademark red square around a white "Q" with a drop shadow.

I will now look at the topic of mode of address, and as mentioned earlier, the mode of adress is a mixture of teacher/ pupil form of adress and parent /child, with the majority of methods adressing the audience not allowing an outside opinion to play a role into what the magazines audience thinks, for example numbered lists regarding opinion; such as "20 greatest Duets" and "The 10 worst musical actors", these listed style opinions cannot be argued in a sence due to the fact that they have already decided what is best and worst for the target audience, again connoting an ideal self, to the extent of opinions being influenced as well as image; e.g. the prodominate young/ middle aged males reading the magazine will see the front cover and adress fashions and combinations of genre, and then as they read on into the magazine they will find out bests and worsts regarding the things they enjoy/ dislike. Also regarding the teacher/ pupil method of adress, there is a great deal of infomation, so instead of telling mild gossip or things relevent to the age group, they look at wider scale issues, which will encompass facts, e.g. "Why retailers are bombarding us with tunes" and "New Albums" section, which will be very factual.

Readers are allowed to adress the magazine very quickly, the section "Q Mail" is put first before all the main body sections of the magazine.