Thank you for taking the time to look at my blog I hope you liked it. The whole project was a real learning curve for me and I hope that I have shown my work to the best of my ability and I hope that this is clear to you :)
Thanks
George Price
Friday 30 March 2012
Wednesday 28 March 2012
Evaluation Question 6
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
College Desktop Computer
The majority of my work took place and the different technologies were used. Through this I was able to use all of the other programs and softwares that aided my coursework. Everything, from my research and planning to my final copy came through the computer to be put onto my blog.Iphone 4
My personal Iphone aided my work in many forms. Firstly, it allowed me to communicate with my model Harry Yates, my draft model Thomas Leason and other members of my class for advice with my work. Secondly, I was able to download the blogspot app from the app store. This allowed me to update my blog with small comment or posts from where ever I was. Also, I occasionally used the camera on my iphone to take pictures and post them through the blogspot app.
Samsung Black SL30 Camera
I used my personal camera to take the pictures for my draft magazine and also my final images for my final magazine. I then uploaded the pictures from the camera memory card directly to the college desktop computer to be used in my work. From doing this I have learnt a lot about the effect lighting can have on the resolution on photographs as when I did my test photos a lot of them did not work form the shadows displayed.
Memory Stick
I used a memory stick a lot during the researching and planning phase of the coursework. I did this mostly to make myself able to take word documents that I was working on home after college to complete them in my own time.
Animoto.com
This was the first time I heard of this product so from using this I learnt a new skill of a practical way to present work in a video form. The main use of this was when I had to present my magazine pitch to the rest of my class, I had to put together a presentation to make people aware of the intentions for my magazine. Luckily, I found it easy to use and I was very happy with my presentation.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0
When I decided to take media studies on as a A-Level course I had never before heard of or used any form of photoshop and truth be told initially i struggled with it. It took some time practising with it before I understood the techniques of it so I think this was a dis-advantage to me. But eventually from using it I was able to take a group of pictures and text and arrange them to create my magazine.
Microsoft Powerpoint 2010
This is a program that I was very familiar with so when using it I did not struggle to compose Powerpoints for use in my Research and Planning.
Microsoft Word 2010
I used this program a lot when creating general documents for my research and planning. Out of all of all of the programs and technologies I believe this is the one I was most familiar with so I had little to learn when using it.
Scribd
Scribd is a program that I had never previously heard of, It allows you to put word documents onto your blog. Luckily I had practised using this earlier in the year on other media work. I now find this to be a useful program that is available to me.
1001freefonts.com/dafont.com
These are two similar websites that I used to browse through different fonts some of which I used on my draft and final magazine. i found them helpful because they are free to use and are categorised so you can find the styles of fonts that you want.
Facebook is a very popular social networking site that I have used for a while now and it aided my work from how it made it easier to communicate with other members of the class to ask for advice or guidance. Also, I choose Harry Yates to model for my photographs because I was able to see his facebook account and evaluate his style to decide whether he would be suitable or not.
Microsoft Publisher 2010
I had very little practice with Publisher before this task and I did not understand the benefits of it, but through this project I have been able to use it for different aspects of the work and now I understand the program
Evaluation Question 5
How did you attract/Address your audience?
Front Cover
Firstly, I knew that to sell a magazine it is important to highlight a target audience at which your magazine is going to be aimed. When I decided the specification for my magazine I chose that my target market would be males and females in the age bracket of 14-25. Therefore, I decided that to attract my target audience my model would have to fit my age bracket and would appeal to both genres. This why I decided to use Harry Yates for this, in real life he is 17 years old so is clearly inside my age bracket. Also, I believe that he is an attractive male so would appeal to girls in this respect.
Secondly, another method I used to attract my audience is that in the bottom left hand corner of my front cover I have listed the names of other artists of the same genre to match the genre of the magazine. This attracts the audience from how they see the names of the other artists and it gives them more reason to purchase my magazine form how it gives them more of an insight to what features are in my magazine. Also, I only featured British artists in my magazine. I believe that this makes the artists more familiar to the readers and it gives them more of a chance to have seen or to see them live.
Finally, I also decided that with my particular target audience (Boys and Girls, 14-25) it would be important to bring some element of fashion into my magazine. This is because my particular target audience would be particularly concerned about fashion and looks. The method I used to incorporate this into my magazine is by styling my model Harry Yates in stylish clothes so he would relate to the audience in that way.
Contents Page
I decided, taking my target audience into account, that I would try not to make my magazine to long of read. To avoid this I would have to try not to over pack pages with text or use very difficult long words. It is not because I believe my target audience are not very intelligent, but because I think that when my target audience read a magazine they do not want it to be a strenuous read but just interesting without using too much text. Through considering this, I decided on my contents page that I would use short sentences to describe the articles featured in my magazine.
Following on from this, too make what artists are featured on what pages in my magazine clear I decided to make the page numbers and the artists names font size 18 and leave the rest of the text size 10. I think this addresses my audience from how even if they are just skimming through the magazine the artists names will just catch their eye and will engage them in the magazine.
Also, I decided that I would put headers on my contents page to highlight the different sections of my magazine. For example, I used headers like 'Features' and 'Reviews'. This addresses the audience from how they can quickly find the sections that they are most interested.
Finally, to break down the page to make sure that it wasn't all text I decided to include some pictures. The first picture was a large picture of Harry with text about his article underneath. This is to remind the reader about the main article of the magazine and tell them what page it is on. I decided to use a second picture of a different artist to emphasise how the magazine is not just about one artist. I used a small picture of Tom Leason, who was my model for my draft magazine. I put this picture into the reviews box and made up a album for Tom.
Double Page Spread
The first method I used to attract my audience to my double page spread is how I made it relevant to the audience through using slang words which fit with the Rap/Grime genre of the magazine. Just using simple slang words such as 'Garms' and 'Tunes' makes the genre of the artist and genre clear and also addresses readers who use similar words.
The second method I used to attract the audience was placing the artist name in giant letters. This would attract readers from how if they were flicking through the magazine they would stop and see the words 'Harry Yates' and have their eyes drawn to it.
The cover line is another element of the double page spread which would attract readers from the words used. The cover line reads 'I'm young,i'm fresh and I want to bring something new to music'. This would attract the reader because by saying he is 'young and fresh' it implies the readers may not know who he is now but they will soon. Also, the word 'new' in the cover line is in capitals, a larger text and coloured grey. This makes the word new stand out above the rest of it, this allows it to draw peoples eyes to it and re enforces my last point about how the readers may not of heard of him.
Front Cover
Firstly, I knew that to sell a magazine it is important to highlight a target audience at which your magazine is going to be aimed. When I decided the specification for my magazine I chose that my target market would be males and females in the age bracket of 14-25. Therefore, I decided that to attract my target audience my model would have to fit my age bracket and would appeal to both genres. This why I decided to use Harry Yates for this, in real life he is 17 years old so is clearly inside my age bracket. Also, I believe that he is an attractive male so would appeal to girls in this respect.
Secondly, another method I used to attract my audience is that in the bottom left hand corner of my front cover I have listed the names of other artists of the same genre to match the genre of the magazine. This attracts the audience from how they see the names of the other artists and it gives them more reason to purchase my magazine form how it gives them more of an insight to what features are in my magazine. Also, I only featured British artists in my magazine. I believe that this makes the artists more familiar to the readers and it gives them more of a chance to have seen or to see them live.Finally, I also decided that with my particular target audience (Boys and Girls, 14-25) it would be important to bring some element of fashion into my magazine. This is because my particular target audience would be particularly concerned about fashion and looks. The method I used to incorporate this into my magazine is by styling my model Harry Yates in stylish clothes so he would relate to the audience in that way.
Contents Page
I decided, taking my target audience into account, that I would try not to make my magazine to long of read. To avoid this I would have to try not to over pack pages with text or use very difficult long words. It is not because I believe my target audience are not very intelligent, but because I think that when my target audience read a magazine they do not want it to be a strenuous read but just interesting without using too much text. Through considering this, I decided on my contents page that I would use short sentences to describe the articles featured in my magazine.
Following on from this, too make what artists are featured on what pages in my magazine clear I decided to make the page numbers and the artists names font size 18 and leave the rest of the text size 10. I think this addresses my audience from how even if they are just skimming through the magazine the artists names will just catch their eye and will engage them in the magazine.
Also, I decided that I would put headers on my contents page to highlight the different sections of my magazine. For example, I used headers like 'Features' and 'Reviews'. This addresses the audience from how they can quickly find the sections that they are most interested.
Finally, to break down the page to make sure that it wasn't all text I decided to include some pictures. The first picture was a large picture of Harry with text about his article underneath. This is to remind the reader about the main article of the magazine and tell them what page it is on. I decided to use a second picture of a different artist to emphasise how the magazine is not just about one artist. I used a small picture of Tom Leason, who was my model for my draft magazine. I put this picture into the reviews box and made up a album for Tom.
Double Page Spread
The first method I used to attract my audience to my double page spread is how I made it relevant to the audience through using slang words which fit with the Rap/Grime genre of the magazine. Just using simple slang words such as 'Garms' and 'Tunes' makes the genre of the artist and genre clear and also addresses readers who use similar words.The second method I used to attract the audience was placing the artist name in giant letters. This would attract readers from how if they were flicking through the magazine they would stop and see the words 'Harry Yates' and have their eyes drawn to it.
The cover line is another element of the double page spread which would attract readers from the words used. The cover line reads 'I'm young,i'm fresh and I want to bring something new to music'. This would attract the reader because by saying he is 'young and fresh' it implies the readers may not know who he is now but they will soon. Also, the word 'new' in the cover line is in capitals, a larger text and coloured grey. This makes the word new stand out above the rest of it, this allows it to draw peoples eyes to it and re enforces my last point about how the readers may not of heard of him.
Evaluation Question 3
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Since my media product is a magazine I believe that it would be distributed by a publishing company. Publishing is the process of production of literature or information being made available to the general public. In some cases, magazines can have there own publishing company. But most often magazines are produced by publishing companies which will produce many different magazines. With their being no major production company for magazines of my genre the biggest magazine of the genre RWD publish there own magazine with their own company 'RWD Creative Media Ltd'.
RWD is magazine that is produced monthly and each month has a circulation of 98,300. It has been running for over 10 years and has produced over 100 copies. It is considered the largest magazine on youth music and lifestyle in the UK.
With statistics like that being something I would want for my magazine, I would want my magazine to be produced alongside with RWD by RWD Creative Media Ltd. If think this would work because the market is big enough for two similar magazines but also with them being similar they would be able to be distributed together.
Out of the types of magazine distribution, I would choose paid circulation for my magazine since I think this would work the best. This would mean there is a fixed costs for purchasing it in shops as well as making it available to subscribe too.
I would also consider putting the magazine for sale on the Internet. I believe this would work from how my young adult target market use the internet for leisure and then would be able to read the magazine without leaving their house.
With statistics like that being something I would want for my magazine, I would want my magazine to be produced alongside with RWD by RWD Creative Media Ltd. If think this would work because the market is big enough for two similar magazines but also with them being similar they would be able to be distributed together.
Out of the types of magazine distribution, I would choose paid circulation for my magazine since I think this would work the best. This would mean there is a fixed costs for purchasing it in shops as well as making it available to subscribe too.
I would also consider putting the magazine for sale on the Internet. I believe this would work from how my young adult target market use the internet for leisure and then would be able to read the magazine without leaving their house.
Monday 26 March 2012
Target for the final week
It's now the last week but there is still a lot I need to do to finish my evaluation questions and get my blog up to the highest standard possible
Monday 12 March 2012
Tuesday 6 March 2012
Draft article improvements
One point highlighted to me to improve my magazine was the spelling and grammar in my article. So to correct it I copyed and pasted the article onto microsoft word and used the spelling and grammar tool to correct it, some parts are not corrected, for example, the spell check does not understand slang words which I have left in as part of my artists persona
This is the article again but with corrected spelling:
This is the article again but with corrected spelling:
He is one of favourite new artists for 2011 and we are convinced he is going worldwide in 2012.Not only is Harry Yates the self-proclaimed FIFA 12 don (don’t ask), he also finds time to write tight tracks, produce a string of tunes, rock his own garms and is pretty nifty behind the mic. After performances on Jools Holland and Radio 1’s ‘Young Guns 2011’ live lounge he has left everyone in the Blazin’ HQ fist pumping We’ve been keeping up with him as his whirlwind of a 2011 becomes his biggest year yet with big hype around him for 2012.
Harry is a home-grown music artist from Leicester. He became a fan of British Rap from the age of around 14. He earned his fame from constant performing at local clubs and bars, and his ability at free style Rap and performances. He’s big on staying in touch with his fans through his fan pages on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter; he also posts recordings of himself performing on MySpace. At the minute he is on the fringe of becoming successful in the UK and has an oncoming album which will be released in April 2012….Interview by Richard Knight.
Welcome to Blazin’ Harry!
Thanks for having me mate.
Firstly, tell us about the new album, what’s behind the idea of ‘Redemption’?
For me the title means what I’m experiencing, it’s my truth. Redemption is a list of tracks I have been working on for the last few years of recording and just scribbling down my thoughts and laid down onto a mixture of hard and soft beats. I hope to put things onto the radio that aren’t normally said or represented. I do feel young people are miss-represented by the media, so I just wanted to write something with more honesty.
You completed your album once and scrapped it. How does this differ to before?
I originally tried some girl singers, but sometimes I’m just trying to write and there’s too many ego’s in the room (laughs) so I was just worried that this big inspiration I had was just going to be a big ego. I’m hopping my new material connects better with the audience and shows my real side.
How would you describe your style in a few words?
Ermmm, Rookie, Over-confident, Constant, Keen, Smooth, Trendy, Rebellious and R.O.C.K.S.T.A.R
(Laughs) You must have been chuffed to have signed for Virgin Records for your album?
Yea, I mean I never had massive hopes for Redemption, but now with Virgin they’ve helped me really develop it into a project I can be proud of, they also hooked me up to collaborate with producers like Labrinth. They earned my respect when they stood by and respected my decision to scrap my album.
How did you being on Radio 1’s Young Guns 2011 come about?
My agent (laughs) and mate, Chris ‘Business’ Banks is a diamond on the phones. I mean whenever I need anything he can sort it and he’s been working overtime to push my album and when he called asked me about it I jumped at it!
We had a look through you back catalogue and there is a huge mix of sounds from angry shouting to almost soul singing, why did you have such a broad sound?
When I first started recording I had loads of ideas and I just literally tried everything. Sometimes I would wake up in the night in a sweat and an idea and just have to get up and note it down. I mean my first couple of recordings were just tests and I’m not ashamed to say some didn’t work.
What would you say are your career ambitions for the future?
Errrm (few second pause), I suppose I would like this album to be a platform for me to get me recognised and known so I can head up in the game and hopefully in the future collaborate with bigger artists and have big chart successes.
What would you say to potential fans who may be interested in you?
I'm young, I’m fresh and I want to bring something new to the music scene and I hope that you will be able to have a listen to my tracks and relate to them because in the end I make music to entertain.
Complete the sentence: I'm influenced by...
Just life, everyday life. In the beginning, I used to listen to lots of people, when I had more time. I listen to Professor Green, a lot. He made me realise there are more people like me that can make beats and spit and DJ. He was a big inspiration to me. Now, when peoples UK albums come out I buy them.
What is the best gig you have played to date?
I dunno man, I suppose if I had to pick, when I played The Jazz Cafe in Camden. It may not have been the biggest gig that I have played to date, but it was the first propa' time I have played a gig that everyone that had showed up new my lyrics and were singing them back, it was like having hundreds of friends in one room.
Thanks Harry, we really wish you big success for the future
My pleasure mate, thanks for having me!
Harry's album, Redemption, is released 6th April 2012
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