The Simpsons Movie Poster

For media I have created a poster for The Simpsons movie using Photoshop. Some of the tools I used were transform, text, and colour. I took an original image of Homer Simpson holding onto a donut, and pasted it over the top of the word 'movie' that was used on the actual poster to make it original. I also used the official Simpsons logo and changed the colour to black, to draw more attention to the word 'movie', and the release date. 

I found an image of the entire town in The Simpsons and made that the background of the poster, to show that the movie is relating to the TV program. I found Photoshop fairly easy to use as I have a small amount of experience using it in other subjects, although I have still discovered a few new helpful tools.

Magazine Institutions Research

Reader Profiles

Kerrang! have created a reader profile for the magazine to show what the average reader is like. The age range for readers is 15 - 24 years old (making the average age around 19), with a few older readers too, and 60% of the audience are male. The readers are typically fairly intelligent individuals who enjoy social media, fashion and video games (who buy around 30 albums every year). Almost all the readers - 87% - buy the magazine every single week. They are also tend to spend a lot on music, purchasing an average of 6 albums per month; which is 53% more than the national average. They also are 8 times more likely to spend £200 per year than a non-reader of Kerrang!, and are 5.5 times more likely to go to a rock concert.

95% of Record Collector readers are male, with an average age of 44 years old (90% aged between 30 - 59 years old, and 68% between 40 - 59). 15% of their readers tend to go to a live concert at least one time a week, and 36% listen to live music once a week or more. Their audience will probably own around 2144 vinyl albums, and 1046 CD's. The magazine welcomes a large range of genres, which means the audience will also probably listen to a lot of different kinds of music. Their current circulation is around 35,000, with a readership of at least double that figure.

The average Metal Hammer reader is a young male, with an average age of about 22. 41% of the readers are in employment, with 51% studying. The audience spend approximately £113 per month on things like music and concerts, half of them will see music at least once a month, and 79% will be attending some sort of festival within the next year. A lot of the readers play some sort of musical instrument, as 2/3 play the guitar, and 1/3 are in a band. 41% of the readers have made some sort of purchase because of reading the magazine, and 61% have visited another website. 

Proposal Forms

Proposal Form (Basic)

Describe your idea for the brief: The cover will include a main image which will be a photo of a band/artist, all the essential information, and the cover-lines will list the articles included inside the magazine. The contents will also list some of the essential info like the issue number and the website, and all the different articles will be put into different categories such as reviews or interviews which makes things easier to find.

Genre/ sub genre: list similar texts which have inspired your thoughts The genre of magazine will be music, and the genre of music will be mainly pop, although will occasionally sometimes include other genres. The magazine that has inspired me the most is Kerrang!, as even though the music genre isn’t the same, they clearly show what is included in the magazine, and use bright colours and appropriate fonts to attract the target audience (early teens – mid 20s)

Target audience: gender/ age/ characteristics/ behaviour The target audience will live in quite a busy place with supermarkets nearby, and will be in a middle class family and area. The magazine will hopefully attract a male and female audience who are in their teens, with a fairly normal and enjoyable upbringing, and are close with their family and friends.

Major conventions I will use The masthead each week will simply be the name of the magazine, the main sell-line will be the reviews of the new music and concerts, the essential info like the release date, price and so on will be in the bottom right corner.

Conventions I may subvert/ change/ not use I will probably use most of the conventions of the magazine, although I will slightly change them so the magazine doesn’t seem too cluttered. For example, the colours and fonts will complement each other so they don’t clash too much, there will only be one image on the front cover, and not too many other images throughout the rest of the magazine.

Original images: what/ where/ what If possible, I will get some friends together and book out the studio in the college so I can take some photos and pretend my friends or music artists and I will use the photos for the images through the magazine.

Potential difficulties/ Plan B: If creating a physical magazine is too much of a difficulty, I can find a way to make a digital version and distribute them online instead of in newsagents.

 

Proposal Form (More In Depth)

Type of Magazine (fashion, music, etc)	The type of magazine is going to be a music magazine.
Name of Magazine	BEATS
Audience (male/female)	It’s going to be mainly a female audience, although hopefully we can attract a male audience as well.
Audience (attitudes and interests)	Of course the audience will have a liking to music, probably around 16-19 although some younger and older people will also enjoy the magazine. They use social media quite a lot, have their phone out constantly, have a fairly good behaviour in school and have a good education. They are a part of an average family with enough money to get by, and they enjoy following all the current trends.
Outlet (where it can be bought from?)	Although they can mainly be bought as a physical copy in local newsagents and certain music shops, digital versions will also be available on their website, which will be advertised using social media such as Twitter and Facebook.
Necessary Information	The amount I will charge for the magazine is around £2 - £3 as most of the target audience won’t have a part time job and don’t have access to a lot of money, so it’d be better to keep it quite cheap. The issue number, date of release, website, price and bar code will all be located in the bottom right corner of the front cover.
Selling Point	The magazine will include reviews of things like new songs, new albums and concerts, including some reader-submitted reviews and ratings, giving the readers some participation in the creation of the magazine.
Theme (article)	Each week the main article will be about the most popular song/album of the week, and will include colours and fonts that will change every week, and will relate to the certain topic.
Images Front Cover	The image on the front cover will be of the band/artist that the main article is about.
Images Inside	There will be various images all through the magazine, mainly photos of bands/artists, or single/album covers for the reviews page.

Proposal Form (Potential Problems)

Potential area where there might be a problem	How I will deal with this problem
Front cover images	If any of my friends aren't available for a session in the studio, I will have to find an acceptable image that I have took of a band I saw live and use that as the main image instead.
Article Inside Magazine	If there are no topics to write about in an article for the week, instead there will be a special article about the music popular song/album of the year at that point, or an interview with a artist/band.
Images to accompany article	If I can’t find any suitable images for the main article, I will just use the cover photos of the album/single of the artist/band that the article is about.

Record Collector Magazine Deconstruction Bullet Points

Kerrang! Magazine Deconstruction Poster

Front Cover:

Contents Page:

Double Page Spread:

METALHAMMER Magazine Deconstrucion Essay

METALHAMMER Deconstruction

Throughout all the front cover, most of the writing is in all capital letters to grab the attention of the target audience, which is people who typically listen to metal. Above the masthead, the main cover-line reads ‘’Metallica: ‘through the never’ revealed!’’ which makes the reader want to find out about this brand new, secret information. Down the left side of the page are all the other cover-lines which lists different bands, with small captions underneath, including some sort of technical pun, eg ‘AVENGED SEVENFOLD – is the new album an upgrade?’ or ‘CARCASS – system restoration complete’.

All the colours on the front cover are in the cool tones, predominantly different shades of blue. The only warm tones on the page are a few flashes of red on Korn’s logo or the band member’s face. The man on the cover – presumably a member of Korn – has his arms crossed, giving off a very threatening look. It appears to be staged by a professional photographer, and is looking at the camera which means it is a direct mode of address.

There appears to be a studio light directly in front of him and slightly to the left, making his right side in slight shadow; which furthers the threatening appearance. Overall, it is well laid out. The Korn front man is slightly covering the title, showing that he or his band is the main focus, all the text is very visible, and the colours set the tone of the magazine.

The contents page goes over two pages, and the main image takes over most of the second page. As the text over the main image is the largest on the page, they are clearly trying to get the attention of the reader and want them to read this article first as it is probably the main article of the issue. All the articles listed are introduced with the band that the article is on, then comes the page number and a short summary of the article to let the reader know what they are about.

They have included their logo in the top right of the second page, and the masthead of the contents at the top left corner of the first to tell the reader what page they are on. Also, all down the left side of the second page they have included all the essential information like the people who worked on the magazine, contact information, and the date the next issue is released.

Other images throughout the pages have been included to show the reader that these are also fairly important or entertaining articles that they should probably read, but they have left out the summary of the articles, which means the reader perhaps won’t know what it is about until they actually read it.

 

On this double page spread, the masthead is just the name of the band that the article is focusing on, and the kicker is just talking about the venue of the concert that they are talking about. They have also used a pull quote from a part of the article, so if someone is just flicking through the magazine and see this they may want to read the rest.

As this concert appears to be very special, they have noted the set list that the band performed, and have said multiple times where the concert was held. In the bottom right corner they have also included a small fun fact for the reader’s entertainment, and next to the page number they have mentioned some essential information – the official magazine website, which can help you set up a subscription or contact the creators.

They have also included drop caps at the beginning of the article to give the article a slightly more formal feel and to officially start off the article. Overall, the pages are very colourful and don’t exactly have a set theme, although it suits the article well and makes it seem more fun and appealing to the target audience of people who enjoy this band and want to hear about the fun Iron Maiden concert.

Moodboard

http://www.pinterest.com/aaangeldouglass/moodboard/

Music Videos

Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball

I've chose Wrecking Ball because I think that everyone is talking about this song at the minute, some people see this as a controversial video although a lot of people still find it a very good song. The music is very suitable to the genre I plan on talking about and there is a lot to write about if I chose to do an article on this song.

Katy Perry - Roar

This song, to my knowledge, is number one in the charts right now which clearly shows that I can relate this song to my music magazine, and is a very popular and well known song that people who listen to pop music enjoys. I would definitely include this artist in my magazine as people who are fans of her will typically enjoy the rest of the music in this genre, and will most likely also enjoy reading about it in a magazine.

One Direction - Best Song Ever

This song, or even this band in general, will definitely bring in tons and tons of readers if I included them in my magazine, as they are very well known for having such a loyal and loving fan base. If I were to include this band in the magazine I'd most likely make it the main article as that will draw in the fans even more and make more and more people want to buy it.

Inspirational Magazines

This magazine is called Billboard, and it inspires me because I enjoy the way the front cover looks. You can immediately see that the focus of the magazine is going to be Rihanna, as she is the main image and is slightly covering the masthead, and her name is the largest text on the page. Under her name, it reads 'My fans don't really know who I am', which inspires me because it seems like such a large secret has finally been revealed, and that now her fans can truly understand her; so people who pick up the magazine and read that, they'd probably want to read on and learn all about the 'true' Rihanna. They also include all the essential information under the subhead, and it tell you the website address and the date that this issue was released, and the bar code is in the bottom left corner.

The magazine NME has inspired me because throughout all of the front cover, they have stuck with the same theme of colours, which is black, white and mainly red, with a bit of yellow. The two people on the cover are Alex Turner and Miles Kane, as it reads on top of the image, and it tells you that this is the 'first major interview as the Last Shadow Puppets'. They also used a pull quote - 'I was worried the Monkeys would think I'd had an affair' - which I like as it gives you a small snippet of the interview inside, which may convince somebody to pick up the magazine and buy it. The main image looks very posed which makes me think that this was taken at a photo shoot for the cover, which I may do for my magazine.

I find this magazine inspirational as they make the main image the focus of the cover, and the text on top which is the part that jumps out at you the most as they claim that this is a 'world exclusive!' then make the text size even larger for the band name, and change the colour to make it stand out even more. I enjoy the fact that most of the cover is in red, black or white, and you only see 2 flashes of yellow which are the text that stands out the most and are probably first things you read on the cover. It also appears that the main image is a professional photo that was took at a photo shoot, probably specially for this magazine. 

Welcome to My Blog

         I am taking the AS Media Studies, and this is what I aim to do:

• enhance candidates enjoyment and appreciation of the media and its role in their daily lives;
  
• develop critical understanding of the media through engagement with media products and concepts and through the creative application of practical skills;
  
• explore production processes, technologies and contexts;
  
• become independent in research skills and their application.
  
  And the brief for my course is as follows:
  
  
  
  Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.
  
  Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as a group task, each member of the group to produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style). Maximum four members to a group.