Task 12
QUESTIONS FOR THE HIPPYS!

1. How long have you been together?
2. How did you all meet?
3. What influenced you in the beginning?
4. Who would you like to be as big as in the future?
5. How do your fans react to your newer content?
6. You’ve started recording your debut album, ‘Reflections’, how is that going?
7. Do you find yourself changing elements to your song as your recording them?
8. What influenced you to get together?
9. Sean, have you been a supporting act for your dad’s band yet?
10. (If not) Are there any plans to?
11. Do you find it easy to get gigs etc.?
12. You recently had an interview with a record label meaning you all had to travel to London, how did that go?
13. So if you could each pick a song to cover for the album what would it be and why?
14. Do you ever have any artistic clashes?
15. How do you go about writing a song?
16. Do you find it easier to write together or separately?
17. So where can your fans see you next?
18. When will the album be finished?
19. Thanks for your time.

TASK 10 & 11
PUBLICATION PLAN

My magazine:

Title: RAW

Positioning Statement: THE Music Magazine

Average Issue size: 100 pages

Regular content: Latest News, Fan Letters, Celeb's Music Picks, Flog it, Hot snakes?, 'VS', Monthly Rock Quiz, Story Behind the Band, Must see gigs, Album of the month, January Gig Guide, Music forum guide, Past Issues, Merchandise, Editor's choice, Music Fashion, What guitar?, Instruments for sale, Wanted Instruments, Your Say!, Rock Band Birthdays!

Feature Content: A-Z of 2009s best rockers, Arctic Monkeys new album, Jeff Buckley tribute, Coldplay to play in Iraq?, Bob Barnett's L!VE Tour, Win a kit worth £30,000, Black Sabbath on tour, Free Poster, Chili Peppers DVD Review, January EP News, Submit your photos, U2 Rocks the World, Riot Breaks out, Babyshambles reunion, Robbie back for good?, Behind the Scenes, Trivia game, Felecity Walker's NY Trip, Win a Rock Weekend for 2, Exciting life of Jose Lopez, ASBO live

On The Cover: Hippys On The Hill, On Tour with Rubiks Cube, White Heat's New Drummer! Muse are feeling good, 50 Must See Gigs, Latest Album Reviews

TASK 8 & 9
TALLY OF RESULTS AND CHARTS

Questionnaire

Please circle your answer unless there has been a line provided for you.

What two colours do you find most appealing for a rock magazine?

Red and Black 2

Yellow and White 6

Black and White 1

Blue and White 1

Would you rather buy your magazine monthly, weekly or fortnightly?

Monthly 8

Weekly 0

Fortnightly 2

Would you rather see a group or a solo artist for the central image?

Group 6

Solo Artist 4

Who is your favourite band or singer?

Kings of leon______________________________________________


What words do you think of when you hear ‘Rock’?

Guitairs and bass_______________________________________________

What do you like or dislike about current magazines?
Too much promotion


What’s your occupation?

_______________________________________________

What’s your gender?

__________________

Which age range do you fit into?

13-19 6

20-29 4

30-39 0

40-49 0

How much would you be happy to spend on the magazine?

£1.00-2.00 5

£2.10-3.00 4

£3.10-4.00 1

£4.10-5.00 0

Do you subscribe to magazines?

Yes 4

No 6

12. Do you read magazines via the internet?

Yes 3

No 7

As you can see from the graphs, the audiences seem to know what they want and there are big differences in the amount of people who want different colours. Although the price chart shows that the audience want their magazine to be between £1.00-3.00.

Here is a quick video of one of my target audience answering the questionnaire.

TASK 7
QUESTIONNAIRE

Here is a questionnaire to conduct research for my audience.

Questionnaire

Please circle your answer unless there has been a line provided for you.

1. What two colours do you find most appealing for a rock magazine?

Red and Black

Yellow and White

Black and White

Blue and White

2. Would you rather buy your magazine monthly, weekly or fortnightly?

Monthly

Weekly

Fortnightly

3. Would you rather see a group or a solo artist for the central image?

Group

Solo Artist

4. Who is your favourite band or singer?

______________________________________________


5. What words do you think of when you hear ‘Rock’?

_______________________________________________

6. What do you like or dislike about current magazines?

_______________________________________________

7. What’s your occupation?

_______________________________________________

8. What’s your gender?

__________________

9. Which age range do you fit into?

13-19

20-29

30-39

40-49

10. How much would you be happy to spend on the magazine?

£1.00-2.00

£2.10-3.00

£3.10-4.00

£4.10-5.00

11. Do you subscribe to magazines?

Yes

No

12. Do you read magazines via the internet?

Yes

No

TASK 4,5 & 6
CODES AND CONVENTIONS

Codes & Conventions of a double page spread:

- Drop quotes, for attention.
- At the beginning there is a short summary.
- The first letter is larger than the rest.
- Large main image.
- Strap line.
- Colour Scheme, 2 colours mainly.
- Eye catching headlines
- Names of Artists highlighted
- Picture of journalist
- 'By' Line
- Text is in columns
- Page Number
- Title of Article & Magazine logo

Codes & Conventions for the Cover:

- Unique Logo
- Central Image & Main Article (Band Name)
- Date, Price & Barcode
- Direct mode of address
- Positioning Statement
- 'Plus' stories
- Main stories

Codes & Conventions for the Contents Page:
-Columns
-'On the Cover'
-'Regulars'
-'Features'
-Editor's Letter
-Contact
-Credits
-Logo




I'm still unsure of what to call my magazine but one title I'm thinking of is 'Smashed'. Here are some logo ideas I came up with within Photoshop...

TASK 3
MORE DECISIONS

We then had to make decisions for our magazine based on the research we done on existing magazines:

Title: Smashed (Working Title)

Positioning Statement: …

Frequency of Publication: Monthly

Price: £4.10

Distribution: Newsagents & Supermarkets

Rationale: My magazine will be very greatly from the music lover’s standpoint, written in an informal style to help the reader enjoy it more. We will present opinions, reviews, articles on things like ‘Top 50…’ as well as interviews with the latest stars, it will focus on what the music lover’s want to know about the latest albums, bands and artists rather than that of what the music promoters want people to read.

Style:

Regular Content

- Latest News
- Celebrity’s Music Choices
- Quizzes
- Letters from Fans
- Subscribe!
- Music forum letter
- Gig guides
- Editor’s letter
- The story behind the band
- Flog it!
- This month’s must see gigs


Feature Content

- Interview with Hippys on the Hill!
- On tour with Rubik’s Cube!
- White Heat’s new drummer!
- Why are Muse feeling so good?
- Kings of Leon back story
- Is Ozzy going back on tour with Black Sabbath?
- KINGS OF LEON tell us what they’re doing this Christmas

TASK 2
EXISTING MAGAZINES

Title: Mojo

Positioning Statement: The Music Magazine
Type of magazine: Classic Rock/Pop
Target Audience: 30's-50's
Price: £3.30
Frequency of publication: Monthly
Distrubution: Newsagent & Supermarkets
Issue size: 162 pages
Regular Content: Theories, rants, etc., What goes on, X-word, Time Machine, Real gone, Subscribe to MOJO!, At your service, Back Issue, Hello goodbye.
Feature content: Van Morrison interview, Black flag coverstory, Mick Jagger coverstory, John Barry coverstory, Michael Jackson interview & Coverstory, Filter coverstory.

Task 2
EXISTING MAGAZINES

Title: Kerrang
Positioning Statement: None.
Type of magazine: Emo/ Metal
Target Audience: 13-19
Price: £2.20
Frequency of publication: Weekly
Distrubution: Newsagent & Supermarkets
Issue size: 63 pages
Regular content: News, Swag, Live reviews, Posters, Album reviews, Gig guide, Famous last words.
Features: Lost prophets cover story, AFI cover story, Motorhead interview, Ozzy Osbourne cover story, Hatebreed interview.

Task 2
EXISTING MAGAZINES

Title: Q
Positioning Statement: A Different Take on Music
Type of magazine: Rock Magazine
Target Audience: 14-late 20's
Price: £3.90
Frequency of publication: Monthly
Distrubution: Newsagent & Supermarkets
Issue size: 162 pages
Regular content: Access all areas, Soapboz, New to Q, Q hero, My Record collection, Cash for questions, Around with.., Q50, Q quiz, Last Requests, Q review.
Features: The 50 gigs you must see, Sting interview, Green Day interview, Pop Babylon interview.

MAIN TASK
TASK 1
DECISIONS

Now that we have completed our preliminary task we move on to our 'Main Task'.

The first task within this is to make decisions about what type of music magazine I am going to produce aswell as my target audience.

TARGET AUDIENCE: 16 - 30 year olds
TYPE OF MAGAZINE: Indie/Rock Magazine

Here is my evaluation for the Preliminary task:

My media product uses forms and conventions such as the font size, use of capitals for the coverlines, having the main cover image a mid-shot of a person looking at the camera aswell as keeping to a clean but eye-catching colour-scheme. With my preliminary task I don't feel I challenged the conventions and I just followed them, this is something I will take into account for when I come to do the main task.
I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 for the cover which I found easy as I have a good understanding of the features of Photoshop and how to use it, therefor helping me create the cover but when it came to do the contents page we were told we had to use Quark Express which I found difficult and not as powerful as Photoshop, I gained an understanding of it quickly but I still found it to lack alot of the features Photoshop had therefore taking me more time to complete the Contents page, for the main task I will enquire about using photoshop for my contents page so I am able to make a more visually pleasing contents page.
My strengths within the media product were the design and layout of the whole thing as I feel I have given it a professional look which is attractive to it's target audience aswell as inviting to read. I feel that I lacked originality with this product as I followed the codes and conventions very closely so I will work on this for my music magazine in the main task. I feel my strong points concerning my use of media technologies were my abilities within Photoshop as I have a very good understanding, enabling me to help both students and teachers with it's functions and I also think I grasped Quark Express quickly although I wasn't a fan of the overall program.

We then created our contents page, going from the rough sketch we had done in Quark Express, in which we got a quick tutorial on how to use the program. Below will be a picture of the finished contents page done within Quark.

When we were creating our cover we could not copy other people's notes or use existing photos or reports research as this task had to be 100% from scratch. It broke down our coursework into smaller tasks which we needed to complete so that our work was detailed enough and met expectations and requirements of the specifactions. We also needed to ensure that we completed those tasks in order.

In the following lessons after my last blog I took all of the photos I needed for my cover and contents page which can be seen below, I also started my cover within photoshop going from my rough sketch which was inspired by the OK! Magazine. I also managed to complete the rough sketch I done of my contents page.

In the next task for our preliminary we had to create a rough sketch of the front cover to our school magazine, which I entitled, "WS!" a play on "OK! but using Weatherhead School. It had to include the issue date, feature articles, pictures that we had to take and could not use from an external source and everything else on most magazines. I then had to come up with a list of contents which can be seen on my rough sketch.

For the next task we had we had to come along with the photographs, which we had to take ourselves, for the cover of our magazine which I have also manipulated to look better than when they were taken as well as all photographs in today's media are done so too.

Before we started doing our coursework we were told we were going to do a preliminary task to help us when we come to do our final coursework consisting of a number of tasks.
First we looked at some examples of magazines and discussed the codes and conventions of them and made a list to help us for when we came to do ours. We then came up with a list of coverlines and stories for a school magazine including a title for the magazine, I decided to use WS! like the popular women's magzine 'OK!'. We discussed codes and conventions such as colour schemes and positioning statements.
We then had to come up with a title and coverlines for our magazine.