Genre

The Genre of music of my music magazine is Indie Rock, I chose this because it is one of my favourite genres of music.  I know a lot of information about the genre so I thought this would be the most appropriate genre to do my magazine on.  I know a lot of artists within the genre so me picking Indie Rock would allow me to make sure that my research was better because I already had some valuable information about the genre.  I believe that Indie Rock was the perfect genre for me to do and to base my magazine on, because I feel the most confident doing it on this genre because of the enjoyment and the background information about the magazine. 

Connecting with my target audience

I connected with my target audience by firstly finding out who my target audience was and then making sure my magazine was appropriate.  I made sure that my pictures, text and information within my magazine where appropriate to my target audience.  I think that I have connected with my target audience because of the research I have found out.  The research I have conducted I believe has helped connect with my target audience in my magazine.  My research are magazines such as: NME< Q magazine. 

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Mise En Scene

The Mise en Scene I thought it was hard to decide where to choose my photoshoot.  Finally I decided to base the pictures in Liverpool, this is because we are based in Liverpool and their are a lot of features I can use within the city centre.  Another reason I shot it in Liverpool is because Liverpool has a great musical background bands such as: The Beatles... It also has very famous places and bars such as: The Cavern Club where The Beatles had their first gig.  The city also has famous roads such as Penny lane.  Because of these reasons I thought that this was a great place to shoot my photos.  I took a picture of Sam Shaw on a backstreet alley playing the harmonica to show the sign of rebellion again.  I took a picture of my two artists outside The Cavern Club with the statue of John Lennon.  I took a picture of Sam Shaw in the music shop Dawsons playing a guitar.  The pictures I took I believed they were perfect for my Genre and the theme of my magazine. 

My Artists Costume

Another character that I chose was Alex Brandwood.  His costume was slightly different to Sam's costume.  The costume I chose for him wasn't as dark as Sams he had colour.  He had a maroon jumper on to show personality and he had a grey coat.  The Grey coat symbolises the dark theme that is still there (Sam's costume) however the maroon jumper shows that he wasn't all dark and independent.  My research showed me that their is also some colourful Indie artists, this gave me the idea to have one artist a little but colourful and the other character dark.  This is so I could express the two types of Indie Artists.

My Characters Costume

One of The Characters I have chosen is Sam Shaw. I have chosen there costumes to fit the theme of my magazine.  I have chosen Sam to wear Black  to symbolise being rebellious.  This is a theme for my Genre of Music.  A similar character I have related to is Arctic Monkeys lead singer Alex Turner.  Throughout my research it shows that he mostly wears Black, I tried to copy this theme of costume.  Indie artists keep themselves to themselves because they are independent.  This means they do not want to draw attention to themselves by wearing colourful clothes.  This is why I dressed Sam all in Black to try and stick to one of the stereotypes of Indie artists. 

Q5. My Products Challenges

My magazine has the same features as a real music magazine; the one I chose to imitate is NME.  This is because I believe that NME is the same genre of music as mine so it would be easy to get my research from them.  I researched NME a lot and got a lot of good ideas which I could use to make my magazine as professional as possible.  NME have the same type of bands as me because the two magazine have the same genre which is Indie Rock.  This makes it a lot easier for me because I could take some ideas from NME for photo shoot ideas and mix some ideas of my own so that my magazine would look realistic.  Also the design of NME is very helpful because normally use the same layout but just have different features and content with the front cover.  I would be able to take some ideas from the layout and put it on mine to make mine look like a professional music magazine.

So my magazine is similar to NME because in the front cover I have chosen a picture to fill the whole page and have features & content around the sides to draw the viewers’ attention.  NME normally fill the whole page with a picture, this maybe a close up of a single person or have a group shot of people such as a band.  So in relation to NME I have chosen a single person close up to show the expression and show the musical instrument I artist has.  Even though I took some ideas from NME, it would only be the basic skeleton of my music magazine as I would have to take a range of pictures to see what looks best.  I would also have to place the content around the sides so that it would look professional and realistic.

There is a lot of differences between my magazine and NME.  One differences would be the font, the font of my magazine and NMEs are different.  This is because I had to choose a font that looked suitable for my front cover.  Another difference is the information, I have taken some of the layout techniques from NME but they look different because I have inputted some of my own layout techniques so that my magazine has a unique point about it.  Overall I have taken some ideas off NME, only to make my magazine look as professional as possible.  However I have also inputted my own features to make mine look unique.  I am happy with my magazine on how it has turned out, with the ideas from NME and my own ideas.  

Q7. Looking back on your preliminary what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your final product?

I believe that the skills that I have taken from my prelim task that I did at the start of the year has helped me a lot to get the skills and the experience I needed in order to make my final product.  When I first started with my prelim task I wasn’t very good at the skills of Photoshop and Indesign, but because I did the task so early I was able to gradually build my skills in order to make the best magazine I could.  The skills I have learnt is the basic Photoshop skills in how to crop, move, select, spot remover tool, rotation, duplicate all the basic action tools you would have to know in order to make a good professional  magazine.  Another thing I have seen my progression in is my Indesign skills, I am now able to do a lot on the software, things that I couldn’t of done before.  I can place, move, play around with text and paragraphs, font, selection again all the basic tools/actions you would have to know.  Another thing I can see my progression on is to work independently, this task helped me to do this because you had to go out on your own and find pictures yourself and make the magazine yourself.  This prepared me for my final product so I knew what to do when it came to the task.  The final thing I have learnt from the prelim task is to use Blogger, I had never been on Blogger before.  But now I understand it and can use it effectively without any confusion.  Overall I have been very happy with the progression and the things that I have learnt from the prelim task.  I have learnt the skills that I have needed in order to make my finak product as professional as possible and I think it has.    

This is my Prelim Task

This is my Final Product

There is a significant difference between the two products.  From the Prelim task I was able to take the skills and make my final product as good as it can be.  All the skills that I have gained from the prelim task from being independent to learning the basics to Photoshop, everything that I have learned has contributed to my final product to make it as good as possible.

Q6. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

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Q1. Who would be the audience for your media product

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Q4. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this process?

One example of technology that I have used to create my final product is Photoshop, this allowed me to change certain things on the picture that I have.  In Photoshop you can edit things to how I wanted it using different features and tools on the software. 






The two pictures to the right shows one of the drafts I did on Photoshop.  The top picture shows before and the bottom picture shows after, I took the top picture and Photoshopped it to how I wanted it.  This was just one of the many drafts I did in Photoshop.
















Another example of technology I used to create my final product is InDesign, this was the software that I created my prelim and my final product on.  In InDesign you can edit the magazine features such as: the placement of text and pictures, gutters, columns etc... It helped me create my final product because it is so simple to use.  The picture on the right is my final product contents page, I created this on InDesign and all the features that is on the contents page E.G. layout InDesign can do this.










Another example of technology that I used to create my final product is Blogger, an online Blog that allowed me to post my media coursework.  It is very simple to use and gives you a lot of features that you can work with.  The picture on the right shows the online Blog and the features that you can use on it.







I used a lot of technology that contributed towards my final product including InDesign, Photoshop and Blogger to use all the different features they supply so I could make my final product as good as possible. 

Q2. How did you attract/address your audience?

Q3. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

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Contents Page

Front cover

Interview V2

COOL AS A CAT

Sam Shaw’s goes over his career and tells AMPED about his interesting - and a little bit weird -experiences…

Q-Okay, Hi its Elliot Robson here from AMPED, we just want a couple of answers, we just want you to let yourself go and reminisce on your highlights and experiences with us.

A-That seems fine by me

Q-Why have you finally decide to come back from your break up from ‘The Shades’

A-Well, the break up did hurt me a lot.  But I just really missed it, I missed just getting out there and rocking the place out.  I missed writing music, I missed my fans.  I have received a lot of messages over the past from fans to try and convince me to make a return, so I just wanted to give something back to my fans because of how loyal they have been to me.  

Q-So how is your new album?

A- I know the guy that owns ‘Sound Effects’, you know the one in Ormskirk?  Jeff… he’s a good lad him you know.  He’s done me a lot of favours.  He let the band record the album in there, because there is a recording studio upstairs, not many bands know about that which benefits us.  He let me record my album there, so I am happy that the album is finished now and will be out on Sunday I think. 

Q-We know about the Jaffa Cake incident haha, have there been any other bizarre incidents that have occurred in your time in ‘The Shades?’

A-Ohh haha I knew that would come up, that was a weird one! Mad thing is I f*cking despise Jaffa Cakes now! Oh yeah do you know about the story about the puppy?

Q-No, we haven’t heard about that one

A-Oh well, we had this s*ht gig in Manchester that Shaun sorted for us! He is a proper doughnut!  Well anyway! We had the worst gig ever! And we missed the last train home; we had to check into a scatty, scary, back alley apartment.  The room stunk of egg and toothpaste because there was a massive bin outside the window.  I got woken up by a dog in the back alley; it was like a terrible groan.  So I got up all the other lads were fast asleep like babies.  I look out the window and there is this deranged skinny dog that was moaning like hell! So there’s me in my bills, sticking my head out the window.  Next minute one of the lads pushes me out the window and I go flying into this bin.  The dog jumps in the bin and sits on me.  So that night I slept in a minging bin with a smelly old dog.  So I got the train home smelling of egg and toothpaste.  I don’t know who pushed me out that window, none of the lads will tell me and I don’t think I will ever find out.   

Q-Oh Lord! That story was great! There have been reports that for one of your songs, you took drugs to help you write it.  Is that true?

A-Well yeah know what, I am not going to lie to you and I did.  I had writers block, I just could not come up with anything.  The band was relying on a good song to go on this album.  So Shaun came round to my apartment and told me that my troubles would go away, if I snorted this cocaine.  Me being me I did, and I wrote a great song out of doing it.  I am not going to tell you what song it is, I will let you figure that out for yourself.

Q-So you snorted cocaine to help you write a song?

A-Yes, but never again, because I have heard I did some whacky stuff that night.  I woke up with 2 midgets, a hooker and a bottle of Tizer.  So never again haha

Q-Do you miss being in ‘The Shades?’

A-Yeah I do, I mean it was decent, I miss the banter me and the lads used to have, I used to come out of the studio crying laughing and my stomach hurting I had been laughing that much.  We had our problems, like every band experiences and we just couldn’t solve them and sadly it resulted in ‘The Shades’ splitting up.  So yes I do miss it.

Q-Have you got any big gigs coming up?

A-Well, we are going to wait for a while.  Wait until the new album comes out, then I’ll hopefully be headlining in the Reading festival.  I hope that happens because I’ve never played at Reading, so to be headlining there would be magnificent.    

Q-You have got a range of fans all at different age groups, do you think that is a good thing for you?

A-I think so because in ‘The Shades’ we had a massive fan base, so because we went different ways, I think they will still support me. 

Q-Do you regret anything in your musical career?

A-yes I do to be honest, I regret letting band split up.  I think that was a massive mistake because we were getting really good and our fans were growing.  Our gig line up was growing rapidly and we were just getting more popular, so to split before we even got close to our peak was devastating, but I look forward to the future, I really do.

Q-So should we expect a lot from you in the near future?

A-Yes you should (Haha) I have got a good gig line up for the year so yes you should.

Sam Shaw thank you for speaking to AMPED

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