Front Cover Feedback

After we finished making our front covers, everyone in the class gave each other feedback. It gave me an idea of what worked and what didn't and what I could have improved to help me in the future. This is the feedback that I received:

Researching My Sub Genre Further

Now I understand exactly what I can include in my magazine I need to look at popular, current music magazines to see who their target audience like being featured; this will give me ideas of who to write an article about. I googled what the most popular artists where in NME, Kerrang! and Rocksound, as they are my inspirational texts and here is the the top ten list for each magazine:

Kerrang                                               NME                               Rocksound

All Time Low                              Arctic Monkeys                        Green Day
You Me At Six                            Biffy Clyro                               Blink-182
Bring Me The Horizon                 The Strokes                              All Time Low
My Chemical Romance                Arcade Fire                               Nirvana                          
Biffy Clyro                                 Nirvana                                     Pierce The Veil
Nirvana                                      Foo Fighters                              Bring Me The Horizon
Green Day                                 Paramore                                   You Me At Six
Foo Fighters                               Kings Of Leon                           Paramore
Pierce The Veil                          Red Hot Chilli Peppers                Foo Fighters
Paramore                                   Kasabian                                   Biffy Clyro


I noticed that a lot of the same bands come up in all three magazines, they include; Biffy Clyro, Foo Fighters, Paramore and Nirvana. This has gave me the idea of who I should write about for my double page spread or include on my contents page as these four bands are clearly really popular with my target audience. Other bands such as Green Day, All Time Low, You Me At Six, Pierce The Veil and Bring Me The Horizon all came up in two out of three of the magzines too so these bands would be good to write about too.

Concert Pictures

For my magazine I want to include some pictures on my front cover and contents page of live shows and they need to be original so they can only be pictures that I have took from live shows so these are the images I am using. I can use live pictures of bands such as Biffy Clyro, Green Day, All Time Low, Bring Me The Horizon etc. I have decided that it would be a good idea to include live gig photos as I found out that my target audience like going to gigs as hobbies, it's actually the most popular hobby within the target audience I surveyed so including gig pictures would be very appealing to them and they would probably enjoy looking at the photos. I have included these particular photos as they fit with the genre and are popular bands within this genre and also have included pictures of Leeds Festival because it was a very popular festival in my target audience survey.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/114813395@N04/

October Time Management Update

In this month I have managed to actually get more done than I planned. I initially wanted to focus on trying to build my understanding of my magazine up a lot more by looking into inspirational texts and also trying to complete my deconstructions but this month I have got the following done:
- Finished my contents page and double page spread deconstructions.
- Planned my photoshoot by setting a location (location scouting), emailing, messaging and texting models with a time, date and information on what to wear.
- Taking and editing my final images.
- Researching into elements such as poses, facial expression and makeup ideas for my shoot.
- I also made the time management schedule which is really keeping me on track.

In the next month I need to make sure that I remain on track or even keep ahead like this productive month as it creates time to help carry out further research and tweak my magazine.

My Photos

For my photos I am using my Canon EOS 1100D, this is what it looks like. I think it is a really good camera to use as it takes really high quality photos and you can adjust settings on it that will make it look better such as changing the shutter speed, aperture, focus and adding flash. There are also features that will let you take photos that are suitable to certain weather and lighting conditions such as 'outside' and 'dark'.

http://flipagram.com/f/7U4OTwDAKI

These are some of the photos I have decided not not to use. The main reason now to use these following photos is because the photos were a bit blurry, the lighting was bad, the model wasn't looking directly into the camera or because there was people in the background:

Makeup Ideas

This is the moodboard I have made using the app Pic Collage. Two of the biggest female names in rock are Taylor Momsen and Hayley Williams so I thought they would be the best inspirations to use for the female model makeup for my photos. They both have two completely different styles and both look equally as effective. Taylor Momsen wears really heavy, black, smokey eye makeup and this creates a typical heavy rock look and I will get half of my models to do their makeup like this. Hayley Williams' doesn't look as typically rock but works so well, she uses bold, firey colours such as red, orange and yellow eyeshadow and also wear winged eyeliner. I also found an image someone posted on a closer look on how to create this look and this image has really helped. I am also going to get half of my models to wear makeup like this too. I also found an article extract from an interview with her saying what makeup she uses and this has helped a lot too as I can use it as I have a few of the things myself. I want to try and create these looks as well as I can so the images look even better and that my models fit in with the rock genre even more.

Double Page Spread Flat Plan

For my double page spread I want to make it look really similar to ones from inspirational texts that I had looked at. To do this I wanted to include a really large pull quote alongside the main image on the left hand side. In an article in Kerrang! I saw that they included a setlist alongside the main image so I wanted to make something really similar to this so decided to include tour dates as this is something really similar and looks really effective. Also after doing my reader profile and looking at other rock magazine reader profiles a real interest of a lot of the readers was going to gigs and live music so I felt like this feature would be really useful and fit with this theme really well. To also fit with the genre I wanted to create this tour date list on a crumpled up stained piece of paper, I did this using a teabag and this fit really well with the whole rock, chaotic look to the magazine. I wanted to make the image a long shot so it fits the whole page up. I made it a direct mode of address again so it really appeals to the reader and they feel some kind of personal connection with the model. For the font I wanted to make it really easy to read for the readers so I am using red and black alternative text to represent both the interviewer and the singer. I really liked a ransom style of font that I saw on a NME double page spread  that I liked so I used a similar font that I found on dafont.com and I think that it fits really well with the theme. I also added an album review at the bottom as this is another thing my target audience really find interesting. I also made a 'recommended for you' section too so other fans of similar music would be really attracted to the this artist even if they hadn't heard of her. I also used high key lighting to stick the the professional feel like the other images and I stuck to the black and red colour scheme too.