Comparison

Good idea for a table to show main differences in magazines. Maybe you could make sure you have considered the same issues for your own magazine in your House Style posts!!!

Front Cover Analysis

Black Swan

Target Audience Analysis

Black Swan

Total film

Schedule

By Dec 6th Research into existing media

Introduction – What are we doing? What is a music magazine? What different types exist? Who publishes them? For whom? What are their different purposes and audiences?

What are the conventions of a magazine? Colours? Layout? Typography? Mode of Address?

Analysis of 3 different existing music magazines – Contents/Double Page Spread & Front Cover!

Analysis of 2 front covers for other magazines (Must have something you like about them e.g layout)

By Dec 13^th Research into your chosen genre

Which genre(s) have you chosen and why?

What seem to be the conventions of this genre? Who is the target audience?

Who are the main publishers for magazines of this genre? Are there particular conventions that are specific to these types of magazines?

Choose three artists associated with this genre and analyse how each one’s ‘star image’ has been created. How are they represented and how does the target audience relate to them?

By Dec 20^th Research into target audience & Start of Planning

Who is your target audience? (Particular age group/gender percentages/geographical/brands they buy/where they shop/interests/values/etc.)

Audience questionnaire/interview/focus group etc. – What they want from a music magazine

Results and evaluation of research

Collate your findings and present appropriately

What have you learnt from your research and how will this influence the decisions you make about your music magazine?

By Dec 27^th Finish Planning and drafting

Title, Theme & House Style Ideas and Explanation for final choice

Based on your research, develop a clear idea of your brand and your target audience: How will you communicate? How will they be positioned? How will both be represented?

Identify which conventions you will follow and why

Which locations and actors have you considered? Which ones will you use and why?

Hand Drawn Designs

Draw up a shooting schedule (include shot list, location, props etc.), ensuring you have permission to take photographs in these location

Plan your two page spread article/interview

By Jan 6^th Production – Photographs complete – Finished by Return to school

Take your photos Remember lots of costume changes!!!!!

Ensure you keep track of photos taken (and selected), problems encountered, decisions made (and altered) etc. and upload evidence ensuring you record evidence (again - an ongoing ‘Behind the Scenes’ commentary - see point above!)

What technology/equipment have you used? What have you learnt?

Write your two page spread article/interview

By 17th January

Production Finished – Front Cover, Contents and Two Page Spread

Upload layouts and explain the decisions you've made and denotations/connotations, with reference to magazine conventions

By 24th January

Feedback and Evaluation

·         What has your audience said about your finished magazine?

·         How does it compare to other music magazines on the market?

·         What have you changed as a result of this? What effect has this had on your finished magazine? Upload any amended layouts and accompanying analysis.

·         Multimedia evaluation uploaded to include at least three of the following: text, images (screen grabs etc.), hyperlinks to research, video footage, voice-over.

Music Mag Student work

Name	Music Mag
Aiyedun, Adewunmi	http://adeaiyedunmusicas.blogspot.co.uk/
Bah, Sophia	http://sophiabahmusicas.blogspot.co.uk/
Barratt, Rosa	http://barrattrosamusic.blogspot.co.uk/
Brown, Emily	http://emilylbrownmediaasmusicmagazine.blogspot.co.uk/
Brown, Emily J	http://emilyjbrownmediaasmusicmagazine.blogspot.co.uk/
Cunningham, Claudia	http://ccunninghammusicmagazine.blogspot.co.uk/
Dartnell, Emily	http://emilydartnellmusicas.blogspot.co.uk/
Dorsett Beard, Emily	http://emilydb16.blogspot.co.uk/
Ellis, Bethany	http://bethanyellisasmusic.blogspot.co.uk/
Froggatt, Ellie	http://elliesmusicas.blogspot.co.uk/
Ibrahim, Taaj	http://romeotraimusic.blogspot.co.uk/
Ideh, Ochuko	http://ochukoasmusicmag.blogspot.co.uk/
Lewis, Jordanna
Mattholie, Kelsie	http://kelsiesmusicas.blogspot.co.uk/
McAllen, Rebecca	http://beccamcallenasmusic.blogspot.co.uk/
O'Boyle, Shauna	http://shaunamusicmagazine.blogspot.co.uk/
Shand, Chelsea	http://chelseamusicmagas.blogspot.co.uk/
Smith, Lauren	http://laurensmithas.blogspot.co.uk/
Turell, Lauren	http://laurenturellmediaasmusicmagazine.blogspot.co.uk/
Young, Rebekah	http://bekahyoungasmusic.blogspot.co.uk/

Music Magazine

Annotate 5 x Magazines

Choose 3 music magazines relating to your genre and 2 from different genres e.g. Gossip, Men’s Lifestyle.

·         For the Music Magazines annotate Front Covers, Contents Pages and example Double Page Spreads. For the different genres, just annotate the covers.

·         Ensure your research relates to your intended construction – with the music magazine annotations ensure the genre is the same or a hybrid of your intended project.

·         With the annotations of non-music industry magazines do it for a reason e.g. similar choice of image, layout or typography to your own music magazine (you will need to justify why you include these in your research and planning portfolio, not just to beef up the content).

·         Upload all content to a new Blog!

Preliminary Exercise - School Magazine!

Your blog needs to include at least the following information. You can structure it however you like in as many blog posts as you like as long as it is easy to navigate and well ordered.

Presentation of Research and Planning: 20 marks

Construction: 60 marks

Evaluation: 20 marks

1. Introduction to your blog
2. Introduction to Magazine Conventions including analysis of Typography, Colours, Mode of address - There is information on the resource blog or you can easily find articles on google.
3. Min 2 school mag front cover annotations & 2 Contents pages - ensure you use appropriate media language. It is also good practice to locate school/college magazines from a range of different sources e.g. different editions of own school/college magazine and other local schools should not be too difficult to find before online secondary research.
4. Audiences & Audience Theory Intro, Research & Planning
5. Title/Theme/Sketch for your magazine - Write an intro to why you chose this and include at least 3 alternative titles/ideas. Then include a rough hand drawn version that you can scan and upload to your blog.
   
6. Questionnaire and analysis of results - Identify and record (with justification in your Blog) the target audience of School/College Magazines (pupils/students, parents and guardians, local employers and businesses).
   Ensure the questionnaire has a visually interesting design and does not use a pre existing template (try and avoid using Word).
   Include open and closed questions e.g. closed = “how many times a year do you think a school/college magazine should be published?” Open = “comment on my front cover images, what does it tell you about the college?”
   Submit electronically via social network links your early sketches and ideas (link your Blog to Facebook etc.), plus your Questionnaire - send to a sample 10 of your target audience as evidence of primary research.
   Collate the responses on your Blog.
   Analyse the results graphically using a graph on Excel for quantitative responses and as a summary paragraph for qualitative results (try to do 350 words).
   Include one blank Questionnaire in your Blog.
   
7. Intro, Research and Planning for location & student Photoshoot - Organise a photo shoot and undertake original photography of students in different locations in and around your school/college – good Smartphone cameras will be enough for this early task but digital stills cameras are preferable and must be used for the main task.
   10-15 photographs will be sufficient and again the images need to be uploaded and included in your Blog research and planning portfolio.
   Make time for a ‘show and tell’ session with recorded feedback from your peers and students on the photo shoot: choose the images you will be using from this feedback.
   The final picture for the cover must be a student, framed centrally in medium close up while you may use other smaller images for the cover and contents page.
   Again, upload ALL the images and feedback in your Blog.
8. Second Sketch/Design for front cover - Develop further your front Cover flat plan and flat plan of your Contents Page.
   
   Design an appropriate masthead – experiment with using different fonts and those from websites like www.dafont.com.
   Add cover lines, additional images and background appropriate to the images and layout.
   Include the school/college’s mantra (their ethos in a sentence – e.g. “Where students come first”). Think about mode of address – how do you want to ‘speak’ to your target audience?
   Ensure you also include the month/season of publication e.g. November or ‘Autumn’) and also convergent links to Twitter and Facebook, a website and the price (if sold).
9. Research & Design Contents - With the Contents Page remember there must be house style evident from the front cover – this can be achieved by using a similar colour palette, font, language code or choice of image.
   Remember the conventions of a Contents Page differ from a Front Cover e.g. more text on a Contents Page with an approximately 50:50 ratio with the images.
   Contents Pages have more inset images (between 3 and 5), sub-headings with listed contents (not too listy, think about design) with page numbers, variation in typography and graphics.
   Your Front Cover may often be the selling point of a magazine but spend as much time on the design of the Contents Page.
10. Create Magazine

15. Evaluation

Evaluate your Construction using 6 Key Questions

• Project in the classroom your School/College Magazine Front Cover and Contents Page for feedback with key questions as prompts – film the class feedback and upload to your Blog.
• Link your Blog to Facebook and Twitter and send links of your School/College Magazine Front Cover, requesting feedback from the same 10 people who responded to your Questionnaire including the 6 key questions below.
• Record the feedback on your Blog and use Prezi/relevant applications to document this and include your own feedback using again the 6 key questions below but feel comfortable making observations outside the parameters of the questions.
• Support your analysis of each key question with your own individual short comments summarising responses.

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
3. What kind of media institution (publisher) might distribute your media product and why?
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

AS Media Student Blog Links

So far I have the following blog links. Please email me your link or reply to this post if I don't have it.

Name	AS Blog
Aiyedun, Adewunmi	http://adeaiyedunas.blogspot.co.uk/
Bah, Sophia	http://sophiabahas.blogspot.co.uk/
Barratt, Rosa	http://barrattrosa.blogspot.co.uk/
Brown, Emily	http://emilylbrownmediaas.blogspot.co.uk/
Brown, Emily	http://emilyjbrownmediaas.blogspot.co.uk/
Cunningham, Claudia	http://claudiacunninghamasblog.blogspot.co.uk/
Dartnell, Emily	http://www.emilydartnellmediaas.blogspot.co.uk/
Dorsett Beard, Emily	http://emilydb15.blogspot.co.uk/
Ellis, Bethany	http://bethanyellisas.blogspot.co.uk/
Ibrahim, Taaj	http://romeotrai97.blogspot.co.uk/
Ideh, Ochuko	http://ochukoasblog.blogspot.co.uk/
Lewis, Jordanna	www.jordannalewisas.blogspot.co.uk
Mattholie, Kelsie	http://kelsiemattholieas.blogspot.co.uk/
McAllen, Rebecca	http://beccamcallenas.blogspot.co.uk/
O'Boyle, Shauna	http://shaunaoboyleas.blogspot.co.uk/
Shand, Chelsea	http://chelseashandas.blogspot.co.uk/
Smith, Lauren	http://laurennsmithhh.blogspot.co.uk/
Turell, Lauren	http://laurenturellmediaas.blogspot.co.uk/
Young, Rebekah	http://bekahyoungas.blogspot.co.uk/

School Magazines - Warning!!!!

School magazine research: Watch out!

You might be finding it difficult to lay your hands on examples of existing school magazines. This, in itself is an interesting media issue for consideration:

• Why is this?
• What impact has new technology had on print editions of school magazines?
• What other technologies are schools using to communicate with their students?

There also seems to be a trend for producing annual, rather than more regular magazines. In that case, are they magazines in the usual sense of the word? What will the frequency of your publication be?

It seems to be easier to find examples of magazines for Independent Schools. Should you, therefore, follow the conventions of these examples regardless of your audience? Or, if you're going to subvert them - Which ones? How? Why?

However, a consideration of these issues won't help you with your actual textual analysis - an essential step if you are going to produce an effective school magazine that follows the generic conventions!

Take care when using the internet to source examples - they are likely to be magazines produced by AS Media Students just like yourselves, rather than live school magazines!

School Magazine - Initial Research & Planning

School Magazine Initial Research

My overview of the preliminary task

•        What are we doing and why?

Research into existing media

•          What are the conventions of a magazine front cover?
•          What is a school magazine? What are their different purposes and audiences?
•          Analysis of 2-3 different existing school magazines

Research into target audience

•          Who is your target audience? (Particular age group/niche if applicable)
•          Audience questionnaire/interview/focus group etc. – What they want from a school magazine

Results and evaluation of research

•          Collate your findings and present appropriately
•          What have you learnt from your research and how will this influence the decisions you make about your school magazine? 

Planning and drafting

•         Based on your research, develop a clear idea of your brand and your target audience: How will you communicate? How will they be positioned? How will both be represented?
•          Identify which conventions you will follow and why
•          Which locations, costumes, props and actors have you considered? Which ones will you use and why?
•          Mock up layouts and from these, draw up a shooting schedule (include shot list, location, props etc.), ensuring you have permission to take photographs in these locations
• 
  

Early birds!

Welcome to AS Media Studies at Beaverwood! If you've come here already, then that must mean you are super-efficient/keen/organised/curious - all of the things that make an excellent A Level Media Studies student, so well done!

However, on this occasion, I'm afraid there are not yet any worms for you early birds to catch - pop back at the end of the summer, and the first posts will have been uploaded ready for you to start the AS course.

In the meantime, you might like to check out the blog that was created for last year's AS students:
http://beaverwoodmediaas1213.blogspot.co.uk/ to give you a flavour of some of things that lie in store!

Hopefully, being the early bird that you are, you will have already finished your bridging unit - but just in case you haven't, click here!

Wishing you the very best of luck for a successful time ahead - and do keep up your 'early-bird-ness' - it really is true what they say! (Well, maybe not worms, but good grades, at least!)