Drafting #4

This is the final drafting of my magazine so far. I have altered the contents page slightly by adding more information and detail to it. I also lengthened my article and added more quotes from my artist as well as information that appeals to the audience about her. I added pull quotes from the article which stood out - this attracts the audience as they're very eye-catching features which intriegues the audience to read the article. I have included more images of the artist into the article although I plan to change these images when I have taken more suitable ones which match with the overall design.
I decided to create a new page called 'Handwritten lyrics', which is one of the features mentioned in my contents page. I wrote some lyrics down along with the signature of the artists and analysed them - I plan on making this into a double page spread later on. I feel like adding this extra page was necessary because it appeals to the audience and makes my magazine seem more interesting as not many magazines seem to have fun, articles like this.

At this stage, I am quite comfortable with the outcome of my magazine although I do still think that there are areas of which I can improve - which I plan to do in the New Year.

Extra page: Handwritten Lyrics

 

Analysis:

She can’t erase him [them] from her mind, the memories and the heart break. She replays the happiest moments and the moment he ended all he had with her for another person. It’s constantly on her mind, although she’s tried her absolute hardest to forget everything. She can’t stand knowing that he said words he used to say to her to another girl. Also, porcelain is very detailed, as in China dolls and antiques; and are often connoted as breaking very easily. She pictures them having intercourse, and everything’s very detailed. He and his new lover knew of everything she had with him, and they both knew that it would break her heart (‘bleeding inside’) as in her heart hurts. These lyrics really capture the heartbreak that Aurora experienced.

Article extended version

What with her eccentric, controversial yet iconic style - and music and match - 20-year-old Aurora Storm is currently causing a sensation in the UK, where her vivid indie-edge debut single ‘Smother’ has charted in the Top 10. Her sassy, bad-girl act echoes that of childhood idols Janis Joplin and Madonna. "I look to Madonna for her philosophy about music and fashion," she admits. "If I'm going to get compared to any music artist, I sure as fuck want it to be her."

Raised in the heart of London, Aurora attended the £17,000-a-yearSylvia Young Theatre School in Marylebone, where she studied music and performing arts alongside Rita Ora and Tom Fletcher. 'I didn't hang out with all the popular girls," she says, claiming to have kept her head down and focused on her art and theatre studies. To the humiliation of her parents – extremely successful lawyers - she ended up moving downtown at just 17 years old following a serious argument she had with her family. Aurora did everything she could to get by – working in a small café at minimal wage and occasionally partaking in nude modeling and busking on the streets of London to songs that she had written in her spare time, just so she could have a roof over her head and place food on her plate every night. “I was doing drugs, I was really out of control," she says. "But what made me different was that I was making music, too. I wasn't just doing drugs."

Her antics caught the eye of musical-director Caius Pawson, (Founder of The XX, Sampha) who found her busking at Camden Lock, before bringing her to the attention of Young Turks Records. Aurora’s debut album Porcelain is released in the UK this month, and she plans to take just herself, her guitar and her music worldwide. But Aurora insists that it’s not all about the marketing and publicity. “I could end up in America selling thousands of records or I could go back to how things were before when no one really knew my name and few people purchased my music, and it wouldn’t matter to me. All that matters is the music. I don’t give a shit about how many records are sold – as long as I am making music for the people I love, and then I’m happy.”

There’s no denying the fact that Aurora is all that everyone is talking about right now – her seemingly overnight success is what has got her to where she is now. When asked if this is the “most insane year” of her life so far, the singer-song writer says, “Everything is so chaotic and crazy right now and it’s so much all at once, but I’m living for it. I’m just having the best time ever and everything’s falling into place like it’s supposed to. I don’t really care if people hate me. I think anyone wanting to pursue a music career would have given anything to be me at that very moment where I blew up, because I was being one hundred percent true to myself… and not many people can say that.”

But it’s not all hate for Aurora. This fact is a kind of icing on the cake for some, who have greeted Aurora not just as the latest, new, indie sensation to appear freshly baked off the assembly line, but as a kind of Trojan horse come to deliver us from the saccharine smiles and full-frontal sexual provocation clogging the charts. “The charts are constantly filled up with pop songs with no meaning, no real passion… just a different combination of the 26 letters in our alphabet accompanied by a stupid tune. Who wants to listen to that?! That’s what I want to change.”

Aurora’s sharp narrative observations – on both the single, and her critically acclaimed follow-up album, Porcelain – have led to her being labeled the voice of her generation.

When we meet, Aurora can barely sit upright. “I came down with a kidney infection just as I was about to get on a plane here,” she says. “They took me into hospital and put me on a drip and now I’m on heavy-duty antibiotics.” With her gothically pale skin offset by dark, red lips, black-rimmed wide-set eyes and her bold, statement full fringe, it’s not hard to see why she attracts the attention that she does – even when she’s ill she manages to look flawless. She looks much older than she is, a perception reinforced by the deep, commanding timbre of her sonorous voice.

On stage the previous night at Brixton Academy, Aurora had betrayed no sign of her illness, or that she had only 20 live performances under her belt. Aurora performed a mix of emotional ballads and when she reached the dramatic climax of the song, she vaults to the top of her range and produces a piercing sound that shakes you to the core. That is the power of the whistle register; the ability to control that part of the human voice is quite rare (think Mariah Carey) and even when ill, Aurora is able to hit way beyond the whistle register. In performance, Aurora has a goofy theatricality: one minute she is indulging in closed-eyed singing whilst simply sat with her guitar, shaking her hair and flicking her hands out; the next, she’s all broad smiles and wisecracks, jokily mocking her audience. Aurora was born with the ability to be a performer and that’s quite hard to find these days.

‘‘Songwriting is so weird because you are writing down intimate things and then you go into a studio with someone you have never met,” she says. “For me, the idea of an album touched by anyone else… that would cut me in half. I wouldn’t want to make albums with song writers. I don’t like people who call themselves singer/songwriter when they don’t write all of it themselves. I do everything myself.” When asked about sharing her thoughts and problems with the world through songwriting, Aurora claims, “It was just music that was written when I was getting wrecked just for fun. It was almost secondary to getting wrecked – the fact that people have embraced it is actually really humbling. It’s also kind of conflicting and has sent me a bit mental but anybody that knows me will know that it doesn’t take much to send me mental. When I passed it through to my team, it was a strange situation where something just clicked. My team was very good at being perceptive and figuring out what I do, which is quite a raw, impulsive thing. “

Over the past year and a half, from 2011, Aurora and her team came up with the 10 songs for her debut album, but Aurora says it never crossed her mind that one might become a worldwide hit. She insisted her first songs be put out on free streaming service Sound Cloud without any videos or photographs to promote them. “I put my music out with no kind of commercial expectation, and found out I was a ‘star’. I didn’t see my music as number-one Billboard chart selling music,” she says. “I tried to market my music the way my favourite indie producers did. I care more about giving back to my fans and the people that I love than selling my music worldwide – don’t get me wrong, it’s an absolute honour to be doing what I’m doing but I don’t want to become a marketing product like most pop artists these days. I’m much deeper than that.”

While other mainstream pop acts such as Katy Perry, One Direction and Britney Spears turn to the same small pool of producers in London, Stockholm and LA who deal in radio-friendly generic dance styles, more-experimental acts such as Kanye West or Lady Gaga elect complicated, flamboyant and ostentatious compositions. By contrast, Aurora’s sound is simple yet cinematic, spinning tales of real teenage realities – penniless but happy nights out full of longing and loneliness – that reject clichés of mindless fun and decadence.

“I don’t intend on selling dreams to young people. We’re now brought up believing that you have to live and behave in a certain way to get the best out of life – but that’s completely wrong. Look at Disney for example; as a child I thought I was going to be a princess, just like most little girls do… but that’s not going to happen. Being a teenager and growing up in this generation isn’t what people expect. Y’know, constant partying, your first kiss, being prom queen, falling in love… it’s not what it seems. It’s all bullshit. Growing up is one of the most difficult periods of time that you can experience – yes, it can be great, but just like everything there’s a downfall and people need to be more aware of that. That’s why I write about my experiences. I’ve gone from rock bottom right to the top; I want my music to reflect on this – not everyone is perfect and I want my music to help people through the reality of life… not this perfect picture that generic music seems to constantly portray.”

When asked about what motivates Aurora to create music, she states "Nothing really, it's just an innate need, I've never known how to do anything else. The way my music is so based around music almost drives me crazy. I would rather get away from it than me inspired to create it because I can't ever imagine doing something else."

"The idea of hell for me would be if I wasn't making music. I don't know any other way of expressing myself; therefore I don't really know another way of indulging myself. And a life without indulgence and nuance would be catastrophic. I genuinely don't know what I would do. Music for me kind of commands me how to feel, whether its excitement or emotion or anything. I'm totally, totally defined by music. I would just try to get any job that was associated with music", she says laughing.

“I feel like there’s a genuine hole in me. The little death, almost. I need stimulation. I used to need physical stimulation constantly, whether that is from taking drugs, listening to the sound of my own voice or flirting with guys and girls. I’m not bisexual, but that’ moment when you realise someone likes you – it’s the best feeling in the world. If you could bottle it… [She drifts off for a moment. And then she asks that question] ‘Do you like me?”

Aurora possesses a maturity that is, for now, inoculating her from the madness growing around her. “What I am doing now, I am learning so much that I couldn’t learn at any university at any age,” she says. “Every time I get on stage I learn something new. I’m evolving all the time. My next record could sound completely different.”

Aurora’s album, Porcelain, is out November 26^th.

Production Diary - Week 12

In my last lesson, I entirely changed the article layout to test out other designs as I had been quite unsure about the layout I originally had planned to use. I removed one of the pages and plan to convert it to a page which showcases another act (following a photoshoot that I am going to host next month). As one of my original aims was to feature as many artists as I could, I planned to maybe test this by making another article about another artist or band. I also changed up the first article by playing around a bit with the design; changing images around as well as lengthening the article a bit. I am still unsure as to whether or not use two articles or just stick to one, however with contingency time I am going to create a draft of two articles so that I can choose which looks better and follow through with that.
I also found it quite difficult to lengthen my article by a great amount so by creating another article about a different musician or act, I am able to avoid unnecessary rambling in my first article by creating another instead. I hope that this will make my magazine successful and all go to plan.
In my next lesson, I plan on designing this secon article in more detail and creating the basic scaffolding for it whilst also creating the text that is going to be featured inside, and the sooner that I do this, the sooner I am able to establish whether or not I will stick with my original scaffolding or the new one, as I am still quite undecided.

Chosen Images

I have summed up why I have selected the main images for my magazine is this short Prezi powerpoint and explained why I feel they are successful in representing the genre and the magazine well. I have also discussed what I have used to edit the images and what I did to them such as increasing the brightness and using the patch tools. The images are a huge factor of a magazine which can make or break it, however I feel as though I have chosen the right images which will help my magazine become very well-respected and successful. I have chosen to use the track 'A Punk' by Vampire Weekend as it makes this presentation less tedious and is the type of music that my audience would listen to.

Production Diary - Week 11

In the past few lessons, I continued to use my contingency time to finish constructing my magazine and filling in the rest of my article. I also used Photoshop to edit some photos that I would like to include in my magazine as well as planning the shots that I plan to take sometime next month. I created another drafting of my magazine which includes the two main covers, the contents page and the article. I have made minor changes as I am still unsure on the definite house style that I would like to follow, and I have thought about whether or not to add a double page spread with a quote and am still undecided on whether or not to do so as I have quite a lot of images as it is. Next lesson, I plan on continuing to improve my magazine, lengthening my article and adding in more images.

Drafting #3

Here is the update of the drafting of my magazine. As you can see, I have updated the fonts and altered the front cover slightly. I have included coverlines that appeal to my target audience as they are one of the most vital features of the front cover as they are what initially brings the audience in to purchase the magazine.
For my contents page, I have added a few images that I plan to use (Jake Bugg image that I will imitate) and also including other artists that will be featured. I plan on holding more photoshoots to create a band and use images on this contents page as well as another photoshoot for my main artist, Ruth. I have also assigned all of the articles with page numbers and matched them to their photos as well as including page numbers from using the Master page.
I have added box text to my article which creates a personal relationship between the artist and the audience as it gives the artist's personal views in a different and unique way. I plan on increasing the length of my article and adding more images which I plan to take soon.

I have pretty much finished the scaffolding of the magazine draft now, however I still plan on improving things such as the article and adding in images and altering things to make the magazine to the best of my ability. During my next lesson, I plan on adding and selecting more images to include in the magazine and improving my article and increasing it's length.