The 1975 Gig - Brixton Academy Photos

The 1975 are an English, Manchester-based alternative rock/indie rock band from Wilmslow in Cheshire. The group consists of Matthew Healy (vocals, guitar), Adam Hann (guitar), George Daniel (drums), and Ross MacDonald (bass). Their self-titled debut album was released on 2 September 2013 through Dirty Hit/Polydor; it debuted at No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart on 8 September 2013.

Having a keen interest for this band, I chose to go and see them live at Brixton 02 Academy on the 9th January 2014. I decided to take photos to use for my magazine as self-taken gig photos can tend to sometimes be more effective than professional ones as it appeals more to my target audience. It also reduces the amount of copyright material I have in my magazine and makes my magazine more original and authentic.

Feedback Research Survey

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Equiptment

Camera / Lights
To takes images for my magazine, I took my model to one of the media classes in our school and we used a variety of different equiptment such as cameras, lights and whitescreens to mimic a professional photoshoot and create the desired look for my magazine.

I used a Canon SLR camera as it enabled me to take high quality images which is mandatory for any successful magazine. As my magazine needed to be completed to the best of my ability, I felt it was necessary to use a white screen as it allows the audience to focus on the model and nothing else. White screens are effective because they are very simple and plain, and can easily be edited on softwares such as Photoshop to enhance the image. The lights enabled me to change the way my images appeared and allowed me to create the best looking images for my shoot, and the lights also allowed me to cast the shadow I wanted so that the editing process was a lot easier and smoother.
The lights and the SLR camera were the most important to me as they created high quality images which made my magazine look professional and realistic.

Computer software
I am currently using InDesign to create my magazine as it is a lot easier to use than Photoshop (which we used for our GCSE magazines). InDesign enables you to view the document as a magazine and you can use various different tools such as the Master page which quickly and effectively adds the same text to all of the pages. This makes adding page numbers and the website name of the magazine very easy and saves me a lot of time which I can instead use to improve my magazine elsewhere. Paragraph styles has also been very effective as it also saves time and matches the fonts up when necessary.
I used Photoshop to edit the images for my magazine as there is a huge variety of tools that you can use to make the images look more appealing and suitable for the magazine. Photoshop is very widely used by successful magazines in the indistry therefore I felt that it was necessary to use it.
I also used Powerpoints, Word documents and Scribd a lot whilst planning tasks and used Scribd to upload the documents to my blog.
As I am not used to using these programmes, it took quite a while to get the hang of using all of the new tools however it was quite easy once I knew how to use them.

 

On Location: Camden

I went to Camden with two of my models, Ruth and Elsie, where I took various photos of the location, fashion, food and style of Camden. Here are a few images that I have gathered from the mini-photoshoot. I plan on going back to Camden to take more images to use for my magazine as Camden represents the genre of my magazine very well, and it helped influence more ideas for my magazine.

New Media

Promotional Methods

To promote my magazine, I have begun to think about various, effective methods to increase the readership and circulation of my magazine. I want my magazine to have a big readership, especially when it is released as the sales need to be high and the only way to effectively achieve this is by promoting the magazine well. I need to invest a lot of money into promotion such as on billboards and buses, especially as the magazine is new and unknown to the target audience.

A prime example of promotion is billboards. Billboards are very effective as they are very large in size and attract attention from all types of people as they are specifically located in areas where people are most likely to look (eg. when in the car on a motorway, shopping centres). As billboards are located all across the country, I will need to create the billboard to the best of my ability to fit within the target audience to grab their attention. I need to make the magazine look appealing and include some sort of sell line and unique selling point to entice them to purchase the magazine. I will do some research into my locations for my bill boards because certain areas in the UK could have a different perspective on the magazine. I plan on including the release date, website and name of the magazine as well as a little teaser to increase anticipation of the magazines release.

Another way of promoting my magazine will be through adverts on buses. The bus itself is key to promotion as buses travel great lengths, through different destination routes therefore a lot of people will see the bus as the majority of people use public transport (especially those who I have targeted as my audience). Everyone keeps an eye out for adverts on public transport like buses therefore it would be a great investment for my magazine as it grabs peoples attention when the bus passes them. I also plan on using the underground/tube to promote and advertise my magazine as this will enhance the variety of those who will see and possibly purchase the magazine. People become very tedious when travelling so using escalator advertisements as well as large adverts by the sides of the train and in the train itself will be very successful.

 

I will make sure that the adverts are concise and fit within the target audiences interests. I have to make sure that the adverts and content reach to the correct market otherwise the magazine will be unsuccessful. For some extra advertise, I will start the first issue to meet Ruth, the main artist, and win backstage passes to a festival with a signed copy of her brand new single. Some of the rules of the competition will be that the person who enters the competition must be subscribed//following/liked with all of my magazines social networking sites. By doing this I can build an online audience and gain more members interacting with the magazine, which will in turn rise sales. Twitter and Facebook are extremely popular in this day and age therefore I strongly believe that combining competitions with social networking will successfully and effectively build my audience and help gain more sales.

Props / Costumes

Names and Masthead analysis

Key concepts

My research into the key concepts of the indie genre and music magazines in general has helped to develop my understanding further and is extremely helpful for me to look back on for information surrounding all of the relevant topics for this course. I feel as though it is mandatory for my success in the course as research is key for everything and I now have a greater understanding of the genre and key concepts within the media, therefore my magazine will only benefit from this.

Preliminary video

I have captured videos of my preliminary magazine on CamStudio which has enabled me to, one by one, highlight each factor of the magazine and bring it onto the screen. I selected the region that I wanted to record on CamStudio and then selected each segment in each layer to make them pop up. Creating this preliminary video is effective and helpful to me because it allows me to be able to use more programmes and portray my magazine in a different way whilst indicating which order I made my magazine in.

Survey results

Using a questionnaire to collect my data had many advantages. Large numbers of people could be contacted quickly and easily, meaning that a lot of useful information could be collected efficiently. It is relatively easy to make and doesn't take too long - once finished, the respondent does most of the work! Another advantage is that it's easy to standardise, as everyone answers the same question. Questionnaires also can be used to explore sensitive material, as they can be anonymous and completed in private. This was helpful because not only did it enable me to gain more information to put into my magazine, but it also told me a lot about the target audience and what they want to see.

3 Double Page Spread Analysis

3 Double Page Spread Analysis

Analysing the 3 different double page spreads helped me in various different ways, including how I could develop these ideas and put them into my magazine. It also taught me to pay attention to every little detail, from the house style, language and the models featured right to the props in the images and the pull quotes to grab maximum attention from the reader. In the future, I will refer back to this post to get some more ideas and improve them to make my magazine to the best of my ability.

3 Contents Pages Annotated - Music Magazines

3 Contents Pages Annotated

Annotating the contents pages for successful magazines was a very important step and I feel this because it helped me to develop ideas about my own magazine that I wouldn't have necessarily come up with if I had not completed this task as the magazines I used have inspired me in to be more creative within my piece of work. It helped me with what images to use as well as learning what to do and what not to do for each genre (for example, I wouldn't use a bright pink colour scheme on the contents page for an indie magazine). This task has helped me learn what is right and wrong and how to follow the house style of the magazine within the contents page and how to make it look necessary therefore it has been of great use to me.

Music magazine survey

Click here to participate in my music magazine survey!


This is the link to my survey that I have created for my target audience to gain results about what they would like to feature in my music magazine. I have included questions such as what genre the participants think is most successful, what they think the main feature of a front page should be and what type of magazine name to use. I used a variety of multiple choice answers as well as standard questions where the participant selects one answer; this way I gained more information about what my magazine should include. I have 22 participants and aim to come to a conclusion with these results which will impact and improve my magazine. By sending out a survey to my target audience, I'm hoping to gain useful data that will give me the information I need to produce a successful magazine.

Music Magazine Annotations

Music Magazine Annotations

Analysing 3 music magazine front covers helped me to a great extent as it helped me to develop many ideas about what my magazine will look like as different genres follow many different house styles and conventions, and this task taught me the difference between them. I also gained ideas about what kind of pose to use for the model, as well as props, make-up, clothes and what shots to use for the full bleed image. This is very significant as it can make or break the magazine, as the image is generally one of the first things that a customer will see. This task was very helpful as if I hadn't have completed it, I wouldn't have a lot of inspiration or creativity to base my magazine upon therefore I feel that this was a very significant and vital step to the task.