Production Diary

Week 15

This week I spent time finishing my Interview questions; last week I spoke about the interview questions in my production diary and on monday I uploaded them to my blog. During the week, which I uploaded today, I updated the questions with answers as the beginning plan for my double-page spread. These are the questions and answers I will be using and have chosen to do it as a informal interview with the artist, as it fits the conventions of my chosen magazine genre. I have also clearly labelled the interviewer and the artist clearly to separate them so they can be identified. Next week I plan to do a full draft of my double-page spread, adding in pictures and the text, as well as deciding my chosen headline. I also plan to use conventions, such as quoting the artist, including images of the artist and showing clear information on the artist.

Interview and Questions update

Interview questions and answers:

1.    Well Emilia, to start I wanted to congratulate you on your first Brit Award you got awarded last month, you've really come a long way since we first met you at the beginning of your career 10 months ago.

Thank you! I was so surprised when I got nominated; let alone actually winning the award from my category! There are so many amazing artists and there were so many new singers in my category, so I was very surprised I won! This is another opportunity to thank my fans, my management, my family and friends, and obviously thanking FTM for supporting me in my journey as an artist.

2.    We love supporting you, as you have amazing talent! How have you been able to deal with being in the spotlight, are you getting used to being in the public eye and your new-found fame?

At times it becomes very difficult as I've gone from being this unknown girl, to this artist that is being followed by paparazzi and fans, all shouting my name, it’s strange. Seeing my faces in magazines and newspapers when I walk into my normal corner shop (laughs) I can’t by the paper any more, I feel too embarrassed! At the end of the day, I chose this career as its something I love and want to spend my life doing, there are always consequences that come with the road you choose. I will learn to live with it!

3.    How do you find time to get away from it all, what do you do in your spare time?

I like to mainly visit my family when I do eventually find the time, other than that, especially if I'm away, like on tour, I like to spend my spare time staying in bed watching my box sets that I love! I love to just curl up on the sofa in bed with pizza or a cup of tea and watch no stop TV. What comes with this career, is little free time to yourself, your main free time your awarded is when you’re sick or writing new music in the studio.

4.    That’s nice…. I hear you've just announced your first UK Arena tour! Tell us what your plans are for it! Anything up your sleeve?

Well you know me I have plenty up my sleeve all the time! We've only just started plans for the tour next year, so you’re just going to have to buy a front row ticket and come watch me preform! (Laughs) Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to come backstage, you never know! (Still laughing)

5.    (Laughs) Come on! Tell us one little thing that will happen in your tour? Any special appearance?

There may be, there may not be, I don’t know what is planned most of the time myself, I just do what they tell me! I have to focus on singing and learning the dance steps, although, I'm lucky enough to have some say in the outfits I wear! But like I said, you’re just going to have to come along.

6.    Ooh…. Alright I’ll allow you just this once not to spill! So your new single ‘Turn up’ is coming out on the 24^th of February. Only one week away, I'm so excited!!

Yes! I'm so excited too; this is different from most of my usual songs, as it is more up-tempo with a party feel to it. I like to change my style now and again to not get too old and be predictable. Its one of my new songs on the upcoming album I am planning…

7.    Well you just spilled a secret there (laughs) a new album you say?

Oops! I wasn't meant to reveal just yet, kind of just slipped out! Hope I don’t get into trouble for telling (worried looking)! Well now I've told you, I might just continue (laughs) but yes, I'm in the process of making my new album, there are plenty more songs and styles you’ll be excited to listen to. I am trying to make it different from my usual music and previous album, however I still like to stick to the style that made me what I am today. Clearly my fans enjoy it!

8.    Well I will of course, as well as your big fan base will definitely be looking forward to hear your new stuff!

Yes, thank you very much, I’ll also be excited to release it, as well as be seeing you and my fans at my tour next year! Remember tickets go on sell in MAY!!

Fire round:

1.    Your most embarrassing moment?

Had to be when I fell on stage, not only that but my fans heard me swear through the microphone (going red)!

2.    Have you met anyone that made you star struck?

I have met many people that made me star struck, the main one I remember was when I met Stevie Wonder! He’s a legend!

3.    The strangest present given by a fan?

Well there was this one time I was opening my fan mail to find a bunch of hair in an envelope with a note saying I love you, now you can be with me 24/7! Quite crept out actually! Thanks to whomever for the originality though (laughs).

4.    Your favourite artist right now?

I am loving ‘The 1975’ band, there music is amazing with such a unique style. Their voices are amazing!

Interview Questions

Interview questions:

1.  Well Emilia, to start I wanted to congratulate you on your first Brit Award you got awarded last month, you’ve really come a long way since we first met you at the beginning of your career 10 months ago.

2.  How have you been able to deal with being in the spotlight, are you getting used to being in the public eye and your newfound fame?

3.  How do you find time to get away from it all, what do you do in your spare time?

4. That’s nice…. I hear you’ve just announced your first UK Arena tour! Tell us what your plans are for it! Anything up your sleeve?

5. Come on! Tell us one little thing that will happen in your tour? Any special appearance?

6. Oohh…. Alright I’ll allow you just this once not to spill! So your new single ‘Turn up’ is coming out on the 24th of February. Only one week away, I’m so excited!!

7. Well you just spilled a secret there (laughs) a new album you say?

8. Well I will of course, as well as your big fan base will definitely be looking forward to hear your new stuff!

Fire round:

1.  Your most embarrassing moment?
2.  Have you met anyone that made you star struck?
3.  The strangest present given by a fan?
4.  Your favourite artist right now?

Production Diary

Week 14

This week I continued with my research and planning sections of my coursework, where I planned the content I am including in my magazine. I have been trying to take a step back and look at how I want m magazine to look and at my final production as a whole, i've focused on my variety of flatplans for the front cover, contents page and double-page spread, to give me a clearer perspective. In addition, I have also written my interview questions for my double-page spread, which I will be uploading up to the blog as soon as possible, as well as writing a full plan of my double-page spread. Over the next two weeks I plan to get my complete images I am using in the magazine, as well as to complete my research and planning tasks.

Production Diary

Week 13

This week I spent the rest of my week again looking back on my plan for my final production, as well as conducting more research. I have done this because I have found it quite difficult to work out what I actually want my final production to look like, for example, where I want to place all the conventions of the magazine and trying to make it uniform and professional. This is why I thought going back to my research and planning of my coursework will benefit me more and make my final production better.
I hope to finish all my research and planning in the next week or two and start to go back to my final production and start making my magazine, as well as take more pictures to meet the criteria necessary for the magazine and making the images suitable.

Production Diary

Week 12

Double-page Spread Research

After focusing and researching general magazine double-page spreads, I decided to look into music magazine double-page spreads, as it would be more useful considering my magazine is based around music. In addition, I thought it would be more useful to look at double-page spreads in my genre I am doing for my final production, POP Music.

Interview with artist (Singer - Justin Bieber): 

Conventions: Similarly to the research I done with general double-page spreads I looked at and the one I posted on my blog, this interview had all the same conventions. 

The title of the article stands out to the audience "Girls give me  a headache!" with a colour theme used to fit with the theme of the magazine. This is used throughout the double-page spread and makes it look well organised. The magazine also presents images of the model on the page, a larger image that covers the whole second page and a smaller one fitted into the text. 

They also show clearly how the interviewer and the person getting interviewed (Justin Bieber) is separated to understand who is talking. They do this by paragraphing them and using different colours, dependant on who is talking, for example, the interviewer has red font.  

From looking at the music magazine interview, gives me a clearer idea of what I would like to do for my double-page spread and how I plan to lay it out. 

Single Page spread research

Before I can think about how I'm going to do my double-page spread for my final production, as well as what it will be about, I decided to carry out research on general celebrity interviews and music magazine interviews. This would be a better range of research, as I am able to compare easily and see how I can adapt my interview for the purpose and demographics.

Interview with Celebrity (Actor - Tom Felton):

Conventions: The interview in the image shows general conventions of an article in a magazine. It has a title with the person's name to tell the readers what the page is about and who it is about. As well as having an image of the celebrity (on the right) to attract the audience and fans of the person. The magazine has also included a quote next to the image of the model to try to get the audience interested in the magazine. 

The interview: The layout of the article is presented in the form of an interview, this interest people to read it more as its separated text and is a written conversation. This makes the magazine seem more believable as fans of Tom Felton will know more about him and his personality, which would want them to read the interview, as well as it looks more interested than an article written about interviewing the celebrity with little quotes of what they actually said.

The page shows conventions of what an interview in a magazine should look like with the questions and answers separated clearly. In addition, from looking at the image, you can see that the questions the interviewee asked are highlighted, while the answers are in normal text, which doesn't stand out as much. The answers don't need to stand out as much because by highlighting the questions and making them stand out to the audience, it is more likely that the audience will read the questions then become interested in the answers, so they read more. 

The magazine interview also shows separated parts of the interview with the model, in a different form, for example, the question in the bright pink square it a more amusing question the target demographics would find. They place this in the pink box to attract the audience, as well as make the page different so the audience doesn't get bored. 

POP Music background

My Chosen Genre is…	I have chosen to focus on POP magazines. POP stands for Popular music that is targeted at the mass audience rather than a specific style of music.
When it began?	POP music began between the 1920s and 30s, where it became a very popular genre.
Where it began?	POP music began and became popular in the US to begin with and later became very popular in the UK and a variety of other countries.
Similar genres?	POP music is associated with mainly Rock music, indie music, classical and jazz to begin with in the US. As POP music got bigger, it became associated with many other music genres; POP music is popular music released in the music industry, whether it be indie, rock, hip hop and other music styles that become popular through artists or bands.
Examples of successful artists/bands in this genre?	Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Cher, Lionel Richie, The beach boys, Lady Gaga and The Carpenters are examples of people successful in this genre. These artists are also in a variety of other genres too, for example R&B or Dance and so on. Many artists in the POP music genre aren’t specifically set to this genre.
Record labels in this genre?	Walt Disney Records, GMA Records, London Records, Hollywood Records, Polydor Records, EMI Records are examples of Record Labels in POP.
Kind of people its popular with?
Associated fashion trends?	An associated fashion trend created from the POP music genre is mainly colour. Wearing bright colours, such as pink, yellow, orange and blue is associated with POP music, as POP music is a mix of different music styles so it is shown through the variety of colours people wear. As well as this, for the younger generation, POP music is associated with wearing ‘cute’ clothing, for example dresses, shorts, t-shirts with superhero logos and is mainly targeted at girls. Fashion trends for POP are mainly targeted at girls to wear bright clothing that are cute and preppy.
Other information on you genre	POP music has become criticized over the last 10 years as it is more based on becoming the same style rather than what people find to be popular. The main reason felt by a wide range of people is that this type of music is only popular as the media decide, such as music channels and radio stations what to play unless it is a specific music genre channel. The top radio stations decide what music they want to play to their listeners and this is one way the media decide the music played and what they want to become popular. Its hard to escape the popular artist whether you like them or not, you’re going to hear there songs either way, from being played on the radio, to the internet and even shops. As well as this POP can be looked at, as the music the media want people to listen, including the music videos of the music being a specific way, for example, quite sexualised and inappropriate for younger viewers. In addition, analyses have been concluded that POP music has become more and more similar, from the lyrics to the beat; it’s all copycat. However, POP music is very uplifting and ‘feel good’, when listening to POP it takes all the negative aspects puts it into a song and when having a bad day or listening to it can make you feel more positive about yourself and the negative things. POP music is more related to Dance music now and can produce positive messages not just negative.

Production Diary

Week 11

This week I spent most of my week focusing on my front cover and contents page for my final production. I made flatplans that gave me more of a range of ideas of how to lay the pages out to fit what my target demographics would like more. I am spending as much time on my front cover and contents page to try to make it look original, fit my target audience's wants and fit all the required conventions of a magazine. Next week, I am planning to keep focus on my front cover and contents page still, as well as start to think and complete research on my double-page spread, which I will produce ideas for.

Flatplan Draft 3

Third Flatplan Draft

FRONT COVER:

Here is another draft flatplan for my front cover that I have made with other ideas that I have, as well as ideas I have taken from my research on other music magazines relating to my POP music genre. I have specifically looked at Billboard magazine that has given me a range of ideas which I would like to use in my final production, for example, in this flatplan I have decided to put all the taglines in one place which is down the left hand side. This is an idea I have taken from my research seen in my mood board of 'Magazine Front Cover Ideas' I have produced and I think it would be a great idea to use for my final production. I believe it would be better than placing taglines all over the front cover, possibly making it harder for the audience to read, especially if the main image covers most of the white space and is colourful. 

Like in my other flatplans, my masthead and logo are always at the top of my front cover as it allows them to stand out and its where I believe and the criteria thinks that the title of a magazine should go. 

I have included many conventions on my magazine including; masthead; logo; taglines; images; barcode; headline and competition. 

This draft is one of my better flatplans as I think it shows the conventions clearly and if I brought it to life, by adding in my text and images, would make the magazine look professional and reach my target demographics.

CONTENTS PAGE:

Although in the contents page there doesn't look like much is going on and therefore can look quite boring, I think that actually these ideas shown in the flatplan are quite interesting and different. In the background it says 'main image covering most of the background' this shows that my plan is to produce and image that will take up most of the background, this image will relate to my audience, ideas and research to focus on the theme of my magazine. My plan is to then fit the page listing of the magazine against the image to make it look professional and fitting my research. I think that if I carried out this idea for the flatplan and used it for my final production, I think it could make my magazine look more professional, while fitting my research, my audience and the criteria needed for the magazine. 






DOUBLE-PAGE SPREAD:

Although the contents page may look quite different to this flatplan of my double-page spread and my front cover, however I still feel this matches the theme of all. I wanted the contents page to be different than the rest of the flatplans in this blog as it allows it to stand out to show the contents included in the magazine and to get people interested and more people attracted to it. 

With this double-page spread, I plan to have my image across the top of the page, with the headline above it. This is a idea to attract the audience to everything included on the magazine, this is the actual text, the image and from the headline. From all the other flatplans made, I feel this is my favorite as it is meeting the conventions, as well as being different then most magazines.

Production Diary

Week 10

This week we completed a variety of different activities for our final production, including a mock test, flatplans, mise-en-scene and my colour chart.
Earlier last week we had a mock test where we had to pitch our final production, draw up a mock flatplan then evaluate it. This week I received my results, gaining a B; I looked over my mock exam to see where I could improve and what I did well. Once I had done this, I took a picture of my mock flatplans of my front cover and contents page and uploaded them to my blog as my first drafts for my final production. I have now uploaded a second draft of my flatplans where it shows a computer version included labelled features and some colour ideas. Next, I want to produce a draft including text and tagline ideas, as well as using my original pictures I have taken and place them into my flatplans.
This week I have also produced my first colour chart for my final production, showing colour ideas for my music magazine. The colours used, show a mix of feminine colours, masculine colours and neutral colours; I have done this to try and target my chosen demographic, which are both male and female, as well as showing the music genre I have chosen, which is popular music, through my chosen colour ideas. This week I also looked at Mise-en-scene, which is French for everything you see in a scene from looking at settings, objects and people, this is looking at images such as magazine or in films. I have produced two write-ups showing mise-en-scene in films and in music magazines.

On Friday, we are having a workshop lesson, where a specialist teacher is to come into our lesson and teach us how to use Photoshop and the variety of features in the software. This will help me understand the software more to use for my pictures I have chosen to use in my magazine to make it look as professional and realistic as possible. Within the next week, especially after Friday's lesson, I hope to use Photoshop to start editing photos to make them suitable for my magazine, as well as produce a draft of my final magazine layout, including my pictures and text on them.

Colour Chart for Final Production

This is my colour chart I have produced for my final production; I have used a wide range of colours in my colour chart to show a variety that I can use for my magazine. These colours reflect my popular music genre I have chosen for my magazine. They also are quite neutral, with some colours being masculine and others being feminine, however, the majority of the colours are neutral and target both males and females.

Mise-en-scene in Music Magazines

Analyse how Mise-en-scene has been used in the following student production pieces:

The Reign:

The student uses a main image of an actor on the front cover that takes up the majority of the page; only one other actor is used in a smaller size along the bottom of the page.  The main image reflects the theme of the magazine 'The Reign’, as the actress shown is showing body language that appears to be fierce. She reflects the slogan on the magazine as well 'claiming the crown' as she is trying to stand out and get the audience to notice her. The use of the bubble gum, where she is blowing a bubble, represents a fierce attitude, where she doesn't care about what people think about her. In addition, the use of her outfit reflects her attitude as well by showing a sexualized image, as she is wearing a cropped top, showing off her skin, as well as the type of pose she's doing reflects it all. The actor at the bottom of the page shows a different attitude, where she represents herself as happy and wild. This is shown from her poses, such as when she is grabbing her hair.

The setting is plain, which allows the actor to stand out; it is one colour down the page and suggests it has been taken in a studio. The colour is a golden type colour, which reflects the theme and title of the magazine 'The reign' and gives the audience a feel of royalty and a 'Crown'. Even with the actor in the smaller images, they've done the same thing of using plain backgrounds, to allow the actors to stand out themselves and get the attention.  


The lighting is set to capture the actors in the best way possible; in the main image the lighting is placed on the background to make the attention focus on her. If the lighting would of focused on her, it would of changed the view of the actor and made her seem more innocent and less of an attitude. Whereas in the smaller images of the second actor, the lighting is focused on her and less of the background, by doing this, it allows the actors personality and attitude to show through.

When analyzing the magazine I noticed how, the student has created a reflection off the main actor. In the image, the actors pose has been shadowed on top the side of her; the shadow shows her the right side of her again, rather than reflecting all of her, to create the shadow affect to reflect her attitude and the theme of trying to be on top. The main image is a direct shot, which connotes the actor's attitude and wanting the audience to focus on her.  The way the student has presented her magazine, through the colours, actors and theme seems to direct at a girl audience ages 17-21. This is because the images on the front cover are all female, as well as the word 'fierce' reflects on girls and the saying 'Girl Power'. The magazine doesn't appear to focus on a male audience, as the terms used reflect a female attitude opposed to a male's. 

Rap Realism:

Similarly to 'The reign', 'Rap realism' has also produced a magazine where the student has produced one main image on the front cover. The actor shown is a direct image, with the actor both looking and pointing directly at the reader and the audience. The image connotes a stereotypical view on the actor; through the way the student has presented the actor on the front cover. This creates a negative viewpoint on the actor and a negative person to use on the front cover on a magazine. The other actor used on the front cover is in smaller images along the bottom, this also produces a Stereotypical view on the actor, through his posing being 'street-like'. 


The setting draws to the view of the stereotypical viewpoints, as the background behind the main image is graffiti. This as well, buts a strict view on the rap music genre, as the student has made rap seem about people acting or being badly behaved and having a bad attitude. 

The lighting is spread out across the page, focusing on his hand pointing directly at the audience, parts of the background and his eyes. The student has made part of his face (below the eyes) darker to represent a bandana across his face; this reflects how it is creating and fitting into the stereotype. In addition, the student has also done this to focus on his eyes and the expression of them; the actor’s eyes are staring directly at the audience to connote dominance and power, as well as to show a bad attitude that is suggesting people need this in the rap business.  

The way the student has set out their magazine, from a Marxists point of view suggests it is aimed a young males aged 13-18, specifically in the proletariats class, the working class in the Marxist hierarchy. This is because the stereotype of rap genres has been brought out in the magazine as people from the 'gang' life and people with bad attitudes. In addition, the magazine seems to actually want to target at these specific groups because of how many stereotypes they show through the magazine they've produced.