Institutions

An institution is either a company or corporation which sells products to make a profit. This product can be anything, but as I am creating a magazine I will look at magazine institutions.

An institution is either a company or corporation which sells products to make a profit. This product can be anything but as I am creating a magazine I will be looking at magazine institutions.

The magazine publishing institutions are forever diversifying by lots of different platforms such as social media, mobiles, online and live events. By doing this, the institutions satisfy the consumer's needs in the ways they desire to find the information. Magazine publishing institutions are also constantly expanding as they are buying independent magazines. By doing this it increases the profit margin for the institution as the independent magazine will be shown to a greater audience and more copies will be bought. The publishing institutions are normally a variety of independent magazines owned by larger publishing firms, which are then owned by some of the largest institutions in the UK. This means that the correct audiences can be reached at a larger scale.IPC Media is the UK's largest consumer magazine publisher, with an audience of 26 million UK adults. Two-thirds of these are women and 42% are men. 
IPC have 25 million users worldwide each month and are split into three publishing divisions. One of these are IPC Connect which is the division my audience fit into. 

IPC CONNECTIPC connect is aimed at an audience of women, which provides digital media and print in areas of fashion, celebrity, lifestyle, entertainment and television. It reaches a 9.4 million mass market of women every month and is approximately 49% of all mass market women. IPC Connect publishes magazines such as NME so I wouldn’t ask IPC to produce my magazine as a magazine that I would want to be rivalling is already published by them .


BBC Magazines is the publishing division of the BBC Worldwide. It has recently been part of Immediate Media Company, which is the third larget UK magazine publisher. They have overone million active subscribers and have 58magazines and 36 websites. 70 million magazinesare also sold every year. BBC magazines don’t have any magazines that target the rock genre, so I could consider asking the BBC to publish my magazine as they don’t currently publish anything for my target audience so I would be bringing something new to their institution.


Bauer Media Group is a multinational media company and is based in Germany/ They sell 38 million magazines in a week worldwide and have over 300 magazines in 15 different countries. Bauer also offers radio stations, television channels and online.
Bauer Media publishes magazines such as Grazia, Heat and Empire  I wouldn’t go to Bauer media to produce my magazine as they produce Q magazine which is a successful magazine that covers most target audiences and it is a magazine about new releases and I would hope to rival this magazine 

Feature Article Construction

To begin with I made the page a green colour as my story was based around being in the outdoors. I then added some darker green compass shapes onto the page so that it wasn't so plain and boring as that wouldn't interest the target audience and they helped to create a messier feel to the page.

The next thing I did was was put a quote from the main article on the green paint strip I had put in the bottom left hand corner. I put the text in the colour white with a black stoke around it so that it was eye catching to the reader. The reason for this is so that the reader sees this first and gets and insight into what the text is about and will be more inclined to read the article. The reason I chose the font I did was because it is a sharp almost scruffy looking font. I chose this font because it perfectly connotes the rock genre and this will attract the target audience more so than a regular font.

When it came to making the title for my double page spread I placed it in the top left corner on the first page. The title was 'Zombie Tour's Gory Road-trip' to create this title I used the same font as I did when showing this story on the title page I did this because it shows continuity throughout the magazine and the reader will be more inclined to stop on the page and read the article as it has already been shown on the front cover. Beneath this I placed the content of the article.I placed the article in two columns with a white spacing line in between the two paragraphs so that it didn't look like too much text as that would put the reader off I also used the grid tool to get the correct spacing between the text.

After this, I added the the image that covered the whole of the right hand page. Once I had put the image onto the Photoshop document I added a green/blue paper layer over the top of the image similar to what I did on my cover to page to create the same effect and darken the image. Once I had done this I put the text layer on top of the image so that the text stood out over the top of the image. Once I had done this my double page spread was complete.

The final thing I did was add the small neccesities like page numbers, and stating that I wrote the article and took the images myself and they belong to me.

Feature Article Draft

Draft 1

Earlier this week I caught up with Zombie Tour who filled me in on the details of their latest gory adventure. On their way to headline a concert in Devon the guys got lost.

 A whole load of shouting and several wrong turns later; the boys were stranded in the middle of the countryside with nothing but each other’s company to get them through the trauma. Guitarist Tom Wagstaff wasted no time in updating me on the catalogue of events.

“It was horrible, you would of thought that in this day and age you’d get phone signal anywhere you went. The worst part of the experience was Jack all he does is panic. What kind of rock star worries about what is hiding in the trees?”

 The members of Zombie Tour spent a whole night out in the sticks before a local farmer came across them while on his way to the market. We asked him his version of events, “I never seen nothing like it. Call these lot rock stars? Like a bunch of pansies, they are. Tell you what wouldn't get rock stars like this in my day, they’d have made it into a party, not a girls sleepover.”

 Among all this confusion and freight it turns out Zombie Tour really can make the best out of a bad situation and a song may have been written while they were stranded on their bus. 

Lead singer Jack walker explained his excitement to produce this song, “we came up with some brilliant ideas and somehow we managed to come up with a piece of genius. 

I can’t contain my excitement to produce and work on this song with the team, it will make number 1 if we are able to pull it off, which of course we will.”  So after all everyone is happy. 

The boys from Zombie Tour have an exciting new project to work on and you, the fans who missed out on the concert get free tickets to see Zombie Tour headlining at the O2 arena and an early released copy of the much awaited debut album ‘Rhythm of the undead’.


After reading back over my article and taking into account the the opinions of my target audience I made some alterations to my 1st draft and constructed a new article that appeals better to my target audience.

Draft 2

EARLIER this week I caught up with Zombie Tour who filled me in on the details of their latest gory adventure. On their way to headline a concert in Devon the guys managed to crash their tour bus.

Guitarist Tom Wagstaff wasted no time in updating me on the catalogue of events…

“We had been playing a gig in London the night before and to be honest we hadn’t been to bed. It is a four hour drive from London to Devon and it was going fine until we hit the back roads. The lanes were so narrow the bus was struggling to fit down them, then a really sharp been came out of nowhere and the bus just didn’t turn in time. It went straight through a wooden gate and crashed into a tree.

None of the band was seriously hurt but the bus driver was knocked out and had blood all on his head. What happened next was horrible, we tried to call for help but none of our phones were working. You would of thought that in this day and age you’d get phone signal anywhere you went but even when we walked for miles we still couldn’t get any.

The worst part of the experience was Jack all he does is panic. What kind of rock star worries about what is hiding in the trees? Then we got lost. It took us six hours, a whole load of shouting and several wrong turns later to find the bus again. And the scary bit was the driver had gone! No joke, he had completely disappeared and Jack just freaked out saying it was like a horror film or something.”

 At this point Jake jumps in; “I’m telling you man, I thought we would never be found. I thought I was going to die out there. We ended up stranded in the middle of the countryside all night with nothing but each other’s company to get us through the trauma.”

The next morning at 7am Zombie Tour were “rescued” by a local farmer who was driving to market in Exeter. We asked him his version of events; “I never seen nothing like it. Call these lot rock stars? Like a bunch of pansies, they are. Tell you what wouldn't get rock stars like this in my day… they’d have made it into a party, not a girls’ sleepover. I found this lot shivering, whining and arguing about what they should do and if they had just walk a mile in the other direction then would have been in Cullompton. Pathetic.”

Among all this confusion and freight it turns out Zombie Tour really can make the best out of a bad situation and a song may have been written while they were stranded on their bus.

Content Construction

For my contents page I used the same colour pallet as I did on my cover page to follow common conventions of music magazines and give the magazine a theme. To start with I put the main image onto my contents page. the image covered the majority of the page with a column on the right hand side not covered to leave room for the stories and page numbers.

On the image I put the page number and what the story was about leading on from the cover page. However I used an image of a different member of 'Zombie Tour' so the reader doesn't get bored of looking at the same image. I overlaid the image with a blue/green paper effect once more to get the same darkening feeling that I got with the image on the front cover. Again this shows continuity throughout my magazine. The feature article was the only article that had an image. This draws the readers attention to the the big image as it fills 2/3 rds of the page. I then used the line tool to divide the space between the image an the space on the left hand side. This gives it a more professional feel as everything is not overlapping and messy.

In the vacant space on the left hand side I had a heading that said 'contents' to make sure the reader knew what page they were on. Using a dotted line I underlined the word 'contents' to break it away from the stories beneath it. I then began to fill the rest of the column with stories that related to bands and artists from the rock genre, things that would interest the target audience. Similarly to the cover page I wrote the name of the band/artist then a brief insight to what the story was about beneath it. Only this time I had the page number on the left hand side of the artists name.

To finish off my contents page I added two stickers around the page that had text in. The first one which was situated on the image side on the page advertised more stories that were included in the magazine and the other one which was on the text side of the page was another competition. I included these to break the page up a little and make it less formal for the reader to look at.

Cover Construction

After I had successfully taken images that were suitable to use  on my cover page I begun to construct it.
To start off with I put the image I was going to use onto a Photoshop document and began to remove any blemishes that I felt need to be removed. I then overlaid the image with a blue/green paper layer to give the picture a darker feel which connotes rock.

Secondly I placed my masthead 'TRS' into the top left hand of the page keeping it 2mm from the edge of the page as this is common conventions of mastheads across all magazines. I however did not make it 1/8th of the page, another common convention, as I did not feel my masthead would have a great effect if it was that big. The masthead was 3D with a light effect in the middle of the 'R' to make the text go from dark to light.  This appeals to the target audience as it was colour read and orange which are both colour that connote rock in different ways, red connoting passion, love and anger while orange connotes desire.

When it came to adding the text to my magazine I used the colours white, red and yellow. I used these colours as once again they have connotations that fit the rock genre and are going to grab the eye of the targe audience when they are looking for their genre of magazine. I began to fill the left hand side of the page with stories. I put the bands names in yellow with an introduction of why they were in the magazine beneath them in red. I did this because having the band names in yellow made in more eye-catching against the background so the target audience will be able to notice their favourite bands easily, meaning they will want to pick up the magazine and look inside then perhaps buy it. I used a regular font as if I had gone for something fancy it wouldn't have connoted rock and would have been too over the top for my target audience. I used lexis like 'gory' on the cover of my magazine as these are words which can be associated with the rock genre.

Next, I added more content to the page with a little sticker toward the top left of the page that promoted a competition. To do this I used the shape tool to create a circle, I then filled it yellow and put red text on it which made the text stand out on the yellow background. To make the circle stand out more I bordered it in black which gave it some definition meaning it catches the eye of the reader. At the bottom on the page I put a black strip using the rectangle tool which I put another story on with an image on. I filled the rest of the black band with names of bands in the rock genre that appeared in the magazine to entice the reader into opening the magazine and reading about their favourite bands and rock artists. I also added a bar code, issue number and date to the magazine as these are also common conventions seen on a magazine.

The final thing I did was to add the main story across the body of the image. I used 'urban fonts' to find a font that I liked to go as the name of the band in the story, eventually I found one that connoted rock it did this as it was rough around the edges with bits missing from it. I then put the text into Photoshop where I made the font white as opposed to black because I was following my text colour scheme and it had greater effect standing out on the background when it was white. Once I put it onto my cover I enlarged it so that it was the first thing you looked at when you looked at the cover so people were drawn to the main story. Underneath the band name I put a quote from the interview with them and and brief insight into what the story was about to tempt the reader into opening up and buying the magazine. This connotes rock as rock stars have a reputation for not being able to resist temptation and putting a story like this will really tempt the target audience to pick up the magazine and have a read. After I had completed this my cover was complete.

Original Images

I wanted to use this image as I liked the background and the group of 3, but I couldn't use it because the image was out of focus.

similarly to the image above this image was also out of focus.

Like a few of my other images I couldn't use this image due to it being out of focus.

I liked this image, but didn't use it because the image was too light.

I wanted to use an image of this style, but couldn't use this one as it was not only out of focus but the subject was not looking at the camera.

I liked this image because it was a medium long shot. Unfortunately I chose not to use this image as it was too light.

I liked this image and I decided to use it on my contents page as it was in focus and wasn't too bright.

I couldn't use this image as it was unfocused.

I wanted an image of this style to be on my front cover, but I couldn't use it as the image was very out of focus.

I decided to use this image on my front cover because it was in focus and it was the kind of shot that I wanted based on my style model.

Planning My Photoshoot

Before taking the images for my photo shoot, I planned the equipment that I would need to create successful images that will appeal to my target audience.


Props and costume:
-Guitar
-Dark/denim clothing

Location:
-Studio
-Walled area
-Forest

Equipment:

- 600d Cannon Camera
-Lighting kit
- 35mm Lens
-Backdrop
-Tripod
-64gb card
-Battery

Budget
Camera - (£1200 to purchase camera or £50 per day to hire)
Lighting Kit - (£120 to purchase)
Tripod - (£30 to purchase)
Photoshop - (£800 to purchase)
64GB Memory Card - (£70 to purchase)
50mm Lens - (£240 to purchase)
Green backdrop - (£5)
Backdrop frame - (£40)
Apple Mac - (£1000)
Clothes and accessories - (£100 - £350)
Hair and makeup - (£25 - £100)
Total: £4000 (approximately) 

I needed dark clothes for my shoot because the model needed to connote rock music and I would achieve this by dressing the model in dark clothing as it connotes rebellion and darkness, commonly associated with rock music. Images with a model wearing these types of clothes will be easily recognised by the target audience who are going to buy my magazine. For my contents page and double page spread I used a natural background as it gives it a rough feel and the natural light will give a good effect on my models without making them look to bright like in a pop photo shoot. I need the lighting kit for my cover page image as it is a medium close up image of one model which needs to be made to stand out as it draws attention to the image. This follow the common conventions of most rock magazines images. Finally, I will need a camera in order to take the images I require.


Choice of Models

Names: Tom Wagstaff and Jack Walker.
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Straight
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: White

I chose Jack and Tom to be my models as they fall into the primary target audience age range this will attract the target audience as they are seeing a magazine being targeted specifically at their age group. Both of these boys have a rough look about them. I chose them with this in mind and it connotes rock to be rough and untidy looking once more this will appeal to the target audience. They are also both White British as are the majority of the target audience meaning that this will contribute to the sales of my magazine as it specifically appeals to a certain target audience.

Masthead Experiments

I practiced with a few names for my masthead before selecting the one I wanted to use which were:

-Rock Sessions
-Total Rock
-Blare
- TRS (Total Rock Sessions)
- Constant Rock


Out of the names I came up with I decided to go with "TRS" as it is short and will sit nicely on my cover page. I needed to create a masthead, but before I created my masthead I experimented using just one letter to see what I could make.

First of all I put the letters 'TRS' on a white background using illustrator. I used the colour red for my letter and put it in a simple font. I chose these colours as they connote rock although I was mainly focusing on what I could do as opposed the colours used.

                                                             

 I then began to make the image 3D as I thought this effect would help bring the mast head off the page and attract the target audience.

                                                             

I then transferred the image from illustrator into Photoshop in order to be able to over lay and old film reel image, to give it an old orange effect.

                                                           

To finish off I put a light effect between the gap in the letter 'R' to brighten the right hand side of then image.
I used this as my final masthead as I felt it connoted my genre well matching the colour scheme. It was also effective as it was 3D so it came off the page at whoever was looking at the magazine which instantly draws you in.

I also experimented with some other mastheads before I finally decided to go with the one that is on my work. 

The first one I experimented with was this one, I decided not to use it because I feel the font didn't appeal to the target audience as well as it could have.

Another one I decided against using was this masthead because the font didn't connote rock as well as I wanted it too.

Finally I experimented with this masthead and chose not to use it because there is too  much going on and is not eye catching and simple to read for my specific genre.

Flat Plans

 This is the flat plan of my double page spread

  This is my contents page flat plan

This is the flat plan of my cover page

This is a double page spread flat plan that I drew during the planning stages.

This is another.

This is a flat plan of a contents page.

This is another.

This is a  flat plan of a cover page.

This is another

Researching Mise En Scene for Photographic Shoots

A successful photo shoot contains more than just clicking the button on the camera. Lots of preparation is required to pull off a successful photo shoot. Professional photographers will dedicate hours to to planning their shoots, such as, lighting, costumes, setting, hair, make up, positioning and poses. Professional photographers will often have staff, and people that will often prepare the stuff for them. As I am neither a professional or wealthy enough to afford to pay people to do it for me, I am going to have to research Mise En Scene for the rock music genre.

To create professional and successful photos Mise-en-scene needs to be thought about in detail, this includes costumes, makeup and hair. For the rock genre, rock starts are presented to look rough and ragged, this is achieve by using costumes, makeup, in some cases, and their hair. For my front cover, I am going to need to think about how I’m going to create a cover image that will appeal to the target audience, in order to sell my magazine.  

To begin with, I researched costumes. It seems that suitable costumes are the likes of denim wear, jackets and jeans, torn clothing, which again connotes the rough, bad image portrayed by the rock genre.  The costumes will be very retro and resemble clothes worn by rock stars from past decades, as that is what is associated with the rock genre.

This is an example of the kind of costumes that rock bands wore during performances.

The makeup that is usually used is either very colourful, extravagant makeup that consists of bright colours, perhaps seeming pretty outrageous and against the normal this again connotes rock music as it is often associated with the rock as it is portrayed and rebellious. On the other hand the makeup could be very subtle, just enough to make the subjects of the photograph look a little dirty and scruffy. In my shoot, I will use the different techniques to get a range of different pictures in my magazine, to how that it’s not just about one part of rock, but will cover a lot of it. Having these types of makeup will help me to get the right perception of the rock genre and will enable my target audience to recognise their magazine, by the images on it.

 This is an example of famous rock band kiss. They are well known for wearing extravagant make up.  

Finally, I looked at what types of hair you would expect to see on a rock artist/rock model. I found that, as with all the other aspects, making the person look scruffy is the main objective. To do this, making them hair big, knotty and dirty looking is key to getting the rock look perfect. Longer hair is better for achieving the right look because it is seem as rebellious that a boy would have long messy hair, as opposed to short, well kept hair. On the other hand, short, wacky hair is also something that can be associated with rock, as again is seen as rebellious. So on my magazine, I will try to make my models hair look scruffy and messy to achieve the best rock look I can in order to help sell my magazine.

This is a video of how to create a slick back old school hair style which was commonly seen amongst rock men with long hair.