Thursday 20 December 2012

Questionnaire Answers

 

Please circle your answers

 
Gender: Male (– 65%)      Female (– 35%)

 

Age Group: 13-15 (– 15%)           16-18 (– 40%)           19-21 (– 35%)           21+ (- 10%)

 

Favourite genre:       Pop – 20%                           Classical – 1%                              Folk – 4%                                Electronic – 5%                              Rock – 20%                      Indie – 45%                        Metal – 5%  

 

How much money do you spend on music monthly?:

 
            £0 (– 30%)                                  £0.01 – 10 (– 20%)                                £10.01 - £25 (–30%)                                   £25.01 - £50 (– 15%)                       £50.01 - £100 (– 5%)       

 

Do you ever illegally download music?:

 
All the time (– 50%)               Often (– 15%)                Rarely ( – 5%)                  Never (– 30%)

 

How do you mostly listen to music?:

 
                         TV (– 5%)                                  Radio (– 2%)                          Internet (-43%)                           Computer (– 4%)                        Phone (–  15%)                    CDs (– 31%)
 

How often do you buy music magazines?:

 
Every issue (– 39%)                 Often (– 7%)                  Rarely (– 26%)                  Never (– 28%)

 

How much are you willing to pay for a music magazine?:
                    Less than £1(– 20%)                   £1 - £2 (– 14%)                         £2.01 - £3 (– 42%)                     £3.01 - £4 (– 20%)                                £4.01 - £5 (– 4%)
 

How often would you prefer issues to be release?:

 
Weekly (– 16%)                       Fortnightly (– 36%)                 Monthly (– 48%)

Friday 7 December 2012

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Film - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Studio -  New Line Cinema
               Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
               WingNut Films
Distributed - Warner Bros.
Director - Peter Jackson
Budget - $270 Million
Release Date - 14/12/2012

Technological Achievements
The upcoming Hobbit Trilogy is pushing the boundaries of cinema under the guidance of its revolutionary director Peter Jackson. The most used format in cinema is 35mm film, which runs at 24fps, this has been in common usage for a long time. New technology has started to move away from film, because of more economically efficient digital technology, much to the distaste of older directors such as Quentin Tarantino. The Hobbit is significant, because not only is it filmed digitally, it is filmed using 3D cameras. A lot of the time films are converted into 3D in post production, but the director made the decision to used RED Epic cameras, creating a complex rig to allow him to use two cameras at the same time, creating the effect and also allowing him to change the 3Ds focus while filming.
    A more controversial change is his choice to film it in 48fps. A small number of directors, including James Cameron and Peter Jackson, have been trying to increase the number of frames per second that movies are filmed at. It doesn't sound like much, but they say it completely changs the cinematic experience, by improving the quality of the movie and making it flow more like real life (Human eyes see at 60fps). Peter Jackson states that the combined use of 48fps and 3D creates a more dynamic and immersive atmosphere, because there isn't as much motion blur as there would be at 24fps.
    When a preview of the film was screened, there was a mixed reaction to the use of 48fps, people were quoted as saying it looked like a made-for-home video or a soap on the television. Despite this, Jackson continued to supports his decision to film at higher frame rates, claiming that the 10 minute preview did not give the audience enough time to adjust to the format.
   However, Peter Jackson and Warner Bros decided to play it safe in the release of the film; the native format is not being released nation wide in the UK, but only in select cinemas as a test to see what they should do with the second movie. The film is being released in standard 2D and 3D, 2D and 3D Imax, and finally 3D HFR (High Frame Rate). Many people would choose Imax or standard 24fps, without any knowledge or understanding of what HFR actually is, the problem with this choice is that you aren't seeing the film in its native format.
    When the film premiered in New Zealand in later November, the reactions to the 48fps were very positive, the quality and crispness of the image was praised with some complaints of motion sickness during the fast action sequences.
    The Hobbit is evidence that film is a constantly evolving format, the director is a revolutionary pushing for new technology to be incorporated into the film experience. Although, 3D is not as popular as expected, he still has faith in what the added depth can bring to the film.

Convergence - The Amazing Spiderman


Thursday 22 November 2012

What I've learned

Throughout the long process of analysing my photographs I have learnt alot about what makes a good photograph and what makes a bad photograph. I now know how camera positioning, angles, lighting and mise en scene can drastically affect the quality of a image.
    One of the main problems I ran into was lighting, the main source of light was either natural, which was an unreliable source, or from the ceiling lights, which weren't very useful because they only shone from above. When it comes to the final shoot for the music magazine, I will either make sure that the lighting conditions outside are adequate or use a studio setting with proper lighting equipment so I can adjust it to what I want.
   I've learnt that taking numerous photographs from a variety of angles is the best bet, so I have a range of images to choose from and can pick the best one. Taking my time to choose angles is also a good idea, the angle is essential and making sure that theres enough space around the focus of the image will give me room to edit it later.
   The models of the photo will have to be good at maintaining a natural pose, if the pose doesn't look right it can ruin the photo and make it unprofessional. I will have to take everything I've learnt into account when it comes to my final photo shoot, because it will bring alot to my music magazine.

Monday 19 November 2012

Photographs Part 3



An overall evaluation and a description of my thoughts on the photo analysis process will be uploaded soon.

Friday 16 November 2012

Questionnaire 2

Questionnaire 2
Please write/circle the appropriate answers

1) Gender:    Male     Female     Other

2) Age:     13-15     16-18     19-21     21+

3) Do you ever buy music magazines?:     Yes     No

Why/Why not?






If yes to question 3, which magazines?
(Put no more than 4)






What feature of a magazine makes you want to buy it the most?






What sort of features do you like to see in a music magazine?






What do you think the single most important part of the front cover is?







5) Do you think that the music genre of the magazine be - Broad? Or Specific?

In this questionnaire, most of the questions didn't have a multiple choice answer, but a blank space to allow the respondent to write his thoughts and opinions. Unlike the first Questionnaire, this one is going to let me get a better perspective on the opinions of my target audience. Both of them together will be really helpful in allowing me to come up with a picture of what my target audience wants overall.

Monday 12 November 2012

Questionnaire 1 - Demographics


Questionnaire

Please circle your answers

Gender:    Male      Female     Other

Age Group:   13-15   16-18    19-21   21+

Favourite genre:   Pop    Classical   Folk   Blues   Electronic   Hip Hop   Jazz   Reggae   Rock    Indie   Metal   Other (Please state):_______________

How much money do you spend on music monthly?:

£0        £0.01 – 10         £10.01 - £25          £25.01 - £50         £50.01 - £100          £100 +

Do you ever illegally download music?:

All the time         Often       Rarely      Never

How do you mostly listen to music?:

TV      Radio    Music Player    Internet     Computer     Phone    CDs

How often do you buy music magazines?:

Every issue     Often     Rarely     Never

How much are you willing to pay for a music magazine?:

Less than £1       £1 - £2       £2.01 - £3       £3.01 - £4        £4.01 - £5         £5+

How often would you prefer issues to be release?:

Weekly        Fortnightly       Monthly
This Questionnaire is a closed one and mainly focusing on asking the questions I need to know to form an idea of my demographics and target audience; its asks age, gender, genre preference and music habits. When I survey people with this I can use the answers to find out what type of magazine I'm going to make and who for. The second questionnaire will be more open, so I can discover more about the opinions of my target audience on things about content on music magazines and features.

Friday 2 November 2012

Photos and Questionnaires

When I get back to school after the week off, I will have to plan out photo shoots for my magazine, but first I have to do some audience research and review my previous photos. For the questionnaires, I will have to do one or two to find out the things I want to know and other things that my audience wants, to do this I will have to make an open-ended and closed-ended questions, which will give me a variety in the types of answers I will get. Closed questions are better for finding out the things I'll need to know when making my magazine, such as price range, demographics and genre, while open questions will give me a better look at the actual opinion of my potential audience.
        In the end, I will have found out who my audience is and what they like. This will help me choose what type of genre of music I will have to choose and once I have a genre I can start looking a proper examples for style models. Then I can start choosing what types of photos I want and can arrange photoshoots with my models to pose as the fictional band members. However, before new photos are taken, I also have to go through what makes a good photo and I will do that by going through the images taken for my school magazine, reviewing them and comparing them to professional photos taken for real magazines.

Thursday 18 October 2012

What I've learned and what I plan to do.

So far in this project, I've had different experiences with magazine covers that all helped my understanding of what makes a good front cover. I've made a preliminary task where I was able to learn from the good and bad points of my own work, I looked at the work of 3 previous students and, using my knowledge of the mark scheme, analysed their magazines to help me figure out what works and doesn't work.

All three of these have helped me gain a greater understanding of the conventions used in a magazine.  What I've learned is that the house style and layout are both extremely important, the positioning of images or proportions of text can drastically alter the overall look of the product and make it look either professional or amateur. I'm going to take everything I have learnt into account as I progress towards my final construction
          I've also decided to choose my genre of magazine as well; I wish to do an Indie Rock magazine, however, things like audience research will influence my choices. I'm planning on buying at least one music magazine  to read and then make an analysis of the three main important features: Front Cover, Contents and Feature Article. These are the three things that will I have to create as part of my practical project. Finding a magazine I like to help me understand the conventions could also be useful as a style model, if it is of the same genre.

Monday 8 October 2012

Project Analysis


Thursday 27 September 2012

Preliminary Work

As a preliminary task, we created a magazine front cover and contents page. We will use these to prepare for our final practical project, in which we will create a music magazine, and to look back on to see how we have developed.

Front Cover


For my magazine, I had to create a house style that would be present throughout. Straight away, I settled on a basic theme of blue and yellow, which is present in the school logo. I have one or two fonts, both of which are recurring. The images that are used are both ones took myself on the cameras that were available. The style and tags help convey the message of success and participation in school; the colours are reminiscent of the school's logo, the tags talk about GCSE Results and work. The proportions of the magazine aren't that good; some of the text doesn't look nice and seems too stretched. The content, images and style, however, all convey the genre of a school magazine. I think the front cover is alright as far as prelimary tasks go, but I have a number of points that I wish to improve on by the time it gets to my music magazine:
- Higher Quality of taken images
- Better looking background (The gradient used is very bland)
- More interesting layout. 
- Some key areas of improvement for the layout:
  • Don't make it cluttered
  • Improve proportions for text
  • Better placement of images
  • More variety in vocabulary (Words got too repetitive)
  • Waste less space
I had enough content to make a decent front cover, but the execution could do with some improving as it looks amateur. I like some parts of it and hope to develop some of the better points as well improving in the areas that are lacking.

Contents Page

 I tried to maintain the consistent house style when it came to my contents as well. As with the front cover, all of the images are my own; I like the pictures and think they're an ideal quality. I made sure to include a section which referenced social media so I could engage the target audience, whose lives revolve around the internet. However, in the future, I need to have a clearer layout, which isn't as cluttered, in order to create a nicer looking magazine. Also, I think the darker blue is too dull for the type of magazine I want. 
       There are areas for improvement and by the time it comes to the Music Magazine I hope to have developed my skills enough to create an authentic looking magazine with a clear layout, a nice style and good quality images that convey the genre of the product.