Production Diary number 25

I have no completed my evaluations for my magazine and feel like I have done a good job in justifying my choices. I have tried not to use boring ways in which displaying my evaluations, as i have only used one document which involves written paragraphs on paper, however each evaluation is different and causes the view to interact with them as you have to move the mouse to turn pages. I am most proud of the four videos i have made to present them as I had some trouble in the making but overcame them soon. I also rather enjoyed this part of the course as it gave me a chance to express my self and how my thoughts have contributed to my magazine and put a bit of my personality in there. I hope that you will understand these and take into account the originality I wish to covey in Sound Check magazine.
I did struggle on some of the questions however I decided to look at past students for guidence in what to put as context, which helped me a great deal in answering my own.
This is me now signing off, it has been a stressful course but also really enjoyable as I have a great passion for music.

Isha Shah. :)

Production Diary number 23

I have now made my first draft, but before i make the improvements I wanted to ask my target audience what they though about it and how i could improve it. In the video below  I have edited together a sample of five students to help me out. They themselves like the genre of rock, so they know what they're talking about, also being media students themselves, can give me a general feedback. I am going to take into account what they have said to improve and try to add that to my final product. I can also see my own improvements which I need to make. I was also thinking of making another front cover, as it cold be a special eddtion.

Production Diary number 22

From the post below you can see some of the music which inspires me and what you would find in my magazine, I want to focus mainly on the hardcore, post punk, pop punk, alternative, indie rock more than the metal classic rock. Here are a few examples of existing bands including the ocean's eyes, and a quick taster of their music for you to understand the image i want to portray and who my audience really are as they would be listening to these kinds of songs. I have also added some pages from kerrang magazine which has helped me with my overall layout and to see where I got my inspiration from.

Production Diary 21

I have just finished my first basic outline of a draft for my magazine. It is not clear however I decided to just layout a rough placement of the order of things so I have an idea of where they would all go. I quite like the layout as it is simple and not over packed however I need to think of the actual images  am going to be using and the font size, typography and overall graphology of my product. I have already came up with a few pull quotes which should help me with my context of work. I am now going to be focusing on doing an actual draft with my pictures to see if the layout looks right and if not U will alter it to make it look right.

Production diary 20

The past few days I have been busy with thinking about how I would promote my magazine by using different ways in promoting it. I have looked at old media and also new media, and how that it would be much easier to do this with new media as it is fats easy and accessible almost everything  and for my target demographic, this would be a wise way to distribute awakens of my magazines as teenagers spend half their lives on social networking sites. I have even come with with new and original ways to do this by using the every day phone and creating an app for my magazine which is free to download and use daily.

Production Diary 19

I have just done my first live gig photo shoot at the gig from the band which I have chosen and uploaded all of the pictures onto a contact sheet for you to see how it went. There were a lot of shots taken as I wanted to get the best possible ones to include in my magazine  There were also a few other bands there so I though I would get shots of them just in case seeing as I was already there. I thought that It went pretty well, as I was happy with a few shots that i feel were strong. There were some complications in the crowd, as it was pretty large, also my camera died towards the end so I could not get all the pictures I wanted. I had to keep chaining the lenses which also wasted time, as it was a live gig and could not be done again, However I feel that i have got some good live pictures to include, but will also carry on to get more at other gigs.

Production Diary 18

Looking at my location ideas I think I definitely have three strong locations in which would work the best. I have thought about them car fully because I cant just do mine anywhere because of my genre. The rock genre is hard to covey as the background does say a lot about it and how they are so I need to pick the right one. Definitely the live concert one would be suitable in my magazine as it is all about new bands and music. This would be the most easier to do, however I don't think that I can really do one in a scrapyard as this would way to hard to convey. I feel that a photo shoot in a studio may not be the strongest idea as with my genre it is hardly done, as it does not convey my genre but something universal that can be used anywhere. I want mine to be unique and different from the others so I may use them shots for the last pages.
The colour theme is also hard to chose a solid colour however I do feel that I have found a bold three theme which also ties in with my feature story.

Production Diary 17

I have been looking a lot and spending time looking at images which inspire me to maybe re-enact for my magazines. Because I attend a lot of gigs, and is always up to date with bands and news I buy a lot of music magazines like Kerrang which I find useful. This also gives me an indication of what kind of pictures they use and certain poses which help portray my genre. I want to make it really clear to my audience in the most simplistic way possible which means stereotyping my models to the fullest. I have collected a few samples of what I would like to go with looking at existing magazines for inspiration to do with my genre, in the power point below it shows and explores why I have chosen each one and how they would help me. I feel as if they would be able to do, in s short period of time, as they are not that much trouble to rein-act  I have contacted my models and arranged shoots for my live pictures at a gig, and also at a band practice to get a in depth feel of their lives.

Production Diary 16

Recently I have been busy with thinking about the actual content on my magazine and what I would put in it. The double page draft is probably the hardest page, as it contains a lot of wring and information about my band. Because I have been going to a lot of their gigs recently I thought that I could maybe do one whore double spread on that. I have seen it before in a lot of Kerrang magazines, where they have a few pages dedicated to recent live reviews of gigs that have recently happened. Also because i read a lot of these anyways, it will help me write about this and get me in the voice of a reviewer because I can talk about what happened first hand as I was there for my self. The draft is just a simple simple, however I do have trouble with keeping in the word limit as I tend to write a bit too much. But I think that would be suitable for one of my pages as it is a sterotypical thing found in music magazines of my genre.

Production diary 15

As my questionnaire on the internet was not reliable as anyone had access to anyone. So I decided to then make another one on word and print it off and give it to a selection of 20 people that I know would take it seriously. Below you will find a sample of my questions and what I asked my selection of people.

Also from my results I have had a few ideas as to what to put into my magazine and what to add in my contents page. I have found that Kerrang have a really good layout in theirs which is very basic and simple, however it is something that I would like to follow because it would be easy to replicate.

Production diary 14

My main focus for this week is to look at current sell lines on existing magazines such as Kerrang, Rock Sound and Metal Hammer, to see the types of writing they use, the words, and what they are about. I have looked at many of these and adapted them for my magazine yet still including their idea.
I have found that Kerrang has the best sell lines, which are catchy and interesting.

Production diary 13

In the past few days I have been thinking long and hard about my name ideas for my actually magazine. I have came up with a few and before choosing a final one I decided to take a vote on it and ask the public of my target audience. None of them chose Witnessed. 60% chose Sound Check. 20% Chose Deftoned. 8% chose Structure and 12% chose Sync.

Using this, I went for Sound Check as it was the most popular and also I personally liked the name of it, I then planed out what colour I would use, fonts and all the extra typography for this. I also found that red and dark blue suited the best.

Production diary 12

I have been busy thinking about my audience and who they are and how I would target them specifically. Following this, it actually would help me with my proposal and what I will plan to do for my real magazine and what elements I wish to produce in it and what would be reverent. I have open up my ideas to a focus group and the public to test my ideas on this by making an online questionnaire. After a week I have found that this was not so much of a good idea, as people did not take it seriously and left silly answers, So I then re did this and make it private to a few people and given out by hand to improve this. I have also been thinking about names for my magazine, and the typography of it which I will later explore and put up for debate.

Production diary 11

I have been thinking a lot about what my props and costume would be like and ideas as to what they could be. Studying my genre closely  I have come up with some of the similar trends in which they wear, and what they do for their image. Following that I have taken a few ideas from each one and then added them to my final idea of what I want to do. They have given me ideas as to what i can do to reinforce my genre, as you can see in the Pezzie below. Also following my planning I have made a survey in which you can find a link to below. I have published this on social networking site, such as facebook, twitter, and tumblr so my target audience is notified.

http://questionpro.com/t/AJbJpZOisB

Production diary 10

This week  have been busy looking at the institution of magazines. This has told me about the various companies of magazines such as EMAP and IPC, where are media publishing institution's, which vary in dependence. I have learnt the importance of each one and how dependent magazines differ from independent magazines, this will help me when I decide to chose which  institution I want later in the production. There are certain advantages and disadvantages that I need to take into consideration however, I do plan to do more research on this to find out more.

Production diary 9

I have also looked at existing magazine names and done some research on the internet to find out where they got their name from, why they named the magazine that, when they first started publishing and where the magazine is from. I have found that Most of the magazines that I had researched were from the UK, however two were from the US. One in particular called MetalHammer was dispatched all over the world and also copied in other languages. I found this particularly interesting as this relates to the genre I wish to choose. I have researched different varieties of music to get a rough idea of what each one has done. Their names have been kept simple and catchy in order to remember them by. Each magazine's name is somehow related to their target demographic and genre of music, it really reflects what style they want to portray and is highly important.

Production diary 8

I have now looked at the most popular colours and put together a little Prezzie to show what each one has the connotations of. I have found that my genre that I would like to do, use all dark colours, of black, white, grey and yellow. They use a mixture of colours to shows their genre and how it is presented and the stereotypical views. When making my magazine I will take these colours into account and try to use the ones that resemble Rock the most and give of certain connotations in order to make it obvious what my genre of music is and also more appealing to that audience.

Production diary 7

This week i have researched on a lot on my genre of music and what style i want to use in my magazine. I have started by looking at two magazines that I personally read a lot and are suited for my genre. Kerrang and Rock Sound are the two that i have compared because they both show what a rock magazines looks like, but in two different ways. I have also explained how my genre is portrayed and how they do this, using the angel, shots, colours and overall graphology.                                                    

Production diary 6

Yesterday i have started to look at the codes and conventions of all music magazines. I have done this by looking at various texts from existing  magazines and then also researched into what they mean. I have found out different magazines have slightly different rules in which they follow. However most magazines follow the same with the basic conventions. I will include all of these when it comes to me making mine.

Production Diary 5

This week i have started on my mood board and spent a few days finding images that would match what my audience would like. I have done this buy looking at existing magazines such as Kerrnag, Rock Sound, NME, Q, they have all giving me these images that i want to present on my mood board. I have cut down on them and only picked the key images which stand out. The images that i have chosen are basses on their diet, social activity, what they like to do, interest, hobbies, and what grabs their attention. I will expand on my mood board when I have researched into what i want to use in my magazine later on, however these have given me rough ideas.