Q1

Evaluation

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q4 and 5

Q4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

Our audience for the media product we produced (music magazine) would be quite young from the ager of 16/17-25, we decided this as the genre for our magazine is funk, so therefore the target audience would be interested in a ‘partying lifestyle’ for example; clubbing, night life, live gigs and concerts. They would be attracted by the neon font and the vibrant and colourful house style. This could also reflect their bubbly outgoing personalities.

Our house style is individual and unique especially the masthead. The layout is busy however still east to read and understand, we got a lot of positive feedback from the focus groups and facebook which helped us to tone down the busyness of the layout, this then improved the quality of it all.

The pictures in the magazine are all different, for example they all have their own unique styles, this shows that anyone can be interested and like funk music, the people that feature in the magazine are also all different races and come from different backgrounds, this makes it all the more interesting so the readers can understand that anyone can make it in the funk industry. The magazine is a monthly issue as it gives the audience enough time to ‘save’ money to buy it if they don’t have a job and we also decided on a monthly issue as the majority of people get paid on a monthly salary and it would work out to much money for the audience to have to pay if they were to but it on a weekly basis. So we decided the monthly issue priced at £2.50 would be reasonable.

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

As a group we decided on whom our target audience would be our next task was to plan on how we would attract the audience? We needed to use a variety of techniques. Our questionnaire helped us a lot with this Q9 what attracts you the most? The most popular answer was ‘the front cover’ I think first reactions are important as It is the result on the buyer if they buy the magazine or not…? We used photos and edited them as the people that featured would be famous and the would have a lot of fans or the less famous ones who the target audiences share the same interests as themselves.

The masthead was very important to our final product as it was in a neon font and it was bright so it is easy to recognise.

The people in the photos are also aged the same as the target age for our audience 16/17-25. The language we used helped to engage the audience so we used a few slang words to help the readers feel comfortable whilst reading it and in their comfort zone, so it is less formal and more colloquial.

Overall our house style is unique as it’s busy, colourful and vibrant, this is all to make it eye-catching and influence out target audience to but it as quick as possible

How does your media project represent different social groups?-megan

PHOTOS-

The photos on that are in our magazine are very important on representing the different social groups, we had to be particularly careful to get attract the right target audience in order to want to buy the magazine. They also represent particular groups such as people who are interested in Funk music and are music artists, the fact that they produce and are into funk music themselves and know a lot about it, this would make the readers gain more knowledge and understanding about it, and will be interested as the reader and the artist share the same interest as one another, this will then make them feel as if they have some sort of 'connection' with the funk artists.

This band shows the audience that they are serious about there music and like performing and inspiring there audience this image gives a positive feeling as the colours that are used are warm and that they can also become famous and do something that they enjoy doing. The band members are 19-23 this shows that the younger target audience can do it if they really tried; most of the images that are used are to inspire and interest.

This new band ‘the breakup’ show a different individual style of funk music they are from ages of 19-22 and they are a new fresh band which a lot of the younger generation can relate to; for example their style, language (slang)

Melissa Howards is a solo artist that has been collaborating with another two people band called the pepper rockers, this photo shows a mixture of genders and a younger playful image, that are ‘funky’ and different.

The varieties of funk artist’s photos that appear in the magazine attract a wider variety of audiences as they can relate with whomever/whichever artist shares the same interest or just simply who they are a fan of and are interested in.



COLOUR.

The colour is very important to make our music magazine individual and what it is (noticeable and stand out from others in the stores that sell them), the use of bright vibrant colours quickly attract the eye. The colours represent different things that apply to the target audience for example; parties and night life. We decided as a group that the masthead had to be majorly individual however still east to read with the variety of colours that we would use, then we added our style feature (the streaks) that represented and had the connotations of night life and a party life style with the bright lights that appear in clubs and concerts, this is how we decided to represent our different social groups.



DEMOGRAPHIC.

In question (1) of my evaluation I have spoke about our Questionnaire and what it told us. However our demographic

The demographic of our audience can be seen on our reader’s profile. Our demographic for our magazine is aimed at both male and female as we found out that both male and females equally liked music magazine if you would like too see check out our results on our Questionnaire .

Evaluation-Q7-Ravi

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?


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Q7

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Evaluation- Q6-Ravi

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Through out constructing my music magazine I have learned a lot using different technology to make my magazine outcome to its full ability. I have used software such as Microsoft publisher, adobe Photoshop, and blogger. I have also used different websites such as, slide share to present my work in presentation and picnic.com to make my photo look even more affective as well as using Photoshop. I have also learned a lot from my teammates about how to use camera’s to take an effective photo for our magazine. This gave me an experience to learn about camera technologies and maybe use this skill in real life which I wouldn’t have learned without taking this course. Not only this course has taught me about using technologies, I have learned to cooperate with other members in the group which is also very important. I have also learned to respect other people opinions and use there personals skill to make our product to its full ability. This way I have an experience for the future in working in groups.

In my presentation below I will show some screenshots of me using software as Photoshop, Microsoft publisher, and blogger.

Q6 screen shots analysis

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Evaluation-Q3- Ravi

What kind of media institution distribute your media product and why?

Bauer is a large successful media group who publishes well known magazine such as KERRANG, MOJO, and Q. Bauer comprises a radio station and a TV from this they will have a huge effect on targeting higher range of audience. I discovered from my research most of there target audience are typically similar to ours and all the magazine they publish are music magazines which are very well through out the country.


Bauer is a large German publishing company based in Hamburg. The company was founded in 1875, it has been privately-owned and under management by the Bauer family. The Bauer Publishing Group has grown into a worldwide publishing company and the Bauer Publishing Group comprises 282 magazines worldwide in 15 countries. Worldwide circulation of Bauer Media Group's magazine titles amount to 38 million magazines a week. Recently Bauer has completed the purchase of a consumer magazine division and radio station division of the British company, EMAP. To find out more about Bauer amd its latest work click here to visit their website.

From all this research, I know Bauer would be a perfect media group to publish our magazine. Knowing that Bauer has a high reputation and is well known through out different countries especially in Britain our magazine will appeal to wide range of audience. However even with a large company like Bauer you would need an effective type of distribution that will appeal to the people. From our questionnaire result we found where people would mainly seek to buy magazine. People would prefer large supermarkets, and shop that can be found near by residence such as corner shops.

Evaluation Q5 - Ravi

How did you attract/ address your audience?

Before we began our magazine we carried out some primary research which would help me in designing the initial magazine itself. Hence my magazine is based on the response from the questionnaire, and it is suited to the reader’s desire. My front cover of the magazine consists of a black background with vibrant colours and titles. The reason I chose to keep it a dark background and bold bright titles was because it is very eye catching. The title itself is rainbow coloured and looks very edgy.



At the centre of the magazine cover I have placed a figure of a person, because I didn’t want it to just have writing. Since my music magazine theme is based on Funk, I decided to have the person figure holding an electric guitar. This way the will also be aware of the genre that the magazine is based on. The front cover also includes subheadings that are intriguing for e.g. one of the subheadings includes an exclusive interview with the Subverts. I have tried to keep the layout versatile, although I want it to look different, I wanted to keep the readers effect the same as if they were buying another music magazine.



Another attraction my magazine includes is additional offer of winning tickets to a live concert. This is a very good technique to address and keep the readers attention. If they know that they will gain something out of buying the magazine, then they will definitely consider investing. Also my magazine is appealing to a range of audiences, it appeals to people who like Funk, and appeals to teenagers who maybe exulting new music

Evaluation-Q2- Ravi

Q2

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Evaluation-Q4- Ravi

Who would be the audience for your media product?

We tried to aim our magazine more towards the people aged between 16-24 as shown from our questionnaire result. This could be because aged 16-24 tend to be the people with the most disposable income which makes them the most likely to buy my magazine. However, seeing the Funk magazines are not really around, I would consider my magazine to be aimed at a niche market. This is because of the language used in my magazine which would more likely apply to people who understand slang words and etc.






Another way I tried aim our magazine to the particular aged group audience was by the picture we used for our magazine where different bands are performing at a gig/concert which is a social aspect of a teenagers and young adults who are outgoing and this would attract my audience to read my magazine.

Evaluation Part 3 How does your media product represent particular social groups? By Daniel Mija

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How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups

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Evaluation- Question 1 -Ravi

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?


In our media product we have produced the typical convention of a music magazine. Our product has all the real convention of an actual magazine such as photos, brand identity, barcode, price and extras. From including all these features our product will look very realistic and stand out like the actual magazines that are out in the market. We used black background for one of our house style which our audience can immediately realize as you scheme through the magazine. We used black because regardless of it being a very plain colour we wanted to show it can be very powerful and commanding colour that can really stand out and grab our target straight away. However black can also symbolize darkness and sadness, so we used to show that our magazine includes bad stories such as band splitting up.


We challenge form of convention by selecting a genre which is totally out of the box Funk Music which is also not existed out in the market today. From this we saw the gap in the market and used it as an opportunity to make a unique magazine. Fuck music has also variety of subgenres such as fuck-core, funk rock, funk jam, which wider's our target audience to a high level. We thought this would be very effective because there aren’t many music genre's out their which covers almost all types of music. We thought Funk Music symbolizes many varieties of colours, so we used this idea through out the magazine, where you can see lots of colours are being used starting from the mast head.

In what ways does your media product use o1

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Anita's Evaluation Q7 - Looking back at you preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

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Q7

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Research

In our main task, we did a lot more research than our prelim task. We wanted more feedback for our audience to ensure that our magazine is targeted to the right people and that they are attracted to it. In my questionnaire for the prelim task, I only asked 6 questions. However, when I started the main task, I found that it was important to ask at least 10 questions so that I could get as much information as possible about our audience from our questionnaire.
I also researched rock music before deciding which genre to pick for the music magazine. This helped a lot as I saw that there are already a lot of magazines on the market that are dedicated to rock music (NME, Kerrang!). I didn't do this for the prelim task, so I had problems thinking of what the content of the student magazine would be.

Audience feedback

For the prelim task, I felt that our audience didn't like some aspects of the magazine. This taught me to get more audience feedback so I know that the magazines would really work in the market. We used the school Forum to get feedback on which name to use for our Funk music magazine. I also used the social networking site Facebook to get feedback from people our age (15-24) of our magazine front page, contents page and DPS so far. I also constructed the mock ups and then asked the rest of my group what they thought and they wrote it down on a print out I made. This helped me get more ideas and get other people's opinions on it. I then also had the idea of doing focus groups. We asked people who were interested in Funk music and who were essentially our target audience speak about what they liked and didn't like about our magazine.

Photos

For the prelim task, I didn't take many photos and didn't present them in the best way I could. I only took about 2 sets of photos and presented them in publisher JPEG photos. For the main task, I took about 4 sets of photos (you can see at Model's and Photos). I also presented them on slide.com which I discovered was a really good way to present a big set of photos. The photos were also well thought out and I knew what I wanted for each photoshoot, unlike the prelim task ones, which were a bit random.

Anita's Evaluation Q6 - What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt a lot about new technology in the process of making my music magazine. The software that I used was Microsoft Publisher and Adobe Photoshop to construct the actual magazine and edit the photos. I have also used websites such as Slide Share and Slide.com to present my research and photos on. I have also learnt more about camera technologies and lenses.

Microsoft Publisher

I used Publisher to construct the front page, contents page and double page spread. I have learnt how to create a double page spread within it. It gave a clean professional look to our magazine. We experimented with the different tools and ways of using text boxes etc. We also used different sized fonts for the quotes within our double page spread. The text boxes and photos were easy to move around and arrange in Publisher.



Photoshop

I used Photoshop to manipulate all my photos. I have experience from doing photography as my other subject and also as a hobby outside of school, however, it was difficult to manipulate images for music magazine purposes, as it had to be a particular genre (in my case, funk music). I took a lot of different sets of photos to experiment with the content that would suit my magazine, and then I tried different editing techniques that would suit the magazine (construction example 1 and 2)



Google Picasa 3

I have also used a free software from google which lets me view photos easily. I also used it make collages of our draft designs.



Websites

In the course of writing my evaluation, I have experimented with different ways of presenting my work so it's easier to read and view. I have used slide share and also learnt a lot about blogger and the other tools in it such as adding hyper links, photos and videos.

Camera technologies

In the first set of photos of The Subverts I had a problem of taking the photos in low light, and I had to turn my ISO up to 1600 so that the photos came out really grainy and with a lot of noise. I found it hard to reduce the blur and also make sure that the people in the photos were correctly exposed. I then researched different types of lenses and found that I need a lens with a wider aperture so that more light goes into the camera and I could use a faster shutter speed as well as making sure the exposure was right. I then found this portrait lens and bought it to improve the quality of my images as I didn't have professional studio lights for my photos.

Anita's Evaluation Q5 - How did you attract/address your audience?

After we worked out who are audience will be, we need to think of way to attract them to our magazine. In our questionnaire (Q9), we asked people what attracts them the most to a magazine, and the result we got was the cover. I also think that first reactions to the magazine is is important as it determines whether or not a person is attracted it it. The font and photos were the most important to attract our audience. We made sure to get a range of models for our photos of different races so that more people would be interested in it. They were also between the age of 17-25 so our young audience would have liked to read about people around their age.
The font we used for the masthead was important too as it tells a bit about what the magazine is like and the genre. We decided to use the font neon lights so that people would recognise it as a magazine for people who like night life.




The language of our magazine is also important as we need to keep the reader engaged in our article. We used a few slang words so that our readers feel comfortable reading the article and they relate to it. It also seems less formal if we used colloquial language.

I think that the colourful house style is eye catching and that it would immediately attract our target audience.

Anita's Evaluation Q4 - Who would be the audience for your media product?

The demographic is on our reader's profile.
Our audeience would be quite young, compared to my researched magazine, Mojo.
Our audience would be people who like to go out to gigs (which is why we used the Pete and Pirates photos) and like to have fun. They would also be eccentric and dress in their own induvidual style. This is reflected through the crazy colourful house style, which may seem a bit busy to some, although we tested it out on our audience using focus groups and feedback from Facebook.
Because the models that we used were of different races, our magaize is target at a wide range of people with different nationalities who are also interested in Funk music. The photos show diferent races, so there is more chance that people from different backgrounds would be interested in it.
Our magazine is also aimed at both genders. The colour scheme of the house style isn't aimed at a particular gender as NME and Q is with the red and black colour scheme.
Our audience would also be someone who can afford to buy the magazine monthly at £2.50. We asked how much people were willing to pay for a music magazine in our questionnaire

Anita's Evaluation Q3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

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Anita's Evaluation Q2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Language



The language used in the article shows that our product is aimed at people aged 16-25 years who would speak and understand a bit of slang, such as 'jammin'' and 'next level'. However, there is also some sophisticated language so that more of the readers can understand the article. The language represents an educated social group who also like to go out and have fun. I can compare this to the double page spread I analysed from NME magazine. This had helped me write the article as the NME article clearly represented the youth as the social group and typical teenagers. I wanted to show typical teenagers who are interested in Funk hip hop music and who talk slang, therefore they would be a bit urban. Also the group is from London, as I said in the opening part of the article, so Londoners would be interested in reading this an it would draw them in because they would recognise the type of slang used.

Demographic

The demographic of our audience can be seen on our readers profile. Our demographic for our magazine is aimed at both male and female as we found out that both male and females equally liked music magazine and bought them from our questionnaire (Q1). We have also explained our questionnaire and what it told us about who are target audience would be in our evaluation.

Photos

The photos that appear in a magazine are quite important to attract the audience and get them to buy the magazine. They also represent particular groups such as people who are interested in Funk music and are music artists. This will attract the target audience as they would like funk too and they would want to know about the artists. We have also used models that are a range of nationalities as we wanted to represent a multi cultural social group that get on well with each other.


The Subverts and Pete and the Pirates are about 18-25 so the audience would like to see young people like them in the magazine. They also look lively and represent people who like to have fun playing at gigs and who are also serious about their music.

In these two groups, the models are aged 18-19. They show a much younger generation of music. Our audience would appreciate them being in our magazine as they would want to listen to something new and fresh, as that's what Funk music is all about.

'All things beautiful' represent typical teenagers who love to have fun and love their music. This is something that our target audience can relate to.

Colour

The colour used in our magazine is also important as different social groups like different colours. For example, dark colours such as red and black are usually seen in magazines such as NME because people interested in rock music mostly like to wear those colours to show that they're into it. Pink and yellow is used in smash hits to represent pop music, and it is aimed at 9-14 year old girls and they wear bright colours such as pink and yellow.
Because our genre is Funk, we wanted to use a lot of colours as our audience like to go out a lot to parties and gigs and we wanted to represent that kind of social group in our magazine. Even though our magazine is aimed at 16 and 17 year old as well, we think that they might still buy it as they are beginning to become more independent and go to gigs and finding their own style of clothes which is individual and colourful. We used a lot of colours because when you go to a live gig, there are a lot of colourful lights. This represents a very outgoing, eccentric social group who are into a fun partying lifestyle, who also like to dress colourfully.

Anita's Evaluation Q1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

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Evaluation Q1

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Evaluation Part 7 Looking back at your prelim task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product By Daniel Mija

Evaluation Part 6 What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? By Daniel Mija

Link to photoshop images
Link to Gickr
Link to Slideshare
Link to Blogger Page

Evaluation Part 5 What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? By Daniel Mija

Publishing
The publisher that would publish our magazine would be ASCAP. After researching ASCAP I found out that it published “playback magazine” and it was interested in Funk Music and was going to releasing a new label about Freestyle Funk Music and as our magazine is all about funk music they would know our target audience and how to target and attract them to our magazine. Also we would be helping them by featuring the artists in our magazine.
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http://freestylefunk.net/freestylefunk/freestyle%20funk%20music%20publishing.html
Distribution
The kind of distribution methods that I would use to distributed our magazine would be the common ones for example corner shops and supermarkets (e.g. WHSmiths) because after doing our questionnaire we found out most people and our target audience buy magazines for this places and this places aren’t hard to find and close to our customer.

Also after researching magazine I found that stores like Tesco and Waitrose are one of the main sellers of Music magazines and most people do groceries shopping there they also pick up a magazines as their there. This is why we would make shall that our magazine will be distributed there so it would be more available to our customers.

As the internet is getting bigger and most people our online most of the day especially our target audience 16- 25 year old we would have a visual copies of our magazine online and it would be distributed this way to and I think it would be cheaper for us as a company as we wouldn’t have to print as many copies and as most young people spend their time online rather than in magazine shops it would be easier for our customers to get hold of.

Evaluation Part 4 How did you attract/address your audience? By Daniel Mija

Our target audience will be people aged 16-25 who love funk music, enjoy gigs and clubbing, who are middle class. After researching funk music and typing funk music into Google to get ideas we found out that funk music is usually related to bright colours that why we decided to have a bright colour theme around our magazine to attract the target audiences. As our audience well relate well with bright lights and UV lights as in gigs and clubbing they would be a lot of bright light and UV lights. I used direct mode of address in most of the images because I wanted the reader to feel like he/she was communicating with the artist. I used one main image and used photoshop to brighten up her eyes so she can better address the audience as the audience will be attracted to her eyes and maybe feel a connexions.

The langauge our group has used attract our audience is colloquial language soits not too formal that people will walk passed but its 16-25 year old language that they might be used to everyday and the audience might catch this word out and want to read about for example ‘Kiss ‘n’ Tell with Virus Up Coming BABE!!’. The langauge used also address our audience as our friends and show that we just trying to give them information (gossip) about there favioute music, gigs and artists. Also we attract our audience with the special competitions at the top right page of the front cover, this should attract alot of our audience as our audience love gigs.
To attact my audience i had my artist wear bight colour and dye her hair pink out the front so the audience can see th funky side of her and so she can represent the funk music. This makes it clear that my magazine is funk and it allowing me to attact the funk fans who i am targeting.

In our magazine we have used words like “exclusive” and “best” these help attract the audience as they make the magazine seem interesting and life like. After researching Professional magazine we found out they uses words like that to attract there adience to.

Evaluation Part 2 Who would be the audience for your media product? By Daniel Mija

Questionnaire Results


Readers Profile

Our audience will be quite similar to NME magazine.

The audience to our magazine would be people who are age between 16-25 who enjoys funky music, going clubbing and gigs. This is why our magazine if very colourful, with UV lights to represent the music and gigs; gigs are very colourful and more people bring UV lights to gigs and clubbing, so by using a UV lights as our house style we trying to attract our audience. Also the image we mostly used were of gigs which show our audience is someone who goes clubbing or gigs. After testing our magazine on a focus group and Facebook we got some positive and negative feedback but over all I think our magazine did attract our target audience. after researching funk we relised there a huge gap in the market and there are lots of different type of funk music.

Models and Photos - Anita

In our magazine, we wanted to use models that look musical and appear to have a funk type style of clothing.

The Subverts and Pete and the Pirates live gig

"Survivors" - Jiwan (Guitarist), Gandip (Vocals), and Ravi (Drums)

"New Sounds" - Gabriel (Trevor), Tatenda (Damion), Neil (Quentin), Richmond (Kris), and Penya (AJ ex-member)

"All Things Beautiful" - Charlotte, Martin and Henrike.

These are the models we used for each made up band. The first set of photos are of real bands as I went to a gig to take photos. I thought this would be interesting and would appeal to the target audience as their demographic shows that they go out to a lot of gigs. The lights at the live gig also gave me a great opportunity to capture the different colours of the lights and the atmosphere of the gig. This would attract the audience as they would want to be there and experience the performances that look enjoyable. The performers are also focused in their music and concentrating on performing, this draws the viewers in and they would want to know which song they were playing and what it was like. These set of photos represent Funk Rock music, which was important to have as we wanted a lot of different types of Funk music in our magazine so that we could broadcast to other audiences who like Rock music.

The next set of photos of "Survivors" showed them rehearsing. I used an electronic flash with my camera and bounced the light off the wall behind me to make the lighting look even and give the photos a professional look. The room was quite small so there are a lot of different types of angles in the photos. This makes the photos look really abstract. However, some of the photos came out good and were framed properly with the right lighting. We asked the models to wear indie type clothes to show another form of Funk music, which is Funk rock. We also got a few props such as guitars, drums and microphones to make it look like a real rehearsal.

In the "New Sounds" photo shoot, we wanted the models to represent Funk Hip Hop and look a bit like the Funk music group N.E.R.D. We asked them to dress like them. Tatenda's hat and Richmond's headphones gave connotations of Hip Hop and music. We took group ones as well as individual ones so we had a range to chose from to put in the magazine.

In the last set of photos we uploaded of "All Things Beautiful", we really wanted to show Funk music as the fun genre it is. We asked the models to dress colourfully so that they fitted into the colourful magazine house style. Then we asked them to act a bit silly in front of the camera so we got some good candid shots of them laughing. I took these with a plain white background so it would look more professional and as if it was shot in a studio. The only thing I don't like about these is the lighting. To improve these set of photos I would have used some kind of studio light, such as a soft box.

Evaluation Part 1 In What Ways Does Your Media Product Use By Daniel Mija

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FUNK Reasearch massive gap in the Market!!!

Daniel Mija Final: Front Cover, Contents Page and Double Page Spread

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Daniel Mija Front Cover, Contents Page and Double Page Spread

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Daniel Mija Photoshop Image Manipulation

Final writing copy

From nationwide success, to a drift in their closely bonded group, a crack in their foundations. New Sounds now return with new member Quentin who brings a new spark to the London formed boy band.

Virus interviews these charming lads to find out how they dealt with ex band member AJ's decision to go solo and what's in store for the UK Funk scene for the coming months, including their new album 'Fast Forward'.
So, how has the departure of former guitarist AJ really made them feel?
Front man T tells us: "Well, to be honest, we were gutted when AJ told us he wanted to go his own way. But now the rest of us realise it was for the best. He started to get more distanced from the group after the release of our first hit 'Blue Line'. But we're all happy for him and wish him the best for his start in his solo career."

With these guys it seems like, 'out with the old, in with the new'. We asked them about new member Quentin.
(All look at Quentin and laugh)
Damion: "He brings a better vibe to the group and we connect more. He's helped us find our new sound and something that suits us all and we love doing."
Kris; "And he's quite a funny guy!"
Quentin tells a knock knock joke about a chicken. Kris is the only one laughing.
T: "Dude, that was funny on a next level!"
So now we know how the group feels about their new talented guitarist, but how does he feel accompanying these guys on the road to fame?
Quentin: "I feel privileged and lucky that I found these guys. It's a gift to have this opportunity. It's every man’s dream to get paid for doing what you love! I'm actually quite surprised they like my ideas!"

We were also interested in how their fan club was doing after AJ left, since he was a much loved member of the group.
Kris: “The fans were gutted too when he announced it, and he said he was deeply sorry. But at least they have his new stuff to look forward to. We’re hopeful they’ll start accepting Quentin soon too” he says with a smile.

New stuff? Does this mean competition for the lads? Is it possible for the lonely boy to make the New Sounds’ fan base turn in his direction?
T: (Laughs) No, not at all. He’s developing a new style of music, you know, going more into the hip-hop and rap. So he’ll get a different audience who are into all that. Yeah, some of them will still be his fans from New Sounds to solo, but we’re not forcing anyone to like us over him!”

As well as their ex member AJ, New Sounds have also been thinking of a new approach. A slightly more upbeat sound, which is a fusion of rock and funk, will soon make fans jump up and down impatiently until they get their hands on the album. So what has really inspired these party animals to change their ways?

Damion: “Our new album ‘Fast Forward” was inspired more or less by our own lives. One minute you’re jammin’ as a teenager, and next thing you know, you’re 5 years older!”
T: “True story, You regret the things that you don’t do, more than the mistakes you make and regret. We really just want to inspire our fans to live their lives to the full.”

You better believe they’ll be living to the full after listening to their new single ‘Dancing With the ‘Devil’ which is a moral in its own. What else can we expect from the quirky quartet? They give so much but what do they want to take for themselves?
“We want world domination!” says newbie Quentin.
T: “That, and international success! New Sounds hope to take over globally and introduce other people to our sound.”

We, at Virus, are sure that these lads will climb the ladder of success all the way to the top this time, and we’ll definitely be there to watch it all happen.

Construction example2 - Anita

This is the original photo I'm going to edit. I liked this image because Charlotte's arms and Henrike's arms were in line and the photo had a good symmetry. The idea behind it was "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" which could be related to their particular album or band.



I didn't really like the white background and thought it looked too simple for a Funk magazine. It also washed out Charlotte's and Henrike's skin tones. I first duplicated the background layer, and put the brightness all the way down for the layer.




I then used the eraser tool on the top layer and started to rub out the model's faces and clothes so that they would come out brighter, because of the background.


This is what it looked like with all of them erased, except the background. I used a soft brush with 0% hardness.


I then merged the layers and cropped the photo slightly.



Then I decreased the brightness slightly and increased the contrast so that the colourful clothes would stand out more.



This is the finished photo. I like it as the focus is more on the models and the darker background makes them stand out. The eraser created a kind of glow around them as I didn't want the edges to be blunt and noticeable.

Construction examples - Anita

This is the original photo I'm going to edit. I particularly liked this photo as there was eye contact between the model and the camera with would give a bigger impact on the audience and they would feel more involved and emotive with the singer's feelings.



First of all, I cropped it so that it gives a better composition and it creates more of a mid shot. Then I used the clone tool to clone a bit of the lines near the floor out. I used a soft brush with a 32% opacity so that it can blend in more.



I then used the clone tool to take out the logo on the model's top as it looked distracting and takes the attention away from the face. I again used a soft brush with 32% opacity.



I then desaturated the colours slightly and then decreased the brightness and increased the contrast to give a mysterious look and to add more shadows to the photos as I thought it was too bright.



The above photo didn't work and it didn't fit into the genre of Funk, so I decided to make it more colourful. I Duplicated the background twice so that there were three copies. I then used the photo filter tool and changed the colour of each photo putting the density to 100%. I chose the colours blue, yellow and red.



I then erased parts of each layer to reveal the one under it to get a 3 tone photo after I merged the layers. However, I thought the background was still too bright, so I wanted to make it a bit darker. I duplicated the background again and put the brightness down so that the whole photo was darker. I then used the eraser tool with a large diameter and about 20% hardness and erased the part where the model was so I got the background of the current layer and the brightness of the model on the layer below.



This is what the bottom layer looked like, which was too bright.



I still didn't like how the blue didn't stand out as much as the other colours, so i duplicated the layer and added another photo filter of Cyan to a 100% density so the colour stood out more. I then used the eraser tool on the top layer to rub everything away except the blue background bit. I then merged the layers.



This is the finished photo. I really like the way it looks as the colours go really well with the magazine and genre.