Article Research

Questions I asked to the interview:

• How did you form?
• What made you want to pursue music?
• Who influences you and why?
• Do you have a favourite band?
• What are your aspirations for the future?
• What is the chemistry like in the band?
• Does your old band feel like competition?
• Does being associated with them annoy you?
• How difficult was it to break into the scene?
• How can you compete with the more established bands out there?
• What makes you different from other bands?

http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/magazine/ I looked at past layouts of Metal Hammer articles to get inspiration for the article I am going to write and too see what kind of questions I should ask.

I already knew the band I interviewed so I asked them things as article research.

Planning Production

Cover Image:  Girl dressed in ‘metal’ clothing holding a bass guitar.

Cover lines:  

·         Morbid Angel- ‘Greatest Death Metal Album’ of all time?

·         Death reunion – Shannon Hamm confirms rumours. Exclusive!

·         Behemoth- Nergal, cancer and the new album.

·         Burzum- Varg’s new black metal venture.

·         I, The Silhouette- the new band that is breaking genres.

Text for the contents page

Regular Content:

·         Reviews (new bands and albums) 

·         My Life Story... (an article of the lives of famous metal heads) 

·         Access All Areas! (behind the scenes are major gigs and festivals) 

·         Albums that shaped my life (albums that influenced major bands) 

·         Underground (new and upcoming bands)

·         Metal Health (A history of famous metal bands)

·         Gigs of the month (gig listings of all the best gigs in that month) 

·         The Satan Supplement (A small insert dedicated to Black Metal)

·          Reader feedback (feedback from the last issue)

·         Devil's Tritone (guitar masters teach us the basics month by month

Feature Content:

 

·         Death reunion exclusive- new album and upcoming tour of Europe. Shannon Hamm gives the interview.

·         1349- New album from the Norwegian metal maestro’s.

·         Burzum- Varg fresh from prison talks about his newest black metal venture.

·         Gorgoroth- splitting up?

·         Messugah- on tension within the band

·         Devin Townsend- On metal genres.

·         Mastodon and Opeth- to collaborate?

 

·         I, The Silhouette- the brand new band talk about breaking genres.

·         Arve 'Ice Dale' Isdal- on his surprising musical influence

·         George 'Corpse Grinder' Fisher- creates a new super group, exclusive.

·         Morbid Angel- 'Greatest Death Metal Album' of all time?

·         Alan 'Nemtheanga' Averill- Reforming Void Of Silence.

·         Lamb Of God- NEW ALBUM! The hotly anticipated 'Resolution'. Track by track guide.

·         Jonas Berqvist (Nattdal or ‘B’) - A tribute to his life and music.

·         Behemoth - A new album and Nergal's amazing recovery from leukaemia.

·         Chloe – A one woman death metal marvel.

Title:  Contents, along with the date and the name of the magazine.

Images for the Contents page:

·         Image of the front cover of the magazine - placed by the title of the page.

·         Image of I, The Silhouette.

Article for the double page spread and images:

·         I, The Silhouette interview

·         Image of I, The Silhouette band

Publication Plan

This is the plan for my magazine after I have done my market research:

Title:


Positioning Statement: The heaviest metal magazine

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Price: £2.99

Distribution: bookshops eg,WH Smith, supermarkets eg, Tesco, newsagents, music shops eg, HMV and online shops eg, magazine.co.uk

Rationale: A magazine for true metal heads, who live for the music. The magazine will be more extreme than any of the others but at the same time be humorous and fun. It is aimed mainly at teenagers (14-19) but it will also appeal to a broad audience as well.

Style: Informal style, using humour and slang. The magazine is not afraid to be different and it has very strong opinions. Images will dominate the articles.

Regular Content:

Reviews (new bands and albums) 

My Life Story... (an article of the lives of famous metal heads) 

Access All Areas! (behind the scenes are major gigs and festivals) 

Albums that shaped my life (albums that influenced major bands) 

Underground (new and upcoming bands) 

Metal Health (A history of famous metal bands) 

Gigs of the month (gig listings of all the best gigs in that month) 

The Satan Supplement (A small insert dedicated to Black Metal)

 Reader feedback (feedback from the last issue)

Devil's Tritone (guitar masters teach us the basics month by month)

• Death reunion exclusive- new album and upcoming tour of Europe. Shannon Hamm gives the interview.
• 1349- Their newest album interview.
• Burzum- Varg fresh from prison talks about his newest black metal venture.
• Messugah- on tension within the band
• Mastodon and Opeth- to collaberate?
• Arve 'Ice Dale' Isdal- on his suprising muscial infulences
• I, The Silhouette- The brand new band talk about breaking genres
• George 'Corpse Grinder' Fisher- Creating a new super group, exclusive
• Morbid Angel - 'Greatest death metal album of all time?'
• Alan 'Nemethanga' Averill- Reforming Void of Silence
• Chole- She's coming to get you!
• Jonas Berquist (Nattdal or B)- Tribute to a musical genius
• Lamb of God- New album!
• Behemoth- Nergal's amazing recovery from leukaemia
• Aura Noir- to collaborate with Nattefrost
• Secrets of the Moon- reveal the new album and come back.

Headlines:

Felix Titling

Standfirst:

Felix Titling

Captions:

Felix Titling

Features first paragraph: drop capital in Arial

Body text:

Arial

Colour Scheme: Black, Red, White and Grey.

Questionnaire

This is the questionnaire I gave out for my audience research.

Analysis of Double Page Spread Articles

Today in lesson we analysed double page spread articles from different magazines. I chose Metal Hammer magazine to analyse and did this through Slideshare.net

Double Page Spread Analysis - Metal Hammer

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Analysis of Professional Contents Pages

Today in lesson we had to analyse professional contents pages, I chose Metal Hammer because it is in  the same genre of music magazine as the one I hope to produce.

Analyisis of Professional Contents Pages on Prezi

Analysis of Professional Magazine Covers

Today in lesson we had to look at 3 different professional magazines and used our knowledge of the codes and conventions of music magazines to analysis their covers. I chose Metal Hammer, Terrorizer and Classic Rock because they are magazines similar to the one I hope to produce.

Analysis of Professional Magazine Covers

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Initial Plans for my Magazine

Using my research of the market place I have decided on what to put in my music magazine and other things such as price etc...

• Type of magazine:  A metal magazine, for more extreme types of metal.
• Price: £4.25 is a competitive price for the magazine.
• Frequency: Monthly
• Average issue size: 130 pages

Regular Content:

•  Reviews (new bands and albums)
• My Life Story... (an article of the lives of famous metal heads)
• Access All Areas! (behind the scenes are major gigs and festivals)
• Albums that shaped my life (albums that influenced major bands)
• Underground (new, upcoming bands)
• Metal Health (A history of famous metal bands)
• Gigs of the month (gig listings of all the best gigs in that month)
• The Satan Supplement (A small insert dedicated to Black Metal)

Feature Content:

• Reviews- Fleshgod Apocalypse, Archgoat, Grand Magus, Satyricon, Morbid Angel etc.
• Death reunion exclusive- new album and upcoming tour of Europe. Shannon Hamm gives the interview.
• 1349- Their newest album interview.
• Burzum- Varg fresh from prison talks about his newest black metal venture.
• Gorgoroth- splitting up?
• Messugah- on tension within the band
• Devin Townsend- On metal genres
• Mastodon and Opeth- to collaborate?
• Hammerfall- make a film
•  I, The Silhouette interview (actual article)

Researching The Market Place

Today in lesson we researched different established magazines that are similar to the one we will be creating, I picked Metal Hammer, Terrorizer, Classic Rock and Kerrang! as my examples.

Metal Hammer 

Regular Content:

• In the Studio with... (different bands every month give interviews about their new albums)
• Tatts Life (Celebrity tattoo's)
• Ask Jurgen (letters sent in to the magazine which get funny replies)
• Chainmail (letters to the editor)
• My Life Story (Different celebrities are interviewed about their rise to fame)
• Reviews (of various bands and their new releases)
• Subterranea (A seperate magazine within Metal Hammer dedicated to more extreme underground metal)
• Information of this months free CD

Features:

• As I Lay Dying (interview)
• Aliases (interview)
• Iron Lamb (interview)
• ChickenFoot (interview)
• ICS Vortex (interview and review)
• Hevy Fest (review of a festival)
• Airbourne (Discs of Doom, records that shaped Airbourne)
• Mastodon (Cover article, 10 page feature interview)
• Evanescene (interview)
• Five Finger Death Punch (interview)
• Dream Theater (interview)
• The Devil Wears Prada (interview)
• Skeletonwitch (interview)
• Thin Lizzy ( The Knowledge A brief history of the band)

Metal Hammer is monthly.
The price is £4.25
This issue contains 130 pages
http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/

Terrorizer

Regular Content:

• Reviews of new albums and bands
• A free CD

Features:

• Interview with Devin Townsend (cover story)
• Machine Head interview
• Paradise Lost's Greg Mackintosh's new band Vallenfyre interview
• New band Nine Covens and Imperial Vengeance
• Album reviews of Absu, Iced Earth and Brutal Truth
• Look back at Monter Magnet's 'Dopes to Infinity'
• A guide to Damnation Festival
• Chance to go and see Tesseract and Pig Destroyer

Terrorizer is monthly.

The price is £4.25.

It has 112 pages

http://www.myspace.com/terrorizergrindcore
http://truecultheavymetal.com/blog1.php

Classic Rock Magazine

Regular Content: (taken from Classic Rock magazine October 2010)

• Letters to the editor
• Reviews
• Gig guide

Features:

• Anniversary of Jimi Hendrix's death
• 150 greatest debut albums (Cover story)
• Sabbath founders discuss reunion interview
• ZZ Top interview
• Heaven & Hell interview
• Y&T interview
• Mudhoney interview
• Story of Kings Of Leon so far
• Captain Beefheart interview

Classic Rock is monthly
The price is £4.99
There are 146 pages
http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/

Kerrang

Regular Content:

• Reviews of CD's, radio, TV and gigs
• New album releases
• Upcoming tour information
• Letters from readers
• Tour dates

Feature Content:

• New Found Glory-interview (cover story)
• Enter Shikari give Kerrang exclusive details of their new album
• Iron Maiden's new book
• Slipknot's Clown to curate 'maggot' book to unite metal fans
• Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 v Battlefield 3
• Falling In Reverse make rehab video
•  Patrick Stump on his new solo album
•  MCR, Trivium, Letlive and more pick their favourite games
• Kids In Glass Houses take on The Blackout in a heated FIFA 12 marathon
•  Five Finger Death Punch discuss Mortal Kombat and their new album
• Kerrang take a look at the 10 most rocking games ever
•  Funeral For A Friend ponder the merits of moshpit jousting
•  Heights take on the game-themed Kerrang quiz.

Kerrang is weekly
The price is £3.20
The average issue size is 70 pages
http://www.kerrang.com/

Media pack:
http://www.bauermedia.co.uk/Global/mediapacks/Kerrang.pdf This is the media pack for Kerrang magazine, it has details about the target audience - what ages and sex they are and what other brands they like.

Initial Ideas

My magazine is going to be a heavy metal/extreme metal magazine.

Target Audience: A magazine for dedicated metal fans. The audience is defined by their attitude and passion for all things metal. I am hoping to have a wide age range of 16-45 because metal music reaches across ages. The love of heavier music is usually passed down through age ranges, for example from a parent to their child. The audience will be mostly male but also appeal to a female audience.

Evaluation of School Magazine

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

For the school magazine I tried to follow as many of the codes and conventions of magazines as I could. I used a font for the title that was unique and I kept all of the coverlines in the same font and colour. I had the price, date and issue number on the cover. The colour scheme was consistent through out with only 3 colours used. On the contents page I used all the same font and had a picture of the cover. I had columns for the text and the page numbers were a different colour to the rest of the text to make them stand out. I think I have conformed with the codes and conventions rather than challenging them, although I could have followed them much more closely.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction of your media product?

For the front cover I used Adobe Photoshop, I was quite confident about using Photoshop because I had used it before to make magazine covers at GCSE. I used QuarkXpress for the contents page. I found this very difficult because was new to me and there were alot of elements that I did not understand.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of both the product and your use of new media technologies?

Firstly the front cover was strong because it had and appropriate title and coverlines and the colour scheme was simple. It had the barcode and the issue number and price. I could have improved it by getting a better picture for my cover image. Also by having larger brighter coverlines that could be read from a distance. The Title needed to take up more space and the positioning statement needed to be under the title. Secondly the contents page needed to have better images on it and the text should have fitted on the page better. The contents page was consistent with the front cover and it had the magazine website details. Photoshop was relatively easy to use and I would be confident using it again. However QuarkXpress was very difficult and I think I need more practice with it so I can familiarise myself with how it works.

Contents Page of School Magazine

Today in lesson we created our contents pages for our school magazine. I created it using QuarkXpress.

School Magazine

Today in lesson we made our school magazine, for our preliminary task. We had to use pictures we took ourselves and we created it on Adobe Photoshop.

Stage 1: I added the title and the cover image.

Stage 2: I added the coverlines.

Stage 3: I added the barcode, the positioning statement and a puff.

 

Final Images For School Magazine

These are the images I will use in my school magazine:

Pictures for School Magazine

Today in lesson we took the pictures for our preliminary task, the school magazines:

Aswell as these images, I will also have an image of the front cover on the Contents Page

This is my Main cover image.

This image will be on the Contents Page for the Geography story

This image will be placed on the Contents Page for the Homework Help story

Rough Layout of Contents Page

Today in lesson we made a rough layout of our school magazine contents pages.

Planning Content

Coverlines:

• Main Story: Exam Success! Year 11 girls shine at their GCSE's
• Homework help- tips on how to cope
• Film Club kicks off- brand new films for every year group
• Day in the life- Of Mr Dyment
• An interview with year 7 & Year 12- how they're finding it

Contents: Regulars:

• Charity- catch up with Kenya
• the weekly quizz
• calender- dates for your diary
• Clubs- get involved
• Photo Gallery
• Volunteering
• Iris Updates
• Science animal updates

Features:

• Exam Success- 87% pass rate A*- C
• Homework Help- tips and tricks
• Film Club- brand new!
• Mr Dyment- a day in the life of...
• Interview with a year 7 and year 12
• P.E's next big talent
• Geography trip to Betws-Y-Coed
• Music trip to Holland
• Philosophy and Ethics meets a celeb
• Superstars- upcoming talent

Rough Layout of the School Magazine Front Cover

Today in lesson we drew up the plans for our School magazine front cover.

School Magazine - Plans for Front Cover

This is the plan for my School Magazine

Title: The Forecast

Images: Cover Images: Girl with GCSE's results, looking happy because her results are good. Taken infront of the mural by recpetion.  This will be a Medium Long Shot.

Contents Images: Dutch flag with different instruments on it.
Homework Help image, girl with piles of books looking stressed, sitting at a table. This will be a Medium Long Shot.

Colour Scheme: Pink and Blue with white writing
Solgan: 'Weatherhead's news weekly'
Puff:  Free Iris Points

Photograph Shot Types.

Today in lesson we went out in pairs and took pictures of different shot types. These are the different shots we had:

• Close Up- just of the head and neck
• Very long shot- full body standing far away
• High angle shot- taken from above the person
• Medium close up- head and shoulders
• Two shot-  two people in the frame
• Low angle- taken from below the person
• Medium or mid shot- From the waist up
• Over the shoulder shot- taken from over someones shoulder
• Tilted Frame- taken with the camera tilted to the side

These are the shots we had to take in lesson:

• Low angle, medium close up- Taken from below the person, head and shoulders
• High angle, long shot- Taken from above the person, full body
• Extreme close up of the time- cannot see all of the object
• Big close up of someone using a mobile- just the face
• Close up of someone in nature-the face and neck of someone
• Two shot, in medium long shot- two people in the frame, from head to knees
• Over the shoulder shot of someone writing- taken over the person's shoulder
• Very long shot conveying isolation- taken from far away
• A medium close up- head and shoulders
• Connotations of friendship- without using people, just body parts
• Connotations of stress- without using people, just body parts

     

High angle, Long shot

Close up of someone in nature

Conveying friendship

Big close up of someone using a mobile phone

Low angle, medium close up

Over the shoulder shot of someone writing

Two shot, medium long shot

Very long shot conveying isolation

Medium close up

Conveying stress

Extreme close up of the time

Codes and Conventions of Music Magazine Contents Pages

Today in lesson we disscussed the codes and conventions of music magazine contents pages:

Images- Main Image, this dominates the page and relates to the main article in the magazine. It is always the biggest image.

Images- Subsidiary Images, All different sizes, the page numbers anchor the images to stories. All images relate to the genre of the magazine. There are also credits for the cover image. There are usually 4 to 6 images on the contents page.

Background- is often plain ir one block colour to make the font and images stand out.

Text- the text is usually split into 2 or 3 columns. The coverlines for each story are in font size 12 or 13 and other text is in size 11. They font is always the consistent and clear to read. The page numbers are usually in a different colour to the other text to make them stand out.

Title- 'Contents' which is always bold and at the top of the page, it is usually next to the title of the magazine. Around this there may be issue numbers, the date and the website. Having the magazine title reinforces the brand. The titles are always in bold font and quite large.

Editors letter- some magazines have editors letters, they are usually at the top or down the side of the page and have the editors name and signature at the bottom. Not all magazines have editors letters.

Colour scheme- is consistent throughout to reinforce the brand.

Other- There are often details of how to subscribe to the magazine. There are Regular and Feature articles and often credit for the photographers.

Codes and Conventions of Music Magazines

Today in lesson we discussed the codes and conventions of music magazines.

• Masthead- is the title and positioning statement. The positioning statement is the magazines ethos, for example 'life is loud' from Kerrang.

• Title- is kept clear and seperate from the image unless the magazine is well known, and if it does go over then most of the title should still be visible. The title is always a large,bold font. It is unique to the title and not used anywhere else on the magazine.

• Barcode- Is often in the bottom right, but it can be moved to the top bellow the masthead or the left. Around it is usually the price, date, issue number and website.

• Buzzwords- 'PLUS!, Extra, Essential, Exclusive' this makes the reader feel they are getting more for their money or getting a preview before everyone else.

• Images- Main Image, if it is a band image it will be a medium longshot or a longshot. If it is a solo artist then it will be a mid shot. There is always direct adress and the body language of the person in the image must fit the genre of the music they play. A plain background makes the image stand out. Also the no text will be put over the face of the person in the image.

• Images- Subsidiary Images, always smaller than the main image and relate to the stories ion the magazine.

• Colour scheme- simple colours that don't clash and go with the genre of music in the magazine. The colours reinforce the brand.

• Coverlines- The main coverline relates to the main image, all coverlines must be in the same font. They always relate to a story in the magazine and there are about 5 coverlines.

• Fonts- only a few fonts are used, Serif, Sans Serif and Times New Roman. If the magazine is monthly then a small font size will be used for the price because it is more expensive, if the magazine is weekly the price may be made to stand out to show how cheap it is.