Props for photgraphy: Basic ideas and final photography.

Setting: A recording studio. It is very likley that I will be using the schools music room for this as it already fits the criteria required of my chosen setting.

Equipment: As Dubstep is created electronically without instruments I will be using electronic equipment such as a laptop. I believe that this is is appropriate as it relates back to how Dubstep tracks are made.

Clotihng: Casual clothing e.g. a t-shirt or a hodded top and huge earphone to link back to the dubstep theme.

Below are the final photographs for my magazine taken as a group:

This shows the right aspects of a dub-step related photo including headphones, DJ equipment as well as my body language suggesting that I am creating music electronically which is common within dubstep. However, The shot type used doesn't seem to suit my purpose which is to focus on the artist and this image expands out to his surroundings. As well as this, the image is blurry and is of poor quality.

This image is very similar to the first one. As can be seen, the image quality is much more clearer as well as the shot being focussed more on the artist.

This photo of Daniel holding a large speaker relates back to the power and loudness of Dubstep. His pose also suggests power adding to the impact og the photo.

Although this photo is supposed to show Daniel creating music, the angle of the camera as well as body language shows him to look more as if he is doing work on a computer.

This photo is similar to the previous one however this time, the camera angle is much higher revealing the keyboard to be an electronic piano showing that he is not doing work but is instead creating music.

Although this photo is relavent to the magazine (portraying someone listening to music),the poor image quality prevents it from being usable.

The images below and above show a link to Dubstep as they portray someone wearing big headphones however, the clothing (a shirt and tie) is not appropriate for the Dubstep genre.

This photo portrays me with my hood up and me facing down so that my head is completley covered up and unrecognisable. This reflects on the underground nature of Dubstep. As well as this, it shows me sitting on a large speaker showing a connection between me and Dubstep (as connoted by the speaker).

This photo is similar to the one of me on the decks however there are two artsits instead of one. This photo shows that even in Dubstep, two artisits can converge and make a single track together just like in other genres.

The hood up in this picture links to the urban culture of London ( the roots of Dubstep). The slight low angle shows a blend of dominance as well as significance.

The images above and below are a focus on the equipment used as I believe it is an important aspect of Dubstep.

 

All of the photos above shows the surroundings that I believe fit those of Dubstep artists. They mainly consist of brick walls and grafitti to relate to the urban roots of Dubstep.

These last few photos once again focus on the equipment used to create dubstep which I feel is appropriate due to my double page spread is guideing audinces on the correct equipment (a huge part of the process of creating Dubstep).

Editing sofware use

As I have very little experince with image editing software, I have decided to get used to the basic functions of an editing sofware programme called GIMP. Below is a showcase of the skills I have learned so far such as changing the colour of different images and woking with different layers to create one image out of seperate images.

Double page spread flatplan

Publisher Research

Existing media research

The front cover shows a medium close up of a well-known aritst taking up the majority of the page showing it is at the top of the visual hierachy. This suggests to the audience that the artist is the main focus of the fornt cover as well as showing his significance. The layout is quite conventional as the masthead (showing the name of the magazine) is at the top and is the biggest piece of text. This effectivley allows the audience to notice the name of the magazine allowing it to be recognized in future issues.

Taking the colour scheme into account, I would say that the colour scheme would appeal to a younger auience due to the bright and bold uses of white and light pink which connotes youth and energy.

When first looking at the page the audiences eyes are immediatley drawn towards the phrase "The Teenagers". This already shows that the article focuses on a young audience which is strengthened by an image taking up all of the left-hand side of the page portraying 3 young people. This would attract the attention of the teenage audience as the phrase as well as the picture indirectly relate to them.

Once again, their is a bold colour scheme with highlights of blue,black and white. I believe the this piece in particluar would appeal to a male teenage auidence as the colour scheme is rather masculine as shades of blue are typically associated with males as opposed to pink being typically associated with females.

Possible Magazine Names

• CLEFF- Although it relates to music we do not feel it relates to dubstep specifically but instead, it seems to be linked to a magazine which is more primarilly focussed on classical music.

• BASS-Bass is a common element of dubstep which is recognisable to dubstep fans.

• B4L ‘BEATS 4 LYF’- The abbreviation used relates back to the electronic theme of dubstep aswell as being linked back to texting which relates to text abbrevition appealling to a young audience.

• TCLEFF ‘TREBLE CLEFF’- Again, just like cleff, it is not specific to the dub step genre. It suggests music and links back to classical music. This may suit a music magazine but may be a little obscure for a dub step magazine.

• NOTE STORM - The word storm suggests the loud nature of dubstep, it has connotations of a wild fury which would link with some of the key ideas I would like to represent in the magazine. The word note obviously links to music. We felt that as a music magazine name it lacks focus and does not suggest enough about the type of music from the title. This is something we thought was really important in the magazine name.

• CRECENDO - Again another suggestion which focuses on music however the name relates to music in general and not dub step.

• COMPOSITION - This would not suit a dubstep magazine and suggests more at composing music.

• MUSIC DOC - The word doc links with the idea of a saved file on a computer - this has suggestions of electronic music and the way music is created. However it seems to focus on all electronic music e.g.techno and not dubstep specifically.

Questionnaire reseach

Q1.What is your favourite music genre?
• Rock
• Pop
• RnB
* Soul
* Dub Step
* Blues
* Funk
* Jazz
* Grime

Q2. Do you read any magazines focussed on your prefffered genre?

*Yes
*No

If "No" would you be willing to read a magazine on your favourate music magazine?

*Yes
*No

Q3.What interests you when choosing a magazine a music magazine?

*Apperence
*Content
*Free gifts
*Price

Q4. How much would you be willing to pay for a music magazine?

* £1-£5
* £5-£10
* £10-£15+



Q5. Do you feel that there is a variety of magazines dedicated to your favourate genre?

*Yes
*No

________________________________________________________________________

Questionnairre results analysis


Questionnaire results analysis
After distributing my questionnaire to 20 students aged 14 to 18, I analysed the results I got back to help me determine the aspects of my magazine such as genre, colour scheme, and price.

Question 1: Favourite genres
When asking participants about there preferred music genre, the two most popular genres were RnB (taking 35% of votes) and Dubstep (taking 30% of all votes). The results for all genres is as follows:

At this point of result analysis, I was considering choosing RnB for my magazine.

Question 2: Whether candidates read or not and willingness to read

When asked this question only 20% of the candidates answered yes to reading magazines on their favourate genre. However, when asked on their willingness to reading a magazine on their favourate genre, a large 85% answered "yes". This meant to me that candidates wanted to read about their favourate music genres however, their was a missing element of current magazines which didn't attract them to read meaning I had to find this missing element with the help of my next question.

Question 3: Attractive elements of a magazine

When asked which element attracted the target audience, results from candidates was balanced (with the exeption of free gifs) as shown by the graph below:

This showed me that I need to keep an even balance of appearance, content and good pricing so audiences would be attracted to the magazine. This fairly even balance between the three aspects is most likley the missing element to attract the target audience.

Question 4: Pricing

Out of the given price ranges, the most popular pricing range was £1-£5 taking around 80 % of votes.

Of course because of this result, the magazines price will fall into the range at £4.50.

Question 5: Variety issues

For almost every genre, candidates stated that there was variety in the magazines dedicated to them. However, an large 95% of candidates who favouated dubstep as their music genre stated there was no variety in magazines dedicated to dubstep which is understandable as dubstep has quite a niche audience. However, over the past few years, dubstep has become more and more popular and is starting to enter the maistream market. Because of this I have decided to focus my music magazine on the genre of dubstep.

Music Genre Research

• 2-step garage: British style of modern electronic dance music, and a relatively popular subgenre of UK Garage.
• Ambient music: Music that can either be listened to intently, or be played in the background and easily be ignored. Often times used for relaxation and meditation.
• Afro beat: A combination of Yoruba music, jazz, highlife, and funk, fused with percussion and vocal styles, popularized inAfrica in the 1970s.
• Beat boxing: Music performed by producing percussive and melodic sounds with the mouth alone, often mimicking instruments, recorded samples and other sounds not typically associated with vocalization.
• Calypso: Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago.
• Crunk: Crunk is a fusion genre of hip hop music and electro that originated in Memphis, in the United States. It became popular in the mid to late 1990s and gained mainstream success around 2003 - 2004.
• Dance music: Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement.
• Dancehall: Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music. A sparser version of reggae, it also speaks on politics and religion but not as directly as roots style, which was associated with the Rastafari movement, and had dominated much of the 1970s.
• Death metal: Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys oratonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes.
• Drum and bass: Drum and bass is a type of electronic dance music which emerged in the mid 1990s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats, with heavy bass and sub-bass lines.
• Dubstep: Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South East London. Its overall sound has been described as "tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals".
• Electro: Electro (short for either electro-funk or electro-boogie) is a genre of electronic music directly influenced by the use of TR-808, Moog keytar synthesizers and funk sampling.
• Emo: Emo is a style of rock music typically characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. It originated in the mid-1980s hardcore punk movement of Washington, D.C., where it was known as "emotional hardcore" or "emocore"
• Funky house: Funky house is a loose definition for a commercially-oriented, disco influenced subgenre of house music. Like most variants of house, the genre follows a traditional four to the floor house beat, and makes heavy use of synthesizers, samples and soulful vocals, although unlike in more electronically bent Chicago and deep house, presence of acoustic instrumentation is much more common.

Music Magazine Project Plan

Date	Task	Task Details	People in charge of task	Task been agreed by
12/01/2011 (week 1)	Complete production schedule	Work through all the key jobs over the next few weeks up to the deadline	Mr Shields	Ongoing-not completed.
19/01/11 (week 2)	Research	Look at existing music magazines and analyse front covers.	Daniel
24/01/11 (week 3)	Audience research: Questionnaire	Create a questionnaire to find out audience preferences hopefully decide	Immanuel
07/01/11 (week 4)	Design	Create layouts for front page/contents/ double page spread and start considering name/logo.	Hamza
14/02/11 (week 5)	Photography	Start taking original photography for use in magazine.	Hamza
21/02/11 (week 6)	Draft	Create a first draft of magazine from initial ideas.	Immanuel/Hamza /Daniel.
28/02/11 (week 7)	Final draft	With feedback, create final draft of front page, contents page and double page spread	Hamza/Daniel /Immanuel.
07/03/11 (week 8)	Evaluation	Evaluate overall performance during project	Hamza/Immanuel /Daniel.