Screen grabs of the front cover for my music magazine

Here is my screen shots of my music magazine. This is my evidence of me using photoshop on my magazine and you can tell that I ahve used it through out my magazine using all the tools on there. I would screen shot every time I started doing it again just so they can see my progress of what I have done.

Interview with The Blackhand

We meet The Blackhand in one of there glamorous sheds they reherse in, Wallasey, New Brighton. This is the place were the lads hang out and reherse on there songs. I have been invited here today on a frosty December afternoon, to talk about The Blackhand and how they broke out into the music industry.
They tell me that most of their songs are things that have happend to them in the past, comes deep with in. ''Well, it started off as an idea me and ben had where we started off just jamming in my garden shed (glamorous I know) this is where we wrote the basics to some of the songs we have recorded today like The End has Begun, Chaos Theory and Crowned our kings. We then thought it would be nice to bring it up a level, so after about a month of searching we found Josh "Gilly" Gilroy.'' Not long after thast they found the last member of the band ''Ben Hopkinson.''  I sat down on there swirly shair and started to fire away with the questions.
Wired: So firstly how did you all end up getting together as a band?
NATHAN FORD: Well, it started off as an idea me and ben had where we started off just jamming in my garden shed (glamorous I know) this is where we wrote the basis to some of the songs we have recorded today like The End has Begun, Chaos Theory and Crowned our kings. We then thought it would be nice to bring it up a level, so after about a month of searching we found Josh "Gilly" Gilroy. From that point we just focused on writing songs so we pretty much finished the music for most of the songs, but something was missing. Ohh yeah the vocals... this was the hardest bit, it took the band about 3 months to find a singer that we where happy with and after a few auditions (1) we found Ben "Benji" Hopkinson'' and from then on we lived happily ever after and skipped off into the far distance.

Wired: Very nice! Is it really hard in the music industry?
JOSH GILROY:  Its incredibly hard in the music industry. Its more about like who you know than what you know, like it is with anything.. we're fortunate enough to know some pretty incredible people who are helping us out. 'unsigned' means nothing in the industry these days though, with more and more outlets opening up for unsigned band, for example we've just released our debut video onto LAVA TV, which is a sky music channel which focuses on helping unsigned bands, so were happy about that!

Wired: So I could be the WORST singer in the world but if I was best friends with Jay Z then i would be the next lady gaga?
JOSH GILROY: Well yeah, anyone can make it, just depends who you no.

Wired: How did you come up with the band name? Also did the band have any other names before the one now?
NATHAN FORD:   Well you can fix anything with auto-tune these days! The biggest thing that happened recently is xfactor used autotune to cover up some of the crappier singers. Luckily for us Ben is a super awesome singer.

It took ages for us to settle on a band name, we came up with a huge long list of them, we had some funny ones though like "Asbestos Sandwich, Pig Benis, Hitlers Erection and Oxymoron".
In the end we just thought of a few serious ones which we then settled on "The Blackhand". 
The Blackhand is named after the russian secret organisation whome assasinated Franz Ferdinand (Not the band, but it would be good if they did).

Wired: Were have you performed before?
JOSH GILROY: Well we've played the likes of the british legion and tallulah's late lounge, and we played a show at The Cavern, home of that band, can't remember what they're called, probably rubbish but oh well, but that got us onto a show at Liverpool Academy 1, which was huge for us and saturday just gone we supported a band called The Finest Hour in Sheffield, alongside an acoustic/harmonica playing guy from texas.

Wired: Do you have any upcoming events/ gigs?
JOSH GILROY: we're currently only doing the occasional show every now and again leading up to march as we're recording our debut album which comes outt in march, funnily enough, and then we have a launch gig at The Masque in Liverpool with some awesome support funded by Mean Fiddler. So we're all excited about that!

Wired: Who actually writes the songs and comes up with the lyrics?
JOSH GILROY:  When it comes to song writing what usually happens is that myself and Ben Silvester will go back to the good old shed, even in the winter and play around with a few riff ideas we had going ourselves, we then build and expand on them untill we are happy to show them to the rest of the band.

We then come together with Gilly and Benji show them what we got and record it all usually on a mobile phone but if we're lucky the laptop. Benji then goes away and writes up lyric ideas for the music we have and then he comes back and the end product is so good.

We experiment with all sorts of styles at the moment like on our upcomming album "Greetings... From the bitter sweet edge" there are 12 songs, 3 of them acoustic including an acoustic version of our youtube/LAVA tv hit "(The Worlds a) Fire) as well as experimenting with heavy and light music.

Wired: How long have you been together as a band?
JOSH GILROY:  we've been together about 6 months? roughly, pretty much
since like just before easter.

Wired: What has been your biggest challenge as a band?
NATHAN FORD:  Probably our biggest challenge as a band is time, like when we can do things like gigging, recording, videoing etc. Because I work days, Gilly works weekends and Ben used to work nights but now he has given that job up it was a pain in the bum to sort things out!

I also have to say this bands time keeping skills are impeccable, we made it onto the train to sheffield just as it was leaving, always at least an hour or two late starting up band practice and going on stage late. We now have a rule; who ever is late has to buy everyone a drink now.
Wired: Thats an amazin rule! I bet one of you make the other one late just so you can get a drink out of them.
JOSH GILROY:   its hilarious, we ran through lime street covered in gear, i'm trying to get the tickets out of a bag, god it was funny...

Wired: How did you all meet?
NATHAN FORD: We where all in different bands to begin with but we have all known eachother from a very young age, I've probably known Ben & Benji since age 12 when we all started mosslands and Gilly from abour age 14 when I met him in one of his previous bands in mosslands.

So you can say that we have been playing together for about 6 years but just not with eachother since we have been in different bands but our previous bands have all gigged together.

Wired: What advice do you have to people that want to start a band?
JOSH GILROY: advicee hmmmmm?
This is going to sound proper cheesy, but never give up!

In the past our old bands have kind of fizzled out (i've always wanted to use the word fizzled in something serious) but with The Blackhand we're all giving it everything we've got
which is fun, tiring and rediculousy stressful, but you've got to do it if you want to get a foothold in the musiz business.

oh, and never do a battle of the bands in The Nelson.
that goes for everybody

NATHAN FORD:  Also be sure to check us out on 7 waves radio sometime in the next month or so as we will be making an apperence on it doing acoustic versions of some of our songs maybe even a cover or two.

Keep checking our facebook for details on our upcomming shows and media the details are:

Facebook.com/theblackhanduk
Myspace.com/theblackhanduk
Youtube.com/theblackhanduk

Thanks for interviewing us, I hope we give you the answers you where looking for.
Wired: Thanks!

Photographs for magazine

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These are some of the photographs that I had chosen that could be in the magazine, the ones with the star next to they are the photographs that I will be using in my magazine. The rest I still kept so that you can see that I did many different shots of my model. I chose for my model to wear a black leather jacket just so it stood out from the background and that it shows that I am produicing a rock magazine, also with the edgy dark makeup shows that sahe is to do with rock.

Article Research

Questions to ask the band when interviewing them
1. How they all got together at the start?
2. Is it really hard in the music industry?
3. How did you come up with the band name? also did you have any other names before this one?
4. Were have you performed?
5. Do you have any upcoming events/gigs?
6. Who writes the songs?
7.How long have you been together as a band?
8. What has been your biggest challenge as a band?
9. What advice do you have to people that want to start a band?
10. How did you all meet?
11. Any last words?


 Double page spread
Here is a double page spread that I got of google, this is what i will be basing my double page spread on when it comes to the time of making one. I will look at this one to get the idea of my own.

This front page of a magazine, I will be basing my own one on this, the way the cover lines are set out and were the model is to.

Also I will be using the same colours as this one as I like the way the colours are used. I like the fact that it is spaced out the cover lines and the images so its not all just crammed in together.

Graphs for questionnaire

This graph is to show how many pages would the people want if they bought a magazine, it was out of 50, 100 and 150. As you can tell most people would like the 100 pages one and the least amount of people would not want a magazine with 150 pages in it. Also a few of people would want 50 pages.

 This graph is to show how much the people would pay for a magazine, it was out of £2.50, £3.50 and £4.00. As you can see 13 people picked the £3.50 one as that is a reasonable price to pay for a magazine. 6 people picked £2.50 and 1 person picked £4.00

The last graph is 'Would you like to see different people on the front cover of the magazine. 18 people said they would like to see someone different and two people said that they would like to see the same person every time on the front cover.

Conclusion

When doing my magazine I have made sure that the price that I have picked is the one that most people had chosen that they would prefer to spend on it. I made sure that I had put Exclusive so it shows that its only one time that the person on the front cover would be there, and when the next issue comes out of the magazine then it would be someone different. Finally I have made sure that i have produced 100 pages on the contents page so it shows that I have only put 100 pages in and no more as that is what my question said, no more tan 100.

Rough sketch of magazine

Here is my rough sketch of my music magazine. I have put my coverlines and mast head were I would think would look best for when I am actually going to produce my magazine. I have put the essential stuff on there like the barcode and the main image.

Video

This is a video of me talking about my codes and conventions of a music magazine and then talking about the double page spread of the magazine. Then I videod my friend Talking about one of my questionairs.

Planning production

I have decided on what will be on my main image of my music article, the genre is Indie/Rock. I have picked my model for the front cover,  I am still undecided on how Jodie will be posing on the cover but I have put some photos up on how i would like her to be posing but i still have not picked one. I know she will be holding a camera in her hand and she will be wearing rock cloths such as leather jackets etc..
 Cover lines of magazine

• Pixie Geldof makes some NOISE! New interview!
• Free CD
• Autumn Albums Special!
• Ozzy Osbourne '' I love it when sharon cooks for me''
• Flashback (photoshoot)
• Artic Monkeys.. Hottest band are back and ready
• Rock Wardrobe

Contents
Regualr content;

Editors letter
Interview with Pixie Lott
Fans Forum (fans bring in letters)
Wardrobe of the month
Best new singles out this month
Puzzle me-Quizzes & puzzles
Hot or not? Celeb talk about other celebs
Bargians

Feature Content

Interview with the band
10 Best songs of the month
15 best songs of the year
20 best dongs of all time
Article on all the upcoming gigs near by
50 most memorable times of the music industry

Image for my contents page

Photograph ideas

This is some of the  photo ideas I would like my modell to be posing like on my magazine cover at the end.

Publication Plan

Title: Wired

Positioning statement: Wired into the music.

Frequency of publication: Monthly

Price: £3.50

Distribution: Newsagents & supermarkets also little shops in big shopping places

Rationale: My magazine will have the following interviews, photoshoots and infomation with up coming concerts and also articles. The magazine is for the fans to get information about there celebs and when they can go see them.

Style: Magazine is informal as it will be having interviews in there, will be using simple vocabulary and slang. Magazine has alot of humour in it.

Images will be the dominant feature of layouts in the magazine.

Regular Content

• Feature articles
• Possitive and negative comments on some the gigs
• Photoshoot & exclusive interview with the person/people on main image
• Fans unput sending letters into the magazine
• Top 10 songs this month
• Hottest female singer
• Hottest male singer
• Exclusive on a star's life
• Extra news
• Flashbacks
• Albums A-Z
• Regulars- Crossword, Wire meets.. and My life in the lime light

Feature Content
Example of feature articles which will appear in the magazine

• Interviews with the new in stars.
• The story behind Micheal Jacksons death
• How to play the guitar
• Kings of leon
• Investigation on death of john lennon
• Article on Hottest female/Male singers

Colour scheme will be dark colours with a bright colour of pink in there to jazz it up more, mostly using blacks & grey colours

House style
Feature first paragraph- arial 12
News first paragraph- arial 12
Colour scheme- dark, greys and pink
Cover lines- Interviews with the stars, photoshoot, 10 best songs of all time

Codes & Conventions of a Contents page

The image's that is on the page relate to the colums that is on the contents page, aslo the font soze has to be size 11 notthing smaller or bigger.
On the contents page there is dropqoutes on there and there has to be page numbers on by the images or the colums.
All the text has to be in colums going down the page. There is half images on the page and half text on there and finally sometimes the editor has there very own letter and an image of the editor on there, but only sometimes does this happen.

Codes & Conventions of music magazine/ Double page spread

On friday in lessons we discussed the codes and conventions of a music magazine. The things that a music magazine should include is;
Dropcap (the first letter of the first word of the first paragraph is enlarged)

Dropqoute (qoute inside the colum that is important, for example ''I just love dancing''

Heading is the tittle at the top of the article and is allways at the top and the font is large.

Strapline is when a piece of text that is giving you information about what the colum holds. It is normall in a box under the heading.

Main image is normally on the left and right on both of the pages.

All the text is in colums going down the page.

The contents page has to link to the contents page

and finally the feature article has to be the double page spread.

Evaluation

My media product uses conventions of a real media product as it concludes the following:
It has a mast head on the front page at the top, the tittle is in italian to be unique and to grab the audiences attention. Also I have used a much larger font on the mast head as it is the main attraction to the front cover.
Two other things that I have used in this magazine that any other normal magazine uses is an issue number and the date when it came out, this is mostly under the mast head also I have put it in a black font so it stands out so that people can see what issue number it is to see if they are behind on their daily magazine they get.

Every magazine has a barcode this is improtant for a magazine to include it on there front cover. Its mostly on the bottom on the left or the right side of the magazine, I have put my barcode on the bottom right hand side of the magazine.
My main image is a sixform girl from weatherhead holding a piece of paper that is ment to be her results she got for 2010. The girl is really happy with her results and holding the piece of paper up with joy!
Around the main image I have put my coverlines, every magazine has at least 7+ coverlines on their front page. The coverlines I have used are baised around school and the pupils of this school, the coverlines include Interviews with students/Staff and also reports from it.

To make my magazine I used photoshop, i used this in year 10 but using it now has helped me recap on how to use it, and i am now confident to use it on my main task. To make my Contents page i used a new programme called QuarkXPress, this was new to me but after using it after a number of times i got the hang of it and can now use it in the future.
I think my background of my magazine isnt reay good, as it is just one block colour I would of preferd it if it was to different shades, still colours that consist with my magazine colours. However I liked the font I used for the writing.

Front page of school magazine

Here is my front cover to my school magazine. We had to make this on Adope Photoshop and this also had to be created in a week. It had to have over 5 cover lines on it, I put on 8 just to make sure. It had to have a main image of someone(not yourself) on the front cover.

Contents page
Here is my contents page finally finished, the programme we used to make my contents page was QuarkXPress (R). We had 4 lessons on making this and completerly finishing it. I had to make sure that I had over 4 images on my contents page and that I had over 15 captions. I put 20 on there just to make sure that there was enough.

Lesson

In lesson today we made note's on how to use Quark because we would be using this programme to create our contents page for our school magazine. We made note's on the basics of it and then we had to open it up and get a new page up and name it.

Next lesson we had to finish of our front page of the school magazine, I have personally had problems with making my front cover, but i have now finished it and am moving on with the contents page tomorrow.

Photographs for school magazine


Also we had to go out and take photographs for our school magazine, I had to take a picture of my model holding a piece of paper pretending it to be here GCSE results.

These are a range of photographs that i tuck of my model posing for my music magazine.

As you can see this is a rough draft of the plan of my school magazine cover. In class we had to do a rough draft of the front page and the contents page of the school magazine. Every time I do some more work like this I will upload it onto here.

This is my rough draft of my contents page of the school magazine.

This was just a rough plan on what my magazine was going to be called and also what my cover lines were going to be.

Camera work

In lesson today, we got sent into 3 groups and had to take certain angle shots etc,

Over the shoulder shot
Nature shot
Long shot
Extreme long shot
Stress
Friendship
and so on...

We then went back to our class & saved them onto our computer's and labelled the shots that we produced that day. We got to look at everyone else's shots to and talk about whether the shot is right or wrong and what they could do better, we also got to see how some people shot there's differently to other peoples plain boring ones.
End of the lesson we started planning out School magazine's and what central image & colour's we will be using.

Codes and conventions of a music magazine contents page

Also in the lesson we looked at the codes and conventions of the contents page, we were able to draw thes conclusions;

- The images are used to advertise the story, they usually have a small caption which is generally a very short description of the story.

- Content pages are usually divided into columns.

- The text is ually squashed, this means it can fit more in and the images be more eye catching as the content page is also trying to advertise the magazine.

- Page numbers are commonly found with the images and are placed before the title of the story.

- The storys are not usually listed in chronological order.

Codes and conventions of a music magazine front cover

Today in lesson we studied the codes and conventions of a front cover for a music magazine, below are the codes and conventions i manged to identify;

- Typography of masthead has to relate to the genre of music, it has to be bold and eye catching, and must be unique to the brand name.

- The issue number is commonly found on the cover page as it shows how developed the magazine is.

- The barcode shows that it is a official product.

- The main images is usually found in the centre of the cover. If the image is looking directly at the reader it is called direct mode of address, this reflects the attitude of the magazine. The main image can be either male or female.

- The other images (inserted images)  shows the the content of the magazine and are usually linked to the cover lines.

- Cover lines are text which advertise what is in the magazing.

- Various magazines have promotions for example a free cd, they also use buzzwords such as plus and exclusive, these try to attract the attention of the potential buyer.

- The colour of the magazine can also the reflect the genre of music the magazine contains.