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

Title: I think that the style of my title, i.e.: the font, is very typical for the genre of
my music magazine - indie/rock/alternative. It’s big and bold, with simple colours - blue and black. I also think that the actual name is very typical, AMPLIFY suggests loud music, as amps are used for electric guitars and at gigs etc. The style is similar to that of NME, with simple colours and big block letters, and contrasts with Kerrang! Which sticks to only black, with destroyed type writing.

Mise-en-scene of images:

I only have plain background for my pictures - a white backdrop mostly. In the background of a couple of images you can see things such as lights. I only wanted plain backgrounds as - 1: I thought they would be easier to manipulate in PhotoShop, and 2: I wanted all focus on the people in the pictures, not the background.

    

Costumes and props:

I didn’t have specific costumes for my band, I just let them wear whatever they wanted to. I believe that as they like the genres of music that my magazine is based on, then their personal style can reflect that. The props I used were a microphone, drumsticks and a chair. I also used a guitar in some of the photographs I took, but I didn’t use any of these photos in my final pieces. I think that a microphone and drumsticks are very typical props for a music magazine, as they are obviously key elements to most bands.

People:

I used Chris Pinkney, Amy Hughes, Kyle Saucier and Robert Harrison as the band BURN OUR ASHES. I chose these people as they are the friends that listen to the same music as me, and that is contained in the magazine. They were also really enthusiastic about being in the photos and I think that they had a good band image.Title font and style:

I used Soopafresh from the website www.dafont.com for my title. I made the letters black to keep it simple and so they’d really contrast with the white background. I coloured in the gaps in the “A” and “P” to co-ordinate with the writing “Winter Issue” underneath. I had the idea that colours in the letters would change with the season or if the magazine had a certain theme that week.

Written content:

I wrote an article which was a short interview with the band. On the cover I have the main features of the magazine that week, as the same on the contents page. I.e.: “4-5 MUSE on their album “The Resistance”.

Music genre and how your magazine suggests it:

The genres of my music magazine are indie/alternative/rock. I think that my magazine suggests this with the colours - I.e.: lots of red and black - whereas a pop magazines may use lots of brighter colours. I think that the title suggests the kind of music that my magazine contains as the name Amplify suggests loudness. Amps are greatly associated with rock bands because of things like electric guitars, and massive amps at gigs and festivals etc. I also think that the genre is suggested by the types of fonts I have chosen, I.e.: the Skribble font (PhotoShop font) that is shown on the cover and contents page - it looks messy etc. Also the Capture It font (also from www.dafont.com) used for the “ASHES” on my double page spread. It looks like a distorted font that would only be used for a rock band etc.

Layout and use of conventions like pull quotes, drop caps etc:

I haven’t used drop caps in any of my final pieces, but there are two pull quotes on my double page spread - “I can’t believe we’ve made it this far” and “the adrenaline was amazing”. I chose to pick these two sentences, as the first one shows how the band feels about being famous - disbelief of their success, and the second one shows how it feels to be out on the stage whilst playing live. The first one was taken from a piece that Chris had said, but the second quote isn’t actually in the text. I had no real reasoning to create a pull quote that can’t be found in the text - I thought that it would be different. I have used a sidebar in my double page spread that contains a question that was directed at only one band member, I thought that it was suitable to put this in a sidebar because it wasn’t open to every band member. It shows that this question was different from the others.

I don't think that my magazine challenges other magazines - it is similar to others - so it more uses the forms and conventions of other magazines. I think that my magazine is similar to Kerrang! mostly - in style and content, and then possibly NME - for more the style aspect.