Evaluation 1

Evaluation part 1

1) My product utilises and develops conventions of real media products in a number of ways. One of these is through the title of my magazine. Due to choosing to create a hard rock/metal music magazine, I decided to use an aggressive looking font which almost reflects the image of blood. I decided to colour the title red like pre-existing magazines such as Metal Hammer. Another point about my title is the fact that it is called "KRUNCH". Krunch is an example of onomatopoeia, a literary technique in which the word sounds like it's described action. Krunch is a harsh sounding word, so I chose it to reflect the heavy and distorted sound of the music that my magazine is based around.

The costumes and props used are reflective of items associated with the typical target audience of my magazine. The use of leather jackets and guitar in the main cover shot are not only associated with the music genres I've chosen, but also associated with the characters of the relevant social group (Rockers, metal heads, etc)

I have also used a number of live shots, taken at concerts I have been to myself and taken the photos myself at. These shots exercise a use of mise-en-scene (featuring amplifiers, stage lights, instruments and conventional clothing) to portray a particular image associated with the target audience/social groups. This image is the scene of concerts and live gigs. The live shots also show conventional characters often seen within the hard rock and heavy metal scene in both the UK and US.

The people seen in across the photos used in my magazine are very typical of the music styles I have chosen (as previously stated). They exercise some if not all of the above, fitting them comfortably into the social category. They compare reasonably well to images of others from their social category I have found on the internet despite the age gap between my models and the internet images.

My magazine suggests the chosen music style(s) mainly through the use of everything said above. Everything either directly relates to the music genre or reflects elements and conventions used in/associated with the music genre.

The written content in my magazine also makes use of a lot of starred out curse words. I believe this well reflects the attitude often attached to the followers of the magazine's music styles. Some of the text also directly references things only people of the music genre would recognise such as "The Big Four", a group of 4 bands (Slayer, Metallica, Anthrax and Megadeth) which together are the biggest names in Thrash Metal. 

 

Finally my contents page makes use of many of the previously listed conventions. It mainly exercises the use of odd fonts for titles that are seen in magazines such as Metal Hammer as well as models that fit into the stereotypical characters of hard rock and heavy metal.