Even though I won’t be marked on it, I decided to select some adverts to go in my magazine as I recognised that they are a conventional feature of a magazine. I have chosen this advert for my magazine because Frank Sinatra is heavily associated with the jazz genre and the readers of my magazine are at an age and have interests which will allow them to recognise him. I also believe that my target audience are of an age and demographic that they will drink whiskey and own lots of whiskey and by combining the two I can attract their audience and potentially attract them enough to buy some of the whiskey upon reading my magazine.
I chose this tour poster as another advert to be featured in my magazine because it promotes a jazz festival. This poster is very relevant to my magazine as it is for a jazz festival and this will succeed in attracting my audience and making sales for the company running the festival. I also chose it because I feel like the poster fits the cartoon jazz aesthetic which will appeal to the jazz enthusiasts who will be reading the magazine.
This is my second draft for my double page spread. I used the feedback given for my first draft and made changes to make it more conventional and appealing.
WHAT’S NEW:
New star image and edited it to fade out
Changed background colour
Changed layout of article numbers
New article font
Added a small list to fill space
Moved standfirst and flipped it
Made ‘Dark October’ all orange
Changed page numbers
Added a quote onto the star image
Put whole article on the right side of the DPS.
Added photography credits
Put the conclusion in it’s own box
WHAT’S NEXT:
Enlarge the main photo
Italics for the quote
Look at copy line spacing in the standfirst – justify to right and left?
Centre the quotes?
The gap in the middle?
Add some depth to the box at the bottom
Are all the numbers the same opacity
Inset photo feels too wide?
Make some of the hits names slightly bigger
Page numbers are usually at the bottom left and right
This is my second draft for the contents page of my jazz magazine ‘Lounge’. I used the feedback from my first draft and made some alterations to improve the quality.
WHAT’S NEW:
Added a piano keys theme to portray the genre more
Used a photo of another model in the inset image
Changed the white in ‘must see’ and ‘exclusive’ to yellow
Changed the colour of the background from white to pink
Added a shadow to the star image
Made the ‘contents’ title bigger
Changed the interviewee from ‘Joey Jazz Jr’ to ‘Dark October
WHAT’S NEXT:
Look at line spacing as no coherancy
More coverlines
Caption the inset…who is he? make slightly smaller? – add a filter?
Caption the main image?
Numbers bigger?
Dont mask his sax as that is important
Another yellow sub heading to make it 3
Bold 100 to make it stand out and a different font?
This is my updated draft of my magazine front page. I made changes from the feedback I received to create a better front page as it is crucial that my front page attracts the attention of potential customers.
WHAT’S NEW:
New cover star image which includes a new background colour
New masthead font and centered the masthead
Added another cover line to fill blank space
Edited pug to center the text more to look more professional
Slightly altered the shape of the pug to be more circular
Changed the colour of ‘hall of fame’ from light blue to white
WHAT’S NEXT:
Angle the pug
Numbers in pug a different colour
Coverlines move to the left a little
Make masthead bigger
Make him larger
Is the photo manipulated enough in photoshop
Try the typewriter font for some of the smaller lines
This is the first draft of my double page spread. I am trying to embody the jazz genre in this double page spread for my magazine and I chose different features and conventions to make my magazine portray the genre successfully.
These are my targets for my second draft of my double page spread.
Make it clear that it is his top 10 pieces advice in the stand first
Make the silhouette photo bigger and more dominant and make an inset out of the bench one
Make the numbers in the article bigger and different colours to stand out
Change the colour of the standfirst for colour blind readers.
Make the page numbers further into the magazine (page 12-13)
Give credits to the photographer
Need to add another quote to make it more conventional
Put a caption with my image and inset
extend the kerning to make the headline fit around the staples otherwise it won’t work in the magazine
Change the sans serif font to make it easier to read.
We at Lounge magazine, asked Dark October what he thought his best advice for anyone looking
to get up inside the jazz music scene was.
Dark October, also known as Elliott, is a new age jazz artist dedicated to reviving jazz. Elliott has been playing for 18 months now and his debut single ‘Near Green Hills’, was his claim to fame as it reached 35 million views on Youtube. Since then, the only way has been upwards, as he has signed with well known record label, ECM. and is looking forward to a tour of the UK in 2021. Thanks to ECM, his record label, we were able to ask him for his top tips for aspiring jazz artists.
Article
1. Never forget what you’re there for.
You can’t let the dream get out of sight, the moment you let it out of sight then you can basically say bye-bye to that dream coming to life. I know way too many people who had the vision and the potential but put their dreams aside for all the wrong reasons.
2. Sell yourself (Not like that!)
As a musician, you have to make yourself and sell yourself, and no not in the way that you’re thinking of! I can assure you that you aren’t the only local, unknown artist trying to make it big. You need to make yourself heard, put up posters and advertise your music on social media, do more than the next person who shares your dream.
3. Keep your friends and family close.
These people are the ones that are going to help you make this dream a reality so you cannot let yourself ruin relationships with these people, without them you are nothing. Once you’re at the top, if you don’t have the people who were with you from the start then you haven’t been successful in your endeavours.
4. A top quality instrument will be your best friend
Now I’m not saying that your actual best friend isn’t going to keep being your best friend but it is vital to have a sweet instrument that you can rely on. I know that price can be a difficulty but without my special little trumpet I’d be a nobody. I’ve had my old reliable for ages now and I can confidently say it has never failed me to this day.
5. Give yourself something to be recognisable
The importance of standing out in this industry cannot be overestimated, there are thousands of young musicians around and unless you have something unique then you will be just another musician in an ocean of originality. For me, I love to wear colourful and jazzy socks. My collection is endless and it helps me stand out to potential record labels and artists so I can make it big.
6. Stay the hell out of trouble
The kryptonite for young artists is getting all mixed up with the law and that’s not gonna look good for you unless you’re in the rap game, where it seems like being gangster is the entry requirement into a record deal. For everyone else, it’s much easier to just stay out of fights and everything else illegal, and don’t get hooked on illegal substances. Not until it’s legal anyway…
7. You cannot overstate the importance of snacks.
This is less of a serious tip but being a jazz artist that has had numerous studio sessions and countless road trips to concerts and without sufficient snacks and refreshments you will utterly regret it man. Whether it is to fulfil your hunger or to basically pass the time, you need snacks. My advice, Skittles… and lots of them.
8. Buy yourself a pet, seriously
If I couldn’t go home to my precious Domino after a tiring performance then what is the point in even performing. Being greeted by a pet when you come home doesn’t compare to anything, it is my favourite feeling. My cat, Domino loves to unwind to jazz records with me and I look forward to seeing him all day long. Actually, I might be more excited to see my cat than I am to see my girlfriend, I hope she doesn’t see this.
9. Keep your options open.
The harsh truth is that not everybody is going to make it big, so take every opportunity that you can which could make you a better, more successful person. You have to give your all to music but focusing on college is going to be crucial for your future and your growth as a cool human being.
10. Materialistic items don’t guarantee happiness
The amount of people who associate success with items like expensive clothes and cars and mansions is crazyyyyy, but I’m not about to tell you how to be happy. If it floats your boat then good on you, go get yourself some expensive s*** and be happy. But for everyone else, enjoying the little things is where it’s really at; sunsets, animals, good music, eating good food. Man the list could go on forever but you gotta find happiness in other ways because you won’t always be rich.
Dark October won the Promising Young Musician of 2020 by The Guardian and is looking forwards to huge amounts of success in the future and there is lots of potential for Elliott with his new record label.
As Elliott was leaving he told us it was a pleasure and his final remark was ‘Are you going to finish those’ as he looked at the editor eating a bag of skittles, to which the editor replied ‘Go ahead’. He must really like those snacks…
For my location shoot yesterday I went to Castle Cornet with my model to take photos for my magazine. I wanted to capture the jazz genre and I chose this model because I feel that he showed resemblance to a musician and I requested that he comes in a tuxedo and then I slicked back his hair with gel and provided him with a trumpet and a retro microphone as they both helped to convey my genre. I also provided him with a small jeweled ring because the small details are important to me and I also supplied him with a pair of socks with colourful cherries on as I would classify them as jazzy. I used close ups, high and low angles, midshots and rule of three’s to give myself a wide range of options when it comes to choosing my favourite shots for my magazine. I was very fortunate to be able to shoot on a day where the sun was very bright as it created a very adequate lighting for my shots. If I could redo the shoot then I would make sure I took more photos with the right exposure and focus as I have too many that could have been excellent however they were ruined by terrible exposure and being out of focus.
I am a big fan of the lighting in this as it is very similar to that of a jazz club and it is very lowkey to show the relaxed mood associated with jazz and in the background it is like they are curtains to a dressing room and my model has just come out to perform. I wish I could have shown more of the frame as there was some barriers that looked very professional.
I used a low shot for this photo and it looks like a professional photo of a jazz musician entering a venue or leaving a show and I feel that this photo would be very effective to accompany an article and there is lots of space in the sky to put text to go around the model. The road that the model is on has been shot to look like the road to glory or fame and that is emphasised by using rule of three’s and putting him in the centre of the shot to show his importance and popularity.
I was very passionate about this shot because it would make a great double page spread as the artist is to one side of the photo and there is plenty of room to place the text and it also promotes the chilled out side of the jazz genre to appeal to jazz fans. I really like this photo because it looks like an album cover and I was very lucky with the lighting.
I have decided that on my double page spread I am going to include a 10 top tips, and to help myself write this I am going to analyse ‘Q (September 2017) 10 commandments, unknown author’.
In the article there is clear evidence of the key journalistic techniques, the 5 Ws and an H. We can easily recognise that the article is about the artist Wyclef Jean as it is in big font at the top of the page, we know what the article involves because at the top there is an arrow in a bold red which stands out from the background and it is called the ’10 commandments’, we know where to find this article as there is a title just above the 10 tips and the arrow points towards the article, we know why this article has been written because there is a caption saying ‘The rapper and musician’s rules for life.’ which is a perfect caption to introduce the article, we know when this article was written because there is a date at the bottom of the page and finally we don’t completely know how this article was written. A simple introduction saying ‘we spoke to Wyclef Jean about his 10 top tips’ would have been sufficient.
It is very evident that this article is a ’10 tips for life’ as there is large numbers for the tips with bold captions alongside them which makes it accessible for a wide range of audience, and it is laid out in a simple list style and the simplicity is effective because it allows a younger demographic to read it and therefore creates a wider target audience for their magazine.
We aren’t completely aware of the presence of the journalist because he doesn’t include any 1st, 2nd or 3rd person language and it sounds like the interviewee is just talking to himself so the journalist could have made the audience more aware of his presence in this article and the impact of this is that the audience can withdraw a sense of personal identity and associate themselves with the celebrity if it is obvious that the journalist has had the ability to speak to them and interview them and the article lost that personal identification. The article is written in 1st person and it is all quoted from the celebrity being interviews and the effect of this is that it makes the audience feel like they are being spoken to directly by the celebrity and then the celebrity will seem ordinary and accessible to the audience which caters to the preferred reading of the audience as they will feel included. We can clearly notice the introduction however a clear conclusion isn’t included which would be helpful in wrapping up the interview and setting the stage for the next page in the magazine.
In the interview, it has been worded like a conversation and there is also explicit language inside as well which further connotes the idea of it being quite personal and that the reader can feel involved because of this and it also entertains the audience because the language isn’t filtered and therefore they are getting honest opinions and answers. The tone and register are informal but don’t have a direct correlation to the genre of rap from which the interviewee came to fame. There is metaphors and similes included in the interview but only the ones that the interviewee has used as there is hardly any presence from the journalist. Each paragraph is quoted from the celebrity being interviewed so it is all quotes. From reading the article, the audience are able to get a source of personal identity, information and entertainment due to the personal feeling as there is no filtered language so it is like having a conversation with the celebrity.
In this article, the journalist has had little to no presence but he has represented the celebrity as very ordinary and accessible as he hasn’t filtered the explicit language and has included full answers from the celebrity and he has also been portrayed as a smart and wise figure as he is passing on knowledge whether it is serious or not which is a good source of information for the reader.
I created a production meeting agenda for the 2nd photo shoot on the 8th December 2020. In this agenda, I listed the costumes/makeup, props and equipment that were necessary to help convey the ideas I had for my contents page and double page spread pictures. I wanted to use a nice suit as that fits my genre and it will denote the jazz genre but I’d like to add some variations in the shape of tattoos and differently colour variants to make my magazine unique and stand out from the other magazines. The props will be extremely important for my photos because they have to have something unique to them while also being conventional which may be difficult but it would pay off would I be able to make it work. With the risk assessment, I will have to make sure my models are safe from the possible falling hazard and I will put their safety first at all time. We will be near the sea as well so I will advise my models to stay clear of anywhere where they could fall, and they should be aware that the infrastructure is old and could possibly have falling parts so I will guide them to be careful and not come into strong contact with the castle itself so it doesn’t get damaged.
