Contents Page – Draft 1 and feedback

Compare and contrast some real contents pages – what do you notice that is similar among them all?  Use the real magazines in class.

Menu/Ingredients
  • Editors hello
  • Page numbers
  • Hyperbole and superlatives in headlines
  • Images and word clues
  • Graphic illustrations and designs
  • Reminder of the magazine’s name and mission statement

It will also contain some photos that relate to the listed articles / features.

Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

SOME INSPIRATION

Use some of the ideas in the Headline Grabbers post to craft some intriguing, exciting, captivating captions and cover lines.

Feedback Draft 2 Contents Page

Record on your phone, a peer giving you feedback on…have a conversation

  • How does the contents page work in tandem with the front cover?
    • Is the font/typeface consistent with the front cover?
    • What genre of music is the contents page featuring?
  • Describe the images of the stars using adjectives.
  • Which cover-lines tempt the audience to read on and which ones stand out and why?
  • How do the cover-lines reflect a music magazine? If they don’t,  which ones need to be adapted?
  • Which areas, aspects have distracting areas of integration of copy and images?
  • What aspects do you consider conventional or unconventional (page numbers, inserts, captions, catchy cover lines, editors comment?
  • Summarize and then act on their feedback with @ 3-5 specific targets to address.

Headline Grabbers – ideas for your cover lines, captions and contents page

Must use words for your headlines:

click on the image to see some exciting headline ideas
click on the image to see some exciting headline, caption ideas

AND REFLECT MORE ON YOUR POSTS – many of you are taking a quick and easy route out.  What’s New and What’s Next but start to really think about how your product looks and how it caters for your audience and fits the genre and conveys star image and also tells a ‘story’, conveys a narrative.  MORE PLEASE. Not essays but just more bullet points please.

 

The Double Paged Spread

What is a double page spread?

Quite simply, an article that takes up 2 pages and includes copy and photographs. It is usually the ‘centre’ two pages of a magazine and will usually feature the main cover star from the front cover. In other words, it is THE BIG STORY.

In the New Year, we will be focusing on the copy, headlines, captions and how to write the main feature for the double page spread. Writing well and in the right register for your audience is a skill all media communicators need to master.

In the meantime, mocking up and drafting your double page spread should be done before Christmas.

Here are some examples of music magazine double page spreads.

 

Conventions

Here are some basic conventions, codes of how a double page spread usually appears.

  1. The image will go across the two pages or be on one with the writing on the other side.  Usually the photo goes on the left but not always.  The writing in a column will NEVER be split across the staple line!
  2. Stand first– this is an introduction to the article – it will sum up/precis what the article is all about and entice the reader to read on.
  3. Drop capital – it extends down 3 or 4 lines.  At the start of paragraphs the first letter is often much larger; makes reading easier and acts as navigation through the text.
  4. Quotes – can be controversial and used to break up the copy/text or act as a headline and could use a larger, stand out font.
  5. Headline – sometimes a quote from the interview with the artist. Often uses alliteration so that the headline stands out.
  6. The By Line – says who the article is by.
  7. Direct address – the model will often break the 4th wall.
  8. Columns usually 2 or 4 with equal guttering (spacing horizontally between paragraphs and vertically between columns).
  9. Colour scheme – continues with the brand, vibe of the other pages i.e. cover colour scheme.
  10. Page numbers and a little version of masthead or logo somewhere on the page.
  11.  Instead of full stop at the end of the article they use a small block or something to do with their logo/masthead (for example on NME they might have an ‘n’).
  12. Appropriate language/register to establish a relationship with the target audience.
  13. They may have a release date for album or a tour date.
  14. On the photo they usually have somewhere by it the name of the photographer.
  15. Questions to the artist from the interview will be in a different colour, and the name of person who asked the question.

Planning and Writing The Article

Task 1 – LANGUAGE ANALYSIS (Blog Post)

Choose one of the double page spread articles below:

  1. Biography 
  2. Intro to a long read.
  3. 10 Tips for Life
  4. Q&A
  5. New Band
  6. Album Reviews
  7. Interview

Use this document to help you unpick (analyse) the article and explore how the journalist is using language to create AIDA.

Your analysis should be between 350-400 words and should be typed into your blog along with a link to the article you’re analysing.

Task 2 – ARTICLE IDEA DEVELOPMENT (Blog Post)

  1. Make a copy of this document, complete your notes and embed in your blog.
  2. Develop a hook for your article which outlines  your approach.

‘A hook’ is a treatment for an article. It usually is part of the pitch that a writer or journalist will make to their editor before they are given permission to spend time writing the article.

The hook must include:
  1. Who are you writing for?
  2. What is important to your audience?
  3. What news is currently trending?
  4. How are you going to start?

Here is the full article on hooks for magazine articles.

Write the blog post on your plans for the article called Article Idea Development

Preparation for writing the article

Choose one of the following tasks:

  • If it’s an interview you should develop a range of questions (and answers), which you can build into your article.
  • If it’s a review of an album or a gig, you should develop some details of the event and elements to review
  • If it’s a general article about a genre of music (10 Best…) you should do some research into the music and famous artists/albums.
  • If it’s a biography piece you need to invent 5-10 interesting life events of your star / band that the audience want to know about.

If your article does not fit into one of these discuss your planning ideas with your teacher.

TASK 3 – DRAFT YOUR FEATURE ARTICLE (Blog Post)

  • Transfer your ideas from the template and then re-edit, re-craft into a completed article.
    • Read it out loud and record on a voice memo MP3 and embed into blog.
  • Submit for feedback from your teacher via classroom.
  • Summarise feedback and targets from the teacher and your own recording.
  • You can then redraft it for insertion into your DPS once designed.

EXEMPLAR

HERE ARE LINKS TO PREVIOUS STUDENTS’ WORK:

  1. PERSONAL – ALBUM REVIEW WITH QUOTES
  2. INTERVIEW

DSLR Settings for Outside Portraits

Default DSLR Settings

  1. Shoot in Manual mode.
  2. ISO – low like 100-400 if possible,
    • Higher if a faster shutter speed is needed.
  3. Focus mode – auto-focus, set it to a single point and use shutter button to focus.
  4. Aperture – between f/2 and f/4 for a single subject (get the background out of focus) or f/5.6-f/8 for groups.
  5. Shutter speed – 1/200th handheld
  6. White balance – choose the appropriate preset for the lighting conditions

Location Shoot Planning

These are 3 documents that you must complete and upload the first 2 to your blog:

‘Production Meeting Agenda For 2nd Photo Shoot’

  1. Risk Assessment – make a copy
    • As you will be remotely supervised that day, you will need to consider the risks of being on location and discuss them with your teacher and your model(s) to ensure your own and others’ safety. Print it out and get your teacher to check it through and sign it.
  2. Production Meeting Agenda – make a copy
    • This is vital so that everyone knows what they are expected to bring for the shoot – costumes, make up, props etc.
  3. You should also complete this shared planning document in discussion with your models and teacher.

Location Shoot Photos

Here are the location photos from Castle Cornet, Castle Emplacement, Candie Gardens and The Priaulx Library, Town and St James.

Please use this photos in order to understand the nature of the  locations available to you and to consider what sort of story can be best told in this location.

Also, given the location you choose, what sort of mood / tone are you going to try to adopt that can be most easily created in these locations and which suits the genre of your music magazine.

St James

Priaulx Library Photos

Candie Gardens Photos

Castle Cornet

St Peter Port

Town.

Setting up Your Adobe Indesign Project

ONE PROJECT…MANY DRAFTS

You will create one Adobe InDesign project for your whole magazine, not separate projects for each page.

You should create a total of six pages:

  • Front Page
  • Advert
  • Contents Page
  • Double Page Spread (2 pages)
  • Advert

You do this by opening the ‘Pages‘ tab in the top right and adding five additional pages. See below.

Drafting & Redrafting

When you have finished a draft you should save as ‘Draft 2, 3, 4 …’ This means you can go back to previous versions later if necessary.