Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I have made a collage on Photoshop of the key elements of my music magazine. These elements are from the front cover, contents page and double page spread. I have done this so I compare my key elements to an existing magazine. I can then make comparisons and show similarities and differences. Below is a collage of things from existing music magazines.

The title of my magazine is a mess with words. The title "Phlawless" comes from the word "Flawless" which means amazing or unbelievable. I wanted my title to have a meaning with a play with words so that's why I chose this title. Unlike other magazines, they have titles such as "Kerrang!" or "Smash Hits". These do not have dictionary meanings of words but the titles relate to the music. I used the idea of having an exclamation mark in my title as I thought this brought out the title a little bit more. I have used a thrashed and scattered font to show that the music is very thrashed and metal. I have also given it a white colour as it stands out on the dark background.

I have chosen for my images to be in remote locations as it reflects on what the music is about. Heavy metal, rock music tends to be able life and life's problems. I thought that if I had a bush/ tree/ forest background with a bright light, it would make the band look professional. The people on the front cover of my magazine have no costumes. They simply wear normal clothes when performing their songs. For the picture, it would be unnecessary for the band to wear clothes different to what they perform in. Being in a dark environment, the lighting in the picture needs to be bright. This is what I have tried to achieve. By using a Digital SLR, I was able to achieve good lighting as the flash contributes a lot of artificial light.

I have not used any props in my pictures because I didn't want to use any. I didn't want to use them because I realised they would be in the way of the overall look I wanted to create. I wanted to create a simple look without adding props. I could have added props such as instruments etc, but this proved to be difficult. So I worked around this problem and carried on creating the effect I originally wanted.

The band "Forgiven Rival" are an all male band. There are five members in the band and I have only 3 people in the picture. It would have been better if I had more people as it would have made a better effect, however, I still think the people look professional and that they look part of a band.

I have used a range of different font styles and colours within my front cover, contents and double page spread. I Have used fonts which I thought were suitable for my genre. On my front cover, I have used fancy fonts such as "Birth of a Hero" and I have used a simple font such as "Arial". I have used these two fonts because they are completely different. I think if I used too many different fonts on my front cover, the audience would be put off as they wouldn't know where to look first. Even though it is not that visible, I have put a black outline on my title as I thought this gave it a shadow effect. If I put a shadow on or left it blank, the title wouldn't be as interesting. Throughout my magazine, I have continued to used "Birth of a Hero" as this font represents my magazine and I have also continued to use the simple font "Arial" because it doesn't overload my contents page with different fonts and colours.

I have chosen to do a interview in my magazine. I chose to do this because I thought it would suit the band I was interviewing. I knew the kind of questions I could make up and what the answers could be from day 1. So, I thought I would stick with that idea throughout. The written content is a simple question and answer where the questions and answers are in two different colours so the reader can differentiate between the two. I have asked relevant questions towards music, but have also asked some personal questions. I thought this would attract the attention of the reader. I haven't used complex language because I think that the audience could get quite confused with some words. I have tried to keep the language as simple as possible.

Overall, I have tried to make my magazine represent the genre of music it is about. It would be pointless if I had pictures of models because this does not represent my genre. The picture on my cover shows image of rock/metal music because they are standing straight with no facial expressions. This gives them the impression that they are serious about being a band and about playing music. Different colours and styles reflects on my genre because rock music is about wearing different clothing with different types of people.

I have tried to layout my masthead and my cover lines and simply as possible as I didn't want half my picture to be covered up and I wouldn't like for my front cover to be overload with cover lines too. I have tried to line up and keep my font as straight as possible. I have tried to keep the same layout within my magazine because if the layouts are completely different, the whole magazine would not look professional. I have also tried to keep the text relatively in line as this
makes it look neat. I have also rotated some text because it makes the layout of my magazine minimalist.

My contents page is filled with different things. All the things in my magazine are music related. I have added pages numbers to let the reader know which article is on which page. I have added a border around the outside of my contents page but the picture that is in the top left, breaks the boundry and goes outside of the image. This gives the magazine a rebelious effect. I chose to give my background a gradient of blue and white because I tried adding a picture, but it didn't look right. The picture has a grass background with plants. I was advised to change this because it didn't suit my genre. I solved this by adding a black stripe in the middle of my contents page. I put it across my whole contents page to make sure it looked right. I incoportated the stripe between his legs as this looked more professional.
Overall, both my magazine and other magazines have similarites and differences. My magazine has a variety of colours and and brushes but other magazines would have the same layouts, fonts and contents pages.

This is the other music magazine collage.
































This is a video of "Forgiven Rival" that I did a made up interview with.