For my first year production I was required to make the
front page, contents page and a double page spread of an industry style music
magazine, I decided to make a rock/metal magazine and needed this to be quickly
noticeable within the style and layout of the magazine. My layout was heavily
influenced by other music magazine such as Q and Kerrang, and I analysed the
codes and conventions of these magazines to gain an understanding of how to
represent my magazine.
From the magazines I had looked at, a stereotypical colour
scheme for a rock/metal magazine was to use dark colours, I wanted to stick to
the common conventions of other media pieces as I wanted to be certain that my
piece clearly fit into its respective genre, so I used black and red as my two
primary colours throughout the pages I made as this represented my magazine as
the genre I was aiming for. I conveyed the stereotypical rock genre layout by
using a split between the letters on my masthead and making the bottom of the
letters look faded and dirty, this seemed to be a common convention of most
rock magazines as they tried to convey this image of grunge. This style of font
represents aggression and violence which would appeal to the audience of the
magazine I had created as it was primarily directed at teens, who
archetypically are associated with violence, vandalism, and disrespect. I aimed
to also appeal to my audience through the photography I had taken, firstly the
photo on the front cover, it depicted a group of teens (the band) sitting in a
stairwell looking directly at the camera, this generated direct mode of address
and due to the stereotypical view of teens generated by society it grants a
small amount of threat to the audience as teens are perceived as violent
youths. Again this idea can be seen within the photo I used for my double page
spread which shows two teens together, one looking directly at the audience
again and the other about to smash a guitar on the floor, this supports the
archetypical view of teenagers as it represents teenagers as being violent and
aggressive, and the direct mode of address helps to support this, however this
aggressive image could also be represented in a very different way as the high
angle camera shot perceives the two teens as 'weak' as we look down on them,
this could generate alternate representations for this image.. There is also a
counter typical representation of teens within my magazine as well, and this
can be seen within the contents page where 3 girls are standing side by side,
this does not follow any of the stereotypical negative connotations of teens,
but instead just shows 3 girls standing beside each other for the photo.
The two quotes on the double page spread each provide a different
representation for the audience, the first "we are the ones running the
show, despite what you think" stereotypically represents the band as being
obnoxious teens, however the second quote "we were ecstatic; we couldn't
believe what we had achieved" does not represent the band as being
stereotypical teens, it represents them counter typically as they appear to be
modest about their achievements.
The pictures located on the contents page that represent
free posters to be found within the magazine depict a sexualised female wearing
red lipstick and grungey clothes to represent the rock music genre, this image
applies to Mulvey's belief of the 'male gaze', Mulvey stated that women were
objectified in film because heterosexual men were in control of the camera,
this can also be applied to these pictures as the female seen is sexualised,
this representation is emphasised due to features such as the red lipstick
which stereotypically represents lust when it is on a woman, and enhances this
idea of the 'male gaze'.
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