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

In the magazine industry there are 9 conventions that are used in order to create a successful magazine, these are:

-The Title of the Magazine-Mise-en-scene of images-Costumes and props
-People
-Title font and Style
-Written content
-Music Genre
-Layout
-Contents page
All this conventions are either used in order to create a magazine that’s successful or challenged to risk creating a fresh new direction magazine that may not sale well. My work mixes the use of the conventions with the challenging of them.

The 9 conventions that I have included and challenged in my work

The Title of the magazine: I decided to use the font “HARD ROCK” for my title, as it gave it the look and feel I wanted in order to relate to the genre I had chosen. I had chosen the title “J-Rock” as it is the shorthand version of “Japanese Rock”, which is the genre I have chosen to do for my magazine, so the title helps identify this. In the case for my title, I have conformed to the convention instead of challenging it as my title is placed at the top middle of the page.

Mise-en-scene of images: For my images, I chose to take a mixture of high angle, low angle and eye level shots; this is to give my models various characteristics instead of just being over empowering or moody, with my shots I’ve mainly focused on the group or split the group up into pairs, I did this to avoid focusing on anyone band member so they all seemed equal and no one stood out from it. I removed the background from my main image In order to focus more in the band members, but for my other image I left the background in to keep the atmosphere of the genre, the band and the article.

Customs and props: Before taking my picture I made sure my models wore something that fitted with the genre and would help identify them with the J-Rock scene, one of my models turned up in a “Super-dry” top with is a Japanese make so it would help relate to the j-rock scene via the logo. Also one of the models turned up in items of clothing that are linked with general rock and punk so it helped with the image.

People: In my magazine, the people I included were of the band members that the feature article was about. They were chosen for their rocky style and look.

Title and Font: During the development of my magazine I experimented with various fonts and styles, but I finally settle on three to use throughout my magazine. The main two I used “Verdana” which was used for smaller text during the feature article, was used because it was clearer and was also easy to adapt to the style of the magazine. The font “Hard Rock” I used for major text pieces such as the magazine title and the title of the feature article, I used it as it related to the genre. The third and final font I used was “Varisity Regular” This was used once in the feature article for the description of the article, I used it has it stood out and enticed the reader to read it before the article.

Written Content: With the example of my written content picture, I kept to the house style of the magazine as well as using key elements from the genre to help make the written content more attractive. For example, the use of Japanese “Kanji” text in order to give some text areas the feeling of genuine authenticity.

Music Genre: With all the aspects of my magazine in place, it gives off the feel of a J-Rock magazine, although J-rock can be and is more varied that Western rock genre’s e.g. Western rock genre branch off into many style and each has their own look and feel. But with J-rock even though its broad the style can be twisted this way and that to look a certain way, but still retain what the look of J-rock should be, and my magazines matches this convention of J-rock magazines, but it challenges those of the Western rock magazine.

Lay-out: As pictured, the layout of my magazine’s double page spread, I followed the main conventions of them e.g. pull-out quotes, drop cap an columns. But while doing this I added to these convention such as using large text to help border and make my feature article stand out and more in your face.

Contents Page: Even with my contents page pictures, it contains two main pictures, one for my feature article and another for a regular article, this helps give the feeling of the familiarity with a regular article being pictures and mentioned within the first page of the magazine.