In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
(i.e. of music magazines)
My masthead ‘Grime Culture’ challenges conventions, as
it is a long magazine name as opposed to traditional magazine names where it is
usually a few letters that may be abbreviations for something such as is the
case with ‘NME’, ‘MOJO’, ‘XXL’ and ‘Q’ magazine. Therefore by having two long
words my masthead spans the whole top of the page where as these other
magazines are usually in the top left hand corner of the page. Also I used the
font ‘Plane crash’ which was downloaded from an online font website, it
developed conventions as it was generally a bold, block type font similar to
those used in ‘MOJO’, ‘NME’ and ‘XXL’ but it also has a slightly eroded
appearance which is an adaptation and further development of traditional
masthead conventions.
Fonts used throughout my magazine include ‘Coconut
express 01’, ‘Geneva CY’, ‘Jack Frost’ and ‘Plane crash’. I used ‘Plane crash’
for my masthead and the name of my artist on both the cover and double page
spread, I also used it for the article title on my cover, I chose this font as
it stood out as it was bold but also because the eroded look was unique and
would help me avoid producing a generic looking magazine, therefore this font
was used for large pieces of text that I wished to be most visible on my
magazine. ‘Coconut express 01’ was also found on dafont.com and I used it as
the main text for my magazine as it features as the font for the main bodies of
text such as the information on the contents, the cover lines on the cover and
for the article on my double page spread. I tried to keep the same font
consistent for most the magazine to prevent the final piece looking messy.
‘Geneva CY’ was a less used font and was only used for the magazine issue and price,
as it was easy to see for important information. ‘Jack frost’ was also only
used once and was used for my contents, as this uses conventions in a lot of
magazines where the contents title is a different font to the rest of the
magazine. These use conventions for music magazines as it is traditional to
have a limited number of fonts with each font serving a single purpose in the
magazine, examples from my magazine and other magazines are shown below.
One outfit was used consistently in my magazine but it
was carefully chosen to best represent Grime artists and give a realistic feel.
The general theme was black clothing which uses conventions of Grime music and
grime artists, the clothes themselves were branded by North face and Nike who
are very popular with fans and anyone involved in grime music.
My artist was also of an African ethnicity which
is similar to a lot of grime artists, while this is not a necessity for Grime
artists to be of African ethnicity, the way most songs and verses are written
and performed suits the Nigerian accent which is why many successful Grime
artists share a Nigerian or close by African countries background therefore I
followed conventions by using someone with Nigerian descent. Finally I used
props by having some photos taken in certain locations such as a rundown skate
park in Lutterworth which gives a feeling of lower class backgrounds which are
shared by many artists through the rough nature of the surroundings in the
photo, this combined with the picture being taken at night also adds an element
of danger which follows conventions of this type of music genre and similar
ones such as Rap.
The camerawork and framing of the pictures I did
provided a range of different shots including, close ups, mid shots, two shots
and low shots. This uses and develops conventions for grime music as I
primarily used close ups which is seen with many hip hop or rap artists in
magazines but I have developed this by combining it with low shots to give a
greater sense of power for the artist. As is seen in on my cover page.
The genre of my magazine defies conventions, as
it is the first Grime specific music magazine, and even most big multi-genre
music magazines do not cover any grime music. The magazine shows repeatedly
what genre it is and proves it in a number of ways starting with the title:
Grime Culture. It is a basic name but gets straight to the point of what the
magazine will contain which is useful to the reader. The contents also suggests
it as all the articles make reference to Grime artists or related things to the
genre, also the title of the magazine can be found at the bottom of every page
and written frequently throughout the magazine.
Throughout my magazine my artist is represented
as a self-made successful person who faced a lot of challenges growing up in a
difficult neighbourhood which follows conventions of how most artists are seen
in Grime music as the majority grew up in rough areas and achieved success
without a music label to produce for them. This is shown in my magazine
primarily in the double page spread article, but despite this he is represented
also in a way that commands a lot of respect, which uses conventions of many
popular artists not just in the Grime genre but also in every music genre and
this is done by the information in the contents describing him as running the
grime scene.
The colour scheme I used was mainly monochrome with
different shades of red throughout my magazine, by having these hints of red I
was able to keep certain pictures in colour which I think contributed to the
overall success of my magazine by allowing me to be more flexible when
combining different elements. This uses and develops conventions by using the
monochrome colour scheme popular in many magazines and developing it to add
hints of colour spread throughout.
