Test Shots and Mise en Scene

Test Shots and Mise en Scene:



Because I am only at the planning stage I only wanted to experiment with different angles and lighting to begin to get a picture of what sort of image I want on my front cover. I don’t think that I will be using any of the below images as my final image, as they would need to be edited and I am not completely happy with the lighting in any of them, despite this I will be photo shopping my favourites and may possibly be using them in my drafts. In the way of mise en scene, I want the clothing of the artist to be minimalistic (like the clothing in the test shots) however I want the makeup to look quite dramatic (which I obviously didn’t focus on in the test shots). In order to ensure the focus of the cover is the artists face. I did not use any props or many different looks in my test shots and I think that having a prop such as a guitar helps to fill more of the page and establishes the magazine as a music magazine, just from sitting on the shelf. Therefore, I might add in a prop when creating my drafts and ask for audience feedback.   I also want a clear background (preferably of a light colour). The reason for this is because I want to feature image to stand out amongst the texts. I  have definitely decided that I want the my front cover story and image to be a new, upcoming female artist as not only did my market research suggest that the audience would be interested in having new artists in the magazine but because there are not many female indie/indie rock artists, leaving a gap in the market. The double page spread will be an introducing article, in the style of an interview, discussing the artists new EP.



Test Shots:

I took these photos on my iPhone. I like the fourth shot (bottom left) and the fifth shot (bottom middle) the most because I think they could be edited to make them look quite professional. However I think the lighting could be much brighter, I am looking for quite stark lighting because I think it suits the genre and style of magazine I am creating. It is possible I might use some of these shots in drafting just as a basis however I wont be using these as my final photos.

I took these photos on two different cameras (Olympus and FinePix) just to see if I could improve the overall quality. However I actually prefer the photos I originally took on my phone, I think that the below images are not suitable because they are not properly promoting my artist and do not think that enough lighting is present.

Layouts -

Front cover:

These are two very basic but possible layouts, I do not want writing covering the whole page and so at the minute I do prefer the first layout and I will most likely use it as a basis for constructing drafts, however I will construct both and a range of others when creating drafts and ask my target audience which they prefer. I really like the style of 'Clash' Magazine front covers and so I would like to make the style of my front cover similar.

Contents page:

Again these are two basic designs, however I want my contents page to be eligible and clear for the reader and not too crowded and messy, although I think this style does give off the "indie" vibe, the results from my market research show that a "sharp, clean" style would be preferred, in saying this I will be using the second style as a plan layout for my drafts.

Double page spread:

I found the double page spread much harder to plan layouts for because I think the layout will come together during the drafting stages when all the components are added together. However, I have created a couple of generic ideas for what one of my drafts could look like, I personally prefer the first idea as I think having a whole side dedicated to a photo is quite unique compared to other magazines, I also like the way it looked in "Acoustic" magazine which I analysed.