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.
