My Article

The new artist Eve Kingston, has taken a rollercoaster ride to the top of the charts for the past few months, and we are here to learn a bit more about her, and all the nitty gritty gossip you just love to know!

So, Eve, how old were you when you first became interested in music?

I first became interested in music when I was 8 years old, and my dad had brought a guitar for mum to play on, and she started to teach me the chords, and after that, you could never stop me playing and singing.

How is celebrity life treating you?

It’s different, and hard to explain, people think that it must be amazing because everyone loves you, but there is a lot of stress involved, and you cannot always do what you want to do, as you know everyone is out to watch you.

Did you ever think you could get this far in a music career?

Never, it was always a dream of mine, but you never think it is really going to happen, you always think it happens to all the pretty girls who have everything when they are younger and for it to happen to someone who has had a ‘challenging’ up-bringing, and it’s really amazing.

Do you feel that your music has changed now that you are a celebrity?

My music will never change, I try to keep it the same, as that shows me, and if people don’t like it then that is fine, they are all entitled to their own opinion.

Who were your early inspirations?

When I was younger I used to listen to all the old songs, so my inspirations would be people such as Blondie, I always listened to other music, but would my own twist on it.

The important question, everyone wants to know the answer too, how is your love life?

Oh, my love life, every magazine wants to know about this! So this will be the first magazine I will tell, I am in a relationship, and have been for 8 years now, I am amazed that I kept it so long from the gossip word.

What an achievement for you! Have any of your relationships inspired any of your songs?

Yes definitely, my boyfriend now, Carl, he was my first ever boyfriend when I was 6, it was one of the playground jokes, but we stayed together, and that lasted an amazing year and a half! He helped me through a lot and I wrote songs about that, most of my songs have something about him, as he is my life, and I would not be here now, if it was not for him.

What advice would you give people, who are just trying to start out into the music industry?

It’s tough, that’s all I can really say...I got taken in by someone who liked the style of songs I do, just go to a lot of open mic nights and really push yourself.

Do you have supportive family and friends backing you?

Yes, I do, I don’t think that anyone could get this far, especially in the music industry without a support behind you, like I have.

What was your childhood like?

I had a ‘different’ childhood, me, my mum and dad lived in a council flat, and I never thought I would get out of there, my life started to go off the rails, mainly due to my mum’s bad life style, when I was 7 years old she walked out on me, when my dad way away at work, the only people there for me was Carl and his family, they looked after me, until my Dad returned and then social services came around as my dad needed to work away, and could not support me, I got taken in by a foster home, and lived there till I was 18, then I moved in with Carl and tried to get my life back on track with my music.

We are so sorry to hear that, how did you get over it?

I played, that was my answer, I had Carl by my side through everything, and also my Dad, we are very close and he has supported me, and given me everything he was capable of giving me.

My Progress

Test Shots

Research and Planning Feedback

Call Sheets

Name: Eve Kingston
Age: 16
Contact: 07653257915

Name: Alex Cairns
Age: 16
Contact: 07556342673

Name: Tom Pilkington
Age: 17
Contact: 07868956443

Action Plan

There are 6 weeks until the Easter break which means - 6 weeks of lesson time to complete my foundation portfolio.

There are 60 marks available for construction and 20 marks for Research and Planning and 20 marks for evaluation - 100 marks in total

To achieve a grade:

A I need to get 80 marks

B I need to get 70 marks

C I need to get 60 marks

To be in level 4 (grade A/B) my work must demonstrate excellence throughout.

By Monday 5th March I should have a rough cut of my products

By Monday 19th March my products should be completed

From Monday 19th - Friday 30th March I will be working on my 7 evaluation questions.

The my completed portfolio should be submitted for formal marking on Monday 16th April. I should use the Easter break to make any minor amendments to my work.

My Mood Board

This is my mood board, it shows the sort of indie artists i will show in my magazine, and the ways i will show my magazine to people using social networking. It shows the artists that will match my genre and what my readers will like.

Model Release Forms

Risk & Assesments

Evidence of Organising

Recce

Test Shots

These are my test shots that i took, in the Studio.

This is the first picture i took of a model, i was experimenting with lights and camera shots i could use. The lights were not set right so i changed my angel and then altered the lights to improve my shot to this:

This si the improved shot i took, to show the model in a medium close up, this shows the models expression and body language, which is good for my audience to see.

I then changed my camera shot, and got a high angle shot of my model when she was in a lower position, which will be good on my contents page, which gives my audience fee closer to the model in the image, and feel like they are on the same level as her.

My Improved Flat Plans

I have improved my flat Plans according to what was said about them in my class.

My new Front page.

My new Contents page. I have changed the colour scheme, to use yellow, black, red and white if needed. The main image will show you clearly what the magazines main article will be about, which will attract them.

My new Double page spread. I have used the same house 

style all the way through which will attract my audience and they can easily see hat it is from the same magazine. They can navigate easier as it has the sub titles of what they might want to look at.

In the double page spread this will entice my audience again as the main image is in the middle of the page, and gives the affect that they are running across the page. I will use the same idea as my first attempt and use the quotes, as i will be doing a question and answer so they can see what the models have really said, and this is a quick easy way for my readers to see if they want to rad on, and then they will read the whole article.

Planning an Article

For my introduction of my article on my double page spread i will write about the artists or band i have used for my main image on that page. The layout of my article will be a question and answer form, this is to entise the readers into the article, as it will tell them interesting facts about the artists, things that are not normally advertised in a magazine. The questions i will ask will be something that is not normally asked, and i iwll use qoutes from what they have said to show that it is what they have said and has not been speculated on. This will entise my readers as they will feel closer to the artists as they have been able to see their full replies to the questions they have answered, without being edited by the media. I will make sure that the questions are shown in a different colour and bold so that the readers can scan easily to see which questions they would like to read rather than reading the whole article.

Image Analysis and Composition

The artist in this image has a depressed body language, you can see this because he is mainly titled down and he does not look at the camera in any of these shots. The image is in black and white to show that the image is not a happy image and shows his feelings through lack of colour used. The shot distance is a close up, to show his feelings and lack of expression on his face. He has the word LOVE written on his hand, this shows what his feelings are about. His costume is minimal and casual to show that he has not dressed up for this photo shoot, and so you do not focus on his clothes but instead what the picture shows. The images are based around the words on his hand, and his face is not always in the shot, the idea is that you only focus on the hand and see what he is doing with it in each picture to show his grief. He is centered in most of the shots, but in one of them he is on the left hand side, this is so people can see clearly his hand as you will look from left to right, so you will see this first.

In this image the girls body language is withdrawn, as she is covering her body up with her arms, showing that she does not want to let anyone in. She has a lower status as you can see she is sat down, on a pile of logs which shows that she does not mind where she is. She is centered of the shot so that you can see her all. Her facial expression is not smiling, but instead it is a blank expression, she has minimal make up on, which tries to say that she does not mind what she looks like. Her legs are crossed to withdraw her from life and show that she is hurting in some way. The clothes she is wearing fits her in with the set, and shows that she has not tried to dress in clothes to show off, but instead is showing herself.

By analyzing these images i have realized what matters in a shot, i did not know how much the posture of people matter in an image, but this has helped me see that you can show almost anything through an image, and everything matters, if you have bright colours, you are showing a fun exciting shot, but if you change your colours slightly, your picture can change. The style of picture matters to show your audience what you want them to see, if you want them to clearly see their facial expression then you will do a close up shot, to show off this. If you feel that their clothes are the signature in the image then you will do a full shot so the audience can see their outfit.

Peer assesment of Flat Plans and Ideas.

Peer Feedback;

• Use of too many pictures.
• The layout of the front cover is effective.
•  Need to change my colour scheme to fit my genre.
• Change fonts, by making them more of a house style and connecting them to my genre.
• Use images that will relate more to the topic and genre of the magazine, i will do this by making sure i know what my main sell line will be and then create and image that will relate more to that.

Improvements i am going to make;

• I will cut down on the amount of images i have used on all of my pages and make the larger images more bold and eye catching.
• I will change some of the images and graphics to match my genre.
• I will change my colour scheme to use bolder and more eye catching colours for my target audience.
• I will make sure i use the space i have to add more sell lines, and interesting things that will attract my target audience more.
• I will make sure my images are ranged but still have the same genre.
• I will use different shots, on my front cover i will use a medium close up shot on my front cover, in my contents page i will change the main image i have used and use a group of people instead in a high angle full length shot. This means that it will show a variety of shots in my magazine which will interest my audience and attract them to my magazine.

My Flat Plans

This will appeal to my audience because it will attract them with the first image, which will show the models expression. I have used yellow and black lines to attract the audience, as this shows caution which will attract them to this so they will read it.

For my double page spread this will entice my audience as it is in the middle of the page which will immediately attract them to the image, i have used quotes at the bottom of the page sp they can easily see what sort of answers are in the article to see if they want to read on.

My contents page will have a poster instead of a model so they can easily see what is going on, the layout is easy for them to follow with sub titles so they can see what part of the magazine they would like to look at first.

Primary Audience Research

I constructed some primary audience research in order to find out what appeals to my target audience, to discover flaws or potential improvements that could be made to my magazines genre and to identify and gaps in the market and place a refreshing new twist on the genre.

These are the chosen products that i conducted my research on. These are the questions i asked.

1. What do you think about the house style?
2. Do you find the contents page easy to navigate, why?
3. Do you find the article engaging, why?
4. What do you like about the images in the article?
5. What first attracted you to the magazine?
6. What are 3 things you like about the magazine?
7. What are 3 things you would improve on the magazine?
8. What do you like about the images used on the front cover?
9. Do you feel that all the pages have the same house style?
10. What genre of music appeals to you?

Here are my videos.

I picked up these points from what people in my class said about the magazine I showed them. For question number 1, they said that it has a good house style as it uses the same font which makes it easier to read. The magazine does not use the red house style on double page. They liked it as it shows the violence with white and red, which makes it stand out more. Question number 2 said that yes it was useful to find what they wanted to look at and find what they are interested in; it has banners to limit down what you are looking for, so you know the topic you want to find. The banners are very useful to navigate through the magazine using the contents page. They said that the article was engaging as it was informative and the title stood out from the rest of the magazine and made it look like you would want to read it, as it was different to the normal layout. The images in the article were   interesting, Lilly Allen-shows off her personality drawing you in to the article. The contents page did not seem as interesting, but the cover is appealing with using the correct images, the double page spread image shows spontaneity and she not trying to get the attention with looks. The first thing that attracted them to the magazine were the front cover, the artists, because of the way he was stood as it is not like normal pictures you would see in a magazine, so it attracts the Indi audience more. Things they liked about the magazine were the sub titles on cover, the contents page layout, because you can navigate easily. They also liked the font used on double page spread. The main image on the cover because it was eye catching. The things they would look at improving on the magazine was the layout of the front cover page, as it is too overpowering by using to many things, and making it look to cluttered, and they would try to keep the house style more throughout the magazine so you could easily tell which magazine they were from. The colours change on the house style, so that you cannot easily tell that they are all from the same magazine. The type of music that these people are interested in is charts, Indi pop and rock, which makes them good people to look at the magazine I have chosen.

Impact of target audience on my work

This is my intended target audience for my magazine.

• Age= 14-20
• Gender= Both
• Social Class= College and university Students.
• Hobbies= Music, Festivals, Gigs and Chart music.
• Media influences= Social networking sites, TV dramas

I will make sure my magazine suits my target audience, and will have the correct colours to grab their attention, and use the correct pictures which will attract them to read the magazine. I will use vocabulary that my target audience will understand and use.

Secondary Audience Research

NME Magazine

NME aims for an older target audience which is around the age of 24. NME’s audience is mainly for males but has a lot of female readers;

MALE (69%)

Female (31%)

NME’s magazine is sold for more than Kerrangs, which shows that NME is made for more of the middle class and is aimed at the people with more money to spend on the magazine. NME’s layout looks more expensive and organised compared to Kerrangs which shows the price difference and that it is correct to differ the price and not compete against each other for price.

Kerrang! Magazine
My magazine music will be based on Charts music, there are the same sort of ideas in some of the magazines i have researched and i will use these to help me in developing my own magazine. 
Kerrang magazine is one of the magazines that will help me to develop my own magazine.

I have studied this profile and have found out that the target age for Kerrang magazine iis 19 years of age, which fits into my magazine target age. Kerrang has a more male target, but is for female viewing as well. As I want to target both male and females I will alternate with female and male artist for my main image. Both a male and female artist can be good for either sex, they can either have the sex appeal or the inspirational appeal.

Most readers use their income or money on:
- Music - on average purchasing around 31 albums a year
- Gig tickets,
- Active consumers of clothing, mainly brands which favourite their age range and style 'tribe',
- Gaming and the latest technologies eg. the iPod - in which their passionate side for music is consumed,

- 58% say appearance is the most important factor.