Evaluation Question 1: In what ways does your media product use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of read media products?

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Final draft of my Production work

Image of my double page spread production.

Draft of my double page spread article

Headline/title: Into The Ring, Q&A.

The music industry is massively competitive, one of the freshest new artists Vicky G formally known as Victoria Gaunt met with nocturnal and tells all about her journey towards her first step into the ring and where her music career has taken her. 

Text and images by Chelsea Belleini

Article:

At what age did you know that this was the career that you wanted to undertake?

I have always been passionate about singing and performing from a very young age, as little as I can remember really. As I was growing up my dad was a low key dj in small clubs and events so I was always around the music that he would play. Not the typical music that a family would listen to [laughs] but it gets us all going, it’s fun and energetic. Don’t get me wrong, I love a range of genres of music but house music has always been the one genre of music I felt strongly about from a younger age.  When I started to discover the potential that I had my dad supported me all the way, which helped a lot because he had had that experience that I needed to learn from. From about 13 years old I had my heart set on this career.

Who is your inspiration from older generations and now?

My oldest inspiration is my dad, he has almost created me as an artist, I’ve learnt a lot of what I know from him especially when it comes to performing for huge crowds, being able to control your nerves in these situations is very important. However my more modern inspiration is  Oliver Heldens, he is only 20, 5 years younger than myself and he has become extremely successful at such a young age. I also love his music, I’d love to one day maybe collaborate with him, it would be huge!!

Why house music?

It’s always been my favourite genre of music purely down to the energy that is created when listening to this genre.

 It creates an atmosphere that I can’t even describe, performing for a crowd is my ultimate favourite thing because of what house music can create, and there aren’t many words in many of my songs because house music is more about the bass and the drop. I can interact with my audiences through this, that’s really what gets people happy, music is very powerful. 

What was it like performing infront of a large audience for the very first time?

I’m a very confident person and especially confident when doing what i love, I was petrified, but I’m fulfilling my all-time dream what more could I want? its more scary not being able to predict a crowds reaction especially as it was my first large crowd.

What is your situation a the moment? 

My situation is very good, I released my debut album 2 weeks ago now and it is just so crazy. I am just ejoying this high point of my life, i am finally a sucessfull asd established artist. I am still looking to produce miore music of course and i am currently hugely busy performing, i have no complaints as right now i couldnt be happier with where i have got myself, and i thank everyone who has supported me from the start. Without them i wouldnt be where i am today. 

Do you have a specific plan for the future?

As cliche as it is i will go wherever the music takes me, 5 minutes of being the established artist that i am would be enough for the rest iof my life, i love performing so all i wish to do is grow as an artist,  release a second album hopefully and even possibly go on tour. Touring the world, sharing my music with the world that would be fantastic. 

Double page spread layouts.

Double page spread analysis of layout

First draft - Front cover and contents page

After loosing my memory stick soon after completing my first draft of my front cover and contents page I have had to start my production work from scratch completing a draft of both my front cover and contents page also. It had also then came to my attention that the post I had created earlier on in my blog analysing my first draft of my front cover and contents page had been deleted somehow. This post is the same post however just a little postponed. 

Front cover:

Things I am pleased with:

I am pleased with the image on my front cover I think it stands out and is of a very high quality, my front cover follows conventions of music magazines of my genre. I am pleased with the different shapes I have used and the title stands out a lot I think, the black shape that the anchorage text is on instantly brings peoples attention towards the main image. The colour scheme I am very pleased with also it looks very professional and the shapes run as a theme throughout the front cover also which i think follows conventions of house music magazines that I have researched particularly 'Mixmag'
Problems that I have encountered with fireworks and how I have overcome them: 
On fireworks i have struggled to make my masthead a high quality because I have featured images of equaliser's as part of my masthead. Because these were images i have had to print screen it was hard to achieve a high quality. I have overcome this by finding out how to sharpen things on fireworks which enabled me to achieve the quality I wanted
I also found that stretching my main image made the image loose its high quality too, and i have spent a lot of time on taking high quality images. By holding shift down the image does not get pixelated.
I also found it hard creating shapes on fireworks this was a very straight forward technique on any other software's i have used but because fireworks is quite complex it was a challenge doing this. I overcame this by searching on line how to move and create the types of shapes i have used on my front cover.
Improvements I would make to my front cover:
I will possibly look into improving the image for my front cover as having it how it is affects how the masthead appears, i would also like to improve my magazine front cover by adding more cover lines and content to the front cover. Adding a date and a price may make my front cover look more professional.



Contents page:
Things I am pleased with:
I am pleased with my main image for my contents page it represents my artist and what the main focus of the magazine is on. I also like the range of images i have used for different artists as this will attract my audience. I like the colour scheme I have used to as this links in with the pastel colour scheme of my front cover. I have also featured a lot of content in my contents page too which is good on a contents page as it is all about the content and readers having an insight into what is inside the magazine.
Problems that I have encountered with fireworks and how I have overcome them:
I had problems with maintaining my colour scheme because the colours I had previously used for my front cover were colours that i had specifically picked out. So therefore when it came to the production of my contents page i had to look for the colours again which took more time than expected especially as fireworks is very complex. I overcame this by adding the colours i used to my custom colours so therefore it almost saved the colours i was using to save time and of course this has ensured that my house colours run through my magazine production. Another problem that i did encounter was also separating the letters for my title 'contents', because the letters are in the same style as the masthead. I had to create the letters individually because of the style i have separated them into. It was quite tricky working out how to crop each letter and then use the magic wand tool to still create a title that had a good quality. I overcame this problem by simply searching on line how to crop/cut images on fireworks and i was able to do so easily.
Improvements I would make to my contents page:
Although i am happy with the production of my front cover and contents page i would firstly like to improve it by adding my masthead to the page and the date in order to fill the gap above my main image. I think with the gap their the layout looks less professional. Id also like to change the layout of the 'contents' of my contents page all the text on the right side doesn't look like it is following a layout and perhaps looks a little distorted. Id also like to add more images to my magazine that i have taken personally of 'artists'. In order to show my skills and how i have developed when knowing what makes a contents page attractive etc.