Thursday, 1 November 2012
Text For Double Page Spread Article
I’m standing outside Runcorn Town Hall Park on a chilly but lovely Sunday morning waiting for the one and only Danielle Littler. She has agreed to have an interview with me about her new 2nd debut album and the worldwide tour she is about to embark on.
I first heard Danielle singing when I was on the way to work. Over time I grew to love it and I started singing it everywhere, my friends would tell me to shut up even though they got me tickets to one of her shows. She’s just as good live as she is recorded.
I see her walking up towards me, guitar slung over her shoulder in its leather case. When she reaches me, she smiles and gives me a hug like old friends while saying our hellos. I ask if she wants to go sit down and she nods so we start walking to towards a picnic bench. She climbs on it putting her feet on the seat while sitting on the table. I follow as it looks comfortable and start the interview.
Your new album, are you excited about its release?
Yes! I never thought I’d be releasing a second album, it was a surprise that my first was in the charts, and I can’t wait to see the fans reactions to it! It really is exciting!
What about the tour?
It’s the first time I’m doing a worldwide one and I’ve seen other artists do it, but I’m nervous at the same time as feeling excited! I hope I have fans other than here.
I’m sure you do! We have many fan questions here from all over the world!
Really? That’s crazy.
Yeah! This one’s from Louise from Sydney, Australia. Hi Danielle! Please come to Sydney! Are you going to take a tour of the city if you get to come here?
Sydney’s one of my stops! Hopefully I will, I’ve never been there and I really want the chance to look around but I don’t know the schedule yet.
Ok, This one from Georgia from California, USA, she asks, do you have a favourite song from your new album?
Yeah, in fact I do, I loved the recording of it, so on the deluxe edition I recorded an acoustic version, it’s called ‘Far Away’.
Ok, these are my questions now; I hope the fans want to know these things too. What’s your favourite colour?
Purple. It has always been purple I think, ever since I can remember, I’m not sure why though.
Favourite type of lollipop?
Drumsticks! If you ever see me and you have a drumstick, give it to me! I love them so much!
That’s mine too! Ok, back to business now, how do you start to write new songs? Do you have to have inspiration, go to a quiet room?
Erm, I think I have to have inspiration, not all of the songs are about me, but about close friends and some family members that they’ve allowed me to write about. I don’t have to be in a quiet room, I can have my family around and I just start writing, sometimes about stuff that they’re doing at that moment but I do have to have my guitar with me so I can play a tune.
Does your guitar have a name?
My little cousin called it something but I can’t remember, it was a really funny name too!
Aw, you have to find out!
I will, I definitely will! Next time I see her.
So, are there any places that you can’t wait to visit on tour?
Yes! So many! Actually, quite a few of the places I’m going on tour I’ve never been but heard things about them, and I can’t wait to go to California and Canada because I’ve got family there that I haven’t seen in a while, so I’m looking forward to that.
I bet that will be nice. Ok, so back to your new album. You have a duet on there don’t you with your brother right?
Yes, who knew he had a voice, I’m proud of him and thankful that he agreed to do a song with me, I hope the fans are ok with him being on it since he’s never done anything like this, I think he’ll soon have his own album in the future.
I promise you they’ll love it! I was given the opportunity to hear it and it was fantastic, your voices together sounded amazing.
Oh wow, I don’t know what to say, erm, thanks!
You’re welcome. There’s also a song on there about a rough time you had, did you want to write a song about it?
Not at first, no. I thought it was too personal but I couldn’t stop myself from writing and once the first line was wrote, I was gone. The song itself doesn’t go into detail, but the emotions are there and I think you can feel how I felt at the time when you listen to it. It was a very hard time.
Thanks for opening up and for this interview, I hope you have a great time on tour and all the best for you and your album.
You’re welcome, and you too.
Sketches And Designs
This is the plan of how I want my front cover to look like. I have drawn my model in the centre making eye contact with the camera and to have a small relaxed smile. I have also placed the masthead at the top of the magazine slightly behind the cover model. I have done this because I think it will lok best like this. The main article tag lines are bigger than other tag lines because I want it to stand out because it is the main one. The othe rtaglines are around the cover model because I don't want any of them covering her face and if they're slightly on top of her hair, they won't take attention away from the photograph.
For the contents page I have drawn boxes where I want different photographs and also where I want each type of text to go which include the contents of the magazine and the Editors letter. I have made the word 'Contents' bigger than I want all of the other text to be because I want the reader to know that this is the contents page.
This is the plane for my double page spread. I have drawn boxes for this one too for where I want the photographs to go and the main article. I have made the text that says 'DANIELLE LITTLER' big because if the reader is flipping through the magazine looking for this page then it isn't hard to spot.
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| Front Cover Plan |
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| Contents Page Plan |
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| Double Page Spread Plan |
Written Plans for Magazine Pages
Cover Page
The magazine name SOLO will be at the top as a masthead and will be the biggest text on the cover page. It will also be orange to go with the theme of the magazine. The colour scheme of the magazine will be Autumn colours such as orange, green, brown and yellow. There will be a yellow star with the text "first edition" in it which will be quite big and a bright colour to stand out but also fit in with the colour scheme. There will also be a few tag lines at the sides of the magazine front cover that tell the reader whats in it. The tag lines will say ''FREE CD'' which means the magazine will have a CD that comes with it which will be a single from the cover model as it is the first edition of the magazine. Other tag lines will say ''Upcoming Festival Dates'', ''Where Are They Now?'', ''Sam's First SOLO Concert Review'', ''Gig Guide!'', ''Blast From The Past'' etc. All of the tag lines will be the same size but only two colours will be used for them. The main tag line for the cover model will have a small tag line above and below a big one with capital letters, it will be ''2nd Debut Album From - DANIELLE LITTLER - How SHE writes songs''
Contents Page
The contents of the magazine will be:
- Editors Letter - First Edition Special
- Danielle Littler - Inside her head on how to write number one songs
- Photos from Danielle's photo shoot
- Sam's First Concert Review for SOLO
- Katy Perry - Albums time line
- Part of a fan base? Read some of the forums!
- Gig Guide!
- Keep your eyes out for these new artists!
- Like festivals? Here's all the dates for them all!
- WIN the new iPod Touch!
- Subscribe and get £5 off our new merch store
- Where are they now?
- NEW Concert Arenas
The photographs that I will shoot for this page will be:
- A photo of the editor - Editors Letter
- One of the photos from Danielle's photoshoot - Main Interview
- A concert photo of Katy Perry performing - For Sam's Review
Double Page Spread
For my double page spread, I am planning taking an image where Danielle is on one side of the image while the rest is the scenery. The photo will take up the whole double page with the text going over the scenery faded out while the part of image where Danielle is stood is not faded out so you can see her. The colour scheme for the double page will be the same as the cover because then it matches and is consistent. If I haven't got an image that I think is good enough to take up the whole page, I will use one of the pages for a picture with some text over it. I will then use the other page for the interview. I will use a big header so if the reader is trying to find the page then it is easy to read if you are skipping through the magazine. Underneath the header there will be smaller text about what the interview is about. For the beginning of the article there will be small bold paragraph with a drop capital that is four lines down. For the rest of the interview, it will be descriptive of the place and how she looks when we met and then also some Q&A type text further down. There will also be an image of her new album and a small review, where you can buy it from and how much it will be from these places.
The Production Plan
Publication Plan
Title: SOLO
POSITIONING STATEMENT
FREQUENCY OF PUBLICATION: Monthly
PRICE: £1.99
DISTRIBUTION: Newsagents and supermarkets
RATIONALE: The approach of the magazine is from a journalists perspective. They will offer a few opinions and insights and the articles and interviews will focus on what their recent work is such as album releases and their interests outside of playing music.
STYLE: Informal and reverent, using a range of simple and not as simple vocabularly as it is for young adults and possibly critics. It will also have short paragraphs and some slang where appropriate.
Images will be the dominant feature of layouts.
REGULAR CONTENT:
- Editor's letter
- Cover artists is main interview
- Forums for different artists
- Concert reviews
- 'Gig guide' - Upcoming performances e.g. award shows, concerts, charity shows etc
- Sams monthly collumn - writes about concerts he's been to that month and new album releases/singles
- Article on who to listen out for
- Competitions
- Subscription extras e.g. subscribe and get £5 off magazine merch store
- Collage of cover artist photos
- Small articles on different artists
- Free Posters
- Advertisements - merch stores, album releases etc
- Article on fanbases
- Returning artists - if any
- Free CD
- Artists tips
- Revisiting old artists albums
- Where are they now?
- 'Legends'
- 'Blast From The Past'
Masthead - Calibri 80pt Orange
Main coverlines - Calibri Bold 20pt Orange, Brown or Green
Feature articles - Main text: Calibri 8pt
Features first paragraph - Drop capital, 4 lines deep
Features standfirst paragraph - Calibri bold 14pt
Photoshoot Plan
Photographer: Charlotte Martin
Date Of Shoot: November 18th
Call Time: 10:30am - 12:00pm
Title Of Shoot: SOLO cover and feature article, November 2012 - Danielle Littler
Theme: In season - Danielle enjoying the morning at a park
The aim of this photoshoot will be to capture Danielle enjoying a brisk walk through woodland areas and having a go at things in the park such as swings, climbing rock etc in Autumn. Danielle has finished recording her second debut album and the photographs aim to show her in a relaxed state messing on a guitar before other interviews and her tours.
Location Of Shoot: Runcorn Town Hall Park
Meeting Point: Town Hall Car Park
Wardrobe: Warm clothing
Hair: Down and wavy, some hats
Make-Up: Natural look
Props: Wooden guitar
Necessary Kit: Canon PowerShot SX210 IS, Tripod and Gorillla pod.
Others Present: No other people present.
Reference Images for photoshoot
Audience Research
Methods
For my audience research, I created a suitable questionnaire to hand out to people that my music magazine would be aimed at (16-25 year olds).
Questionnaire Results
1) What would you rate the following titles for a music magazine?
Record - 51
Solo - 71
Chart - 63
Mainstream - 60
Line-Up - 62
2) What would you rate these existing music magazine titles?
Kerrang! - 40
NME - 56
Top Of The Pops - 61
Vibe - 68
The Fly - 61
3) How would you rate the colour schemes in these magazines?
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| Image 1 - 57 |
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| Image 2 - 53 |
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| Image 3 - 60 |
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| Image 4 - 71 |
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| Image 5 - 70 |
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| Image 6 - 64 |
4) How often would you like a magazine to be published?
Daily - 0
Weekly - 6
Monthly - 10
Fortnightly - 4
More - 0
5) How much would you be willing to pay for a magazine that is published for the answer you chose above?
Below £1 - 2
£1-£1.99 - 8
£2-£2.99 - 8
£3-£3.99 - 2
£4+ - 0
6) Who would you most want to see on the front of a magazine?
Katy Perry - 44
Ed Sheeran - 64
Rihanna - 46
Lady Gaga - 53
Taylor Swift - 64
Bruno Mars - 63
Conclusion
I have found out what the audience I have aimed my magazine at want. The first question was what they would rate titles of a music magazine. They could rate them from 0 (hate it) to 5 (love it). The highest score that any could get was 100 and the name that got the most was the name ‘Solo’ which is what I would have chosen for my magazine name as it was my favourite. The name ‘Solo’ got a score of 71 while the name that got the least was ‘Record’. The other names that I thought were good were between these two. ‘Chart’ got 63, ‘Mainstream’ got 60 and ‘Line-Up’ got 62.
My second question was also a rating question where they rated the titles of existing music magazines. The highest got 68 and that was the magazine ‘Vibe’. I think this was because when music is played, there’s a good vibe or that there are vibrations because of the base etc. The lowest was ‘Kerrang’ and that got 40. All of these answers were out of 100 too.
The next question was to rate the colour schemes of some magazine images that I had included on a separate piece of paper. Image 4 with the colours pink, black and white got the highest score of 71. I also thought that this colour scheme was appealing because it wasn’t girly nor aimed for boys. The pink accentuated the black and white to give it a bit of colour but didn’t overpower. The magazine cover that got the lowest was Image 2. The colour scheme for this magazine was red, yellow, white and black. I think that the red overpowered the black, yellow and white as there was a lot more of it.
For question 4, most people want magazines to be published monthly. Question 5 was the price of the magazine that they want it to be. There was a draw between £1-£1.99 and £2-£2.99 with 8 people out of 20 choosing them. For question 6, I asked them to rate artists that they prefer to see on the front of a magazine. There was also a draw on this question as Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift came out of it with a score of 64. This shows that the audience don’t mind the front cover being a male or female and it gives a clue on what genre they like.
In conclusion, my music magazine will be called ‘Solo’, it will have a colour scheme that accentuates each other. It will also be published monthly at the cost of £1-£1.99 even though it was originally going to be free. I have found out things for my magazine by doing this questionnaire and have gained some insight into what the audience I’m aiming it at want.
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