Media Report

Pre-Production

For my pre-production I conducted research in the form of a textual analysis on 4 magazine covers, I also created and used a questionnaire to back up my research.

Textual Analysis

For my textual analysis’ I looked at the magazine covers for The Stage, American Theatre, What’s On Stage and Wonderland. I chose these 4 magazines to analyse as they relate to the Theatre genre and Entertainment genre, which was one of the most popular magazine genres in which people bought. I chose this particular genre as entertainment is mainly based on televised entertainment and there is a gap in the market for more theatre/acting magazines relating to entertainment. The magazine covers then influenced my pre-production as I was then able to understand certain aspects of the mise-en-scene relating to entertainment magazines, meaning I could apply some of aspects to my own magazine. The Theatre Entertainment magazines I analysed all had basic magazine conventions like any other magazine, but had bolder images and less cover lines than other genre magazines such as a beauty or fashion magazine. I tried to incorporate this idea into my pre-production by adding bold images of actress’ performing on a stage to represent that it is a magazine about the theatre and performing. Although I used cover lines, I didn’t use as many as a fashion or lifestyle magazine would have, as not as much needs to be broadcasted through my magazine covers. Using my textual analysis’ of four entertainment magazine covers, I noticed particular trends within the main image, the masthead and the scene. These trends were that the main image always consisted of the actor in simple but bold clothes that stood out against the background, which was usually black, sometimes making eye contact. The masthead always related in some way to performing and theatre. I incorporated these connotations of a theatre/entertainment magazine into my pre-production using black backgrounds and simple but bold clothing that stands out. I also created the name ‘The Libretto’ for my masthead as the libretto means a script to a play or show, therefore relating to the theatre industry.

Questionnaire

For my questionnaire I asked basic questions relating to the magazine industry. How well magazines sell, what genres do people buy the most and how much an audience would pay for a magazine were some simple questions I used to get information from a wide range of people. I also asked basic questions about the audiences such as their age and what gender they were so I could generalise who my target audience was for my magazine. From this research, I received feedback off twenty two people. Most of the people who answered the questionnaire were female, gaining 19 out of 22 responses from women. This concluded that women should be my target audience as they are more likely to buy magazines. The average age of my responders were 11-20 years old, consisting of 18 people, outlining that this should be my target age. Out of all the magazine genres, fashion and beauty, entertainment and music were the most popular genres of magazine that people bought. A particular question I asked within my questionnaire was ‘Why Do You Buy Magazines?’, this was a general question and didn’t have to be answered, I received 16 responses and from these responses 12 people said they buy magazines because they are interested in the subject of the magazine, usually a hobby or an interest such as music. I also asked how much an audience was willing to pay for a magazine, overall, the main price range people would buy a magazine for was between £2.50 and £3.00. Nearing the end to my questionnaire, I asked my audience what makes you buy the magazine?, this was a multiple choice question and the most popular answers were the ‘Genre of the Magazine’ and the ‘Stories In The Magazine’.

Gaining this information from an opportunist audience, these answers helped influenced aspects of my pre-production. The main ideas being who I will aim my magazine at, the genre of the magazine, the stories of the magazine and the price. For my pre-production, from my questionnaire I decided that I would charge £2.50 for my magazine as that was the average price people would pay for a magazine. I also decided that because the most popular genre of magazines were music and entertainment, my magazine needed to relate to those two genres. I decided on a theatre magazine because of a gap in the market for more information about the performing arts, relating to entertainment and music, this will then satisfy the audiences need for a magazine about an interest/hobby. To conclude, I finally decided that my target audience would be females aged 11-20 as this was the most popular audience who read magazines. I used images of women in their 20’s and 30’s as my main image to represent a role model figure for my target audience, someone they can look up to and aspire to be.

Production