Scrap Book Contents Page so far

I have completed the basic structure and the border for my contents page. All that's left to do is paint and mount the title and put in the actual text. I will probably need a better scanner than my one at home so I'll find one round school. But here it is...

Contents Page

I have begun to put together a scrap-book style contents page. I have only fixed the triangle of blue and the ribbon to the peach background and have not stuck down any pictures or buttons yet. This is just a tester to see which arrangement works best. I am conscious that it is maybe becoming a bit too girly? So I will overcome this tomorrow. I will try and overcome this by including pictures of males. I have arranged to take pictures of a male 'pirate' tomorrow lunch so I will include at least one of these on the contents page. I am also aware that there are getting to be quite a few pirate pictures and majority are of dancing. I aim to take more pictures tomorrow in different outfits that I can then include in place of some of the pirate costumes as well as taking pictures of things like stage lights and microphones. Obviously the pirate musical is the main feature of the magazine but I think it will be worth while saving a majority of the pictures for the actual double page spread.

So how will the text required for the contents fit into this? In the top right corner I may have the magazine logo (which I'm currently trying to design), but I will definitely have the title 'Contents'. The rest of the peach area will have the main contents listing. I have two ideas for the blue section...1 - the articles that are 'in every issue' or 2 - further information about either competitions or a feature, this will grab the readers attention and attract them to a certain section of the magazine.

The actual typography I want to fit into the scrap-book image and so I will create/use a font that appears hand-written. I am choosing to type it rather than actually hand-write it as if this was a real magazine in production, it would be highly impractical and time-consuming hence why only the borders and pictures are put together like an actual scrap book. I will probably actually paint the title 'contents' on to the top of the page, or rather onto a different piece of card and mount it onto this. So I don't forget, I also intend to do this for the double page spread title 'Raise Your Flag'. However with 'Raise Your Flag' I will use plenty of paint and then either blow or strike the paint to that it creates a spike-y, eroded, rough style to tie in with the pirate theme.

Overall I am so far pleased with this idea for house style as it is looking promising and is very creative; like musical theatre.

Contents Page

Following my idea for my contents page I am going to experiment with a 'scrap-book' style. I will try and achieve this look by printing all my pictures I have edited and putting them together with good old fashioned glue. I will also include other typical scrap-book/mood-board style things like bits of material and other shapes. I will initially just do this for the pictures but then I will try constructing the entire page in this way. If this works then I will continue this style throughout. I think it could work as scrap-books are very creative as is musical theatre. This will also make my magazine stand out and be original, yet it will all still form to conventional ideas with the pictures and layout.

Synopsis

So, as previously mentioned, the most popular synopsis has been synopsis 3 with the 2nd ending which is as follows...

Boys father owns the biggest, meanest pirate ship in the entire ocean. The mother died at birth. The father really loved her and was devastated, he locked up his feelings though and carried on the only way he knew how. But the boy, as he grows up doesn't want to be a pirate...it's not the life for him...In the middle of the night he makes a break for it and runs away, taking the rowing boat. There is a big storm that night/ the mermaids sirens begin and he cannot resist. His pirates ship can resist though as the father has shut himself out from the world of love and women. Somehow blocks his ears and steers the ship away. The son becomes stranded on a deserted islands where the only other life form is mermaids. He falls in love with one of the mermaids but there are obvious complications in their relationship...he lives on land and can't breath underwater. They have the option of overcoming this though as true loves first kiss can turn her from a mermaid to a beautiful woman. They are about to share their first kiss when... His fathers ship tracks him down but he refuses to go with them. So they capture the mermaids. There's a big sword fight, the father loses his balance and falls back, in to sea. The boy reaches out to save him but can't reach and the father dies. But I'm not sure I want the father to die because of the son. It's mean. However, if the father were to die, the ship would become the sons responsibilities. Then he has the choice of whether to honour his fathers dying wish which is to give everything up for the mermaid he loves, for love is hard to find and he loved the mother.

For the actual double page spread this will be written out properly. Possibly not as much detail of the story though. For example, I might not put the ending in, leave it on a cliffhanger to make the reader want to see the musical and find out. Also some songs and actors/actresses will be reviewed, with a full list of cast and information on the production side and cost.

First Pirate Picture

Below you can see three pictures. The first two are my originals...the third is my edited, super-imposed one. Due to difference in pixel sizes the pirate in the final picture is slightly blurry. Luckily I wasn't planning on having this particular picture very big anyway. So for now, I shall leave it. However, if it becomes a problem during the actual construction of the magazine then I will try again.

Pictures and Edits

Following the black and white contents page montage idea I have used picnik to edit the following pictures. Obviously they are not yet a montage and as you will see, I have left a detail from every picture in colour, just testing things :) If these are used in the actual magazine then I will crop directly around the people.

I've put the originals followed by my edits.

Review of a Review

I've had a look at the following review which is of the musical Les Miserables. http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheatre/reviews/lesmis04.htm

It is a very positive review and so there is a lot of positive language. For example : masterpiece, powerful, solid and moving performances, intense, superb, seamlessly.

There was also a strong lexical field of words and phrases related to musical theatre like: full house, matinee, seats in the stalls, cast, part, scene, set design, production.

This works well and the review serves it purpose as it makes me want to go and see the musical...again. The review explains the synopsis but the audience is expected to have some prior knowledge as it mentions the French Revolution. Also, the audience is aimed at musical theatre people due to the specific lexical field language relating to musical theatre. The review mentions most details of the production as it also talks about the set design but a majority is about the actors.

I will consider the use of language and lexical field in this review when I write my own. But I will also have more detail, more like the layout of the reviews in Musical Stages magazine. I will list all the cast and have several pictures as well as having a section covering more details of the production.

So I don't Forget...

I've had an idea for my contents page...

I want the contents page to be bordered with a faded montage of loads of pictures. Possibly black and white, to make the actual contents stand out. The pictures will be faded and merged into each other and will show all areas of musical theatre. The pictures include ones that would then be used for articles in the magazine.

The Sirens

The sirens were originally portrayed as three dangerous bird-like womenand from Greek mythology. The picture above is an image of a statue of what a siren was thought to be, made in the 1st century.

The siren song is said to begin in midday, with calm weather...which ruins my plan! I shall overcome it though. Another idea which I could use is the belief that the sirens only lived for as long as sailors were enticed to them. Once they could pass without being drawn to them, the sirens would die. I could use this with the father, as he is not effected.

The sirens are not strictly mermaids. But they have similar beliefs and myths surrounding them.

I'm sure you probably know this but, mermaids have a human torso and the tail of a fish for legs. They live in the sea, sit on rocks, brushing their hair.

So, like sirens they sing to people to enchant them, causing people to walk off ship decks and have shipwrecks. There is also the nasty idea that mermaids drown humans either out of spite or because they forget that humans can't breathe underwater.

I shall consider these tropes and memes when writing the review to ensure my facts are right.

Raise Your Flag

I have asked several people to read my synopsis and the most popular synopsis is synopsis 3. Although it was commented that the 2nd ending - sacrificing happiness for duty can be quite fashionable, the most popular ending was the romantic ending. I could maybe allow love and being the captain to work together. Although this might make the whole thing seem unsatisfactory.

So now I shall carry out further research to make sure I'm not getting things wrong within the synopsis. I will also analyse people's reviews of other shows - the language and layout used etc.

Synopsis of 'Raise Your Flag'

Just throwing a few ideas about with what the actual story behind my pirate musical could be...

But each has to have the following typical tropes:

• Pirate Ship
• Sword Fight
• Some sort of gold/treasure
• Rum

1. A pirate who faces the gallows for treason but falls in love with the governors daughter. There would be a prologue showing part of the end scene where he is about to be hung, standing on the gallows, big drum beat, big crowds. Then flash back and the story unfolds. Starts on a ship with a big number, celebrating having stolen cargo from the East India Trading Company. They go to a tavern on land to celebrate. Bad move. Before he is caught and taken to jail he meets the governors daughter for the first time in a tavern. You see, the governors daughter is rebellious and wants individuality so 'escapes' regularly, wearing a disguise. Bit of the whole 'I don't want to marry for money or status, I want to marry for love' that you see a lot in films and stories. It's love at first site, but that night he is captured, the tavern is raided, big sword fight. The governors daughter doesn't get seen though. He helps her get away before he is captured. Then the struggle as they declare their love for each other in a beautiful duet through jail bars and the governor discovers what she has been up to. He brings forward the gallows date to the next day. Reprise of the beautiful duet. The gallows day - scene starts the same as the prologue. She jumps up onto the gallows and a bit of the 'if you want to kill him, you'll have to kill me first' type thing. Big song that is a round with the lovers, governor, guards and public watching the hanging. Being pirates, their mischievous and clever...one escapes. And a big sword fight begins. The lovers and about half the original crew get away and the musical ends back on the ship with a reprise of the first number as they sail off into the sunset.
2. Two rival ships battle/race for a hidden treasure. But although this could be good, staging it would be near impossible. So I may try and incorporate the idea of chasing treasure into one of the other ideas.
3. Boys father owns the biggest, meanest pirate ship in the entire ocean. The mother died at birth. The father really loved her and was devastated, he locked up his feelings though and carried on the only way he knew how. But the boy, as he grows up doesn't want to be a pirate...it's not the life for him...In the middle of the night he makes a break for it and runs away, taking the rowing boat. There is a big storm that night/ the mermaids sirens begin and he cannot resist. His pirates ship can resist though as the father has shut himself out from the world of love and women. Somehow blocks his ears and steers the ship away. The son becomes stranded on a deserted islands where the only other life form is mermaids. He falls in love with one of the mermaids but there are obvious complications in their relationship...he lives on land and can't breath underwater. They have the option of overcoming this though as true loves first kiss can turn her from a mermaid to a beautiful woman. They are about to share their first kiss when... His fathers ship tracks him down but he refuses to go with them. So they capture the mermaids. There's a big sword fight, the father loses his balance and falls back, in to sea. The boy reaches out to save him but can't reach and the father dies. But I'm not sure I want the father to die because of the son. It's mean. However, if the father were to die, the ship would become the sons responsibilities. Then he has the choice of whether to honour his fathers dying wish which will be one of two... 1 - to keep the ship in the families name. 2 - to give everything up for the mermaid he loves, for love is hard to find and he loved the mother. I will ask peoples opinions on which ending they prefer.
4. Or, something based around a love story with a pirate and gypsy girl. But this may not give as much freedom.

Feel free to comment on your favourite synopsis...

Evaluation and Summary of all my Research and Planning

Doing the Preliminary task will help me a lot when constructing my actual magazine as I used several programmes like serif for the first time. Although I will probably need help and a few mini tutorials on the seoftware throughout, the preliminary task taught me a lot. I was also able to test out different styles, fonts, colours and ask opinions of the target audience, helping me to create a fairly decent cover and contents for the purpose.

I have already created a post on which conventions I am going to use from the magazines that I have analysed. Analysing the magazines helped me to look at typical conventions, what works, what doesn't. For my genre, I definitely need to stick to conventional methods and layouts. All the magazines analysed have given me ideas for how to layout and present my magazine.

A big part of my research has been my survey. I will continually refer to it as it is very important to what I put in the magazine and how I should present it. It was asked directly to my target audience and a range of people within this target audience so the results will help me to appeal to all interests within musical theatre which is what I intentionally set out to do. Throughout the process I will ask the opinion of a random selection of people within my target audience as I test out different layouts and colours as I constuct my magazine.

I definitely think musical theatre was the right choice of genres as there is definitely a market for it, a bit of a gap to be honest.

Survey Results

I have had 37 responses now! I would like to leave it longer, however I need to get on with the rest of the process. So I shall now analyse the results but still keep on checking the results regularly to see if anything interesting occurs.

My first question was to find out which age group they fell into within my target audience. Just over half of those who answered were 15-24 and all the others were evenly spread over the other sections of my age group.

My second question was to help me find out the most popular and least popular area of musical theatre, obviously I know this will be different within every group of people. The results were as follows with Lighting, Sound, Advertisement/Distribution and Production/Direction receiving no votes.

In order to find out more about what people interested in musical theatre do with their interest I asked whether they were actively involved in musical theatre. 26 people said they were and 11 said they just had a keen interest in musical theatre. This means that I will suit both of these groups needs as I will review shows as well as giving information on auditions etc.

For the 26 who claimed to actively take part I asked them to specify which area the take part in, using the same options as the pie chart above. As you can see, all possible areas were given at least one vote meaning that there is indeed an audience for all aspects.

In order to find out about whether making a magazine of this genre would be popular and marketable, I asked whether or not they buy a musical theatre magazine and whether or not they would be interested in buying one. Only 5 people said they regular buy a musical theatre magazine and 31 said they didn't. Of the 37, 28 people would be interested in buying and reading one. I asked for their reasons for answering yes or no to gain an idea of what they want or don't want within this kind of magazine. I have selected some responses to blog...

Some yes answers...

• thinking maybe a monthly publication -to keep up to date with current shows, cast members, their backgrounds etc / reviews and general gossip! Behind the scene articals etc



• Possibly to show reviews of shows, job interviews and a planned of up and coming shows, both amateur and professional.



• There doesn't seem to be one available and I can only glean information from newspapers which don't go into much detail and I don't always agree with critics


• Because it would be good to learn about old musicals and also brand new ones. Also it would advertise who was playing who on the west end/broadway at the time


• If it contained information on things like whats' on locally and nationally. Audition listings, insight on further training etc.


• Because this is what Stuart (my son) wants to do as a career

And some reasons against...

• Just because I'm interested in musical theatre but wouldn't be that interested in knowing everything about it!


• I don't like reading.


• Basically no time to read it.

I will take these responses on board when creating articles/contents.

I asked what sort of price range people would be prepared to spend so I can get an idea of how much money could be put in but still gain a profit.

As you can see, a majority would be happy to pay up to £2.99 with some in excess to this, which I think is reasonable!

My final two questions where asking for votes on the best name for the magazine and the best name for a pirate magazine. By asking my audience to help decide, it helps me see what is most appealing and marketable.

As you can see, the most popular magazine name is 'Behind the Magic' - which I think is rather suiting. The other four most popular, I will look into naming sections or articles or even taking inspiration for a tagline.The most popular name for a pirate magazine is 'Raise Your Flag', which again is rather suiting...and probably my favourite! I will use 'Crossed Swords', 'A'hoy' and 'The Gallows' as song names or even captions for pictures.

This survey was definitely worthwhile and I will keep on referring to it as I construct my magazine.

Further Photo Ideas

As I want to cover all aspects of musical theatre I will also need pictures of things like instruments, lighting equipment etc. To add to my collection, I have taken some pictures which I might use or at least use the idea in the final magazine.

The pictures are taken in a dance studio and if they are used, it will be for a section purely on dance.

Here are some examples of how I might edit one of the pictures:

Draft of the Layout for my Front Cover

As you can see, I have chosen to stick to conventional methods for my front cover as it will work better for my music genre.

Media Theories

Media has always had an effect on how people think or what people do and there are many theories to the way that media does have an impact...

The hypodermic needle model is the theory that the media 'injects' messages to their audience which they are passive to and unable to resist. This theory is now discredited as it is simplistic and out dated. People are not as passive as this. Although to some extent, peoples opinions are influenced by what they see or hear through media.

Cultivation effect (Drip, drip, drip effect) is when the repetition of a message or opinion has an effect on an audience. I think this is sometimes true. But not necessarily always to music magazines. Music magazines can often reinforce opinions that people already have rather than purely creating an opinion.

Two-step flow. Step 1 - media introduces an idea. Step 2 - these ideas are discussed with friends and we reach an opinion. I think this definitely applies to music magazines. Music magazines introduce people to new bands, styles and opinions.

Limited effect - the idea that we are not at all affected by the media as we are 'media literate'. I don't agree with this as all media tends to effect someone, somehow. Music magazines often tend to be informal and leisurely to read.

Media Dependency is the belief that media becomes a need. And addiction or a choice? This will be true to more or less everyone with some form of media in the modern world. For music magazines this will still be true to some who like to be 'in the know'. Music magazine context and reviews will influence what people buy and sometimes their opinions.

Uses and Gratifications is more about "what people do with media" rather than "what media does to people". I think that people do chose the media they want. And there are different reading (e.g. preferred) and interpretations of media.

Diversion is the theory that people use media as an escape from reality or problems, to distract themselves. I think this is applicable to all media, even music magazines.

Personal relationships is using media as topic conversations with friends and using media as a substitute for real contact. This theory applies as magazines offer opinions and often new music which you will then discuss with your friends.

Personal identity is the idea that people use media to define themselves. I think this is true to all media especially things like music magazines. Who people are friends with, how they dress, how they act is all influenced by their interests which are made evident through the media they use.

Surveillance - finding out about the world. This is not always true to all media or music magazines. However I want to include this theory within the content of my magazine as I want to do reviews and news from different countries.

I have also looked at McQuail theories. The ones that I think are applicable to the music magazine I intend to create are as follows. They all come under the headings of 'Information' 'Personal Identity' 'Integration and Social Interaction' and 'Entertainment'.

• finding out about relevant events (I)
• satisfying curiosity and general interest (I)
• learning: self-education (I)
• identifying with valued others (P.I)
• gaining insights into the circumstances of others (I.S.I)
• finding a basis for conversation and social interaction (I.S.I)
• helping carry out social roles (I.S.I)
• enabling to connect with family, friends and society (I.S.I)
• relaxing (E)
• getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment (E)
• filling time(E)