PRODUCTION - first draft feedback

These are my magazine first drafts for the Gossip Girl cover:

yellow/beige 1

yellow/beige 2

pink/yellow 1

pink/yellow 2

pink/yellow 3

pink/yellow 4

I wanted feedback on their  preferred colour scheme and main pictures.

The pink and yellow colour scheme worked best from my feedback

The top left image had best representations - this was image 3

Even those who had not necessarily seen gossip girl, the coverlines helped to highlight this intertextuality.

I am now going to edit my chosen main image so that it stands out better as a front cover and rethink the choice of colours (mainly the purple) and text for the main 'XOXO' coverlid.

 

These are very rough outlines for my James bond cover, I wanted to see if the intertextuality was more apparent from my mies-en-scene and coverline:

The intertextuality of James Bond seemed to be apparent from the coverlid and mise-en-scene, however the font style has shown to be ineffective and needs to stand out more. Therefore, I am going to use a more iconic James Bond style font and see if the logo works for the cover.

PRODUCTION - Gossip Girl photoshoot

Gossip Girl mood board

The James Bond mood board was helpful for me to establish the rise-en-scene and representations I needed to create in my photoshoot, therefore I decided to do a similar thing to help with my Gossip Girl front cover as well.

Here are some of my examples:

PRODUCTION - James Bond photoshoot

James Bond Moodboard

I created a James Bond mood board to give me some inspiration for the intertextuality of my front cover.

In my first photoshoot, I took inspiration from the poses that Bond takes: pointing a gun, holding his cuff links and using direct mode of address:
 
However, I didn't feel as though the mise-en-scene in the background was striking enough for a front cover when I started to draft a mock up in photoshop.
Therefore, looking back at the mood board I took a closer look at the dark background and the mysterious connotations it created, which was very striking.

In my next photoshoot, I took more careful consideration at my set up and used the idea of a dark background to create these similar mysterious James Bond connotations:

 

PLANNING - a summation of my findings

My research has shown that entertainment magazines both adhere to and subvert the general codes and conventions of magazines because it is such a diverse magazine genre. Each entertainment magazine tailors their design and content accordingly to their target audience, whether this be much more diverse and mainstream, such as Entertainment Weekly and US Weekly, or more niche, such as Rolling Stones and Inside Soap. However, a key convention which almost all magazines have in common is their models use of direct mode of address.

For my NEA photoshoot, I plan to take a variety of photos to create a hybrid entertainment magazine by incorporating the codes and conventions of a celebrity/gossip magazine with the content of a film/television/music magazine. Therefore, my magazine will target the mainstream, mass market 16-25 year old demographic because it highlights choice in the variety of content (which I have found is a vital part of audience consumer habits in modern society).

My initial idea involves intertextuality with the iconic television series Gossip Girl. The cover will feature a new crime/investigation drama which tributes Gossip Girl in some of its style, thus I aim to use intertextuality in my coverlines, and choice of model and pose, to portray this. Gossip Girl is a very well known and mass market series which I felt would be easily recognisable for the target demographic.

My second idea involves intertextuality with the James Bond movies. The next movie of the series is in development and there has been rumours surrounding the star who is possibly singing it's theme tune. Therefore, for my cover, I am going to focus on the star who is lined up to sing this theme tune (a made up artist for my magazine) and use intertextuality for James Bond through costume and coverlines. Again, I felt James Bond would be easily recognisable for my mass market/mainstream audience because it is so well known.

PLANNING - flatplan

Gossip Girl Inspired

James Bond Inspired

GENERIC RESEARCH - Inside Soap

GENERIC RESEARCH - Us Weekly