drafting and planning - tack listings

For my secondary artist, Frankie XX I have used song name generator to take inspiration into the names of the the songs I could have for my artist. Though I did use this piece of software for Wolf Islands the majority of their names I decided on.

 I randomly generated these names for my track listings for 'Frankie XX' on his new album 'Bring me back'. The names I have particular interest in are 'Surprise means nothing' 'My moment belongs to you' 'Rising God' and 'Morning rider'. I find that all four of these track listings are intriguing yet have variety within them, while additionally holding some Indie pop connections as the titles of the songs all discuss ideas that are usually discussed within the Indie genre E.g religion such as 'Take me to church'. I do find that the other names used are still quite interesting but are slightly too outrageous for an Indie artist, especially one that has a more grounded and laid back aesthetic associated to him.   

Drafting and planning - Experimenting with proportions/layout

Within class today to experiment with the proportions of my fonts on my front cover of my magazine I decided to find a magazine in which I have took inspiration from and compare the proportions as well as the layout of the page itself.
From this I can see that my masthead is slightly larger than the 'NME' one and so to make my magazine look more authentic I may to decrease the size of my masthead, though i made it that size to ensure that the target demographic can see it and identify it for the left-third of the magazine.
More so, I can see that the other cover lines on the page are about the same font size but are much more vertical, which allows the attention to be mainly focused the artist 'Liam Gallagher' as he dominates the page while also centering it which my magazine does neither and so I may take inspiration from this magazine and centre my artist more so into the centre of the page as well as making my other cover lines less horizontal as it comes very close to over-riding the artist 'Tristan T's' face.
However, I do feel that the skyline that I've used is slightly more effective than the NME as the yellow background to it makes it stand out much more than it would by itself. Also the use of yellow for the skyline adds to the house style of the front cover and so additionally draws the audiences attention to the pug I have used.

organisation - Photo shoot No.2 Photography

From my second photo shoot on Friday I was overall pleased with my photographs from the drama room/black box theatre. Here are some of the images I took;

Though I am very happy with my results I am disappointed that I never had the chance to take more that the amount shown above since my model Maisie had to make it back to her lesson. However, the photography I have took is quite fitting with the aesthetic of my magazine as the bold and edgy ethos of my magazine comes across very clearly through my band Wolf Islands due to the very stern facial expressions my models are pulling in most of the photographs (excluding the lat). 

The plain black background is effective as it doesn't allow the focus of my band to be drawn towards it and so the audiences focus sustains on Wolf islands. I tried a variety of angles for my photographs such as a high angle, extremely long shot, long shot, medium shot, side profile mid-close up and a mid-close up. I am definitely replacing my previous image as I feel that these images encapsulate the ethos of the magazine correctly and allows a symbiotic relationship to be formed between the band and the magazine, which i wanted. I did experiment with the use of flash and no flash but found out that without flash it was quite difficult to see the models themselves and so decided the use of flash was most effective for this photo shoot.

drafting and planning - Artist Identity

Artist Identity

Name - Wolf Islands

Age - 24, 23, 26 (from left to right)

Likes - Rock n' roll, the 60's, fashion, Marina & the diamonds, Halsey

Dislikes - Heavy Metal, country, rap

Name of CD - 'Perfect Poison' is Wolf Islands third released album. As the release date has been pushed back the album is expected to be released during late Summer early Autumn

Cultural references - Though all the girls are English, Zienna (Right) has cultural references from Africa which can be recognised within many of their released songs such as 'Honeymoon sweetheart' and 'Control me'.

Previous history - During the bands earlier years a disagreement caused a rift between the girls forming a solo career for Mia which became quite successful and after her career sky rocketed Mia asked her former band members to join her once again leading to their global musical take over.

Motivation/theme of Album - To take inspiration from previous decades and enmesh those sounds with the music of today

Tracks on album - 'California beaches' 'Crazy Baby' 'late night disaster' 'The last parade' 'Honeymoon Sweetheart' 'The dark side of truth' and 'looks like optimism'

Tour dates - The world tour that Wolf Islands will be going on starts in early 2017 visiting the countries;
- USA
- UK
- France
- Germany
- Canada
- Spain
- Australia
- Italy
- Brazil
- Greece
- Egypt
- India
- Turkey
- Argentina
- Russia
- China
- New Zealand
- Sweden
- And more to be revealed.

drafting and planning - Articles

After receiving from my first draft of my magazine I learnt that to improve my double page spread it is vital that I use drop capitols, find a way to separate the large blocks of text and for a more authentic interview the article could be written in a third person perspective discussing 'Tristan Turner's' Life. And so after this feedback I decided to re-draft my articles to ensure I have a more realistic approach to the double page spread. Though I have not completely finished the article the second draft is;

"After years of working in ‘The smooth groove’ record shop in Tooting, London with his father Tristan decided that the life of music was just too intriguing not to lead. The young man’s years of hard work has slowly paid off with his newly recognized indie guitar riffs, Tristan rises to the peak of musical success. With influences such as The Beatles and Hozier, Tristan feels that years of English music has inspired every piece of music he has written but now wants to try something that nobody has ever seen I’ve always been fascinated with how the Beatles rags to riches story and How truly spectacular their music was, but also I want to incorporate some new stuff Into my music that will really make a new name to Indie music,’ says Tristan and us here at Fierce can’t wait to see what this young man has installed as well as his worldwide fan base 

Living as an only child and being raised only by being his father who owned a  record shop meant Tristan spent most of days after school listening to the classics. ‘I'd sort out the vinyl's, help customers and just chat about about the most amazing artists and albums out there’ Slowly as Tristan grew up his taste for music developed and unexpectedly music became apart of his life that he just couldn’t let go of no matter what was expected of him ‘They all said I needed to find a well paid job not just something for fun but deep down I knew I was made to become a singer!’. After years of private schools within well respected institutes Tristan’s dream of music was put on hold as he followed his family’s wishes of getting a good education and making something of himself but by the age of 20 Tristan came to the realisation that no other career could make him happy,‘I had no clue I wanted to do  music as a career, I didn't think you really could. like I knew people could become artists but I just never thought It was possible for someone like me. Until one day I thought ‘you know what?Music is my life!’.  

Though Turner’s family initially weren’t supportive of the idea they came to a decision that as long as he was happy then it didn’t matter what career he has. But this didn’t change the hardships of trying to make it in the music industry ‘I played for hours and hours on end no breaks singing my heart out not because I needed the money but to prove something not only to my family but to myself!’ Tristan came to the bitter truth that maybe the music business isn’t for everybody and decided to put his passion for music on hold. During his last week working in small time bars, pubs and gigs something very unexpected happened to Tristan. ‘I was singing one of my original pieces that is now available on my new album when Ed Sheeran just happens to walk in, I was gob smacked and wanted to ask him so many questions but was performing and decided to make a good impression and keep professional and just keep playing. Once I had finished the gig I was packing up when Ed came up to me and told me he really enjoyed my material and thought that there was no other voice out there like mine! And it just sky rocketed from there!’  

Now 2 years later Tristan is working on his first alum ‘This is life!' After being signed up to Ed Sheeran’s own record label, with offers from other records coming in by the dozens. 

With such a high raise to fame in a very short amount of time people are questioning whether or not the fame will get to Tristan though he believes he will stay quite grounded through the help of his friends and family and spending most of his time with them when outside of the studio.‘The music industry was nothing like I expected’ as he states that the hardest thing about being a musician is having to create these extremely personal and heart felt songs and then suddenly just give it to the whole world, ‘like what if they hate it or misinterpret what I’m saying like it’s so important my fans enjoy my music as much as I do!’

The musical phenomenon is slowly becoming a world wide sensation with having a 5 night show coming up in the O2, London  which sold amount in a matter of minutes. With over 100,000 people coming to see the artist this week alone it’s hard to comprehend how Tristan handles the pressure and since Turner has never played to an audience bigger than 100 it’s an immense jump ‘even the supporting acts have played to bigger audiences!’ States Tristan when Fierce asked him how he felt having so many people wanting to see him perform. With all the opportunities that have been available to Tristan it’s a shock to here that he had only played in small pubs until this year though releasing 3 singles last year all hitting the top of the charts. ‘I am eternally grateful for all the opportunities the music industry has opened up for me I still find it hard to cope with being under the media’s microscope constantly’.

Being raised without a mother has had a large toll on Tristan as he believes he has felt an absence that his father could not fill when growing up that never really left him. Apparently, his mother passing away at such a young age has created inspiration for the majority of the music he writes such as ‘Suzie’ a single Tristan Turner released last year which positioned No.1 for 6 weeks on the charts which was actually inspired by his mother. Although it is evident that Tristan has been deeply affected by his mother’s absence his father  

 From this, Tristan hopes to pursue more into his career and if lucky enough could go on to a world tour ‘being able to show the world my music would be the biggest honour I could have.’ Though Tristan is only travelling to 11 cities during his UK tour, he’s still extremely excited to go around the country."

drafting and planning - clothing

Diagram 1

For my Photo shoot I asked my models to wear something that creates a sense of symbiosis between all three of the girls. I asked them all to wear something with stripes or checks as it adds a feminine touch to the photography. However, I also informed them that to create range between all three of the girls that they should try to range their outfits wearing different pieces to imply the different personalities within the girls though all three of them will still connote the edgy ethos of the music magazine I want.

For my first model, Maisie I asked her to wear a top similar to Diagram 1 as it quite in trend and stylish while looking slightly formal which will support this professional ethos I want to approach within my magazine.

Diagram 2

For my second model, Abi I have asked her to wear a something slightly more girly by wearing a skirt while sustaining the checkered/stripe theme throughout all the clothing within the bands photo shoot. Having the colours clash with Maisie's clothing will create more contrast between the girls to support that the girls are very different with different personalities though they all reveal this similar girly yet edgy ethos. I decided that this particular model would stand out against the other two models as she would be the lead singer of the band and so wearing something slightly different to the other girls would allow the target demographic's attention to be sustained on her.

Finally, my third model Benita will be wearing something similar to Maisie though with a slightly different colour though keeping the symbiosis between all three of the models.

Finally, other pieces of clothing that all of the models will be wearing will be black for again the simplicity to ensure the audiences focus is sustained on the band and not their clothing. Additionally, having the models wear black is effective as black connotes to dominance and darkness and so implies that the band 'Wolf Islands' are dominating the music industry while also revealing the edgy and rebellious attitude I hope to reveal through both the band and the magazine and so creates symbiosis between the magazine and the photography.

Organisation - Photo shoot No.2 location and date

After my last photo shoot I found it important to schedule another especially for my secondary artists 'Wolf Islands' though I have took photos of two models I decided that the two models I chose didn't have a certain coherence that a band needs and also didn't properly fit with with aesthetic of the magazine. For my second photo shoot I will be using my teacher's camera and experimenting with more camera shots and angles to create variety within my images when deciding which photographs to use for my final magazine Me and my models found that the date that would work the best for the four of us (the models and myself) would be on...

Friday 28th January 2016 

We decided on this date as three of us would have media on this day and so use our lesson to have the photo shoot and the other model was allowed to miss a small amount of her lesson but time was of the essence and so could only take a minimal amount of shots. The photo shoot will hopefully begin at 10am and have chose the location of the black box theatre within my school as it is both a convenient location for all three of the models and myself and still has an edgy feel towards it and so supports the ethos of my magazine. More so, with a location that is indoors there is the benefit of not concerning over the weather like last time. Finally, I feel the location will ensure focus is sustained on my secondary artist with the use of a fairly plain background which contrasts with my first photo shoot as I used a more complex background.