My Pitch in Full

Cover Band Profile

Red Mist is an up-and-coming heavy metal band from Leicester, England. They are known among metal fans for their angrier songs that always seem to have some meaning, occasionally political. For example, their first album, Casual War had very anti-war songs on it such as, 'Dying Like a Dog' and 'Killing to the Sound of Trumpets'. Because of this, they are seen as quite controversial and seem to mix the heavy metal sound with the punk ideology. Their music is particually violent and loud, yet they still retain a good drum beat and incorporate original base and guitar rifts. One of their recent albums, Alone Again focused more on the darker side of human emotions, such as depression, loneliness and anger. This created quite a slowerd and sadder atmosphere around the album, but fans were pleased that they still managed to keep their usual hard-hitting style within it. The band consists of lead vocalist and guitarist, Darren Hicks, drummer Jason McNeil, bass player Chris Tonne, and female lead guitarist Alix. They take most of their inspiration from classic metal and rock bands such as, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones. Recently they have found a lot of success in a tour of Europe called, March To Hell. A lot of their fanbase comes from England for obvious reasons, and Germany, where there is a strong metal following. When March To Hell reached Berlin, tickets sold out within three days.

Pitch Summary

Overall, my magazine pitch went quite well. I managed to cover the majority of my main points, including my name idea, colour palettes, double page spread article ideas, target market, layout and model/photography ideas. Because of this, I ended up gettting limited queries and feedback. One thing that did come up during my pitch, was the idea that I could focus my magazine on 50% classic rock/metal and 50% modern rock/metal. This came up, because I had a lot of classic rock bands in my pitch video. I like this idea as it will make my magazine appeal to all rock and metal fans, young or old. Another thing I found from my pitch, was that my colour palette of having black as the main colour was quite predictable and boring, so I will probably use red as the main background colour, rather than just as a highlight colour. I didn't speak about several things during my pitch, and will answer them now. Firstly, the shots that will feature in my magazine, include a main shot for my front cover which will be a midshot of my main model Darren, with a slightly insane look on his face, holding a puppet of the devil (which I have at home from a children's puppet set) up to his ear as if it is speaking to him. It will be a studio shot, enabling me to remove the background and replace it with a red one that gradually gets lighter the further down the page it goes. I will use three other shots of Darren in my magazine, one for the contents page and two for my double page spread. In all of these shots, he will be wearing a dark t-shirt, possibly black, with black jeans. He will also probably be wearing some form of jewellery such as chains and a necklace type thing. I will use two other photos for the cover page which will be of two other models, one male and one female. This will show that my magazine isn't just aimed at a male audience. I will also use a photograph of an album by a classic rock band to place in my contents near the review section. I have also decided that my magazine will retail at £3.99 as the majority of magazines in shops are around £4-£5, making mine more economical for buyers than say Kerrang or NME.

Magazine Publisher

Bauer Media Group are the publishers of Kerrang!, another hard rock/heavy metal magazine. Because of this they would suit my magazine well, as they already have experience in this heavy and dark genre of music. They two other music magazines under them, Q and Mojo, however these two focus on more mainstream music rather than rock. This does however show that they do know what they're doing when it comes to publishing music magazines and getting them out there.

Typical Reader Profile

Jack is a 18 year old student from Leicester. He is currently at University and is studying English Language and Media Studies. He also works part-time at a local newsagents and likes to buy certain magazines to read when the number of customers starts to slow down at the end of the day. He enjoys reading music and gaming magazines during these periods. He specifically enjoys rock and metal music magazines, as these are his favourite genres of music. His favourite bands include Fozzy, Metallica and Papa Roach. He listens to music mostly during his studying, though, he keeps his iPod on him most of the time, incase he wishes to listen to some. He also likes some classic rock bands such as The Rolling Stones, The Who and Black Sabbath. He enjoys his favourite bands to be quite controversial and loud, and has taken on some of their styles in his look, such as dark sleeveless hoodies and several tattoos along his arms.

Pitch

The 60s, 70s and 80s are over...the era of classical rock has come to an end. We can still look back and worship them, but it is time for a new age, the age of Exploit & Destroy.

Who Will Appear In My Magazine?

The image on the front cover of my magazine should reflect genre conventions of the magazine's identity. This includes their clothes, make-up, pose and props if any are used. My genre, Rock & Metal, uses darker colours for clothing and make-up, usually based around strong contrasting colours such as black and white. Rock symbolism also revolves around the darker side of life. For example, a lot of it is to do with death, satanic symbols and implied violent imagery. This can be reflected in my main image hrough the use of designs on clothing, possible make-up and facepaint or just general imagery. My genre is still quite wide however, as you have some rock bands such as Papa Roach and Avenged Sevenfold that base their style around black clothing and tattoos, bands such as Metallica that favour more casual clothing such as plain t-shirts and jeans, and bands like Kiss that were platform shoes, leather and facepaint.

My Pitch Video

Genre of My Magazine

I have decided that my magazine's music genre will consist of the heavier types of music specifically, Rock, Metal, Punk and Grunge. I would like it to be hard hitting to live up to its genre and therefore will use a lot of rock iconography such as fire, skulls, demons, etc. I have choosen these genres of music, as I personally prefer them and also think that they are not as mainstream as they used to be in the 60s, 70s & 80s and therefore will be more interesting than say Hip Hop or Pop. It also allows me to feature some older bands as well as modern ones if I look to the classic rock or metal such as Bon Jovi or Metallica. Because of this choice of genre, I think my colour palette will maily be made up of black, white, red and grey/silver. This fits the genre well as it is usually quite dark and horrorific in its style.

E&D Quick Mock-Up 2

A second quick mock-up, once again just to see how the logo would work and to try a greyscale colour scheme this time.

E&D Quick Mock-Up

Just a quick mock-up I made to see what the logo would look like in a magazine format.

Magazine Inspiration - Bands

       

Magazine Name Ideas

Several magazine name ideas in the possible styles I would use them in. Its as large as I can get it, so I apologise for the small size. Click on picture to zoom in.

Fonts, Colour Schemes, Possible Names and Magazine Inspiration

Research - Logos

Contents Analysis 1

Media Contents 1

Cover Analysis 1

Media Cover 1

Kerrang Magazine Readership

Readership: 404,000
Gender Ratio: Male 71.3%, Female 28.7%
ABC1: 54.1%
Age Range:
15-24 61.7%
25-34 12.5%
35-44 13.9%
45-54 9.8%
55-64 2%
65+ 0%

Coursework Schedule 2012

G321 CW Schedule 2012