Create a proposal for a media product (P1: U3, M1: U3)

Amit Shamir

Learning outcome 1 : be able to create a proposal with sample materials for an original media product to a client brief: (P1: U3, M1: U3, P2: U21)

Objective

The Grime scenes objective is to serve as a quick way to stay updated on all grime related news every morning so anyone can stay up to date on the latest releases, rumours and news. Instead of having to scroll through Facebook waiting for something to come up the audience will have everything they want to know right there in the magazine in an organised place.

Concept 

The Grime scene is intended to be a magazine that can be subscribed to and receive one in the post every morning. As well as having a online page where people can get daily updates on news if they are not home to receive the magazine, the website will also be the place to sign up to subscribe to the magazine. The magazine will feature a top 25 best songs of the weeklies as well as a page for new releases, tour dates along with links leading to the websites that sell the tickets and the last two pages will be filled with the weeks hottest grime related pictures.

Above you can see the title of the magazine, already put into its final font form. We used a special font off photoshop named ‘AIRLOCK’. The font creates that tape looking background, which represents police tape which relates to the world that grime goes hand in hand with. We also added some bullet shots in the background of the title to add some detail, we used this image from the internet -

We considered several other fonts for the title of the magazine such as the ‘A Lolita Scorned’ font which makes the letters look like they are melting which was quite cool however we felt that ‘AIRLOCK’ would fit better with the theme of the magazine.

It is also important to mention the fonts that we will be using throughout the rest of our products as the one that we are using for the Masthead is a very unique one that would not be suitable for use all over the products. For areas such as the cover lines, article headlines and body copy  in the magazine will all be in a classic Helvetica. This is because we didn't want to over do it with more fancy fonts which will take away the attention from the actual stories where as people will just concentrate on how nice the fonts are.

Every month when the magazine gets delivered to the buyers door on the 1st of each month the magazine will feature a story or interview with a well known Grime artist/artists. The front cover of the magazine will hold a preview of who the special guest of the week is and what the other top stories will be about. The first page will have a table of contents showing on what page to find what, and the back page will be a paid advertisement page featuring offers of products that the specific target audience would be interested in as well as previewing world famous venues where big performances take place 

Sample materials

Here you can see several sample materials that are where essential for when taking pictures for the background of the front and double page spread of the magazine.  

This moodboard includes inspiration of what to include in the magazine. It involves many popular grime artists and albums by these artists. This can be used to give us inspiration as to who should feature in the magazine as well as even what type of imagery we should include in the magazine due to inspiration from all the album covers

In order to decide on the finalised Masthead for the magazine we tested out several different fonts with the name of the magazine in order to see which one would suit the theme the most, these where some of the ideas we came up with.

The first font that we took into consideration is the ‘Phosphate’ font which is a simple font with a nice touch of a white line in the middle of each letter. The masthead using this font would have looked something like this  -

Another popular font that we took into consideration which we believed suited the theme of ‘The Grime Scene’ very well is the ‘A Lolita Scorned’ font. This has a sort of drippy effect on the letters which we thought gave it a cool and a bit scary vibe which matched the theme of the music made by grime artists. The Masthead using this font would have looked like this - 

Hand Drawn Sketches & Digital Templates

Front page sketch - I did this hand drawn template to be able to see a rough lay out of the front page. The drawing helps me understand what size the image should be on the actual cover. The drawing also helped me see if the font fits into the background and if the added bullet wholes cover any of the letters on the header.

The drawing of my double page spread also helps me layout the page and see if everything would work out. It helps me see if that when the page gets split in the middle the picture gets ruined or cut off. It also helps me decide where to place my page numbers, the website and social media icons. Lastly it also helps me decide which picture will go on the double page that can relate to the article and the front page.

 This photoshop template was the finalised version of my drawing template, it helped me decide what colours and sizes to use for the text and header, where the bubble would go and where the barcode would go.

This photo shop template of my magazine double page is the improved version the drawing, this helps me decide where exactly to put all the writing to prevent the words getting cut off in the middle of the page where it splits.

Audience

The primary target is 18 to 20 year old men who are into the music genre of Grime. It is important to note that no one under the age of 18 is aloud to subscribe to The Grime scene due to the explicit content including rude lyrics or rude images.

Our secondary audience is anyone over the age of  20 as we hope to allow everyone at any age to enjoy this music genre.

Legal and Ethical

There are several legal and ethical issues that movie and tv program producers face and a few procedures they must go through to not have any problems during the making of the product.

A big issue that producers deal with is copy right. Due to only being able to apply copyright to the idea of the product but not the product itself, the best way we dealt with this was get legal protection so that way the original material can not be used in someone else's name thats not the creator of the idea/product. 

Producers also face national security legal issues. Producers must be aware of laws in place that prevent potential threats to national security.

Heal and safety is also something that producers put a lot of their time into. Health advisors in the TV and film industry give advice on health ad safety management systems within each production, this involves reviewing each company health and safety policy and insuring the correct health and safety arrangements are in place.

Before the photo taking begun, a number of risk assessments had to be carried out in order to ensure everybody’s health and safety.

Accuracy could also be an issue that the producers face. A producer must insure that they dint mislead their audiences with their product. they must also make sure they don't alter or change any facts as this will undermine the audiences trust in their content. Doing any of this with a product goes against the rules of the ASA who state that there can be no misleading or harmful statement or imagery within the advert. If the ASA was to find out that the product has been misleading or harmful then the ASA will immediately remove it. To prevent this we must simply stay truthful to our consumers 

Lastly a serious Ethical issue that we may face is the language barrier. Not everyone in the UK has perfect english or maybe they are just learning it. To prevent this issue we must use easily understandable English that doesn't include too many complicated terms and words.

Research

Situation 

With grime getting more popular by the day, with more upcoming artists such as Stormy and new songs that manage to break through to the public such as his songs ‘shut up’ or his brand new debut album ‘Gang signs and prayers’ A grime album that has now received recognition by some of the most important people in the music industry such as Adele, who shouted out his album. At the moment there is no specific magazine or source for people looking to know more about grime and The Grime scene will fill that gap.

Strengths 

Being the only and first magazine to focus mainly on grime, we will get a lot of recognition due to having no other magazine to compete against as it is the only one in its field. The simple layout and the pictures used in the magazine well help the magazine gain more attraction than any other magazine being delivered to someone.

Weakness 

With grime being a very new genre that is mainly only known in and around the UK and it being a very acquired taste it does not really appeal to the general public and is not played on radios/Tv therefor there isn't as much interest for the genre. As well as not having a wide range of audience as this sort of music is not suitable for young kids and neither is it liked by the adults who don't have interest in the sort of lifestyle that grime music promotes

Opportunities

Even though grime music is not for anyone, there is still a huge gap in the market that this magazine will be filling especially with popularity building. Through out the years less music has involved real instruments and adapted more into grime and trap. The current generation living through the uprising of trap will pass it on to generations to come.

Competition

Because there are no grime magazines out there, there is no real competition which is what makes this magazine such an amazing opportunity to be successful and give the people what they want. However after doing some research we where able to find another brand new Grime magazine.

140 magazine - An online based magazine that focuses on underground grime and local grime artists. Although this is a grime magazine they are no real threat because the magazine does not focus on the side of grime that The Grime scene will do.

We may also face some problems with the hugely popular and widely known American magazine COMPLEX which focuses on basically anything that is popular which at some point could also mean Grime. They currently a lot of work with other musicians from the Rap genre and more. Here is an example of one of their covers featuring a popular artists - 

Resources and personnel

In order to make this magazine i will need access to several resources as well as experienced personal for this magazine to be a high quality product. I will need a photographer in order to take the pictures for the front cover and the articles. I will also need a writer in order to write up the magazines articles. Additionally i will need to hire a graphic and layout editor in order to use photoshop for the special effects, images and lay out of all the information. It is important to have a graphic designer in order to make the magazine stand out by adding little touches relating to the magazine.
In terms of resources, I will be using the programme Photoshop to edit my final pages. I will also require a camera, tripod, SD card and lighting equipment.

Market plan

Mission statement 

The Grime scene’s team is committed to expanding the grime market and raising attention to the genre. Our intention is to make the lives of those who look forward to listening to this music simply easier by putting all they want and need to know in one place.

Market objective 

Our mission is not only to make a magazine for the experienced grime fans but also help the music appeal to the people who frown upon the music for whatever reason. Whether it's because the life style the artists live or because of the rude language. our goal is to show that it is just as harmless as all other types of music.

To achieve these objectives The Grime scene needs to make a name out of itself and become known. The more people that get to know the magazine and read it the more the genre will be trusted amongst people and the bad talk about it will end.

Marketing strategy

We are looking to put up adverts on an app called ‘datpiff’ as soon as one month before the release of the magazine. Datpiff is a known app in the grime community for unrealised mixtapes therefor everyone on the app will be interested. We are hoping to get the app as our sponsor once we can prove to be successful. We are also looking to open a website which from there you will be able to subscribe to the magazine. 
The justification for this app to be used as a marketing platform is that it is extremely popular amongst our target audience. Music of the same Grime genre will be available for downloading/listening and by marketing our magazine this will hopefully gain more of a readership. In time, once our profit increases we are aiming to market our magazine on other music platforms such as Spotify.

Distribution 

At first the magazine will be available in the UK only, due to the  demand of grime being much higher in the UK comparing to any other place.
Once the magazine makes its name and the grime industry grows, we will go world wide. A new magazine will be released once a month and will be distributed to our consumers through the mail, they will be able to purchase the magazine on our website. The magazine will cost  £5 a month. To get a subscription to the magazine you will need to go to The Grime Scene website that will be brought up one month upon the release of the magazine. Profits will be made from these subscriptions and future sponsors.
The justification for this method is that from research, our target audience are more likely to read an online copy of the magazine rather than carry a hard copy. From distributing it online, our target audience will grow due to word of mouth. Additionally, the easy access to the online magazine will be appealing to our target audience. In terms of the hardcopy issue that will still be available, this is for the members of our target audience who may wish to collect several issues of 'Grime Scene'. This will not only be distributed in the post, but also available in universities and schools. We would also be glad for any other distributers such as newsagents and corner shops to make our magazines available as these are all areas that our target audience (ages 15-20) will be.

Once our partnership with Datpiff has been made official we would also like to make the magazine available through their website as well as their mobile phone app. The reason for this distribution, is due to mobile phone apps being incredibly popularly and used by our target audience, this will allow users to purchase and view our magazine. 

Our secondary product will be the website which will include everything magazines have to offer but it will also hold daily updates on news and releases where as the magazine has all of that summarised up into a few pages. The website will also have links to performances and recently released music.

Our third product will be the merchandise. We hope to not only sell artists tour merch but we would also like to make our own merch. We will have a variety of things such as Hoodies, T shirts hats and accessories.

About the Author of this Proposal

Amit Shamir has been a student at Jcoss for the past 3 years. He is now going through his first year of Sixth form. At Jcoss he studies media where he learns all about magazines, photography, social media and graphic design.