FINAL MAGAZINE

Getting Pictures for the Cover

Getting the picture for the cover was a mission to say the least. everyone's schedule was so insane and busy but alas I finally got the pictures. After I got the shot of me in the air, the first person I got to photograph was my friend Taylor. I took the photos in lobby of the auditorium at school.

queen Taylor Stark doing her kick

 Next I went to dance class and got pictures of Valeria who I'm going my double page spread on. The background really worked because the background was a rehearsal studio. 

Just Kidding! - (self portrait part 2)

So I thought I got a really good shot but when I cut it out I realized that the quality looked bad and it was too dark for me to cut it out clearly.

To fix this problem I went out side to take the pictures. This way I'd have more light and the picture would come out clearer.

                                      

fun fact: my brother almost ruined the picture by coming out the front door 

Taking Self Portraits For The Cover

In my cover image I'm going to be a girl jumping in the air. shown below.

I don't have anyone taking pictures for me so I had to put my camera on a tripod and do self-timer. At first, they were all coming out blurry or they were taken at the wrong time. My camera has a sport mode which is supposed to help catch movement. After a ton of tries I finally got it.

blurry picture not in sport mode

final picture 

Making It Cohesive

Hey blog
I'm having a lot of trouble with the colors of the magazine. The cover is going to be have a black background but I want to add color to the magazine through what the models will be wearing but I'm having trouble finding an aesthetic that I like and can stick to that goes well with the cover.

I have been trying to figure it out on canva but I think its too light and maybe too colorful. Once I put in the other pictures I will have to see what looks best. In other news, I have decided that the name for my magazine will be Spotlight. I took the advice that I was given in the group meetings and thought spotlight was inclusive theatre and not just specific parts of it. Also a lot of phrases for marketing can be made out of it. 

Table of Contents Planning

I have been looking at a bunch of different layouts for my table of contents and I came down with two main options. inspired by the following two table of contents.

Out of these I came up with two ideas that I liked. I made more graphics so I could visualize them. one is a drawing and one I made on my phone.

#1

For this idea I wanted a dance move that was very linear so that the text or title table of contents could easily fit around it. One of the problems I have with it is that I think my magazine will look too dance focused. Also this is solely for the purpose of layout. The colors in the picture are disgusting and not at all what I plan to use in my actual magazine. This is also not as creative as I would have liked it to be but it is defiantly more conventional. 

This idea was heavily inspired by the third photo and the concept for it is to have theatre related things like a headshot, dance shoes, makeup, etc. and have them cut out and put on the left side of the pages. This would let the reader of the magazine see things like rosin which they might have never known was used for theatre and learn more about the behind the scenes of the art form. I also think this would be way more inclusive and encapsulate more aspects of theatre other than dancing.

Group Meetings

Today we had group meeting in class and I was given good feedback on my project. One of the things I was struggling with was the name of my magazine and one of the girls in my group gave me an idea that really helped. She recommended to find things that have to do with theatre and try and use that as names so like backstage, spotlight, etc. I thought that was a good and simple way to create a title. one of the things I wish was that there was another person in my group doing a magazine. While I like giving and receiving feedback from people who doing film openings, I wish I could get tips and feedback from people who are experiencing and creating the same thing I am.

Scheduling :/

Scheduling has presented itself as a significant issue in my project. The girl I'm doing the article on for the magazine is very busy and we are going on a field trip to state theatre convention. With the states trip coming up soon we both have rehearsal and things we have to do to prepare for the field trip. I'm trying to think of ways to do complete the interview and the pictures efficiently. In order to make it not a large time commitment, I'm going to do the interview over the text or email. Although this isn't my ideal way of interviewing, I have to work with both of our extra activities and school work. For the cover image since I'm photographing multiple models I also have to find a way to meet with them. When I first came up with the idea for the cover image I didn't realize how much of the a challenge it would be to find time to meet with each person.

Despite this, I think the product will be worth it in the end especially since for the cover all the models are trying to pursue theatre whether it be in directing or performing and they inspire me a bunch. So I'm still very excited. I just hope I can photograph everyone I want to.

Theatre Magazines

Since I have changed my original genre for my magazine to theatre, I needed to do way more research to find common production and content conventions. The magazines I chose for my research are the Canadian Theatre Review and Playbill.

Canadian Theatre Magazine is mainly produced by college students and is published by university of Toronto press. The magazine analyzes current theatre developments in Canadian theatre. It discussions many topic regarding theatergoers, critics, performers and more.

Cover Image

• black background
• pictures are of multiple people instead of only one subject
• there aren't any cover lines only the topic of the magazine 
• the setting is a stage 
• barcode on lower left corner
• colorful masthead 

The history of the Playbill magazine is hard to find but on Wikipedia it said Playbill was published by New York Theatre Program Corporation. The content focuses on new play and musicals.

cover image

• dark background 
• focuses on one subject
• cover lines mainly on left side
• barcode on lower left side in a large white rectangle
• brightly colored masthead

In my cover image I want to include the dark/black background, colored masthead, topic of the magazine, and stage setting. The content for my magazine is going to be more similar to the Canadian Theatre Review and focus on topics/issues within the theatre industry.

Planning The Cover Image

I have been really stuck on finding something I think will be engaging for the cover image, especially since the background will be black. I was trying to think of how to make it not look like a dance magazine and use acting, singing and dancing in the cover. I had the idea to make a collage of all the three aspects of musical theatre.

This is the (very) rough sketch I made in my phone of the idea I had and then I tested it to see if it was actually doable. To do this I brought out the skills I gained from making really bad fan edits in middle school. This included a specific app called Picsart. I have used Picsart for many projects and it definitely came in handy to bring my idea to life. I first created stickers of people dancing and singing on stage using pictures from google. 

After that I created a collage and made a really rough first draft of my idea. 

Overall this really helped visualize my cover image and I definitely recommend others to try Picarts.

Interview Questions

I have been having trouble finding questions that create lots of thought for the interview. Here are some of my ideas:

1. what is the most empowering character you've played? 
2. what kind is leadership roles have you received in your theatre company and what have you learned from them?
3. who is your biggest influence?
4. what is the most empowering thing about musical theatre?
5. how has theatre affected your life and the way you express yourself?
6. how has theatre impacted your ability to be vulnerable? 
7. how does theatre promote social change?
8. how has performing affected your confidence?
9. how has movement and dance affected you?
10. how has singing increased your vulnerability?
11. what has theatre taught you about work ethic and working with others?
12. how has theatre increased your emotional intelligence? 
13. what are some personal obstacles theatre has helped you over come?
14. what has theatre taught you about yourself?

While was thinking of these questions, I came to the realization that only doing one interview new might not be enough content for a double page spread. I searched up double page spreads and many magazines made one page an image and the next full of text. This is something I might consider for my layout. The girl I originally wanted for the interview said yes so yay!

             

here are some articles ad videos I found that gave me ideas for questions:

• https://www.dance-enthusiast.com/features/view/995/
• https://youtu.be/uCob8MtXeX4
• https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/ways-acting-beneficial-kids-teens-8666/

Throwing My Original Idea For My Magazine In The Trash (but not all of it)

My original idea for my magazine was to create an empowering magazine about women in different jobs. Each issue would be a different job and would include interviews and the empowering aspect of each job. The issue I was going to create was women in theatre but then I realized I don't know many women who are currently working in theatre. The people I know who have worked in theatre or work in theatre but as teachers are the director, choreographer, and vocal teacher at inside out theatre. while I think my dance teacher especially is extremely inspiring and hardworking, I really wanted to focus on how theatre affects and empowers young people or young women. it was also hard to find common genre conventions that were about feminist and created for younger audiences.

Instead of this I want to create a theatre magazine which has way more established conventions and are much easier to research. One theatre magazine that is extremely popular among the theatre community is Playbill. The issue of the magazine I want to create will focus on empowered teenagers who are working towards being in the theatre industry. This way I can show that I understand genre conventions and I can include the main subjects I wanted to discuss like empowerment in theatre. The thing I'm still unsure about is whether I want to make it focus on young women or adolescents in general. Especially since I switched my idea, now I have to do a bunch of research about theatre magazines instead of feminist ones.

Dance Photography

On of the things I believe will be the most challenging in my project is getting nice photos. the photography I'm mostly familiar with is portraits and even then im definitely not an expert. In my double page spread I want to focus on a woman who does musical theatre. Considering that the most experience I have had with dance/performance photography is taking about 5 photos of the school's production Lion King freshman year for Journalism 1, I was pretty concerned. In order to take a nice crisp photo I need good lighting which in auditoriums is usually pretty bad for photography. Or I need to figure out how to work with low lighting environments. In order to gain more information and start practicing this I looked up videos on Youtube.


This video made me consider doing my photos in locations other than an auditorium. I think this would work if my magazine was strictly for dance but I think since I'm focusing on musical theatre a stage would still work best so emphasize that its theatre and not just dance. Despite this realization, I did learn lot of valuable things from the video. These are some of the things I learned:

• use shapes
• Using shapes will help add a lot of interest to the picture
• capture the complete movement
• I need to capture the full extent of each movement especially if it's a jump.
• have the performer check their technique in the pictures
• This is one of the things that stuck out to me the most in this video. Especially since I don't have tons of knowledge on dancing. I can't or won't know what the performer needs to correct.
• decide if I want to capture a crisp shot or have blurriness in the picture
• have the correct camera settings
• I have a camera but I don't completely know what settings I should put it to, especially since I will be shooting in a place that most likely has low lighting. I need to do research and play with the settings on my camera to figure out what will be best with my location.

Holler Magazine

The second magazine that I chose is Hoot magazine which is a feminist magazine created by students at Columbia University. This magazine is about feminism in fashion, particularly pertaining to New York. This magazine publishes an issue twice a year: once for fall/winter and the other for spring/summer.

The technical and design elements I noticed are:

• strong emphasis on photography
• the photography is very artistic and not commercialized

• they overlapped the photos

• font for masthead is curly and in all lowercase

• many pictures are shot from low angles

I definitely want photography to be a focused part of my magazine. I want to try and add as many artistic and original elements to the photography as I can. I was planning on the photos being from low angles to make that subject seem more powerful. Overlapping the photos is something that I hadn't thought of doing but I really liked the idea and I want to try it. This magazine really made me realize how much work I have to put in to planning the design of the photos.

The Siren

Diving deeper into the genre of women empowerment I wanted to do more research into the technical and design elements of specific magazines.

The first magazine I chose is The Siren magazine. This magazine is a feminist magazine created at the University of Oregon. The content of this magazine includes topics like art, love, and anti-violence and how they relate to feminism. In addition to this, they also create issues of the magazine about intersectionality, for example their latest issue was about people of the LGBT community.

The technical and design elements I noticed are:

• color scheme throughout the magazine whether it be in cover image, page color, text, or illustrations

• quote relating to the topic of the issue

LGBT issue Love issue  

  Art issue

• cover image is often very colorful and the font used for masthead is a very straight font
• there is also an absence of cover lines in many issues of the magazine
• includes topic of issue

• the table of contents is often really simple 
• some have pictures, some don't 

• within the magazine they have stories with pages with only text and then some with only pictures

I really like the use of color schemes within the magazine and its something I might consider using in my magazine. I also really like the font they used for the masthead because typically women's magazines have a very delicate, curly font, but the straight bold font makes a much more powerful statement. the idea I. have for my magazine is to do an empowering magazine about women in work places and the different issues will be different jobs. The job I want to do my project on is women in theatre. I definitely want to include the topic of the issue on the cover. For my magazine, I want to do a much more engaging table of contents than The Siren by including more visually interesting pictures.