Interview Questions, Ashlee Casselle

Afternoon Ash, thankyou for joining me today, how are you feeling ?

Would you consider yourself well-known?

What do you enjoy most about you chosen career?

Have you ever had a bad response whilst performing?

What are you favourite venues to play at?

What would you say to young people who were in a similar position to you when you were young?

Did you have facilities at school which enabled you to excel at DJing?

As a kid, who were your three main influences?

Do you think that it annoys people who play a real instrument?

Summary of magazine

For the music mag project, I wanted to create three products which combined would appeal to an audience of 17-25 year olds. I began with taking pictures of guitarists and vocalists in bands at various Camden venues which are luckily at my disposal, To make the images more eye-catching, I edited them on a windows media program. 'FADE' and 'Off me chops' were two rough drafts for the front cover which I experimented with. After asking people what they thought, I decided to move on to another genre. At first I wasn't sure about which genre I wanted to focus in on, therefore I took as many pictures as possible when I went on a night out and eventually extracted images from each night and came up with a selection of pictures which I could use for my feature and front cover. I decided to settle with the dance/clubbing scene. It took me three or four drafts with the final image to create the final mag cover. Experimenting with sell lines, contrast, colours other photoshop tools, I was eventually satisfied with the cover which is of a girl with a with spot/strobe shining on her with luminous bold sell lines. I wanted the feature, contents page and front cover to be completly different, however still in keeping with the clubbing theme. The contents page was important as it shows what is in the magzine, i.e clubbing websites, interviews etc. The products combined challenge forms and conventions of similar media products as all of it's photography, writing and ideas are from one person and combines original imagery with not only clubbing news and information but covers saftey issues aswell which are a huge issue in British media.

Step 4 final

This is my absolute final front cover. I enlarged the title and experimented with the sell-lines and tried to keep the colour palette as limited as possible, however the colour range in the backdrop was difficult to work with. I'm happy with it now as I think it would actually sell.

MIXMAG analysis

Mixmag was first published by the DJ mail-out service in the early 80's and was advertised by Technics Panasonic. It is Britain's most popular dance and clubbing magazine. Containing upcoming dance events, reviews and Britain's biggest and best club nights, it is a magazine with an original approach to media and is jam packed with exactly what party animals want.

I think that if my magazine were to be distributed and produced then it would be by the DJmail-out service who would target my audience of 18-25 yr olds most accurately.

The colour palette is limited ;white, yellows and greys and the font would be familiarized with digital text and electronics which is in-keeping with the clubbing theme.

The text is consistent and against the dark cloudy backdrop is a central focus of a well known musician. There is also a free CD on the bottom left of the cover, giving the viewer more incentive to purchase the product.

planning

Rough planning and drafts...

This and the following scan are my first draft of my evaluation for the school mag.

Second half of evaluation.....

This was a rough brainstorm for my school magazine contents page. 

school mag front cover....

This was the front cover for my school magazine. I wanted to keep it quite sophisticated and traditional. The picture was taken on a bright day. I chose the title 'Camden Curve' as it uses alliteration which would make the product more memorable. I emphasised this with the font. I chose to use black for the font colour as it stands out against the pale blue background. I took the picture by standing where the school gate is and angling my camera upward so that the tower could be shown. Camden students or ex-students would be able to familiarize with this. I subtly heightened the saturation. I used three fonts for the sell lines, and chose black and white. I wanted the magazine to appeal to the social side of life at Camden and to have a more generalist approach. I distorted the perimeter of the cover to make it appear as a window.

school contents page......

This was my final idea for my school contents page. I simply stuck rizla onto the side of my bookshelf and wrote on it in purple pen.The one of the phone box and the pink writing was my first idea, although it was too busy in the end and I decided to stick with the rizla idea which seemed to appeal to a young artistic audience.

Front cover edited step 2

With a few more sell-lines I am satisfied with the front cover.

Other clubbing photography......

These were other images I was planning to use in my feature, however they weren't easy to experiment with. They were taken at Ministry of sound and Madame jojo's.

Other front cover ideas....

These were other images which I wanted to use as my front cover. The image above was taken in Penthouse in Leicester square. I thought the image would make a brilliant cover due to the layout, framing and colours which would be easy to work sell-lines around. However I decided to use another image in the end.
The image of the man in the grey cardigan was also one of my favourites for the front cover although I couldn't envision this being the face of my magazine. It would have been comical although I don't think the audience wouldn't take the magazine itself very seriously. The low key lighting in this image seemed realistic which I found quite pleasing and decided to use the same 400sd canon camera in order to create this effect for my actual front cover image.

Step 1 More front cover ideas....

These were my first attempts/ideas for the front cover image and title. I manipulated the images on a windows media editing program. The one on the left, entitled 'off me chops' was a sort of brainstorm. I wanted to see if a well known saying could work as a title. I took the picture at a Maccabees concert and editted it by lowering the contrast and brightening the figure and desaturating. However the ghost-like affect did not send out the message that I wanted and in the end I decided to start afresh, abandon these ideas and move on to something which would appeal to a wider audience and have a central focus instead of an abstract image which would appeal to a smaller audience.

Planning

These are random pages from my media journal. They include brainstorms, action plans and rough ideas for my feature, front cover and contents page.