Script!

He’s been hidden in the dark for so long most people thought he no longer existed, but ‘Down’ get up close and personal with the forever comeback kid David Mobberley in this exclusive interview.
Not only is he letting us through the doors to his past, he has also brought along his two new gorgeous band members Victoria and Zofia, who have undoubtedly stolen the messed up rockers heart…


David! It’s been a while since we’ve seen you step through our double doors. Where on Earth have you been hiding?

Well, if I told you it would no longer be a secret. You just want to know where I found these lovely ladies.


Haha, you got us there! So David this is an ‘Up Close & Personal’ interview and there was a lot in the tabloids in the past about your spiralling drug problems and sinking depression, what happened?

Yeah, I’ve just come out of a really rough patch of my life, probably a chapter I won’t revisit much in the future. Everything just collapsed after the death of my brother. I couldn’t think straight and I sank into a deep depression, not coming out of the house drinking my sorrows away. I missed him so much, he wasn’t only my brother, he was my best friend. We spent every day together, we were in a band together for f*ck sake. I couldn’t cope without him there. Things got worse when my parents split under the strain, I just couldn’t deal with anything. Then when the drink didn’t numb the pain enough, I stupidly turned to drugs. And I’m not talking the odd bit of Green, I’m talking hard drugs, they completely f*cked with my head. I couldn’t communicate with anyone; the only thing I cared about was my next fix. It got to a point where people stopped trying to approach me because I’d cut them off too much. I’d hit rock bottom and I just couldn’t pick myself back up.


Dam, that’s pretty low dude. How did you manage to get yourself back on your feet?

After 3 suicide attempts? I’m not so sure. My family were terrified for me and booked me into sh*t loads of counselling, but they’re a load of stuck up airheads who’ll label you with anything as long as they get their pay. I wasn’t interested in a word they said to me. My life had well and truly spun out of control and nothing made sense, until one night I found myself in this run-down bar and two young ladies approached me. They didn’t seem like the typical slaggish punters that infested those types of bars; instead they actually covered up just the right amount of skin and smiled with grace rather than sleazy lust. Zofia and Victoria – the girls who saved me – introduced themselves and told me they were huge fans of my bands previous work, and by God, I’m so f*cking happy they did. They’ve been the highlight of every day of my life since then. In time they helped me off the drugs and the alcohol, and got my life back on track. I still enjoy the odd joint, but who doesn’t? I was so low I thought I’d never get back up, but these girls pulled me through; they are my best friends, I don’t know what I’d do without them. I love them very dearly.

Aww! That’s the sweetest thing. But, how did you get from friends to the record breaking band you are today, ‘Above Board’?

Good question! I don’t think we ourselves really know. I remember I was staying over at the girls’ place – not in a sexual way, I haven’t banged them yet – and we were just casually drinking and jamming when Victoria jokingly suggested we formed a band. We laughed about it to begin with, but then thought ‘why the f*ck not’ and went for it. Now look at us, our beautiful faces are plastered all over the place! Nah, I’m not that arrogant but I am having the best time of my life – I get to play the music I love to millions of fans with the two greatest people in my life – what more could I want?



You do make us laugh, David.


What about you two lovely ladies, you haven’t got a word in edge ways. You are quite often referred to as Mr Mobberley’s hoes, how do you feel about this?

Zofia: Love it. Who wouldn’t? Just look at him, the sexy beast! He could have his wicked way with me any day!
Victoria: Lol! Zof, you randy fool. But yeah, it’s cool being known as his hoes. He is our main man and we support him every step of the way, and we know he loves us and doesn’t just see us as pieces of meat. Believe it or not, David’s actually very respectful of women, even though he acts like a horny tw*t half the time.
David: I love my hoes.


Ah dear, you guys are rare. So David, you mentioned earlier that you haven’t ‘banged them yet’, is there any hidden romances going on between two of you… or all three?

D: Yes, yes there is. We’re all top notch at Kama Sutra; we’re actually in the process of writing our own manual. I get these girls screaming every night.
V: He wishes.
Z: I wish.
D: REALLY?! Nah, in all honesty it’s never really come to mind. We’re just really, really good friends and a relationship – especially in this industry – could seriously ruin the friendship, and that would kill me. Not only that, I wouldn’t be able to choose between the two. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind the odd experiment with either one of them; I can’t say I haven’t dreamt about it.
Z: Oh baby.

My days, you horny f*ckers; you are badmen. Speaking of badmen, have you girls ever enjoyed the ‘odd joint’ with Mr Mobberley?

V: Nah, it’s not really my kind of thing. I’d rather be eating cheesy balls and watching ‘Back to the Future’. But you know whatever floats your boat.
Z: Vodka all the way baby! Vodka makes everything gorgeous!

Good girls! That’s what we like to hear. Anyway, back to the music side of things, what influenced you to adopt the genre of Indie/Alternative Rock?

D: I think it’s fair to say that we all emulate our heroes to begin with before you go off to create your own sound. We knew we wanted to be some form of Rock Band, no doubt about it. F*ck being some pussy Emo band that no one gives a sh*t about. It’s just like ugh, go whine in a hole somewhere. So, I guess we just kinda imitated bands we liked in the Rock Genre, such as Biffy Clyro, Muse, Green Day, Foo Fighters etc and went from there. Whether it’s music or art, we align ourselves with artists that we 100% believe in.
V: But then there was always the issue of being too similar to our role models. No one likes a copy cat. That’s what pisses me off with so many mainstream bands of today; they all sound the same and have basically no song writing skills at all, they just all sponge off each other. You Me At Six and All Time Low, perfect example.
Z: Probably all sucking each other off, too.
D: It really wouldn’t surprise me.

Brilliant, who doesn’t love a bit of Rock? I can’t help but wonder though David: due to your messed up past, does the stereotype that was created back then as the ‘no-good druggie’ still get thrown at you?

Of course it does - the press never let things go, the bast*rds. Although, I believe it has worked in my favour. Yeah, you get the stuck up pricks who look at you, snarl their noses and judge you by the word-of-mouth they’ve heard and the way you dress, but I don’t give a sh*t about them. It’s my fans who I care about, who don’t give a f*ck and support me, despite my past. I like the whole ‘badman/rebel’ image, it really works for me. I get some good attention, if you know what I mean. People look at me and think ‘Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll’ and that’s exactly what I want them to see. I am all that, Generation Y all the way baby!

Brilliant! Just how we love you! Generation Y is what we’re all about here at Down, and you’re our main candidates. You have to understand though, Generation Y is becoming ever more popular… are you ever afraid that some new, hotter band will come along and steal your new found lime-light?

D: Pfft, f*ck no. So f*cking what if some new puss comes along and acts like they own this scene? They know nothing like I know, they haven’t experienced half the shit I’ve been through – and most importantly, they don’t have these two sexy ladies. Anyway, I don’t give two shits about what most of the press have to say about us anyway, our true friends will stick by us no matter what. Not only that, we made this band to have fun by making the music we love, and luckily enough we are able to make a living off of it, so we must be doing something right. If there’s ever a moment where we realise “Hey, this isn’t fun anymore, what the f*ck are we doing with our lives?” that’s when we need to start giving a sh*t and make a change.







This is the script I am going to use in my double page spread. The language I have used fits my 'Generation Y' and would appeal to my target audience. It is quite informal, and that is the kind of tone I prefer. My editorial in my contents page will be the same sort of tone and language.

Packaging

Because I wanted only one image on my front cover along with the title, strapline and quote, I was missing a quite a few features that really do need to be included in my magazine in order to sell well and to entice my target audience.

In order to overcome this problem, I have decided to do what some other Music Magazines do, such as 'Metal Hammer' and sometimes 'Kerrang!' and give my magazine a packaging, which can include all other advertisements, details and other images my magazine needs without ruining my front cover.

It will include other images of features in my magazine, such as pictures of other bands, photo's of gigs etc. and any advertisements such as free posters which will come with my magazine.

I have decided that my magazine is a weekly magazine, and this issue I am basing my project on is a 'special issue' limelighting one band more than usual - in this case my feature band 'Above Board' - as it their 'come-back' after being in the shadows for so long, which adds to my reasons of only wanting a picture of the main band on the front cover, which led to making this packaging.

Also, the barcode will be featured on the back of the packaging, but there is also a barcode on my magazine.

As it was a popular answer in my questionairre, and I know personally that a magazine is more appealing if you get something free with it, I have decided to include free posters with my magazine, of the main band 'Above Board' and other bands featured inside. These will come in the packaging, rather than in the magazine as it is annoying having to tear out pages in your magazine to get the posters you want. They do this in 'Kerrang!' and sometimes you end up ruining your magazine trying to get your 'free' poster, and they also back to back them so if you want both posters on your wall you have to buy two magazines. I have resorted to doing this myself in the past.

Double Page Spread Mock Layout

Here is a mock up for my double page spread. I want quite a lot of images on here, as I feel I have taken quite a lot of good images that I want to include, and I know from personal experience I feel more encouraged to buy a magazine if there is a lot to look at and not too much text, although I would like quite a good, meaty interview - not a skimpy boring interview/piece of text.

I am not sure about the layout of the text yet, as I don't really want it to overlap the middle as this could cause troubles during printing. I will play around with it and decide on a final settlement later on.

Image Edits.

Here is my original photo that I took using my own camera, along with the final edit.

After uploading my images onto my computer into Picasa 3, I edited quite a few, but ensured that I still had the originals saved so I could refer back to them.

This was my first edit of the image. I turned up the brightness and the ‘shadows’ bar featured in Picasa 3 which changed the contrast making the colours bolder and warmer.

I also slightly retouched this image, getting rid of Zofia’s (girl on the left) moles on her chin and some of Victoria’s (girl on right) face moles/blemishes. There was also a scar on David’s (man in the middle) nose that I have retouched out because it looked quite red.

I then went on to upload them onto the school computer and opened them up in Photoshop. Obviously there were far more tools in Photoshop compared to my basic image manipulating programme Picasa 3. I used the 'Spot Healing Brush' to take away some blemishes and uneven skin tone on their faces, and found it was far more affective and professional looking than my 'retouch' tool on Picasa 3, so from then on I did all editing like that on Photoshop.

Although I found Photoshop better on this level, I prefer editing the brightness and constrast on Picasa 3 as - to me - it looks more professional and I get more vivid, better looking colours. I also found sometimes when I upped the brightness on images in Photoshop they sometimes looked distorted and pixelated, to which I did not get this with Picasa 3, they had a nicer finish.

I have also taken the background out, as I was originally using the photo as my front cover image, and the background of my front cover is white, so it looked odd with a green background on the photo. I did this by simply colouring in the background in white using the paint brush tool on photoshop. I used a light brush so to speak, which gave it a nice blurred effect around the edges of the people, which I quite liked. I did try other methods to get rid of the background, like rubbing out the background using the eraser tool or cutting it out, but I always ended up with a rough looking edge, and found this easy method to look better in my opinion. Also, I found some other methods of eliminating the background quite stressful.

I then went on to use this photo as my main cover image, because it was easier to place as it is landscape. Also, it portrays my 'Generation Y' criteria well as he is smoking.

Again, I did the brightness and contrast editing in Picasa 3 for the same reasons as before. I then edited out all blemishes in Photoshop. It made his lips really stand out, which is good as it is in the middle sector of the 'rule of thirds' so you are attracted to it right away. I also really like the tone of the skin after adjusting the brightness - I think they are nice, warm colours.

I spent a lot of time editing out blemishes on this photo. David had quite a few marks on his chest - some were blemishes, where some were lipstick marks - so I had to be careful as to which marks I erased out.

Although I didn't want David to be covered in blemishes, I didn't want him to look 'too perfect' as he is meant to be quite rouge, rugged and 'real' - you get too many airbrushed, fake-looking people on the front of magazines nowadays - which too me makes me want to buy it less.

I again edited out the background as my front cover background is going to be white. I used the same method on this image as I did on my previous image. The only trouble with this is it meant I lost some of the smoke coming from his cigarette which you could see in the background, but you can still see some on his face, which I like. I also got rid of the shadows, because it looked better without them.

Not only did I decide to use this image because it was landscape - it fits perfectly to A4 size, so it basically is my background - but it was also the favourite in my questionairre which, yet again, I am in the process of uploading along with my questionairre itself. Not only that, I personally like this photo - it's eye catching and it is advertising the main person being featured, and I have plenty other edited images for my double page spread which were all edited in the same way to these pictures.

P.S. Sorry about the terrible layout, me and Blogger don't get along.

Image - Generation Y

I really like this image because of the bold, sophisticated, warm colours. It has a nice contrast and the good lighting near enough erases any blemishes, though this image has been edited using Picasa 3, I will upload the un-edited photo’s and talk about them later. I also like the way it emphasises the smoke coming out of David’s mouth and makes his and Victoria’s red lips stand out, making it quite eye-catchy.

It also quite a male dominated image, only David is looking at the camera whilst Zofia and Victoria are kissing his cheeks, therefore suggesting they look up to/admire him. It almost gives off a ‘pimp’ aspect – David gets all the girls. It has some degree of symmetry as he has a girl on both sides, and he himself is facing square onto the camera. It could be said that this creates some contrast to the lack of symmetry in his make-up.

I want my ‘Indie’ related magazine to back up Media’s portrayal of the ‘Generation Y’ theory. Upon researching Generation Y I came across an article ‘Generation Y: Love Them or Lose Them’ which quotes “Its members, born between 1982 and 1994, are known for their sense of entitlement, outspokenness, inability to take criticism, and technological sophistication.” Generation Y is basically made up of rebellious teenagers wanting to be controversial and stand out against society, also linking to the ‘Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll’ motto. My magazine will support this image of teenagers and young adults rebelling and standing out, as they are my target audience.

I think this image is good for backing up this generation, as it has captured David blowing out smoke, which could either be suggested as normal cigarette smoke or it could be from a spliff. This could portray him as being more dangerous and daring. Also, the background colour is a humble green, which could also be linked to drugs – ‘green’, weed – therefore backing up the drugs aspect of the ‘Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll’ motto.

He also looks a bit rough and rouged, with his controversial make-up and the fact that he’s topless. This might also add ‘sex-appeal’ to the female readers. Also he has two girls flanking him and kissing his cheeks, implying that he gets his way with girls and could potentially be quite the womaniser, which could add to not only the ‘sex appeal’ but the whole ‘badman’ exterior. This is all backing up sex aspect of the SDRnR motto (‘Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll’).
And quite obviously he’s in a band as this is the main feature, which the readers will be able to tell is going to be a rock/indie band from the cover of the magazine, covering the last aspect of Rock ‘n’ Roll of the motto.

Original Front Cover

This was my initial design for my front cover, as I really liked this image. I thought it had good colours, the red lips stood out in the middle sector of the 'rule fo thirds', and it portrays the middle man as being quite a 'womaniser' which fits the genre and theme of my magazine well.

The only trouble was, this was a landscape picture and it was difficult to place and make it fit well with the title, whilst trying to make it look professional.

Another thing that I wasn't completely satisfied about was the fact that there was a lot of white space left, and you could clearly see where the image ended, which I did not want. Also, it wouldn't work putting the image over the title - which is the effect I wanted - as the image cuts off and it looked odd.

Another feature that I wanted for my magazine that this initial idea doesn't really convey, is that I wanted to go against the conventions and have a magazine that looked different from the rest - I didn't want it to look like every other music magazine on the shelf. I think this one just looks too much like every other magazine, and doesn't stand out too well.

Although I really love this main image and it portrays 'Generation Y' well - which is my target audience (I have written about this in a word document and am in the process of uploading) - it just doesn't work as a front cover image, so I will have to use it in my double page spread.

Front Cover Mock Up Layout

This is similar to a typical music magazine layout. The Title of the magazine goes at the top with a large, eye catchy image dominating the page.

There will also be a bold strapline showcasing the main feature of the magazine that goes with the main image, and hopefully a quote to support it which will encourage people to buy it.

The Cover could also include a few smaller images showing other features in the magazine, and obviously there will be a barcode, issue number and price which will all go in the bottom right hand corner.