My technological knowledge has progressed throughout the year;
my skills and expertise especially in Photoshop have predominately improved. At
the beginning of the year we was set the task of creating a College magazine,
my skills where only limited as I started media knowing the basic’s to using
Photoshop CS5 such as using the Quick Selection tool to isolate one or more
parts to a selected image. However when it came to editing for my College
magazine I clearly needed practise to develop my skills further, so when it
came to establishing my music magazine front cover I was able to use the
various Photoshop tools effectively, such as the lasso tool to cut objects and
the spot healing tool to create a convincing product. Additionally throughout
the year I developed my camera work skills and uploaded video footage to my
blog of feedback peer groups, these groups helped me gain outside knowledge on
how to improve my existing products. Further techniques I have learnt throughout
the year are how to present my work on my blog, at the beginning of the year I
simply wrote up my planning and research on a blog page which was boring and
lacked technological skill. Nonetheless as the year progressed I was taught how
to use various other platforms to present my work such as on Prezi. Prezi is a
cloud-based presentation software and storytelling tool for presenting ideas on
a virtual canvas.
In terms of creativity, I took inspiration from various
existing music magazines and believe my creativity has enabled me to generate
continuity throughout my products whilst still keeping them interesting and not
becoming repetitive and boring. A key feature I believe is important in the
creativity of my products is the colour scheme; I chose to follow a scheme of
three main colours that where associated with my chosen genre and they were
gold, black and white. From choosing these colours I used my creative skills to
style my model around these colours, for the costume and make up and knew the
importance of continuity so used the same makeup and hair styling for each shot
however changed the outfit to keep the audience interested. Finally the style
of the text was important for the image of the products, therefore I used my
create skills to make a stylish text to flow with genre using a text creator
website.
Before creating my music magazine products I researched and
planned everything in advance, this helped me to understand codes and
conventions used to create a successful music magazines. For the research
element of the task I bought several existing music magazines such as Q and
Billboard magazine this allowed me to decode the key conventions that make up a
professional magazine front cover, contents page and double spread. From doing
this I was able to draw up box drafts of each of the elements I had to create,
I then advanced my skills further by scanning in the hand drawn drafts and
uploaded the images from the scanner onto the computer and onto my blog to show
my research and planning. For my college magazine I followed the same process
for planning however for the research I used another medium of medium and
googled ‘college magazines’ and looked up other people’s products they had
created in Media from previous years. Furthering my planning and research I
created a reader profile for my music magazine, a reader profile is a piece of
text that describes what people read a magazine. It was useful for me to create
a reader profile because it helped me decide on the content I should include in
my magazine in order to attract my target audience. In post – production after
choosing my genre and colour scheme, I took several practise shoots with my
model in order to get the right idea and framing I would use when it came to
actually producing my magazine. Looking into the technical side of my media
magazine products I explored the demographics of my piece and decided whom I
wanted to aim my products at. After the first drafts of my three pieces of work
I did a peer review, this helped me understand where I was going wrong with
certain aspects of the magazine and how I could improve them further. I also did a series of other tasks for my
planning and research, market research, price and publication, sociographics
and LIIAR analysis on existing music magazines, all these tasks helped me
construct my music magazine effectively for my target audience.
When designing my products, I took inspiration from various
other existing magazines that I had analysed and their use of conventions that
make them successful music magazines. By looking at magazines such as Billboard
and Q magazine I wanted to create a house style for my magazine in order for it
to look conventional and professional. Another key convention used throughout
was continuity, to follow continuity I chose a specific text and throughout all
three areas of my magazine this text was used to show the audience continuity
and it helped the magazine flow and look skilled. The majority of existing
magazines use a colour scheme of three, so therefore I used this convention on
my magazine and had the colour scheme black, gold and white, this linked to my
models outfit and make up which added to the continuity of the magazine. To
make my magazine look specialised I added features to my front cover, for
example I added plug in the top left hand corner, a footer and cover lines that
are conventionally put in the first third of the cover. Adding to this I added
a barcode at the bottom right hand corner of the page, I found this to be the
conventional way of placing the barcode from studying other existing magazines.
Additionally to this I also placed the price and issue number around the
barcode this made the layout of the magazine look well thought out and neat. An
additional convention also used is the use of a medium close up, this is the
most common shot used in magazines because it allows the reader see most of the
models outfit and their face in enough detail. Moving onto the contents page, I
similarly used another image of my model in the same outfit and make up but in
a different pose this is a conventional way of showing the reader continuity
and making the magazine easy to follow. I also checked on the positioning of
the page numbers and found that there were located in a certain order, for example
with the double page spread, they would not be placed at the beginning of the
magazine but would be seen later in the edition. Usually between page numbers
14-28, that is why I chose my page numbers for the double page spread to be
24-25. My double page spread also consisted of an interview, I found this was
the conventional way to present a double page spread article. In order for the
interview to look professional and conventional I used a question and answer
format using the letters Q and A to indicate to the reader the exact part of
the interview they are reading. Overall I feel that from using conventions from
real media texts it enabled me to get the professional standard I was aiming
for with all three pieces of my music magazine. In conclusion from the start of
course my skills where very limited in terms of digital technology, creativity,
research and planning, and understanding key codes and conventions, however
after relevant practise I feel confident in my skills and they have developed
significantly making me feel that I am now ready to be able to produce good
pieces of work for my A2 portfolio.
