AS reflection on exam and the coursework

I went into the exam confident that i had revised enough to deal with any question i was up against. When i first opened the paper i was over the moon to read that the textual analysis was on gender! This is the area that i felt most confident, so i felt that i was able to give a good answer. However, structuring my time i felt was a bit of an issue as i spent five minutes to long on the first section, which meant i had less time on my second essay answer.

Looking back at the preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progession from it to full product?

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of contructing this product?

How did you attract/adress your audience?

Who would be the audience of your media product?

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

FINAL! FINA! FINAL .... PRODUCTIONS

I am so happy with the final outcome of each one of these productions, it really feels good seeing all of the work and effort come together. I have shown so many family and friend member and each response has been posotive especially the comments about the double page spread.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD!

This is the double page which i created, I am very happy with the final outcome. I handed this out to four people, so i was able to get an idea of how the target audience felt about it and what could be changes, taken out of it or added. Overall the comments that were given were positive :) especially on the introduction and the use of font. I created this using a number of programs. Firstly, i drafted my interview text using word and got it peer marked by members within my media group, i then made any necessary changes. Using publisher i began to format the layout of my magazine. I edited my images using fireworks as well as the title, i also edited the title using the program paint shop pro. I then tranferrd the publisher final draft onto paint where any minor adjustment were made. However, like anything there is always room for improvment, so i still have time to make any final adjustments or changes if needed.

Example of picture editing

This is the original picture which i transferred from my camera onto the computer. This program which it opens with is called Windows photo Gallery.

Using this program i was able to manipulate my picture using simple techniques. As you can see above i changed both the brightness contrast and fixed the red eye. Already you can see the improvement from before and after this.

Now, open Macromedia Fireworks (icon above)

The program will then begin to run. To open the file in this program you will first need to save it as a picture and find it on your desktop.

Once the picture opens you will see it appears as shown above. You are now able to edit your picture using a range of tools ( some shown below).

My main focus was not to change the photo, but to crop and get rid of the background so it would blend in with my page in my production. To do this i choose the Magic Wand Tool. This tool allows me to select areas that are the same colour and delete them. So i was able to get a more accurate cut i zoomed in, you do this by the small icon on the bottom right of the screen.

This picture above shows the outcome of the Magic Wand Tool. As you can see the area that was highlighted in the previous screen shot is no longer there instead the canvas has become transparent.

Once you have used that Magic Wand to erase the background it is likely that you still have areas where the original background did not erase. To fix this you can use either the Eraser tool, where you are able to adjust the size, shape and edge, all of which enable you to get precision when cutting close to the model. Or alternatively you can use the Lasso tool, this allows you to simply lasso around areas which you wish to delete and then delete them.

Once the background is transparent you can either fill it using a number of colours to choose from or you can leave it transparent. The benefit of leaving it transparent is that when you use it within your productions it is only the model you can see, the rest will blend with whatever colour the page is.

Edited pictures ...

As you can see i had no difficulty choosing which picture i wanted for my final front cover, it was immidiatly clear to me which one i wanted. The picture above is the final outcome of my front cover image, edited and all.

For my contents page i decided to choose my images in a different way to how i did my contents and front cover images. Rather then stage the images i decided to go through personal images and select the ones that could related to my music magazine, these are the four above. I edited these by cropping, adjusting colour, brightness and contrast. All of which was done using the program windows photo gallery.

As i am beginning to think about creating my double page spread, i decided to choose these images above and edit it them, changing aspects such as lighting, contrast, cropping and background. I will then use a select few to use within my spread.

Images for front cover and double page spread!

As you can see i took a large sample of images. I did this so i had a wide variety of angles, mise en scene features such as lighting etc. The images were grouped into a number of categories; Jumping, Singing, Playing guitar inside, playing guitar outside, Close up and mid shot - inside, Long shots inside and random. I then needed to narrow down these images to a select few which i would go on to edit and use within my double page spread and front cover.

Shooting Schedule

Permission Letter

Magazine Title

This is my final title design ... I will now show you how i got to this point.

The font designs you see above at the bottom of the page, i have collect from the website 'datfont.com' this is an online font download site. As you see i have chosen a range of styles. I then took these nine fonts around and carried out a tally on who like which. At the very top of the page above you can see which one was the most opted. I then used this font and in fireworks began to edit it changing features such as colour and texture. The image of the ear as part of the logo was taken from the internet and then edited using skills cush as cropping, contrast and colour formations.

This was a difficult stage in my coursework. I needed to find a name which would appeal to my target audience and find my brand identity, a name people will remember. I began this process by looking throw a thesaurus at word related to music and writing any down i liked the sound of, i then spent a whole hour!! sitting at home with a piece of A4 paper listening to my Ipod writing any ideas that came to me. I then went into school the next day and handed out a list of titles for my magazine and collected a tally of their results. It came to a tie between Decibel and Fusion, I have chosen to use Decibel.

Brand identity, research

As you can see above, this is a collection of a number of musical brand identities and logo's. I then analysed each and began to think about the meaning and purpose of each feature used within it. This would allow me to think deeper into my magazines brand identity and try to show the representation of the magazine through it.

Experimenting, Contents Mock-ups

Unlike my double page spread mock ups, in my previous pri lim task i did create contents mock ups so already i have an idea into their structure and typical features. Also my contents analysis have helped me to get a further understanding. From this research i noticed that many of the contents were spread across a double page spread, however i feel that for this production task, single page contents will be more practical. From the final outcome of these i cannot decided which of the three i like most. So my final contents is sure to be a complete mix of the three.

Experimenting, Double Page Mock-ups

This task was completely new to me as in my previous pri lim task i did not have to do this. So what i tried to think about was incorporating the typical features of a double page spread which i discovered when carrying out my research into them and analysis's. I tried to create three very separate structures. My favorite has to be the very first one for the reason that it almost describes two stories with the text and images separate. However, i believe that each of these structures makes good use of the space provided. On the last layout you can see that i have included the feature of a sub story, i am not keen on this idea but i thought i would try it.

Experimenting, front page mock - ups

This has got to be my favorite of mock ups and i am sure i will use much of this structure within my final production. One disadvantage is that it seems crowded, so when structuring my front cover i will need to take this into account and maybe either not use certain features, such as the earpiece area or keep certain features but change them slightly through aspects such as size and shape.

This is a very similar layout to the one above. However, while keeping the same features this seems a lot more spaced out. This is due to both the position i have placed them and the size and shape i have made these features. One problem i might find if using this structure is that my cover lines for example may not fit into the space, this may again lead to it becoming over crowded.

In this final mock up i thought i would try to have a less complicated structure, focusing on spacing. The image of this is likely to be of just one artist and across this image the main story linking to that artist. This is most defiantly the most simple of structures, although what i like about this mock up is the fact that attention is drawn to the main story.

KERRANG! Leaflet

Me and my friend, fellow media student Chris decided to do some background research into the music magazine Kerrang, this would allow us to get more understanding into a music magazines typical features etc. and get an understanding of why they do what they do. The main influence we found was of course the target audience of the magazine.