Evaluation- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Technology has helped me massively during the creation of my production piece. I would say this has improved the way I have been able to produce my magazine. I have used a range of different technologies as from this blog post it explains a little bit about the equipment that I have used. I have explored this in another post on this blog

By writing blog posts every time I have done something during my production piece is another way technology has been used in the process.

http://asgeorgiaskusecabot.blogspot.com/

I used the website http://www.scribd.com/ to upload powerpoints that I had created to uploaded onto my blog which would put it into a little slide show to present it on my blog.

The equipment that I used and technologies were also important, e.g. Photoshop, SLR Camera etc.

Technology



Evaluation- Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progressionfrom it to the full product?

I have made a big difference from producing my preliminary task to completing my final magazine. I used Photoshop to create my preliminary school magazine and my final music magazine.

I used very similar layouts for both magazines although I have gone much more in detail with my music magazine so that it challenges forms and conventions of other music magazines. I have thought much more carefully about many features of my music magazine, including, layout, font, text size, images and colour.

My preliminary task was a short task to get started using Adobe Photoshop and create a much simpler version of my music magazine.

My music magazine was created to a much higher standard compared to my preliminary task. The language that has been used throughout the magazine has been thought about very carefully so that it fits in with the genre of magazine that I was trying to create. Each of my images are of younger people which help promote it to my target audience much more and will appeal to a wider audience of younger people.

I have learnt that using photoshop to create my magazine on has been a difficult task but for me to stick at it and to make sure I created each page very carefully to produce something that could compete on the market if it was going to be sold.

Evaluation- How did you attract/address your audience? Who would be the audience for your media product?

Audiences

Evaluation- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Although my music magazine has been deliberately produced to attract pop fans I have used fresh young images that are likely to attract my target audience and beyond.

The costumes that I chose for my models to wear in my magazines were current clothes that were in fashion at the time of producing my magazine as people will aspire to this. Having similar clothes to that worn by celebrities is likely to interest and attract people more as they are interested in finding out the latest gossip within the music industry.

My magazine has dominated a much more with female prospective rather than male. Modern representations show that there are many more female solo artists and girl bands within the pop genre, than there are male. By looking at this typical representation I think my music magazine is likely to be aimed more towards women rather than men. This will not increase or decrease the number of people that are likely to purchase my magazine.

My magazine has been designed and produced to be bought by many social groups although it may attract just certain social groups that are stereotypically aimed towards in different parts of the magazine. Each of my images that I have taken will appeal to people in different ways, this is something I took into consideration when I was creating my music magazine as this is one of the main things people look at while they are flicking through a magazine.

Evaluation- Are there examples of the technology obstructing or limiting the creative process?

Although I have a laptop at home I preferred to do most of my creative work in school. This still created problems for me along the way of the creative process. For me to be able to complete work at home I saved all my work onto a memory stick to make it easier for me to access both at home and at school. I had many problems with my work not opening while I was in school and many of my files becoming corrupted so I did not find the school computers very useful at all.

I used Adobe Photoshop to create my music magazine which I could use both in school and at home, once all my photographs had been taken there was nothing obstructing the creative process as I followed my drafts and stuck to my time plan as much as I could.

Evaluation- How do your school/college magazine and music magazine relate to existing examples of these media forms?

College Magazine (Preliminary Task)

Music Magazine

Front Cover

Contents Page

Double Page Spread



As you can see there is a really big difference between my preliminary task and my music magazine. When creating my college magazine I used a simple layout that met most magazines that I looked at, which were music magazines and gossip magazines. When creating my music magazine I looked much more in depth when researching music magazines as I wanted to have a music magazine that followed the forms and conventions of other music magazines so that my magazine would fit in really well if it was to go onto the market.

There are some similarities to both my preliminary task and Music magazine as in both I have used one main image for my front cover and the same for my music magazine. I have also put the title of both magazines at the top in large bold writing. Text has been placed around the outside of the image in different sized text but keeping the same font. I have been more in depth when creating my music magazine as I thought a lot about how I wanted my images to be taken, what exactly my the language of my text was going to say, which fonts would look best and fit my genre of magazine, the colours that I should have used etc.

Evaluation- How have you approached the task and how have you managed time, equipment and other resources?

Time

To begin my media practical the first thing that I did was to create a gantt chart to show how I was going to manage my time throughout the process of producing my own music magazine.

http://asgeorgiaskusecabot.blogspot.com/2011/01/introduction.html

By doing this I could keep looking back to make sure I was managing the time I had correctly to ensure that I would meet all deadlines that were set.

To keep my time accurate I made sure that I planned my ideas ahead so that I could stick to these throughout the production and if any changes needed to be made, it would only be very slightly.

I made sure that I was using my time well outside of school to complete the work that needed to be handed in, to ensure I was doing at least 4 hours of media work a week made sure I would meet all the deadlines. Although I spent much longer time some days/weeks as I wanted to make sure I could complete everything really in depth.

Equipment

To ensure I achieved a high standard photograph to put into my magazine I used my Canon EOS 40D DSLR camera. For some of my pictures I also used an external flash so that facial features of my models really stood out.

To do the creating part of my magazine I used Adobe Photoshop. The program has many features that helped with the production of my music magazine. From image manipulation, different font and texts sizes, to being able to rearrange images and text to look like a conventional music magazine. The program creates each little bit that you do in a separate layer so that it can be rearranged so different things can be placed on the top of other things.

Models

I had 3 people as models to feature inside of my magazine, this made easy for my to stick to my time plan as I only had to arrange 3 separate photo shoots although more took place my ideas changed slightly during this pre production stage. All of my photo shoots took place in my own time after the school day, which shows how I have managed my time well.

I feel I have worked very well while working individually to create my music magazine and feel my time and resources have been managed very well.