Skills Development Essay

Digital Technology

I used many programs when producing my music magazine. For starters I used my Lumix G2 camera to photograph the images that would make up my music magazine, of which I photographed in a RAW format. I photographed in RAW because the format is better quality than JPEG and is much better for editing on photoshop than JPEG as the pixels stay the same quality during the editing process. This was helpful because it made it easier to do extreme work on my images without losing the quality of the image. Another program I used was bridge and photoshop. I used Bridge to look at my images in RAW (windows xp doesn't support the format) and Photoshop to edit my images. Bridge was useful because I was able to see all my images at once and I was able to make slight alternations to the image. Photoshop allowed me to make physical changes to my model like blemishes, changing the colour of certain parts of the image and constructing many drafts to my front page, contents page and double page spread. I also used online programs such as Blogger, Survey Monkey and the social networking site Facebook. Blogger was used to display my work in a chronological order and helped me to make edits easier because I just had to click on the appropriate post. Also it was very user friendly and I was able to put different forms of media on to my blog. I used survey monkey to set up a survey to get audience feedback on my final product and make the alterations that where mentioned.

Creativity

From looking at my college magazine to my music magazine, I have progressed in my Photoshop skills. When producing my college magazine I used basic Photoshop skills to adjust the model on the front of my magazine. Some of the tools I used to produce my college magazine involved making a plain background, erasing the background on my model image and adjusting the levels on the image. However, when making my music magazine, I used more tools such as the line tool, adjusting the settings and I also merged multiple images together to create my 3 products. I have learnt how to also make physical changes to my model; I used Youtube videos to help me with. I produced multiple drafts to produce my products; I made four for my front cover, and 2 drafts of my contents and double page spread. The first draft of my products where boxes and internet images to get an idea of what I wanted my products to look like. I then after getting feedback, changes the drafts slightly of my DPS and contents page. I then went on to change my front cover, making an additional 3 more drafts before having the final product. The first draft had the basic layout showing the boxes of where I would layout my front cover. Another draft included; text, boxes and an internet image to get a better idea on how my model could look. And finally 2 more drafts which included alterations to the front cover after getting feedback.

Research and Planning

Once I had made my decision on what genre my magazine would be, I began to research appropriate material I would need. I looked at examples of magazines of my genre on Google, to see what you would expect to see on a front cover of a music magazine. I then researched a country western woman, to see what costume they stereotypically would wear. I thought that’s this would be good to see because then the audience would know the genre just looking at what the model on the front of the magazine is wearing. From this research I was able to have an idea on what the mise-en-scene would be. I then looked at popular magazines such as NME, Q and MOJO as I wanted to look at different magazine layouts and use this as inspiration for my magazine. I then took some photographs of my model and possible locations of where I could take my photographs; from this I then produced several drafts. As I thought I didn't have as many photos for my first shoot, I thought to take another set of images that could go on all three media products. In total I did 7 front cover drafts altering different bits of each draft, making sure that my product improved each time. For my contents page and double page spread, I produced 4 drafts improving each draft at a time. Improving the design and changing alterations for each.

Post-Planning

After producing all three of my products, I used a website called Survey Monkey to get anomalous feedback on all three of my products. This was very helpful because it gave me an idea on what I needed to change, from someone else’s point of view. After highlighting areas that I may of missed out or needed to change, this helped me to improve my products further. After getting this feedback I tweaked a few things on each of my products. I videoed one of the students in my Media class to give me some verbal feedback on my products, to see what I needed to change, to see what I did well and not well on my products.

Using conventions from a real music magazine

To make sure that my music magazine followed the conventions of a real music magazine, I looked at previous magazines from different genres and looked particularly at the layout and design of the magazine. From this I then used their layout to inspire my own layout for my music magazine. From this I was able to see what you would expect to see on any music magazine, like a masthead, cover line, main story ect. I googled popular news for my genre so that I could incorporate real life events into my music magazine. This would help to make my magazine look like a music magazine you would expect to see on the everyday market.