Diary Entry #10

In our first week back after the christmas break, we first sat down as a group and established that we needed to start creating our evaluation for our products and the task in whole. We were set the homework of completing the first stage of our evaluation, and this question was: "In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?"
      Once we had established what we had to get done for next week, we were sent away to our computers and told to load up all of the work we had created in photoshop. We then get up and moved around and visited other peoples work and left anonymous notes on their work about how they could improve their work and gave constructive criticism in order to assist them in developing their work. I believe this to be a very successful and useful task as it informs us how we can make our work appeal to the masses; as we had received feedback from a varied audience but also from people inside my target group.
       Finally, you can see the feedback I received in my "Feedback" post and therefore notice what kind of notes I would have left on other people's work.

This week in media I completed the drafts for the contents, double page spread and front cover. I did these tasks firstly by drawing them out on plain paper with rough ideas of what I would want my final product to look like. I believed this task to be relatively easy, because of my past experience of creating a music magazine last year in Media Studies. However, this also adds pressure onto me as I want to further myself and do better than I did previously. Moreover, I got the ideas for each of the pages from the magazines in the same genre and how they create each of these pages. I could then see the generic factors that had to be included on each one of these pages and decided to draft them into my rough sketches. I feel that is vital that I include all of the common codes and conventions of the indie genre in my magazine as it is what defines your magazine as to being from that genre and also separates it from looking like a comic.

       Plus, I also completed my slideshow on the mise-en-scen from my photoshoot, which highlights what props and clothing I used and why I chose to do so. I think that the clothing used in the photoshoots is essential as the clothes need to have a link to the genre so that the audience can have a relationship with it. Additionally, indie magazines are known for being stylish and having a close link with fashion. Therefore, the clothes worn need to be stylish and sleek in order to keep a strong relationship growing between the reader and my magazine.

        Finally, I created my article draft this week and this was to display what kind of interviews are going to feature inside of my magazine. I chose to take great care with my article so that when it came to adding the article to my real magazine, I can either crop parts out or add more to the backbone of the article, saving me both time and effort. I asked questions that the audience are more than likely going to want to know; this makes my article seem more appealing and the fact that I would advertise it as being an ‘exclusive’ adheres to this thought.

This week I did my second photoshoot and decided to do a shoot outdoors instead of another studio shoot. I believe that this added variety to my wide selection of images and therefore gives me a greater choice of images for when I come to create my magazine, and will be able to use a variety of shots on numerous pages.
             The second shoot took place at my brother's house in Southampton but also around where he lives as there is a lot of scenery that made for a very entertaining, but ultimately successful photoshoot.
               I began the shoot in the garden of my brothers house as it has interesting foliage and shapes in the fencing which I was able to use to create intreging images and poses upon. I believe it is most important to generate an image that will trap the viewers attention and draw them into reading the magazine by having an abstract image. During the shoot I used a lens which blurred the background but still brought the clear focus onto the model. This again added a variety of shots to my arsenal compared to the last shoot, but also added to the quality of creating an image that will be unusual. I think the lens was successful in doing this as it brought out some great images that I am undoubtedly going to use.
               After I had taken a good quality of images in the garden, we decided to move out to the local park. The park seemed to be produce a catalogue of great images as there is a vast amount of scenery to work with. I took shots alongside a bench, playground toys and some without props to yet again provide a variety to the shots I produce. I feel as though this shoot was largely successful as it revealed some jaw-dropping images that will generate the exact feeling I want to out of the audience: shock.
                To conclude, I feel as if so far I have collected enough images to produce a good magazine, but I do not want to just settle for a 'good' magazine and instead want to push myself as far as I can in order to get the greatest results out of it. Therefore, I am more than likely going to do another photoshoot at some point with different models again and different scenery in order to keep my wide-spread choice of iamges growing.

I began this week by deciding on which name I was going to use for my magazine from the previous task of streaming mast-head ideas I had completed last week. I settled on the name 'Heritage' as I believe it reflects sophistication from the common connotations of royalty but also familiarity because of the common ideology of heritage being some that we gain naturally. Therefore, I think my name choice is successful and that I just need to make the logo and font iconic so that people can build a relationship with my magazine, but also recognize it just by seeing the logo.
       As I had picked a mast-head that I was now happy with and was appropriate, I could now start deciding on how I would want it to appear on my magazine by drafting up some ideas on Adobe Photoshop. I began by selecting which font I wanted to use. I believe the font to be vitally important as it needs to be both eye-catching, but still recognizable and iconic. I selected a wide range of fonts to play around with to give myself of ideas. The fonts were also put into different colours to see what they would look like in the house colours of my magazine. Finally, I used 'Blending options' on the texts in order to apply effects like strokes and bevels to trial what designs I could possibly use for my mast-head. I think the task of drafting up possible logo's is useful as it gave me an idea of what I need to do when creating my final product.
       Finally, during this week it was my turn to do the photoshoot, and make sure I gained the appropriate images for when it came around to the time of creating my magazine. It was pivitol that I created a variety of images but also interesting ones too, which I noticed through my task where I looked for 'Inspirational photos' which guided me to what kind of image I wanted to have. I had a range of props and clothing to add diversity to the pictures. The use of a time-lapse camera was also a good idea to reflect how the shoot when and to highlight to the audience what I had done to create the images.

Over half term we were set the homework of completing three more tasks from the list that we were given in the previous week. The tasks that we were to complete were: a mood board, name ideas for the magazine and the colour scheme for the magazine. All of these were to be taken equally as important as the actual construction of the magazine as these tasks are vital for planning and laying down the foundations for our magazine.
      Firstly, I completed the mood board as I found this a very simple task. Although it was simple and easy to complete, I still believe it to be of importance as it gave me a clear insight into what relates with the genre I am going into and what things I should include in my magazine. I used images of bands who are popular in the indie genre, of indie fashion and of festivals in my mood board as all of these things are items that are most commonly seen in indie magazines as they are of the interests of the readers. I then went on to research images from photoshoots that would inspire me when I do my photoshoot. I found images of indie artists that particularly caught my eye due to them being abnormal and artistic. From this task I took away what things I need to include in my magazine in order to compell my audience but also ideas for what I can do in my photoshoot to capture a successful image.
     I then drafted name ideas for my magazine which I feel is a critical process as the name is what the audience build a relationship with and need to remember. Thus meaning that the masthead has to be both suitable but relevant to the genre. I came up with four suitable ideas for my magazine title: Immaculate, In the Indie, Symbol and Heritage. I then stated why I chose them and what impact these words would have on the audience. This again was all constructed on a Prezi presentation.
      Finally, was the colour scheme task where I had to plan which colours I would be using throughout my magazine and what effect and purpose they would serve. I chose to use the colours red and blue for the more decorative articles and to highlight the vitally important news and the special edition interviews and these colours will show change from the simple black font used for everything else. However, black font will still be used most frequently as it gives the magazine a sophisticated and professional feel. I believe the colour scheme to be very important as it gives the magazine a unique feel and also gives the readers something to notice and gain a pragmatic understanding with.

At the start of this week we were given a task completion sheet, and this gave us a heads up and insight into every task we were going to have to complete right up until the end of the task. We had freedom to choose what order we would like to do these tasks in, but we just had to make sure that everything was completed. I decided to start with the 'Target Audience' task and chose to display this as a Prezi presentation.
       The target audience task was to be an in depth analysis of who my magazine is going to be aimed it much deeper analysis than I had previously done so in my proposal. Although, the fact that I had previously made the proposal that also vaguely highlighted who my magazine was aimed at meant that I already had described who my magazine is intended to be aimed at but now just needed to go into deeper detail. In addition, I also had to address how and why my magazine will appeal to this audience. I found this resourceful as it meant that I had to do research into how other magazines of the same genre make sure their magazine appeal to their audience and I then used this research to give myself ideas on how I'm going to do the same thing.
       During this task, I also used the information that I had gained from my polls to reflect what the population expect from a magazine and how I can then fulfill their needs. I think that the poll was very successful as it gave me a clear insight into what people of my age expect from a magazine, although, to extend myself further I believe that I should conduct the same poll on people of different ages and social classes to narrow down my audience even further.  Another objective on this task was to find out the interests of my audience and how I am going to feed their interests in my magazine.
       Finally, I had to think about how I was going to advertise my magazine in order to promote it and get it out to my desired audience. I drafted that I was going to hand out free magazines of the first issue in hot-spots for my desired audience like Westfields. I think this could be a good idea as this is where people of my target audience are most likely to be and as it's free, they will take one and if they then enjoy the magazine, will come back for more and start to build a relationship. To complete my target audience task I am going to film an interview based clip where I will ask questions to someone who is part of my target audience in order to receive even more feedback and give an interactive feel to my work.
     

This week I had to create multiple polls on my blog on both questions about magazines and general information to test the audience on. This primary research would then assist me on constructing my magazine as I will know the audiences needs and I can then begin to plan out how I am going to fulfill them. Once this had been completed, we started to produce our proposal for our magazine and this was to state what genre our magazine was going to be, what was going to be included in it and also what we were going to do to make it appeal to our audience. This became an easy task as we could use the information we had obtained from the polls, to influence our ideas. I believe both of these tasks to be vitally important as I've now learned how to address my audience appropriately, and it is this factor that sells magazines the most as you need to meet the expectations and needs of the audience.

This week in my Media AS studies I had to analyse three contents pages. This started off relatively easy however, it was difficult trying to remember all of the key terms and theories relevant for analysis. Once we had completed these in lesson, we got assigned the homework of analysing a further three front covers. However, I independently analysed the double page spreads too as I knew this is what we were going to be doing next. I believe this to be an effective management of my time as this put me ahead of everyone else and meant that I had more time to do the next task. The next task I got an early start on, and this was to create a 'Prezi' on the codes and conventions of any desired magazine we wanted. I chose to do NME and used facts from a database to reinforce my ideas made in the presentation. I think Prezi is an effective way of doing a presentation as it is both interactive and decorative, but still gets your overall voice and opinion across.

My first diary entry will include the first tasks that I have had to do so far in the start of my AS level Media. First off, I had to create an index page and front cover for a school magazine in our preliminary task. I believed this to be an easy task as the magazine did not have to be of a high standard, but instead just had to include the majority of the general conventions seen in a magazine. Whilst doing the task, we had to use photoshop and this was used as a warm-up and refreshment of my memory before we get around to doing the main task. Next, we had to do deep analysis' of three front pages, contents and double-page spreads from magazines. I found this a bit more challenging as it takes time to deeply annotate the magazines using key terms. To conclude, all of the tasks so far have cleared the cobwebs from my mind, and I feel as if I am breaking back into the media mind-set.