What I have learned:
From the beginning of the year doing my preliminary task of making a college magazine to now; finishing my music magazine, I feel that I have learnt a lot. The first thing i feel that I have learned is the conventions of music magazines and how many there are actually are, I feel that this has help me with a lot of things in this module including a lot of my posts especially in LIIAR analysis and my evaluation. Another thing I have learnt is that i can work to deadlines to finish a certain amount of posts, I feel that before the start of the task I wasn't that good at keeping time and meeting deadlines but with the amount of work I have improved this and balanced my work at the same time. I also learned how to use Photoshop in this process.
What I have developed:
I strongly feel as though I have developed my Photoshop skills quite a lot from the start of the year editing my college magazine to now and doing three different types of pages, I have gotten better at using certain tools like the polygonal lasso tool; used in order to make my images neater and look more realistic on the page to further the authenticity of my magazine, the spot healing brush tool; used to clean the images up so that my model looks flawless which is a convention of all the magazines I looked at to make the audience want to look like that person on the cover. Finally, I used the drop shadow effect quite a lot in producing my front cover and contents page, however I did not use it that much on my double page spread. The drop shadow effect makes the feature stories on my front cover and contents page stand out, it also makes it a little easier to read. With images this tool also gives a realistic shadow, this was useful with the picture of my model as putting a shadow behind it makes it look as though it was actually been taken on that background and not just on stuck on the magazine.
Another thing I feel that I have developed are my time management skills meaning I have generally kept on top of the work for this module and my posts have been fairly up to date all the time. Finally, I have improved/developed my photography skills as I took all of the shots in the magazine myself around my college, I used the green room in order to get the best lighting for my main image and the image used on my double page spread.
What I would change:
If i had to change anything about the process of making my music magazine it would probably be going back to plan the actually written article on my double page spread, I feel as though it was a tad rushed. The next thing I would change if I could go back is that I would purchase the Photoshop software that is on the computers in college as I often wanted to get on with editing outside of college, I feel that this would have put me to advantage as I would have been able to finish the products faster. The final thing I would change if I could go back is going back to when I was shooting my model for my front cover, I used a bass guitar as a prop, but the as seen on my front cover the bass guitar is not plugged in and I feel this looks rather unrealistic and shows that I have just taken photos of my model posing holding a prop bass guitar.
Why the preliminary task was useful:
The preliminary task was useful to me for a few reasons. The first of these reasons is that it gave me more chance to go over the conventions of magazine and just what I can include in my magazine in order to get good marks and target exactly what my teachers and the examiner will look for. Secondly, I also feel as tho the preliminary task allowed me to was get used to using Photoshop, through already having a magazine template for my preliminary task I could follow what I had already created but change - into the style of my music magazine - and make it better through editing it sufficiently to match the conventions of the magazines I looked at to model my magazine around i.e. NME and Q. Next, the use of the camera and green room prepped me for the music magazine project because doing that made me more confident in my photography skills when being told that I had produce at least 4 original pictures to display in my magazine.
What skills and knowledge I developed in order to produce my music magazine:
As stated above I developed my skills and knowledge on Photoshop as producing my college magazine I even unsure about how to open a new page on Photoshop as I was unsure of the sizes and paper to type in, however I now know and am able to use different aspects of Photoshop with great ease. I also developed my use of the cameras I used when taking my photos of my artist, bands and equipment that I featured in my magazine, I used a Sony 1200D camera.... (April 2017) in the green room of my college, I wanted to use this camera because I wanted the best, clearest image for my magazine and in my opinion I got just that; this also meant that it was easier to make my picture look better on my front cover as it wouldn't be bad quality and harder to cut out, the lighting rig really helped in this situation again meaning there were no shadows on my model like there was on the picture that I used as the main image on my google mock up music magazine (https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4898738924969108064#editor/target=post;postID=2477400553078494069;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=21;src=postname) making it look more realistic.
April 2017 - AS Media Foundation Portfolio Re-submission
From the time of producing my college magazine to the time of completing my music magazine I feel like my skills had changed quite a lot, I started to learn the conventions of music magazines, especially from the indie genre, examples of this would be the way I place the masthead in front of my model in the main image on my college magazine, after my research and planning I found that it is more conventional to put the mast head behind the artist as people already know what magazine they are buying, what they want to know is whats happening in this issue and who is the main article about and hiding this feature behind the masthead isn't going to help catch the consumer's eye.
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