A2

After completeing AS level media, we moved onto A2. In this we are working our way up to being able to create a professional looking video.
We started off by taking photos of different shots and angles such as High angle and extreme close up. This task took us around 30-45 minutes. After completing this task, we showed them to the class and discussed what was good and bad about them.
Our second task was to use these camera skills to make a short film. Our film topic was a tour around the school. We were given 2 hours to plan and shoot our video.
I found that background locations were hard as there was alot of people and objects around so it was hard to perfect. another hard bit was getting the cuts right. here were times where our video kept having strange cut scenes and showed quite clearly where we had try to record over.

Our next task is to make a film about a 'phone call' and in my group are Stew, Adam and James. We did our planning today and hopefully are ready to start filming on thursday, ready for editing on friday

Evaluation

1st slide - headings

This slide lets you know what headings will be disscussed in each slide

Slide 2 - Research on magazine

This is the research i did before i started any of the tasks

Slide 3 - Photoshop

This shows how i laernt to use photoshop and what i found easy and hard

Slide 4 - Preliminary task

This shows my preliminary task and how i came to do it

Slide 5 - Picture Taking
This shows how i took pictures and tells how to manipulate them

Slide 6 - Research into final
I show what i did to prepare for the final and also a image showing the presentation on music magazines

Slide 7 - Similar magazines
These are similar magazines to the one i designed

Slide 8 - Layout
This shows how a designed the layout and also a compariosn of Kerrang!

Slide 9 - Images
I show how i edited the images to suit the magazine and background. I also show how i edited my main image

Slide 10 - Articles

This slide talks about the articles i used. It says hopw i tried tpo keep them less formal and more appealling to a younger generation

Slide 11 - Why i chose it?
This slide informs on why i chose that particular style of music magazine

Slide 12 - Conclusion
This slide is the conclusion. It shows what i felt i did good, bad and how to improve it.

Final Touches

as deadline day is monday 27th april, it was time to start finishing all the work. After finishing my final task, it was time to do the evaluation. This year, instead of an exam, we are doing it as a powerpoint presentation of about 12-15 slides. I am going to draw up a plan in my exercise book and see what ideas are good for showing what and how i did in the final.
The topics i am going to talk about in the presentation are:
reserach on magazines
Prelimanary task
picture taking
photoshop
research into final
similar magazines
llayout
audience
images
articles
why i chose it?
conclusion

The presentation should show everything i have looked at in this topic and show some of the flaws i had to overcome.

Main Task final

Over the last few weeks i have been creating my final design. we were given around 3 weeks to finish it all which at the time seemed hard but after while got easier. I started off with some plans and mock ups. I showed where i was going to put some of the content and how the layout was going to be. I found that doing a plan, i was able to decide what would be good or bad in the magazine. I also asked some of my friends to comment on it and give me any advice regarding improvements. One bit of improvement in particular was to put the main picture in the middle. i applied this as shown below:

This gave the image a sense of importannce which is good for attracting readers.

I also arranged the images (mainly of the people) to show where the bit of the article about them is. To show that the magazine isn't dull and to suit the type of magazine, i added a questionnaire featuring one of the band members and i made it so it was a bit of banta and isnt a dull survey type thing.

The main issue with making this project look professional was the images i was going to use. As we wernt allowed to use any of the internet, we had to take our own or use ones that we had previously taken. I asked 3 friends to stand and look away from the camera so as to make it look like a natural shot. As the background was in one of the computer rooms, i edited the image and cropped out the 3 actors. I then added the cropped image to one of the pictures i took of wembley. I also edited other images so that i only got the face of the actor and added it to the black background of the magazine.

As most magazines have a bar code, i had to make one in Paint:

Regarding the front page, i followed the same style as kerrang magazine. I tried to make the content locations similar and add similar images but not to copy it exact.

I have added a top bar featuring bands, the main title in top centre, main image and other bands and images below.

In this task, i found that using photoshop can be challenging and frustrating but once you get the hang of it and using all its functions, it can be pretty usuful. One problem i had to overcome was getting the images to appear in colour and not black and white. I tried to play around with the colour options but in the end i asked a technition for help which was successful. I now dont have any trouble with black and white images.

Photoshop is also good at bringing out the best in the images you edit. It allows you to edit them to what ever you want them to fit or be.

One negative thing about photoshop however is trying to get to grips with all the different uses of the prgramme. For a first time user, it didnt offer a lot of help and guidence as some of the other microsoft programmes. This posed difficulties in the beggigning.

friday 13th March

today we wrote plans for our articles.

Thursday 12th March

Mrs wernt in again today so we carried on with our magazines. I designed a plan showing the colour, background and images.

Tuesday 10th March

As our teacher wasnt in today, we were given some cover work, but obviously still to do with our main task. I made bulletpoints and outlined my articles for the mag and then started to draw up a layout.

Friday 6th March

Today we started planning for our main task. we were told what type of pictures to take and to take good care on how they were presented. We were given 10 mins before the end of the lesson to start getting ideas.

Tuesday 3rd March

Today we were asked to do an exam question based on music magazines.
the question we had to answer was:
How do magazines attract their audiences online and on the print versions?
i wrote about the layout, target age and advertising.
i found the essay ok but there were points where my mind went blank and i didnt know what to write. thankfully i was able to work my way around it and asnwer the question.

Thursday 5th March

friday 27th february

today, we continued on with our analysing of the magazines. O worked with stew and we looked at kerrang and NME
we found out thigns such as how much advertising is there and whether or not this shows popularity.
after we did an exam question on one of the magazines. i chose NME and we had about 25 minutes to do this and i finished about 5 minutes before the end.

Thursday 26th February

At the start of the leson we were told we could go down to the free computer room and finish our prelimanary task. I carried on with it and added a few more pictures to my front cover and changed the background colours around from blue to red. I aslo created a contents page with similar backgrounds.

the font colour is the opposite to the background

eg red on white and white on red

After i finished doing that, i continued the main task and searched the web for online magazines such as kerrang and NME
i look at a paper version of NME aswell as the online and then compared the 2 in my book. I wrote down the best bits about each and then compared them to each other.
eg the website version has more detailed stories as it is not restricted to a certain amount of space.

Thursday 26th February

At the start of the leson we were told we could go down to the free computer room and finish our prelimanary task. I carried on with it and added a few more pictures to my front cover and changed the background colours around from blue to red. I aslo created a contents page with similar backgrounds.
the font colour is the opposite to the background
eg red on white and white on red

Tuesday 24th February

Today we started on the main task. We took notes and brain stormed different types of music. I had to find bands and songs in the catagory of Dance music. As i never really listen to it, i found it difficult.
Stewart helped me to find some dance music and i used bands such as the prodigy and Cascada.
We had about 40 mins to get as many ideas as possible

Thursday 12th February

In this lesson, we went down to the computer rooms and started our front covers. We had to use photoshop and arrange the images we took in the previous lessons and make a fairly attractable front page.
I found using photoshop hard and at one point decided to use word, but in the end i stuck with photoshop and have started to get the hang on it now.

Tuesday 10th Februrary

Today we had to go and take pictures for our front cover. Me and stew took a camera and went on our way. He took a pictue of the school crest where as i asked Mr Graves (politly) if i could get a picture of him doing something to do with science in the sixth form, he said yes =]
After we got a few more pictures, we had to go back to class and upload them into the shared folder ready for editing.

Friday 6th February

Today we had to plan and draw up a draft of our front covers. I still used the idea of a blue top tabloid and i used the name :
Mark-it Place
I then continued to show where i was going to add my photos and stories etc on the front cover.

Thrusday 5th February

Today due to the snhow day on tuesday, we went down to the library and used photoshop to edit our photos. At first i found it quite difficult to work with but started to get the hang of it. I moved a photo of a duck to another photo and analysed how the picture looked. At first it looked dull and fake but after a bit of editing, it looked genuin.
Towards the end of the lesson, i annotated some previous work which is part of the homework due in tommorow.
=]

Tuesday 3rd Februaru

SNOW DAY!

Thursday 30th January

Today we had to go out and take pictures of 'Nature'
Me and Stew decided to take pictures of Netswell pond, a few ducks and an icey field.
It took around 30 minutes and wasnt as easy as it sounded.
After, we went back to the class room and uploaded the photos to the shared drive on Mrs Roger's computer.
we need the photos for photoshop on tuesday.

Thursday 29th January

today MArk showed us how to use photoshop. he taught us basic effects, cutting images and special effects. he gave examples using some previous pictures and gave us the do's and don'ts which i actually understood. After we went through this, miss gave us a task of anotating 2 front covers. One was called 'Newsman' and the 'QUAD' . I started off with 'QUAD' and talked about the title and background.
we then got set some homework asking us to write a textual analysis on the 2 front covers due next friday.

School Magazine Research

For this task, i am going to research "The Grape Vine" from The Weald of Kent Grammer School. The link to this is : http://www.wealdofkent.kent.sch.uk/LearningSystem/PortalHome/preDefault.asp?Resource=9A03D2EC-23F3-489F-A6FA-DA7449FE4EA9&ResourceID=7230

Then click on the PDF file.



Contents

Firstly the contents page was also the front page. I found this good because it lets you know what the Magazine is all about and whats inside it. In this case it seems there is a lot about the school and events going on. As you scroll down, you get information on AS subjects such as media and theatre. Also there is careers advice which is good because above is GCSE and AS advice and so it shows that this magazine is suited for all.

Once you go dwon further, you start to hit the informal pages which tell us about events such as a beach party (in this case) etc. Then after we hit the school trips and exchanges. There are a number of images showing what happened and relevant to the topic. The layout is also simple but effective at getting the reader's attraction.

After all this, we get to the news and gossip section which a lot of Newspapers have and are very good at attracting readers. We also start to see student pictures and reports on the things that have done or attened such as a Muse concert.
Lastly in the contents, there is a thank you page to all the poeple that participated in the Magazine.



Layout
The layout is very simple and plain (white background). Many of the pages also have images or a margin background such as hearts or a melon. The text style is also "Berlin Sans FB" which is odd because it isnt a common font. The font colour is also a kind of aqua style.
I think the layout is good at keeping reader's concerntration because there isnt too many pictures or different colours but at the same time it isnt dull.

Target Audience
i think that the target audience for this magazine is secondary school students. This is because the layout doesn't contain a lot of images and instead has a pretty nornal background of white and and aqua. I also think this because a lot of the gossip and stories are about older students and use similar language.

Conclusion
In conclusion i think that the magazine is a professionally made style and good at attracting its target audience. I also think that it is very easily made and therefore would make a better profit due to its layout of a white background and aqua text or a few marginal pictures

Tuesday 27th January

Today miss went through different styles and points of target groups. We learnt how the groups are arranged and how people target them. She also told us about how we should get pictures for our print and gave us an example of how they can be foiled, so were cautious. We were also told about someone called Mark coming in on thursday to show us how to arrange images and photoshop etc

Friday 23rd January

Today we had to create our mock ups of the print. We had to make individual which meant that because me and stew were in a 2, we did a separate issue. We had to get some images and arrange our front cover to how we wanted, in this case we were making a 'blue top' tabloid. We got the Mcdonalds M off the internet and used that as our M in Mark's Monthly. We had a bout half hour to complete this task and we did with around 5minutes to spare =]

Thursday 22nd January

Today was the day we were going to present our pitch. We started the lesson at 11.30 and had to have the presentation ready by 12.40, which gave us enough time to work on it. We went through a range of ideas and wrote them in our brainstorm and ended up arguing over snakes and ladders. We went through the layout, advertising and content so obviously we missed out quite a lot which we didnt realise at the time.
12.40 and w have to present our pitch. Stew put our work at the bottom so we'd go last but all that really ment was that everyone would raise the bar then me and stew would bring it way down. Everyone went through their presentations explaining their ideas, answering questions etc. Then came our turn and ill be honest, i was pretty scared. I dont mind talking infront of people, just dont lik mucking up in front of people, completely throws me off.
after a while of talking through our ideas, miss stopped us and questioned about a particular peice of content. Ill admit it seemed a rollocking to begin with but i did learn from it =]
if i didnt know any better, i'd say miss dont like football that much......just a shot in dark

Tuesday 20th January

Today Mrs Rogers was telling us what our taks was for our coursework and how we should present it. We are creating a print. At frist we will be making one in pairs and presenting our pitch on thursday =[
im with Stew who only ever puts me down but thats what friends are for is suppose. We got a little bit of time at the end of the lesson to work on ideas for our pitch and me and Stew had a few.
for homework, Miss wants us to create a blog which as you can see i think im doing now