Diary Entries

Diary Entry 30

01-04-12

In the past couple of days I have been continuing to work on improving the quality of my evaluation responses and trying to raise the standard of detail in my blog posts overall. I have tried to evident the amount of feedback I received on my magazine in a number of different ways because I constantly made sure that my product was up to the standards of members of my target audience to ensure that the contents fulfilled their needs as well as making sure that the images and layout appealed to them. As of today I have uploaded all of my improved evaluations, tomorrow is the deadline to hand in this coursework at 3:00PM I plan to spend tomorrow morning going through my blog making sure that all of my posts are detailed organised and labelled correctly.

Diary Entry 29

26-03-12

I have been working really hard on my coursework recently as I am fully aware that the deadline for having it completed is coming up very fast. Today I cr4eated what would be the distribution campaign for my magazine showing the way that it would be marketed and advertised in different places such as billboards, tube stations, phone boxes etc.

I also created two more cam studio videos showing the growth of both of my magazines double page spreads.

Diary Entry 28

14-03-12

Today I uploaded the final copies of my magazine, with all of the edits and changes made to them; this was my front cover page, my contents page, my first double page spread and my second double page spread. I am really happy with the way that they have all turned out, and think that they are really realistic and professional looking.

Today I also created a video on cam studio showing the growth of my magazine, layer by layer on Photoshop, to show exactly how much work has gone in to creating the front cover of my music magazine cover.

Diary Entry 27

20-02-12

Last week was half term and I finished answering all of my seven evaluation questions, however this week I plan on going through them and making sure that they are detailed and interesting, and include all of the right information.

Today was the first day back at school, and I got my media classmate Katherine to peer mark my work. Other than some small spelling grammar and punctuation mistakes and errors that were pointed out, Katherine also pointed out some other items that she thought needed changing and that needed to be improve on the page, the first of those being the text wrapping around the main image in the centre of the page was not very straight, so the columns did not look professional, and your eye was immediately drawn to the mistake because it is wonky.

Really think that taking part in peer marking an assessment is an essential part of the production process in magazines, Katherine played the part of what would be called a sub-editor if this were a real magazine. As I said before, it helped me make improvements and spot mistake that I perhaps would not have noticed had I not had somebody else looking over my work. The sub editing process has helped me improve my work and contributed to the growth of my magazine to looking further like a professionally made product.

Diary Entry 26

02-02-12

Over the past week I have been working hard starting to write and respond to my evaluation questions, there are seven questions that I am required to answer, regarding things such as audience, technology and institution. I plan to continue responding to these in essay format throughout my half term. After I have answered all seven of the questions, I plan on turning them in to videos and presentations to make them more interactive and interesting.

Diary Entry 25

30-01-12

When I finished the draft copy of my magazine front cover, I decided to ask for some peer feedback. To do this I put the Photoshop file open on a computer screen, and asked some other members of my media class if they would look at it and type comments around it about the things that the liked, and about the things that they thought needed some improvement. From the feedback that I received, there were a few main things that cropped up that I needed to look at. After my initial feedback on my first front cover, I made some changes. I kept the main image the same as it received positive comments from the first peer feedback; however I changed the position of most of the sell lines and also changed the colour scheme to orange. I also changed the font of the masthead to a bold but much clearer font to read. As well as this I took away the tag line because it was very unclear to read. I then repeated the process of peer feedback and asked members of my media class to give comment on the changes that I made to my cover and let me know what I was doing well, and any further improvements that I needed to make.

Diary Entry 24

23-01-12

I have now finished what I am calling my final final draft for my music magazine, I am really happy with it and think that it looks realistic and professional; this is mainly due to the high quality images in my opinion. I still need to get some extensive audience feedback; and I aim to have one of my peers in my media class sub-edit. Peer mark my work to check for any spelling, grammar or punctuation mistakes in my work, (especially my article.)

Diary Entry 23

11-01-12

It has been quite a while since I have posted any diary entries her on to my blog, and I feel as if I have been neglecting it. However over the Christmas holidays I have been working really hard on further drafts on my magazine, I have made some quite large changes. The masthead now does not include any blue, because after reading some audience feedback that I received I found that people were having difficulty reading the font, so I decided to create a completely new masthead. I have also adapted the colour scheme of the magazine ever so slightly, so that there is more red included.

Diary Entry 22

16-12-11

I have also been working on a draft contents page for my final coursework music magazine task. I find that contents pages are sometimes the hardest pages in the magazine to make look realistic and professional whilst also being simple and easy to understand so that navigation to particular stories or certain articles is made an easier process for the reader. I also found it relatively difficult to fit all of the information that I wanted to include on to the page on one A4 page however I did not want to create an A3 contents page, because I feel that it subverts the typical conventions of music magazines too greatly, all the current successful music magazines that I have looked at only have A4 contents pages. So far I believe that my contents page is quite similar to the already well established and popular music magazine NME (published by IPC media) I have split, my contents in to three separate categories in order to make it easier for readers to navigate to their articles of choice. These are: News, Reviews and Features.

Diary Entry 21

13-12-11

Today I decided to create a tutorial video showing how to cut out images on Adobe Photoshop. I started by actually cutting out the image, I did this by selecting the colour range, the editing in quick mask mode and making sure that all parts of the image that I wanted to be cut out were covered. I then selected the refine edge tool, and used the feather tool to feather the edges so that they looked smooth next I went to layer via copy, and my image was cut out. I captured this by using cam studio to capture my activity on screen. I then imported my footage in to the video editing software program Adobe Premiere; I rendered it from her to reduce the size of my file so that it would make it easier and faster to upload straight on to my blog.

Diary Entry 20

10-12-11

Today I completed the first drafts of my double page spreads. The first one I am quite proud of and I think that it is quite effective. I have used a series of long shot images of my model wearing the same outfit but in five different poses, I have then used Photoshop to make these images greyscale, then in the foreground I have included another long shot image of my model however it is much larger than the greyscale ones, and also in colour, so it really stands out from the page. I have then used text wrapping around the models leg so that the text fits in to the page appropriately, I (although at the moment the text that I have used is not my article, just some random text from an essay so I could see what it looks like.) I do not think that I will be making many changes to this double page spread because I really like it, obviously I will have to get some kind of peer feedback and audience feedback, and if there are any criticisms I will obviously make changes accordingly. I have also uploaded a second double page spread that I am not all that happy with to be honest. I really like the image that I have used on the second double page spread and I will be defiantly be using it. But I think that the layout of the page, and the pull quote included needs some work and attention.

Diary Entry 19

02-12-11

Over the past few days since my photo shoot, I have been working hard on the production of my magazine and working towards some of the first drafts for my magazine. I have chosen the image that I would like to use for my front cover because it is really bold and eye catching. I have also designed a masthead and created the first draft of my front cover. I am not completely happy with it at the moment because it is a draft and it does need some work, the sell lines especially need to be worked on to be more interesting and attractive to the target audience.

Diary Entry 18
27-11-11
today I created the time lapse video of my photo shoot. A time lapse is a series of images take of my photo shoot in ten second intervals. Then put together on a time line and turned in to a video. They are useful, because you can show quite a long length of time condensed in to a minute or so of footage. For example my photo shoot was around two and a half hours, but my time lapse showing the whole thing was only a minute and a half long. I started by going through all of the images that had been taken on the camera, there were around 500 so I went through and deleted some of the unnecessary shots, for example when the room was left empty or when somebody was standing directly in front of the camera. I used Adobe Premier to create my time lapse, I imported the images in to premier, and reduced their duration to 0.004 seconds and placed them on the time line, I then imported a piece of music to accompany my time lapse. And then rendered it as a windows media file, and uploaded it here on to my blog.

Diary Entry 17
26-11-11
Today I used Adobe Photoshop to create a contact sheet of my Photo shoot. Contact sheets are very useful in order to display all of the images that have been taken during a photo shoot neatly and easy to view with the images file names underneath them. Creating a Contact sheet is very simple using adobe Photoshop, I simply went to file then automate, and selected the option contact sheet. I then had to select the file that my images were in and wait for about five minutes whilst Photoshop created my Contact sheets for me. Because I took quite a lot of photographs the obviously would not all fit on one single contact sheet, because they would then be too small, so Photoshop created five. I then saved the contact sheets in the JPEG format, and posted the images on to my blog in order to display my work.


Diary Entry 16

24-11-11

Today I spent time going through the images that I took in my photo shoot yesterday, I made sure that I deleted and blank/black images that sometimes occur during photo shoots if you press the shutter too quickly and the lights/flash do not go off. I think that I took some good pictures that will definitely be appropriate to use in my magazine. The image that I have chosen and am almost certain that I will use as my cover image is a high angle shot of Charlotte who is wearing a black dress, she is looking upwards towards the camera with wide ideas, and when you look at the image it feels as if she is making eye contact with you. I believe that this will be an appropriate image to use as a cover image, because it will grab the audience’s attention and make them feel as if Charlotte is looking/speaking to them.

Also, One of my favourite images from the photo shoot is a close up image showing Charlotte's face, she has her right thumb and forefinger formed in to an ‘O’ shape and is holding it over her eye, and looking through it like a telescope. I chose to photograph Charlotte in this pose, because it is an iconic pose that the popular female artist Lady Gaga once did and I really like it ad think that it is really interesting and original. I think that this particular image would be useful to use on one of my double page spreads possibly, for example using half of the page for the image, and the other half for a large pull quote, with other text and the article on the next double page spreads.

Obviously I will need to have some follow up photo shoots, I would particularly like to so another shoot on location with Charlotte perhaps outside somewhere for some more interesting and realistic misé-en-scene than the studio, as well as having natural outside lighting. I will also have to have a photo shoot with some different models so that I can use the images on my contents page to promote other articles within the magazine and make it look more realistic.

Diary Entry 15
22-11-11

Today I completed my first studio photo shoot at school. I spent around two hours taking various different photographs of my model Charlotte Brown in various different poses and costumes. From this initial photo shoot I hope to have gained a really interesting and eye catching photograph that I can use for the cover of my magazine in order to grab the reader’s attention. Whilst completing my photo shoot I was also creating a time lapse of the shoot to document my work, setting up the different shots of my model, and taking her photograph. The time lapse involved setting up a camera to take a photograph of the photo shoot every ten seconds, and when I have gone through all of the photographs later this week, I will use Adobe Premier to turn the images in to a video documenting the progress of the photo shoot.

Diary Entry 14
21-11-11
Today I encountered some small problems, as I found out that my original model for my photo shoot was not available on the day of my photo shoot, and as my photo shoot is quite late, I decided that I could not change the day of it, and therefore had to choose another model. Luckily I found a model, and have been searching for images and current music magazine front covers to use as inspiration for my photo shoot. Because I am now using a different model than I originally planned, I will now in tomorrow’s media lesson have to print another model release for my new model to sign granting me permission to use the photos that I take in my coursework. As well as this I will have to change my article idea/draft slightly to fit in with the 'look' of my new model.

Diary Entry 13
20-11-11
today I completed some design sketches for the layout/ design of my magazine task. These are initial first designs and are therefore quite roughly sketched. In the coming days as my ideas develop and as I have my photo shoot on Wednesday I aim to upload more design sketches that are neater and more detailed, and a pay a closer resemblance to what I would like my finished magazine to turn out like. I also wrote out a list of possible sell line ideas that could be used on the front cover of my magazine.

Obviously I will need to have some follow up photo shoots, I would particularly like to so another shoot on location with Charlotte perhaps outside somewhere for some more interesting and realistic misé-en-scene than the studio, as well as having natural outside lighting. I will also have to have a photo shoot with some different models so that I can use the images on my contents page to promote other articles within the magazine and make it look more realistic.

Diary Entry 12
15-11-11
Last night I went home, and decided to start working on some initial magazine masthead designs and ideas. I decided to design them using the name: 'The Music Box' which at the moment is the name that I am pretty certain I will end up using in the final draft of my magazine coursework. I chose 'The Music Box' as a name because of the obvious factor that it links to the required genre of a music magazine, and, I also think that it is a cool and catchy name. I used Adobe Photoshop to create my masthead designs, I created some basic designs, with some fonts that I downloaded off of the internet, and these have been posted to my home page on blogger. These may not be my final designs, as my final masthead will be a lot more detailed, and I still may choose to change the name of my magazine before the end of my coursework task. The task did however help to get my thinking about what sort of font, colour scheme and layout that I would like to use for my final masthead design.

Diary Entry 11
14-11-11
In today’s media lesson I asked my model to sign a release form giving me permission to take photographs of her during my photo shoot, and use them in my magazine from my AS Coursework task. I then scanned the form in to the computer and uploaded it on to my blog.


Diary Entry 10
14-11-11
Today I will be starting work on some initial ideas for my magazine such as masthead designs, sell line ideas, and sketches of my different pages such as my front cover, contents page and double page spreads.

Diary Entry 9
13-11-11
Today I finished working on my schedule that I created detailing all of the tasks that I have to complete during my media AS coursework task. As well as the main tasks there are also a list of subtasks included, making sure that everything that I need to do is detailed in the plan. The Schedule will help me keep on top of my workload, and make sure that I don't miss any tasks out, or forget to complete any.

Diary Entry 8
07-11-11
today I started working on an initial schedule/plan of my coursework task. I used Microsoft Excel, and made a list of all of the tasks that I would need to complete for the task, as well as all of the sub-tasks that support them. I then began making a list of dates when I thought that I would have completed the different tasks by.


Diary Entry 7
01-11-11
This week I have been working on some basic sketches of how I would like my magazine to look, doing this is very helpful as it allows me to think of, and develop ideas of how I would like my actual magazine to look, and of the sort of photographs that I would like to take during my photo shoot.

Diary Entry 6
23-10-11
this week has been half term and I have been working on lots of my planning work for my coursework. I came up with some name ideas for my magazine, as well as evaluating my questionnaire results, and creating a video on Adobe Premier to display the results. I also wrote about different colour connotations, and created a mood board for the mood of my magazine.

Diary Entry 5
31-10-11
Today I missed my double media lesson, due to being a school event, so when I went home, I went through all of the work that I did over the half term holiday, a spent time going through it and uploading it on to Blogger. It was unfortunate that I missed my double media lesson today, because that is two hours of my time that I could have spent doing some of my media coursework that I will not get back. However, the good thing about posting all of my coursework planning and research on to my blog her on http://www.blogger.com/ is that it keeps all of my work together in a place that can be accessed by me from both home and school as well as various other places, which allows me to work on my tasks, and post to my blog regularly and therefore keep up with my work without falling behind.

Diary Entry 4
18-10-11
today I have been working on my target audience profile, which involves me gathering detailed information about the audience that I wish to target my magazine at including their hobbies, likes & dislikes etc. I also decided to change the format of my blog by creating a page to keep all of my diary entries neat and organised, so that they are easier to refer back to and read at a later date.

Diary Entry 3

15-10-11

This week we had to create a proposal for our music magazine we started by posting question on our blog about audiences personal preferences when reading magazines, I then used the information to form a proposal about what I wanted my magazine to achieve wan the target audience that I wanted to attract. I started by typing this information on to Microsoft PowerPoint then transferred this on to the document web hoster scribd, this week I intend to make a video on adobe premiere and do a voice over of the information.

Diary Entry 2
08-10-11
This Week we have been doing some similar product research of other music magazines, I analysed three contents pages, double page spreads, and front covers from other popular music magazines , I completed this task on Microsoft PowerPoint, then converted the files on the document hosting website: Scribd.com. I did experience some technical difficulties, and had to re-do some of my analysis because I broke my memory stick, and lost some of my original files. Although breaking my memory stick made this task take longer that it should have and has put me slightly behind in completing some of my other planning and research coursework tasks, it was quite useful to look at some examples of real popular music magazines to give me information and inspiration about how to construct my own magazine and what different features and articles etc. to include within my magazine to help attract my target audience, and make my magazine look more realistic.

Diary Entry 1

20-09-11

Last week, I started the AS Media Studies course, I was asked to create a blog on www.blogger.com, in order to display my work and achievements during this course. Last week we began our preliminary coursework task, which involved planning and constructing a trial magazine, based on the topic of school. Firstly I sketched out some initial ideas, and them went and took some images to use in the front cover, and contents page that we were required to create; I then uploaded the photos on to the computer, and created my preliminary task using Adobe Photoshop. Because the magazine is a school magazine based on my school: Haydon, I chose to incorporate the school emblem/logo of a stag on the preliminary magazines masthead in order to signify to the audience that it was a school based magazine about Haydon School. I also incorporated the schools colour scheme of blue and yellow, to further use the magazines mode of address to signify to the audience that it was a Haydon magazine. I was happy with my designs, and I thought that completing the preliminary task was really useful in refreshing my memory about how to use Adobe Photoshop, as well as helping me thing of ideas to use in future with my actual task.