AS Media Elliot Robson Music Mag: March 2014

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Q5. My Products Challenges

My magazine has the same features as a real music magazine; the one I chose to imitate is NME. This is because I believe that NME is the same genre of music as mine so it would be easy to get my research from them. I researched NME a lot and got a lot of good ideas which I could use to make my magazine as professional as possible. NME have the same type of bands as me because the two magazine have the same genre which is Indie Rock. This makes it a lot easier for me because I could take some ideas from NME for photo shoot ideas and mix some ideas of my own so that my magazine would look realistic. Also the design of NME is very helpful because normally use the same layout but just have different features and content with the front cover. I would be able to take some ideas from the layout and put it on mine to make mine look like a professional music magazine.

So my magazine is similar to NME because in the front cover I have chosen a picture to fill the whole page and have features & content around the sides to draw the viewers’ attention. NME normally fill the whole page with a picture, this maybe a close up of a single person or have a group shot of people such as a band. So in relation to NME I have chosen a single person close up to show the expression and show the musical instrument I artist has. Even though I took some ideas from NME, it would only be the basic skeleton of my music magazine as I would have to take a range of pictures to see what looks best. I would also have to place the content around the sides so that it would look professional and realistic.

There is a lot of differences between my magazine and NME. One differences would be the font, the font of my magazine and NMEs are different. This is because I had to choose a font that looked suitable for my front cover. Another difference is the information, I have taken some of the layout techniques from NME but they look different because I have inputted some of my own layout techniques so that my magazine has a unique point about it. Overall I have taken some ideas off NME, only to make my magazine look as professional as possible. However I have also inputted my own features to make mine look unique. I am happy with my magazine on how it has turned out, with the ideas from NME and my own ideas.

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Q7. Looking back on your preliminary what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your final product?

I believe that the skills that I have taken from my prelim task that I did at the start of the year has helped me a lot to get the skills and the experience I needed in order to make my final product. When I first started with my prelim task I wasn’t very good at the skills of Photoshop and Indesign, but because I did the task so early I was able to gradually build my skills in order to make the best magazine I could. The skills I have learnt is the basic Photoshop skills in how to crop, move, select, spot remover tool, rotation, duplicate all the basic action tools you would have to know in order to make a good professional magazine. Another thing I have seen my progression in is my Indesign skills, I am now able to do a lot on the software, things that I couldn’t of done before. I can place, move, play around with text and paragraphs, font, selection again all the basic tools/actions you would have to know. Another thing I can see my progression on is to work independently, this task helped me to do this because you had to go out on your own and find pictures yourself and make the magazine yourself. This prepared me for my final product so I knew what to do when it came to the task. The final thing I have learnt from the prelim task is to use Blogger, I had never been on Blogger before. But now I understand it and can use it effectively without any confusion. Overall I have been very happy with the progression and the things that I have learnt from the prelim task. I have learnt the skills that I have needed in order to make my finak product as professional as possible and I think it has.

This is my Prelim Task

This is my Final Product

There is a significant difference between the two products. From the Prelim task I was able to take the skills and make my final product as good as it can be. All the skills that I have gained from the prelim task from being independent to learning the basics to Photoshop, everything that I have learned has contributed to my final product to make it as good as possible.

Q6. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Created with Padlet

Q1. Who would be the audience for your media product

http://prezi.com/tlvy8brfyprk/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Q4. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this process?

One example of technology that I have used to create my final product is Photoshop, this allowed me to change certain things on the picture that I have. In Photoshop you can edit things to how I wanted it using different features and tools on the software.

The two pictures to the right shows one of the drafts I did on Photoshop. The top picture shows before and the bottom picture shows after, I took the top picture and Photoshopped it to how I wanted it. This was just one of the many drafts I did in Photoshop.

Another example of technology I used to create my final product is InDesign, this was the software that I created my prelim and my final product on. In InDesign you can edit the magazine features such as: the placement of text and pictures, gutters, columns etc... It helped me create my final product because it is so simple to use. The picture on the right is my final product contents page, I created this on InDesign and all the features that is on the contents page E.G. layout InDesign can do this.

Another example of technology that I used to create my final product is Blogger, an online Blog that allowed me to post my media coursework. It is very simple to use and gives you a lot of features that you can work with. The picture on the right shows the online Blog and the features that you can use on it.

I used a lot of technology that contributed towards my final product including InDesign, Photoshop and Blogger to use all the different features they supply so I could make my final product as good as possible.