Looking back at your preliminary task
(school magazine) what do you feel you have learnt in the progression of it to
the full product?
Firstly, when creating my school magazine I was alien to
everything. We initially started with research, looking back at my preliminary
task it is evident that my research and planning was not very focussed, this
was because I was clueless, and all of my magazine analyses were not very
detailed. This made it hard when actually creating my school magazine as I had
nothing to base it on and it did not link well to my research. This is
something that I had to improve when making my music magazine as I wanted my
magazine to copy the look of a real music magazine and therefore to do this I
needed to make sure that my research was much more specific. However this was
an error that I made when creating my contents page as I did lots of in depth
research into a photo I wanted to copy yet when actually taking it I realised
that it was near impossible with the lack of photography technology this made
me realise that I needed to go into depth when doing my photo research. For
example with my preliminary task I found one or two photos that I was going to
copy however I did not consider the shot of the photo or take the lighting into
consideration, whereas when I was creating my music magazine I realised that
all of these things needed to be thought about in order to take a good focussed
photo shoot. Taking all of this into account it made constructing my music
magazine much quicker and simpler as I had templates and ideas that I could
follow.
When using the technologies such as Photoshop I realised
that I had a lot to learn, as although they have pretty basic tools, some were
very complex to use. This is why when editing my school magazine Photoshop I
only used the easy tools such as the clone stamp, this was to smooth out the
skin and get rid of any blemishes and I also used the magic wand tool to select
parts of my images and change their colour in the background so that they were
not as obvious. When editing my photos for my music magazine, I had learnt more
about how to use the tools on Photoshop from YouTube tutorials, this was
crucial as when I did my research into my music magazines I saw that every
image was drastically photo shopped and therefore if I wanted it to look as
real as possible it was vital that I copied their style. So when editing my
front cover I used tools such as liquefy, this was to enlarge her lips, I also
used levels to change the colour of my models eyes and I used the basic tools
such as clone stamp again. I feel that doing the preliminary task definitely
helped me to progress when making my music magazine as the first tools that I
learnt to use were the most commonly used ones therefore it was useful for me.
When actually constructing my magazine I used InDesign, this programme was
simple to use when making my preliminary task and my music magazine but I
initially learnt how to use the tools such as the crop tool and how to insert
text and change font colour however there was nothing really to improve on when
making my music magazine.
When looking at my final school magazine I noticed that layout
was very important, it was not something I had focused on heavily as I did not
realise that it would have a big impact on my final product, however I soon
realised that my layout followed no set structure and all of the text was
effortlessly placed around the page with not much thought into what it would
look like or why it is placed there. This meant that when making my music
magazine I carefully thought about the layout of my magazine and I designed
them very specifically to my research. I also did some research into what the
certain ‘rules’ are when creating a front cover, from this I learnt about the
rule of thirds and how one piece of writing on the page has an impact on
another piece. I feel that I have massively progressed from the start with layout
as comparing my two magazines together my music magazine final piece is much better
in my opinion.
When taking the pictures of my magazine I improved vastly,
firstly I used the schools camera to take pictures for my school magazine,
although they were adequate, I felt that I could have done better yet did not
have the skill to know how to. When creating my music magazine I used a much
better camera, I feel that this drastically changed my images as they were much
better quality. I also learnt a lot about the lighting from the start. In my
school magazine I simply lit them near a window as I thought this would be the
best source of light. However I soon learnt that different light positions
changed the expressions on the face. This was something I then took into
account when making my music magazine as I wanted to create a fierce dramatic
look and therefore I knew how to do it. If this was my task set at the start of
the year I would not have been able to do it as I was not able to.
I learnt not to be reliant on my models and that my friends
may not be ‘right’ for my images as they may not portray the look I want. In my
school magazine I was clueless and thought that I could portray any look on
anyone as long as I had the right props and makeup, however when taking my
photos I soon learned that this was near impossible. Not all of my models were
simply able to sit still for a picture and not all of them were as photogenic
as I had originally thought, therefore when it came to choosing my model for my
music magazine I knew that I had to be very specific. If I wanted to show a
certain look for a certain style of magazine I needed to know what I wanted my
model to be clothed in and who my target audience was. When I selected my model
which was my friend Lucia I soon learnt I had made the right choice as she has
a very defined jaw line and good facial features that showed up nicely on the
camera, however she was not as reliable as I thought, therefore when
photographing for my contents page I used photos from festivals as opposed to
more of my friend as I did not want them to let me down.
Finally I feel that I managed to improve on my time
management skills and organisation skills. From the school magazine task I was
very messy with my work and I did not keep it neatly organised on my blog, this
made it hard when I was trying to navigate around it. This was something that I
knew I had to take care of when creating my music magazine as it was time
consuming trying to sort all of them out into order and I wanted to make sure I
had an organised blog. I learnt as well that I needed to take into
consideration my time management as I was running over deadlines and I realised
that when it came to my music magazine I needed to be more punctual with
meeting the teacher’s deadlines in order to receive good feedback.
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