Diary Entry #1
So far in my Media lessons after completing the preliminary task. We have then be required to research into music magazines. Currently I am sure what type of magazine I want to create and have a rough idea of what genre's I want to include. I have been gathering ideas from various successful magazine companies, to get some ideas on theme, layout, articles etc, for my own magazine when it comes to finally creating it. I have been specifically analysing front covers, contents pages and double page spreads as these are what I am required to create. I think the most influential magazine I have looked at so far have been 'Q', 'VIBE' and 'NME' they have given me some good ideas as means of how to make my magazine look so it is of a higher standard.
Diary Entry #2
This week in media I have been working on my key concepts of a music magazine prezi. This was very time consuming and has been a very challenging task. I am proud with my overall work however.
Diary Entry #3#
This past week in Media Studies I have been working on a key concepts of music magazines presentation. I have chose to create this key concepts presentation on different types of music mags and gave a little more information on NME,it is a magazine that follows the genre of punk rock, indie, mainstream and individual bands. I aim to base my magazine on the same genre as VIBE does as I feel it is a genre I know most about, therefore will find it easier to create a house style and take appropriate images for my magazine, of people in outfits and positions that portray the genre of Hip-Hop and R&B.
I created this presentation on Prezi, using the experience i acquired from GCSE Media Studies which allows me to create an interesting looking presentation. I also have other skills on other forms of media presentation programmes, other than the obvious Photoshop, Blogger and PowerPoint.
On my presentation I have included information about brand identity, the way articles and music artists are portrayed, the history of NME, codes and conventions, institution and representation. I did this as I want to show that I have knowledge on magazines therefore implying I am confident and I will be able to create a successful music magazine.
Diary Entry #4
This week I have been thinking about the range of images I want to take in my photo shoot for my magazine, ranging from an extreme close up of an eye, to a long shot. I am going to have twins as models, wearing the same pair of jeans, but one pair will be dark blue and the other pair will be a lighter blue. With this mise-en-scene I am going to try and create an effective mirror image and highlight their different personalities, my models will be striking the different poses. I have thought carefully about creating abstract and visually striking images for my double paged spread and front cover.
As well as preparing for my photo shoot, I have also explored and learnt how to use Cam Studio. This is a new programme to me, however this week I have successfully created a video showing the steps I took to create my preliminary front cover page. I clicked on each layer, step by step, revealing what I did next. I now feel confident with this programme and feel I can use it to present work again in the future.
Diary Entry #5
This week I have done my photoshoot for my magazine. I have been thinking about the range of images I want to take, ranging from an extreme close up of an eye, to a long shot. I am going to have my models wearing the same pair of trousers, but one pair is blue denim and the other pair is dark blue denim. With this mise en scene I am going to try and create an effective mirror image, where my model will be striking the same pose but wearing a different outfit. I have thought carefully about creating abstract and visually striking images for my double paged spread and front cover. As well as carrying out my photo shoot, I have also explored Cam Studio further.
Diary Entry #6
This week I have successfully created my name ideas and my colour connotations page for the plan for my magazine. For my name ideas, I spent a lot of time researching on words and names to do with Hip-Hop, R&B, and Pop Music such as ‘Remix’ and so on, in order to get some insight as to what Hip-Hop, R&B, and Pop Music artists are like, so I can make my magazine an obvious ‘Hip-Hop, R&B and Pop magazine’. I also looked at the connotations of these genres of music in order to view the actual definition of them, therefore making it easier for me to think of a name that my target audience will have a personal identification with. I came up with various names however these are my favourite ones and I feel they are best suited for the kind of magazine I wish to create:
* Remix
* Pulse
* SoundWave
* Rhythm Nation
* Dynamic
I feel I have come up with successful names that have made it easier for me to decide what I would like my final magazine name to be. As for my colour connotations page, I spent some time reviewing my similar product research, reminding myself of what my inspiring magazines, such as 'NME and VIBE and Q' used. I have various colour scheme ideas in mind and will ration down to fewer at a later date.
Diary Entry #7
This week I have officially completed my audience profile and put up my poll results. I created a poll asking questions that I wanted to know the answer to in order to make my magazine more successful and accurately made for my target audience. I asked questions such as ‘what do you look for in an article?’ and gave possible answers such as ‘mostly text’. This helped me a lot , as it has provided me with knowledge on subjects such as price, layout, content, design and so on. I now feel very confident that my magazine will be successful and I have no doubts about what I will include on my front cover, contents page and double paged spread.
As for my audience profile, I spent a long time thinking about what my ideal reader would be like, and created a profile explaining his/her hobbies, favourite books, music, where he/she would live, where he/she would go in their spare time etc. This has shown that I am trying to appeal to my target audience as much as possible by basing my magazine around a person of that sort. Underneath my profile I wrote about my general target audience, discussing what social category they will be from, demographics, psycho graphics, age group, male or female and have given reasoning for each of my decisions.
Diary Entry#8
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 go with them. I then began making a list of estimated dates that I thought that I would have completed the different tasks by.
Diary Entry#9
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 sub tasks 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#10
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#11
At the start of this week I asked my model to sign a release form giving me permission to take photographs of them during my photoshoot, and use them in my magazine from my AS Coursework task. I will at some point scan them in and upload them onto my blog.
Diary Entry#12
At the start of this week I decided to start working on some initial magazine masthead design ideas. I decided to design them using the name: 'Remix' 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 'Remix' as a name because of the obvious factor that it links directly to the 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. These will be posted to my home page on blogger at some point. These may not be my final designs, as my final masthead will be a lot more detailed. 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#13
Today I encountered some small problems, as I found that my laptop charger extension has broken, this prevented me from doing any work for a little while as I have not yet found a replacement for it. I have had to resort sellotaping my charge extension to my laptop to hold it in the right place so it charges my laptop.
Diary Entry#14
Today I completed some design sketches for the layout and 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 incorporate my photo's from my photoshoot 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.
Obviously I will need to have some follow up photoshoots, I would particularly like to do another shoot on an outside location with my models. I wish to have it 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 photoshoot 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
Today I completed my final magazine front cover, contents page and double page spreads. Overall I feel rather pleased with how my final magazine turned out. I did come across some problems in creating my magazine, these ranged from Photoshop freezing nearly every ten minutes, some of the tools not working properly and fonts going missing on my computer. However I stuck to it and was able to overcome these problems with minimal stress.
Diary Entry#16
Today I revisited my final magazine and changed the colour scheme completely. I did this because I asked for feedback on it and someone said the suggested colour scheme would look better. I therefore decided to test this and to my surprise the suggested colour scheme does look better. I have now uploaded my final magazine onto my blog.
Diary Entry#17
Today I have edited my time lapse into a video using Adobe Premiere, I did this to prove that images shown on my magazine were taken during my photoshoot. I came accross some problems using Premiere, mainly because I had not used it often, and was unsure how to do certain things and was unaware of what some of the tools can do. However, I overcame these issues as I asked for assistance from my teacher.
