1A

1A – Digital Technology

For my Media coursework the most important technology equipment I used during this production was the camera I used to take all my pictures. Canon 550D DSLR, the shape of the camera was very suitable to my usage with small hands and its very light weight. Using a digital camera was a massive advantage to me over anyone taking images with a film camera. This is because I was able to take photos and check them on the screen of the camera and see if the lighting contrasts and angels were suitable, whereas using a film camera I would have to take all the pictures all at once, process them and then get them printed before I could check if all the elements were correct, which would also be very costly as I would have to print out hundreds of photos. After this I would have had to scan them into a computer making the whole task a lot more time consuming, especially as my production required lots of different photo-shoots at different places and test shots.

Adobe Photo-shop allowed me to use the photo editing tool which allowed me to lots of different effects, edits and make changes to my images which is crucial to make a magazine as it is the most important part, especially the front cover picture. There are endless amounts of things I used on Photoshop but the prime tools that I uses to create my production were tools such as layering, liquidation, clone tool and using the different gradient tools. Using the layering allowed me to create a picturesque look for my magazine, and allowed me to place different things on my magazine such as text, secondary images and image effects. It makes my magazine less plain and more interesting for the audience and the buyers. I also used Youtube which allowed me to view tutorials of how to use Photoshop and different effects on the programme. IT also helped me in my research to really understand my target audience, the types of material already available and allowed me to identify the gap in the market. Without the website I would not have been able to achieve the effective planning and contribution to the end product.

Research and Planning

The way in which I used research and planning in my AS coursework was making sure I received feedback from each initial design I made and documented them. This was valuable because it enabled me to make improvements to my magazine and basing the changed in what my target audience demands. It also allowed the examiner to see the developments I made and research made to make sure it was suitable for my target audience and to the best of my ability.

Furthermore, I also used other research in order to contribute to my product and this was researching the existing magazines and making deep analysis of them. This allowed me to see the conventions and different elements on a magazine that already exists which allowed me to make my own magazine look more professional and as detailed as possible.

Additionally, planning was another crucial part in the production of my magazine. I made sure I had a plan of when to do certain parts of my magazine including contingency times to allow me to keep on task and not fall behind and to allow myself a lot of time to make my magazine as effective as possible.

Creativity

I believe in order to make your magazine as attractive to the audience as possible the main tool is creativity which was used in my AS coursework throughout. One area in which I used my creativity was the planning towards my planning. I had to ensure all the contents and layout of my magazine had to be unique and individual as I did not want to target the magazine to the mainstream audience. I had to think of creative ways to draw my audiences attention with different colour schemes, witty articles and using my creativity to pick the locations and models.

Moreover, I had to be creative in representing the models in the right way as I made two magazine front covers. I did not want my models to be misinterpreted as rock/indie as my genre was RnB/Urban. I had to use my creativity to make my models iconic and represent the correct genre. For example the brands I dressed my models were iconic in the genre and made it obvious. I also made sure the two types of representation of women were made, one wild and fiesty and one pretty and naturalistic.

Furthermore, another way I showed my creativity was through the locations which I placed my models and its mise en scene, I used lots of different locations and atmosphere to capture my images which made it unique and made it diverse. It also captured the essence of my magazine and reflected to my target audience in the magazine.

Lastly my creativity was shown in the articles, I had to make sure they were interesting and appealed to my audience. I made them different and contrasting but similar enough to relate to each other. Which was the reason to making two magazine with two different front covers.

Post production

In post production, I edited my images using a programme called Picasa. Picasa is an easy and quick photo editing tool that focuses on the lighting and contrasts of the photos. For many of my images I edited them on Picasa before importing them onto Photoshop, this is because I was able to make lighting more prominent using a simple slide bar. Picasa also enabled me to straighten any photos which were taken on a slight angle; other tools include blurring images, creating glows, giving the image a temperature. Another key tool I used on Picasa was the crop tool, I felt it was more effective to use the crop tool on Picasa over Photoshop as it had set dimensions which would make it more equal rather than using freehand which could be mistaken.

In post production I had to consider the different elements in putting my magazine together in terms of layout. I had to ensure it was appealing to my target audience and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. I had to use different programs such as Photoshop in order to do this.