Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression

from it to the full product?

The preliminary task helped me to realise what I needed to do in order to achieve a much more successful looking magazine. I experienced many things from it such as using Photoshop. I wasn’t very sure on how to use Photoshop straight away and this was an issue as I knew I had to use it to make the magazine cover, however getting to use it meant that I could get used to how it works so that I was really good at it and knew what I was doing for the main task.

The use of different effects and fonts on my preliminary made me realise how it was too busy and unrealistic and therefore made me change how I went about doing the main task.

Being able to do the preliminary task helped a great deal as I was able to see what I should and shouldn’t do for the main task. It helped me plan and was good for research as I did a music magazine for the preliminary and was able to relate back to it in comparison.

Planning & PreparationThe planning was really important as it helped with putting all your ideas together and you were able to choose what was the better out of them all. The preliminary project was good preparation for the main task however there was a sort of relief when having finished the preliminary as you knew it wasn’t the best but was a great deal of help for the main task. I drafted my magazine before I started using technology and this was to get a understanding of how it all would come together. preliminary

Main Task

Time ManagementIn my preliminary task there was no use of time management at all, I learned from this for the main task as I knew I had to keep track of what I was doing so that I met the deadlines and didn’t fall behind. I used a Time Toast Timeline which was a use of the internet and I also put reminders on my phone for when I had deadlines. The use of the technology was really important to be able to create such a product.

Technical PhotographyUsing a digital SLR camera meant that the pictures would be of high quality and would be much better for the magazine. There was a lot of technical skills when taking the pictures such as how I was to frame the shots and also the different shot types. The pictures I took for the preliminary were mainly outside with a much more light background however the pictures that were taken for my main task magazine were of a darker atmosphere and had

Most of the images were long shots and medium close ups, the pictures were taken to gain an atmosphere from the cover star and to portray a rock look to fit with the genre.

ConventionsThe conventions of a normal magazines front cover and contents page consists of many features and from my research and preliminary magazine I was able to work out which worked best and which did not.

Photoshop skills were achieved by the preliminary magazine helping me practice how to produce a quality cover, contents and double page spread.

Example of conventions from

research.

The biggest thing I have learnt from undertaking this project is the production of the magazine and how everything that was needed in the magazine had to either challenge the conventions of a rock genre or demonstrate them. Having a audience which was different and not a magazine seen in the shops made it a lot harder as I didn’t want to have to copy another magazine to be able to achieve a quality rock magazine. The model I used had to fit in with the genre to make it believable and the poses, costume everything of the mise – en – scene had to just be right in order to pull it off. I challenged the conventions by taking the pictures in a different location to which a rock star would be found showing that the cover star is found on an ordinary street and is like everyone else. I wanted the audience to be females and the magazine to be all about the music that they may love and I think using a female cover star may attract that however it could do the opposite.I targeted myself to achieve a higher quality magazine and to pace myself but as long as it meant I got everything done in time. I didn’t want to make it look too busy and my main worry was the contents page which did cause me a few problems but I did overcome then and got it done eventually. I think I have improved a lot from what I did in the preliminary project as I think it was really basic and I was only just getting used to some new technology which may of hindered the success. Furthermore I feel the main task was a success compared.

What have I learnt?