Looking back at my preliminary task, I noticed that I have got a lot of improvement in my final product. This is mainly because the preliminary task was done without studying my audience, without using any advanced cameras, without any programs such as Photoshop.
On the hand, I did use some conventions in my preliminary task because of my general knowledge of magazines. For instance I used a main feature, I have a masthead, I have a contents page with page numbers and I also used different typography. My preliminary task also had a good quality photo because of the phone I used. Even though I used some conventions, my preliminary magazine was still quite plain and basic.
On the other hand, in the process of constructing this magazine, I have gained more skills more than anything, for example I learnt new skills on Photoshop such as using the magic wand tool and auto-select. This helped me to get rid of the bad background in my shots. In the preliminary tasks, I didn’t know how to use Photoshop and I didn’t use an advanced camera, however the phone I used to take my photograph had a good quality camera so the image wasn’t as bad. The quality of the photograph is very important because it is was makes the product look very professional. As well as that, I did not use any airbrushing tools to create hypereality.
Planning was very important in my magazine. For example, creating rough designs helped me gain more ideas of how I wanted my final magazine pages to look like, whereas I did not plan anything in the preliminary task. Planning allowed me to make my mistakes and correct them and improve my product more and more. Under planning also comes selecting the right photographs. I took many shots of my models doing different poses but I had to pick on out where the pose is perfect as well as the facial features, mise en scene and other factors. After doing the photo shoot I had to evaluate all the images to see which would suit my magazine the best.
A disadvantage in my preliminary task was that I did not know what to include in my magazine. I did not have any clue of what conventions were. So by studying codes, conventions, mise en scene, camera shots, editing techniques and other key terms such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs I had a wider idea of what I should include in my magazine and how I should position my work. I learnt that magazines are coded in a way to suit and appeal to the target audience. I learnt that I had to follow rules of conventions if I wanted to aim my magazine at a mass audience. Conventions include mastheads, buzzwords, banners, barcodes, dates, main features, puff and more. These are conventions found mainly in mass market magazines. However I also learnt that if I followed these conventions my magazine would be too ordinary. Additionally, I didn’t study successful magazines before the preliminary task whereas I did during this project. It allowed me to grasp ideas from other professional magazines and put them into my magazine in my own style. Looking at other magazines also gave me an inspiration of what my magazine should look like.
Another disadvantage in my preliminary task was that I didn’t study my target audience. I was told that my magazine would be aimed at the school students, pupils and parents but wasn’t given anything else. This meant that I didn’t know what the audience would like or what the magazine had
to be about. Hence why the model in my preliminary task (Sherry Khan) is standing doing a pose that probably has nothing to do with my magazine. This taught me that my photographs have to be relevant to my magazine and the contents in my magazine. Without researching on my audience, I didn’t know what colours to include, who to aim my magazine at, what sort of typography I should use and more important conventions. So by researching my focus group in my final magazine, it allowed me to study my audience and see what colours I like, what sort of typography I should include, and where to promote my magazine amongst other vital factors. I constructed template pages to ask my focus group for their opinions. Initially, my template pages were my first glance of ideas I had for my final product. However by conducting my research I learnt that there clearly is a lot of things I can improve on. Those things included the layout of my pages, the colouring, including different artists and more.
I also learnt the different ways of taking photographs. There are different angled shots such as high angled, low angled and close ups. This variety gave me ideas of how I could present my models. I also learnt the different backgrounds I could use such as a black background, white background, locations and artificial backgrounds. The way I take the picture is very important as it would portray the status of my model. For example, if I took a low angled shot of a model standing, it would look them look very dominant and powerful whereas if I took a high angled shot the model would look like he being looked down upon and vulnerable. The positioning of the model is also vital as well as mise en scene. A model sitting down on the ground wearing ripped clothes would make her look like she is homeless. In my preliminary task I included clip art images from Google, however this is not allowed in my final product as it would be copyright. After taking my photographs I used Photoshop to get rid of my background and change the colouring of the images by using functions such as levels and curves.
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