Q7

Evaluation question 7What have you learned in the progression from your preliminary task to your final product?

Preliminary Products

Final Products

Final Products

Research and PlanningFor my preliminary task I didn’t do any research but for my final products I did lots of research on different magazines and shots that carried on throughout my construction. This gave more of an understanding the conventions of music magazines of my genre and what the audience were likely to be attracted to.

Research and PlanningPlanning for my college magazine was nil as I never looked into any existing college magazines and their conventions. I just had to draft a product using flat plans to go by.

My final product was planned out with several flat plans to dictate my layout and images. This gave me clear ideas of where things would go and what colours and a range of shots I would use. Admittedly I didn’t fully stick to these as there were some design flaws, but they were easy to follow and gave me an understanding of how to construct my products.

Construction: Shot composition

The shots I’ve used in my preliminary task were minimal whereas my final product produced a range of shots that I have used on the cover. For my final product I had done lots of image research before choosing the pose of my main image and the accompanying images on the sell lines.My prelim task had no research of image research, I rather followed the general conventions of other media magazines when I had researched the conventions of layout.

Shot compositionIn my preliminary task, I only took one image myself, the rest were taken from the internet to help fill up space on the page. These consisted of photos relating to the page references rather than of people.In my final product I took all of my own images and edited them all to make them suit the genre and appeal to the audience whereas in the preliminary task I had done none of this research. This reflected a better understanding of my audience rather than guessing in the college magazine.

Shot CompositionThe shots in my college magazine weren’t

manipulated using effects in Photoshop although shots taken for my final product were edited to fit the genre of my magazine. This was to appeal more to the audience I had researched for my construction, but I hadn’t done this for my preliminary products.

LightingI never used any professional lighting in my preliminary products, the images I had taken were located in a classroom where I couldn’t use three point lighting. This made my backgrounds typical of a classroom, making it look much less professional than in my actual product.

My actual product’s images were taken using three point lighting, allowing me to manipulate the mood whereas in the prelim task, I couldn’t really manipulate images with different lighting styles as it was very limited. In opposition I wasn’t limited when I took my images in the studio with use of three point lighting, it meant I could make it as dark, naturalistic or light as I needed.

LightingI had ranges of lighting styles in my own magazine, ranging from outdoor natural lighting to studio three point lighting. This varied it’s look and appealed to a wider audience, allowing them to identify with the models better rather than just having indoor lighting in my preliminary task.

LocationsThe locations I used in my final products were

much more varied than in my preliminary task, this allowed me to gain identification with my audience in the locations I chose which were; the studio, Richmond school field/pathway and Stanhope park. These were much more varied to the limitation I had of the classroom for the college cover and contents, the readers of that would be able to identify, though it looked slightly too plain and more boring than some of my outdoor locations.

FontsMy preliminary task purely used system fonts and I

hadn’t spent any time on font research. When constructing it, I tried to find system fonts that would fit the role, however they weren’t outstanding.

This was much different in the creating of my own magazine as I had looked through many custom made fonts from Dafont.com which helped in bringing out the genre of my magazine clearly. An example of this is with my masthead which I spent a long time trying to find the right font to connote the genre, much unlike with the college magazine as I had no research and existing magazines to compare it to.

ModelsI had only one model for my preliminary task

which made it much less varied to my final products in which I used seven. This gave the impression more was happening in the world of pop-punk than there was in the college. This made it seem like there was much more content and gave me much more to talk about, rather than leaving lots of white space like in my preliminary task.

Page CompositionMy page composition on my cover had

similarities to my preliminary task as I used the same conventions like the left side third and a sky line. My final products have been improved in comparison as the cover includes many more conventions as to fill the space around the main image, making it seem fuller and more interesting. There was a lot of space left on my preliminary cover, so I have improved in making lots of things jumping out at the reader.

Page CompositionMy preliminary contents page had a plain layout,

halving the page using one side for images and the other for the table of contents. My final products have more of a varied look, splitting the table of contents across the page with use of images. This made it seem less bulkier than my preliminary product.