Question 6

TECHNOLOGY – WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE

PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

HARDWARE + SOFTWARE• Hardware, in the computer world, refers to the physical

components that make up a computer system. There are many different kinds of hardware that can be installed inside, and connected to the outside, of a computer, For example a computer mouse or camera.

• In contrast Software is anything that is electronically stored inside the Hardware this could be a programme such as word and safari or an operating system like windows XP.

HARDWARE- COMPUTER• Before producing my music magazine I had never

used an apple mac computer. For this project I used an IMac with an Intel core 2 duo running at 2GHz this allowed me to run and gave me access to essential pieces of software such as Photoshop, Safari and PowerPoint which I needed in order to produce both my cover, contents and article pages as well as researching music magazines and then writing evaluations and reflecting on my own magazine.

• To navigate through this piece of hardware, I used an apple mouse this allowed me to select the software I needed to form my media product.

• I also used an apple keyboard this allowed me to type the whole of my article with quick speed.

HARDWARE-CAMERA• Another piece of hardware I have used to produce

my media magazine Is a camera. For my cover and article pages I used the Nikon D3100 with 14.2 megapixel's I was able to take detailed close ups of my artist. The quality of the pictures taken really helped later on when it came to Photoshop in order to edit them keeping its clear high definition focus. This gave my magazine a professional look I wanted.

• The second camera I used was the Panasonic DMC FS16 this was a light weight camera with 14 megapixels this meant it had enough camera quality as well allowing me to go places I would not wish to carry the heavier more expensive Nikon D3100 I used these photos for the contents pages which did not magnify the lack of quality. I also knew this camera very well adapting the shutter speed for a blurred light affect shown here:

CAMERA EQUIPMENT

• To help me take clear pictures, which I would then go on to edit on Photoshop, I used hemisphere 300 strobe light this allowed me to create a shadowed affect on the artists face as well lighting them up to have a clear photo of them. With this one here I wanted this shadowed affect with it being very light on one side. The strobe light was easy to maneuver so I adjusted it several times before finding the perfect shot that I wanted.

• By using a soft box I could soften the feel of the image this brought more color and life to the artist in the image without making the shadows unnatural and too harsh this could have ruined my magazine as the image is an essential part of my magazine helping me to achieve this professional look.

• For my cover and article I used a white backdrop this gave a professional look and didn’t take anything away from the artist in the image it also allowed me to get the lighting ust right.

MORE HARDWARE USED IN PHOTO-SHOOT• I used a white back drop which was lit with

another two strobe lights to create a high exposure picture which I need for my cover and article page and gave it a professional look unlike a none plain background such as a brick wall etc.

• By Combining the horseshoe flash trigger, which sent an infra red signal to the strobe to flash in precise sync with the camera shutter. It allowed me to arrange the angle of the flash to be taken from another side other than directly from the camera this meant I could form a slight shadow on the main artists face. I did this because it shows that Courtney Black has a dark side to her and this is viewed as cool in the rock world.

SOFTWARE- PHOTOSHOP• Throughout the producing of my music magazine I used Photoshop to

craft and bring all the different pieces of software together to form each page of my media product.

• I also used it to edit my models by clearing their faces of imperfections and fixing the cameras faults for example here with red eye. By using the red eye tool on Photoshop.

• Photoshop allowed me too create my own magazines feel, by using the variety of colours, text, images and the layout I was able to create a personality for my magazine. For example throughout the magazine I have used the same colour scheme this gave a rock like attitude and feel to my media product. I could of only done this effectively on Photoshop as I could easily arrange individual pieces of software with its layered system. For example I could play and adjust the image without it affecting any of my text. I also was able to put these individual layers into groups to make it easier to maneuver like here by grouping them together I saved myself time and effort. It took me a while to get the hang of it having never used Photoshop before but this was time well spent as I could not have used any other piece of software to produce the same kind of results.

WORD

• Word played a crucial part in the making of my media product as I typed the whole of my article page on here to then transfer onto InDesign.

• Word specializes in text work and made it very easy for me to type the interview with Alice Burns that I needed for my article page. The article was 757 words, I realized Photoshop would have struggled to deal with me typing this as I had experienced throughout the producing of the music magazine that it struggle as when it came to dealing with the writing of the contents page it struggled.

INDESIGN• I used InDesign only for my article as this had a large chunk of text. InDesign allowed

me to combine the background of graphics and headlines that I created on Photoshop and put the 757 words I had typed on word to form my article page. Photoshop would have struggled to deal with the mass of text I needed in my interview and word would not be able to do a double page spread with the graphics in the background. I experienced the struggle of text on Photoshop in creating my contents page, this was no more 80 words and it could not handle it. although it is a great piece of software it doesn’t deal with text well with it becoming a complicated mess.

SAFARI• I used safari in order to research and gather ideas that I would use to

inspire me and craft new ideas I could use for my magazine. Throughout the forming of my magazine I used safari to upload my progress to my blog on WordPress. I now believe safari is better than google chrome or other search engines as everything was a lot easier to access things such as commonly used sites, favorites and search history. Over the course of the project I came to the conclusion that its much better with pop ups and viruses being blocked by apple. I found this extremely reassuring knowing I could search any site for inspiration without it being dangerous.

PowerPointI used PowerPoint to analyse the work I did and eventually to explain why I did what I did in the evaluation. I used PowerPoint for the majority of the analysis questions including this one as it gave a clear cut structure and enabled me to categorize and separate each question and point of view focusing on different sections of the question.

MY BLOG• My blog allowed me to put all my work in one place and to keep it organized. From the

start I used my blog to make it easy for both my teacher and myself to see what I had done and what I needed to do. This meant I would know what I need to improve and add onto my magazine. I accessed this through safari