Research and Planning: shot research activity

I have researched into eight of the diferent shots that i will need to know for my exam, the shits i reasearched are as followed:

• long shot
• areial shot
• wide shot
• over the shoulder shot
• POV shot
• close up
• low angle shot
• established shot

Research and Planning:Preliminary task

College magazine cover.

Things I like about my front cover:

• For my front cover I have tried to make it look professional by sticking to three colors: purple, white and black. I chose these three colors as I think they go very well together as the white writing stands out on the black back ground.
• The masthead of my magazine is written in a very college like font which I downloaded and saved onto the computer. The font of the masthead is the largest size on the front cover , this is so that its the first thing that people see.
• I have also got placed in the middle of the page a 'medium closeup' of a student, you can tell that its a students by the way he is by the colleges sign board.
• At the bottom of the cover I have got all the stories that will be appearing within the magazine , I have chose to place the stories at the bottom because its more professional for thee to be a preview of what will be inside the magazine as it draws people in.
• I chose to do different style front and an outer glow on the phrase "NEW SEPTEMBER ISSUE" to emphasize that the magazine is new for the start of September.

Things I would change about my front cover:

• If i could do my front cover again I would have chosen a different picture, this is because I feel that the photograph would look better if I took the picture of him stood up as at the moment he is knelt down so the photograph is placed horizontal and i would prefer to have the photo vertical on the page.
• The stories that are placed at the bottom of the front cover, If i had more time then I would have placed them around the vertical image changing the front to make them stand out more.
• With the picture in the middle of the magazine cover I would if I had time made the purple background of the college board more opaque so that the front cover doesn't look too purple.
• At the very bottom of the page I think I wouldn't have placed the bar code this is because with it being a college magazine there is no need for a bar code, although if it was a magazine in a shop then this would be good to have.

Contents Page.

Things I like about my contents page:

• The thing I like about my masthead "contents" is that its the biggest font size on the page and the font style is the same as the front cover which I like because it keeps the continuity throughout the magazine.
• The pictures on my contents page make the page look interesting to the eye and draws peoples attention which is similar to what a real magazine does.
• I also like the fact that underneath the picture and its heading is a little description about what will be found on that page.

Things I would change about my contents page:

• If I could use InDesign again I would cnage the layout of my contents page, this is becuase i feel like its too crowded
• I would get rid of a few photos as I think it would look better with less photos so then people will look at the text more than the photos
• i would also like to change if given the chance , the font style of the text as I think a different font style would make the contents page look more interesting.

How I created the front cover and the contents page:

• For my front cover I used Photoshop, on this software i was able to download the text style that I wanted for my masthead which I then created a text box and placed it at the top of the page.
• I used the paint can to paint the background black
• I then went to File > Place and placed the main photo on to the page where i then changed the opacity of it so that wasn't so strong in color.
• I used the text tool again to write the text at the bottom of the page and in the purple banner at the top.
• For my contents page i used the software of InDesign which is a little different to use than Photoshop for example for me to paint the background of the page black i had to draw a rectangle over the whole of the page and then make that rectangle black
• I then opened all the photos then added text boxes to then type in the headings and the description.

Research and Planning: Draft of college magazine layout

This is the first draft of my college magazine front cover.

Research and Planning: research into imaginary fonts

Above are three imaginary fonts:

• Starting with "Death Metal" chose the font Stencil std, I chose to use this font because it comes across very hard and strong which can convey either the actual substance metal or the music heavy metal. To get the sign like this i went to Layer > layer style >drop shadow, I chose to do this because it gives the text a better look and creates the meaning of the words more.
• "Popworld" sign I used the font Hobo std because i thought it looked soft and with the curves of the lettering it symbolizes the movement people make when dancing to the pop music. The color red makes the sign feel very fun as red can be quite a fun color.
• The final font was for the title "Popcorn" i used the font blackoak std as I thought the curviness of the text represent popcorn quite well and the color pink also creates a very fluffy feeling that popcorn gives people.

Research and Planning: research into semiotics

I am now researching into semiotics to help me have a better understanding of things for my magazine.
Semiotics is the study of signs and meanings and how they are used to communicate and portray a certain massage. When I have been researching i have found that there are was a theory of two ways in which people read signs they are :

•  denotation - which means that if there is a picture of a rose for example it can be seen as a pretty thing and that has a nice sent 
• connotation - is where a human will see a rose that might be presented to a woman by a man and that will be seen as romantic gesture.

Signs can tell the audience of things like magazines what genre the magazine is which i will be taking into account when i produce my magazine.

 

 

The magazine Kerrang on the right hand side can be seen to be a rock magazine because of the way the signs are on the front of the cover:

• The masthead is in big bold lettering that had a shattered effect like broken glass across the lettering which resembles hard core music
• there is also banners on the top and the bottom of the magazine which give us an indication that there is a lot of different news and things that will be taking place with in the magazine
• the color of the signs also indicate the genre of the magazine as they are quite dark and bold colors, for example this magazine would not have pink writing as it wouldn't fit with the style of the magazine.

Research and Planning: target audience for college magazine

For my college magazine I have to consider the following things:

AGE
The age group that i am going to aim towards will be from 16-19, as this age group is the majority age range that attend college.

Gender
The gender of my magazine with be for both males and females

Interests
The interests in which i am going to be covering in my college magazine will be what new things are going on around college which people can get involved with and also events that are going to happen outside college. There will also be a page on fashion for each the males and females so that they can both see what's in fashion this season.

Education
The people that attend my college have either just come straight from school doing their GCSE's, or have recently just transfered over to this college from a different one.

Class
The people that attend this college is mostly middle to working class people, so the pages that are on like fashion and the latest trends will all be high street as the prices are more reachable to the people.

Research and Planning:examples of medium close ups

For my college magazine I know that i have to use a medium close ups, so these are three photos of medium close ups . A medium close up is where it shows the person face and a little shoulder.

Research and Planning:Analysis of college magazine

You can tell this is a college magazine because:

• The Masthead not only says "College" but the font style of the text appears to be very bold and bright that makes the magazine feel very American and that students will read it.
• Underneath the Masthead there is a Slugline, this line makes the magazine unique and draws people into reading the magazine as it sets the tone of what the magazine is going to be like.
•  The stories around the outside of the magazine cover also creates the feel of a college magazine because the articles that are featured within the magazine are thing like "make money on campus" which instantly makes you think of a college magazine.
• The main picture of the magazine is of a college student, you can tell that he is a college student because he holds books to do with the courses that he is doing. Also his clothing is very up to date which also makes people interested in the magazines as students are all for the latest fashion.
• The magazine keeps to only a few colors this creates a better effect and makes the magazine works as the main heading are in yellow but there is also a pink splat that catches your attention straightway.
• The date and the issue number are also presented on the cover of this college magazine this helps the readers know which magazine it is so then they know that they haven't missed out on any issues.  

Research and Planning:indesign tutorial

To produce this Dear John film review I used indesign. This is the first time of using this software, despite it being my first time in using indesign i found it quite simple to use as there are similarities with photoshop. The first thing I did was went on the internet and found a film review on Dear John, with finding the text and the photograph I opened up indesign and created a new A4 document. As the document was a plain white colour I created a box over the whole of the page and then selected a purple colour. With this piece being an article I had to create guides so that the text would be in even spaces to create a better look for my article. Instead of retyping my film review that I found on the internet, I saved it on a word document then I 'Place' it onto my page, To get the picture in the background I selected the picture then went to object > Arrange > send to back. The very final thing that I did was to change the gradient of the background so it gradually went from dark to light, this was done by using a tool on the left hand side tool bar. If I could do the article again I would have chosen a different place to put my picture, this is because the text colour as it is at the moment is black so at the bottom of the page you cant really see what the text says , but when I changed to colour to white you still couldn't what the text says. So I would either change the picture placement or change the background colour of my article so that white or black text can be seen well.

research and planning:introduction to photoshop (Skin correction tutorial)

During this skin correction tutorial task I used tools from the past tasks to change the colour of the background. Within photoshop I duplicated the page so that I could go the the left tool bar and select the plaster tool in which I then clicked to remove the blemishes which where on her face then I was able to go to filter>blur>smart Blur, then because her face looked very cartoonish I reduced the opaque so it was more real looking.   

research and planning:introduction to photoshop (creating a document)

For this task i had to create a new document. On this document i had to add a photo which i had to change the colour of the hair and the background. Apart from adding and adjusting the photo i also had to add text changing the colour and the font size. While doing this task i found it quite difficult to change the hair colour and make it look realistic. if i could do this task again i would change to opacity of the hair colour so that you can still see the natural grain in the hair. From producing this document i have learnt many different skills within photoshop which i can use in later tasks.

Research and planning:introduction to photoshop (CD cover)

This CD cover was the first time i have ever used the software. This photo was done as part of a photoshop tutorial where we got an introduction how to use the program. I learnt how to make images smaller, move them around on the page. At first i had a little trouble trying to change the colour of the CD but i then found that using the paint bucket tool was a quick way in changing the colour. For the text i learnt how to use the filers and i added a drop shadow to the text. Over all i found the exercise really useful as it allowed me to explore photoshop.

Welcome to my media blog

Hey this is my first post on my media blog. On this blog I will be keeping an update on how my media work is going :D