Magazine response: Charles Russell

I used a mac book to present my work. I showed Charlie my finished project and asked him a varied amount of questions.

Evaluation - quesiton 7

Question 7:

 

Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

 

Looking back to the beginning of my project I can see a massive difference in the way I work around media and how I think, – my understanding of media and everything involved has changed. From this full project I feel like I now know how to use many software’s on the computer more accurately.

 

Within this project I have found an understanding for how magazines are constructed and what is involved to create a professional looking magazine. The content is also important when creating a good magazine so that has to be taken into consideration.

 

From when I started this course I took pictures around the school to put onto the mock exams and they were appalling. They were unclear, wrong in more than way possible, they were atrocious. Now looking at when I just started taking pictures for my front cover the angles, the framing/positioning is 100% clear than when it was. Tees images are clear and fit happily within in any magazine and that do seem the best.

Quesiton 6 continued

 

My blog: Using a blog has been new, exciting and different. To post information about your project via the internet is a new age idea and I believe that it is also a simple idea. It's better than all of this coursework with a trillion stacks of paper that the examiner has to mark.

 

I have found it easy to post - sometimes. There has been difficulties when trying to upload media like podcasts and other technical powerpoints because it could just take a while for it to load which is time consuming and sometimes; especially in my case, i'd upload something and it would not show up to any one else, which is very frustrating.

 

There is a schedule on the blog posts so if you have accidently missed something out, you can slip it in and it'll go along side the work you want.

 

I love working with Blogger. It's new and it presents your work so it looks like its efficient and when using all forms of media, it looks amazing.

 

 

Evaluation - Question 6

Evaluation - Question 5 contuned (part 2)

Listen Music Files - Download Audio - MEDIA CONTINUED

Evalutation - Question 5 continued

Upload Music - Listen Audio Files - Alevel media question 5

Evaluation - Question 5

Listen Music Files - Embed Audio Files - Media question five

Evaluation - Question 4

What would the audience be for your media product?

 

Audience profile:

 

Gender: Male/female

 

Age: 35-40+

 

class: middle class+    -  this is due to the stereotype of the high class enjoying more calm and relaxing classical music or the stereotype that you must listen to classical music because its 'posh' and that’s what rich people do.

 

Interests: sports, music, etc...

 

Disposable income for magazine: £5-£10

 

My ideal audience would be someone that could obviously afford the magazine but appreciate everything within it, for example, in my issues there is score paper that is given away free – score paper is not cheap and is very resourceful to composers, it would be ideal for the reader to have some connection with music. This could be in the form of a player or a composer. Even if the reader didn’t have a clue about classical music but just enjoyed it that still wouldn’t be a loss.

To find out this date I used open questionnaires mixed with a couple of closed questions.

Why did I do this?
- Open questionnaires measure the opinion of someone, this is good when you want a large number of varied results and this gives you insight into what the personal thinks about it as its their independent thought.

- Closed questionnaires are easier and faster...you normally just have to tick a box or something. This is to get a general understanding of what people think and it allows the process of grouping answers together quicker because there aren't answers that are personal ones - there is a set amount of questions and people have to choose from them.

Evaluation - Question 3

Evaluation - Question 2

Evaluation - Question 1

Reader profile

 

A reader profile shows what the reader is interested in. It shows the typical interests of a reader and can also show what people are interested in or what they potentially could be interested in.

Statistics give a rough average of who has stated they do a particular thing ...etc

Good pictures of the instruments and children

I really love pictures like this, even though it doesn't have the child in properly, it looks like a good professional photograph. The colours of the skin and the violin contrast a lot and make both of them stand out. The housestyle would go great with this violin because like the front cover model, he is posing with a violin.

 

- To improve I would cut the girl out the back, and focus the camera more on the front of the violin so the strings would be in focus and the rest blurred. I do like this close up shot. Maybe if I were to concentrate more on the front of the violin I could use a medium close up.

The colour of this violin is bright and I do like it. I would use this on the front cover or in my magazine even though it is a good quality image. This is due to the nail polish she is wearing, its just a nit pick of mine but I would have preferred if no polish was in shot. Also I don't know if its just the way the image has uploaded but it appears that the image seems too sharp and the strings look gritty.

This boy was amazing with the camera, he is really photogenic and he posed and knew exactly what I wanted to take a picture of.

Again, the colours of the violin compliment his pale skin and I do like the stance he is in.

The lighting could have bee better here however I wasn't working with a backdrop and amazing lights like I did for my other photos. This was taken in a corridor of my school with weak lights from above us and a white wall.



This picture is also one of my favourites. He understands how to hold the violin and makes it look authentic. Again, there is the issue with the lighting and everything could have been a lot sharper and more defined with lights.

I adore a lot of these close ups of the violin, I enjoy the detail the camera picks up even with the lack of light and a back drop. I I were to use this everything in the back ground would be cut out or blurred. The colours here are sharp, powerful and it really captures the grain, shape and beauty of the violin head. The angle also works really well, I am really impressed with these images.

The bow angle is nice and looks real. As a musician I can pick out the faults of him holding the violin - his hand should be further up and this is only an issue because if people are buying my classical music magazine, id hope they had knowledge of music so they could also pick this out and see the faults within it and see that this is not an authentic picture.

 

( the story that would go alone with these children 'playing' the instruments - or the headline - would be that they were the new age playing instruments and classical music was not a dead language in the world of arts and music. )

[ On my front cover, I decided to change it around a bit a try and make it look a lot more minimalistic due to how much text and images I had on the front cover. It looked so over crowded.

I asked 4 children from my school - 2 girls and 2 boys if I could take some images of them with some instruments.

These are the good images. Some didn't look particularly nice and some of the poses didn't seem to fit what I wanted for my front cover or for wherever I was going to place it in my magazine. ]

Picutres of children playing instruments (BAD)

- The 3 children are masking each other

- The angle is odd, they aren't positioned correctly

- The lighting is terrible

- Not the correct positioning if I was trying to pass this image off as them playing the instruments correctly

- Lighting is atrocious

- They aren't looking at each other or in the correct direction

- Aren't holding the instruments correctly

- No back drop

- Blurred image

- Not focused

- Incorrect positioning of the hand

 

 

- Lighting

- Position

- Posture

- Handling of the instrument

- No backdrop

- Lighting

- Position

- Posture

- Handling of the instrument

- No backdrop

- Angle

- Lighting

- Position

- Posture

- Handling of the instrument

- No backdrop

- Angle

- Facial expression

- Direction of expression

Screen shots ~ Front cover

 

Why are women used in magazines?

- Women are attractive

- They attract the opposite sex

- A lot of magazines want a mixed gender audience

- Females - according to what I've read on the internet and from personal experience are interested in other females lives in the magazines, and will always - not always always, but sometimes will read articles and short stories on these women.

- Women aspire to be like pretty celebrities in magazines

So Far...

I HAVE....

- Taken more pictures to add to my front cover - the ones that were relevant of course.

- I have uploaded a barcode to make it look like an authentic music magazine.

- I have used 4 colours and 3 fonts in different sizes because too many would be too much on the magazine and it would be too much for the reader,  the magazine is full enough, it has so much on it that it doesn't need anymore distractions.

-  I based this off the 'music' magazine.

- The front of it is more minimalistic compared to mine however you can see the elements shining through like the use of the orangey red box in the corner of their magazine, I did the same however mine is bigger.

- A lot of the text is similar too, I tried to base what I found on their magazine and to use it in my, obviously changing it but I used that as a huge inspirations

- She is also holding a violin however I believe the female model on their magazine would attract more males relating to the Naomi Wolf ideal and how females present a more attractive feel to a magazine.

- If I were to do this magazine again I would possibly use a female because it would bring more men to the magazine due to the fact if I had a female model standing in an attractive pose looking rather beautiful it would definitely lure more people to the magazine.

- The reason I didn't use a female on my magazine front cover is because out of the two models I preferred the look of Josh, he seemed more relaxed around the camera and his shots looked a lot nicer

- I also preferred the violin because it made the photographs look a whole lot more vivid.

New font ideas

I had some ideas further down in my blog of what I want my mast heard and my front cover to have featured on it.

I wanted something that would stand out and that would be recognisable to a wide diverse audience.

I needed something that related with the genre of my magazine: classical. - I was looking through a lot of technical vocab for music and came across things I actually likes; things like 'allegro', 'andante', 'fortissimo', 'piano'. I looked at abbreviations too.

mf = means moderately loud
f = loud
piano = quiet
pp = really quiet
fff = really loud

I tired these out with this red colour and with different fonts. I adored the 'mf' version. It looked sophisticated and sleek and those who are unaware of all these technical words can stay blissfully unaware of what it means as it is just a symbol/ name for the magazine. However I believe it is an added bonus for those who understand music too.

The reason I thought about the masthead/title so much was because I want everything in my magazine to reflect on the actual knowledge I have of music. It also adds authenticity to my facts and the things I say.

Why have i used them?

Why have I used the equipment and programmes?

The reason is because Photoshop is renowned for being amazing when editing photographs. When using many layers and different images and text on something like a magazine, I personally have had no problems with Photoshop itself, it was either the way I had done things or if I lost something within a layer.

I enjoy using it because it is simple and clear.

I used a stills camera from school - this was because my camera is of a terrible quality and I had all the facilities at school. The back drop and lights added a professional finishing touch the images.

Equipment and programmes i have used

Equipment used when taking the pictures:

- Tripod
- Still camera
- Back drop
- Lights

Programmes used when editing or used in the production my magazine:

- Adobe Photoshop - used in the production of my magazine, contents page and double page spread.
- In design to create my article