Before I started the media course at AS level I had little
understanding of what conventions where, so for my college magazine I tried to
make it look like another magazine by literally copying it, but I knew the
basics such as where the title of the magazine would go. However when it came
to putting together the front cover I did not know about the amount of photo
manipulation that went into making the main icon appealing to the target
audience, so I just cut around them and placed them where I wanted them.
Another thing which I did not know how to use before the course was Photoshop
especially adding layers to make the editing process a lot less stressful and
easier to do.
The digital technology which I learned to use along my AS
journey was predominantly the use of the photo manipulation software Adobe
Photoshop as that is what I used to assemble and edit both of my magazines
which I made over the course of last year. There was a lot of techniques which
I learned in order to make my magazine look as professional as possible and
this ranges from making my main icon look appealing and fit in with how the
media would portray a young male student and combined with some research as to
what my target audience would see as the ideal student, so I learned how to remove
spots and make the hair look as perfect as I could and removing imperfections
to make them more appealing and changing the lighting to match that of the
background as I learned that you can take a photo of the model and a separate
one of the background and just cut the model out and place them on the
background so they look like they are there and also removing the hassle of
getting everything perfect in one shot, and as I found out it helps if you want
to replace the stance of the model as you can easily just take another photo of
the model and replace the one which you already had.
My Creativity has grown over the course of last year as I
have already mentioned that at the start when I had to do a college magazine I
just copied an existing magazine but replaced it with my magazines title.
However when it came to making my music magazine those other magazines became
merely influential to my final product as I used them as my research. My
creativity has also grown by me thinking outside the box, by gaining the
ability to create my own graphic for a background of my front cover and also
for my double page spread. I also created my own logo for the magazine instead
of just placing the letters ‘IMW’ on the front of the magazine the logo gives
the finishing touch to the magazine and makes it look more realistic and
portrays the ideology inside of it. My creativity was limited by certain
conventions of a magazine, however some of these conventions can be bent
slightly to make the magazine different and thus attract more people to It.
Research and planning has proven to work well for me in
terms of developing my skills within Photoshop and in relation to conventions
of existing media products as it has allowed me to find out how the
professionals do things and that there is a certain style within certain genres
for example colours and researching magazines from my chosen genre has allowed
me to see what fits in with them. Researching and planning has helped me to
create a better music magazine compared to my college one as for the college
one I did neither of them or just research but on a very miniscule level,
however planning the music magazine by drawing it first gave me a clear
direction on what I had to do and an aim for the magazine whereas on my college
magazine I had all of these ideas just floating around in my head and I
couldn’t try them all out because it would have just looked a mess and I would
have had to start again.
After I had finished making my college magazine I compared
it to my draft of my contents page and they looked nothing like each other and
they shared no similarities, which is a problem as that is one of the main
things that needs to be included but when you compare all three pieces of the
music magazine they all share the same theme and colour scheme so in
post-production it all looks very neat and tidy and like they belong in the
same magazine.
Learning about conventions really helped me to get the most
out of my music magazine as that is one department which was lacking in my
college one. One example of that is the colour of the text on the college
magazine clashed with the colour of the background which makes it quite
difficult to spot and does not grasp the attention of the audience who will
just walk by it as it does not stand out. After learning about conventions I
used them in my music magazine and the text is easy to read and stands out so
the target audience will notice it and buy it. It’s not just that though the
conventions are everywhere even though they are obvious like a music magazine
is obviously going to have a star on the cover taking up the majority of the
cover, there is not going to be something like an instrument in their place.
Overall I think that my skills have developed a long way
since the beginning of the AS course and I feel that I am still learning new
things which can help me improve future products that I make. Looking back now
after what I have learned I feel that I could have changed my magazine to make
it so much better than what it is, which is good because it shows my
progression and I look forward to making my music video in A2 Media.
