Evaluation – Part 7Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

College MagazinePreliminary Exercise

College Magazine

During the creation of my college magazine I had less time to create my products, but this did not stop me from approaching the task as creatively as possible. I used a variety of different tools on Microsoft Publisher to ensure that my final products were as professional as possible.

Although I did not have a lot of creative control for my college magazine (Only using Publisher and having strict rules to abide by for the photo-shoot) I think the final outcomes were very good. I think they were good because there was a nice house style which complimented the photography to make my front cover and contents page look visually appealing.

College Magazine

I did not do much planning into my college magazine because we had a lot of restrictions in the brief for the assignment, so I did not need to do much research or planning for what to do, as what I needed to do was already laid out for me.

Therefore I feel that my college magazine did not broadcast my creativity as much as my music magazine did, as the restrictions that I had to abide by meant I wasn’t to have complete control over my final products.

Creative Problem Solving

For my front cover I was having problems with the background and my logo, as both of them were black.

To compensate for this I decided to put a grey box behind the logo, the only problem with this is the black background was from the actual photo-shoot, meaning I could not layer the box in front the black background and behind my models face.

To manage this I decided to go onto Photoshop and duplicate the layer, but crop it only leaving my models face, and then putting that in front of the grey box.

Organisation:

Location:

The location was already decided to be the TV Studio at school.

Costume:

Because it was a college magazine it was only fitting that our costume should be the school uniform, therefore I did not intend to have my model wear anything else. I only had control on their hair, which I asked them to have up.

Research & Planning

I did not have much time to do my research and planning for this magazine, but that was okay as most of my work was restricted anyway, meaning less independent research and planning was required.

This doesn’t mean that I did not research and plan as much as I could.

I did ask my audience to fill in a questionnaire and used those results in my planning.

I also analysed existing magazines for research.

I then finally made a Press Kit stating what it was I am intending to include in my magazine

Time Management

I think that overall I managed my time rather well, although I did spend the majority of the time creating my front cover and therefore leaving less time on my contents page.

However I still managed to stick to deadlines in my work and did not have any uncompleted work after my deadline, although I did wish to go back and complete some work to a higher level.

Music MagazineFinal Product

Music Magazine

I had much more time for the creation of my music magazine and also had no restrictions to hold back my creative control. This meant that much more research needed to go into the creation of my final products. This planning included:

Research into existing music magazines (NME)

Audience Research into psychographics and demographics

Questionnaires to find out audience preferences

After gaining these results I began to plan out what I would do for the creation of my magazine. I planned a rough outline for the pages I was creating, and also went into more depth to plan my photo-shoot and locations.

For my photo-shoot I looked deeply into the Mise-en-Scene of the photos I intended to take, and also completed a costume design for my model.

For the location scouting I made a “Reccie form” which highlighted the availabity of the location and the lighting/sound surrounding.

Creative Problem Solving

For the front cover I was having problems because the colouring of the green screen reflected on my models face and clothing. To get rid of this I altered the hue of the photo.

By altering the hue of the photo it helped me to get rid of some of the greenish tint on my model, but also added a red glow to her, but that was fitting as she was named “Burgundy”

Creative Problem Solving

Throughout the duration of creating my contents page I was really disappointed with the outcome during the initial stages. This is because I was focusing too much on including what the audience wanted rather than the layout.

Because I had much more time than I did when creating my college magazine, I was able to dedicate more time to fixing the page.

I looked deeper into NME’s layout and decided to use that as inspiration for the layout for my magazine, rather than just for research.

Organisation:

Human Resources:

The only time I needed to use other people for both magazines is when I required models on my photographs.

For my college magazine I was more organized, only needing one model for photographs and being restricted to one location.

My organization was good in my music magazine, but because I needed more models and they all had different lessons I had to work out a schedule for when I wanted to take which photos:

I took all Green Screen photos in the morning whilst it was available. I also took a few test photos for my contents page against a white background.

During my years free I was able to take out a DSLR camera to take the rest of my photos, starting by taking ones in school before finally going off site for my last few photos. (I took a variety of photos so I had more choice in the end)

Organisation:

Locations

The availability of my first location (Green Screen room) was only limited to the morning, meaning that all the photos which I needed this room for I made sure I took straight away.

There was unlimited availability for the rest of my locations throughout the day, so I organised to take the rest of my photographs when both me and my models were free, meaning it could occur as swiftly as possible.

Costumes

To organise and keep control of the costumes, I provided almost all of it. This was to make sure everything my models wore for the preferences I required, and also suited the genre of the magazine. It also meant that there was no possibility of people forgetting costume, and therefore delaying the process.

The only costume I did not fully provide is some thing that my main model wore as she was able to bring most of it in herself.

Research & Planning

I had much more time to do much more independent research and planning for my music magazine. This meant I could go out and research what I wanted to help me plan something that had no restrictions.

Because of this extended time that I had to complete my work I think that I was able to research, plan and organise much deeper and for much longer before gaining a final understanding on what it is I actually wanted to do.

I was able to not only look into existing music magazines of a similar genre, but I was able to look into the demographics and psychographics of my target audience, which meant I was able to get a much better understanding of them in comparison to the knowledge I had for my college magazine.

I also had more time to look into the questionnaire results I got back from my audience, meaning I could pay more attention into making a product that was appealing to them.

This research and planning benefited my greatly when creating my final products, as I actually understood what I needed to do to make my magazine look like the specific genre I wanted, and appeal to the specific audience I wanted.

Time Management

I managed my time much better in my music magazine than I did with my college magazine, by not only sticking to deadlines, but also being able to complete work to a very satisfactory level on the deadline.

All my research and planning was completed before I started the production of my magazine, and then all my pre production was completed (taking and editing photos) before I started actually creating my magazine.

I had to make an extended deadline for my final products due to half term and my mock exam, but I was able to still complete them within the extended deadline.

The only thing I think I could’ve done which would have been more successful with my time management at the very end would have been to put all of my work onto my website as I went along the process, because even though I did do this the majority of the time, there was quite a bit of planning work that was not yet uploaded even though it was completed, and that meant a mad rush at the end to find and upload everything.