Thursday, 16 July 2009
6th-16th July 2009
We had some problems with our story board as we had to change it a few time because it was difficult to get enough people to act in the video as well as because of the length of the video. The length of our PSA's were supposed to be around 1minute 30 second, however our filming exceeded that ( i will be posting up the new storyboard as soon as it has been scanned on the computer).
Filming our PSA's was also quite difficult as we had to film in two seprate days instead of in one. This made things a little difficult as it had effected our mise-en-scene. Peoples clothings were different and also the weather had affected our filming, this led to difficulties in finding a good location. These few filming problems had also led us to change a story board a little.
In the end we had made a new story board and have managed to film everything in one go.
Our editing went really well, we were able to use different effects to make our video. We have used different effects such as bluring some shots to add more effect on the PSA, some black and white effects on the video as well as colour.
Overall our PSA's were quite good and using the mark scheme i would probably give my group a level 3 for our video as a lot has improved.
As a group we still need to improve on managing time as it is really important for our filming. We need to try and not exceed the time limit for each video.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
24th June-3rd July
We have made our story boards and have started to film.
I will be putting up the story board as soon as it has been scanned onto the computer.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
22nd June 2009
During this period we went down to the computer rooms and researched on the internet. I looked at different types of public service announcement. I particularly looked at domestic violence , as it gives an idea of the things to include in a rape awareness advert.
I have researched on psa using google and youtube.
Some sites i have looked at were things like:
*http://www.psaresearch.com/
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ7p1l8S1LA&feature=PlayList&p=8D4E7D906590A8C4&index=22&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL
These videos has helped gain some ideas of how to make my PSA.
Next lesson we will be working towards making our adevert for rape awareness in groups.
Saturday, 20 June 2009
17th-19th June 2009
When we had filmed 'the phone call' i felt that it was becoming easier to use a camera to take different shots more steadily then the last time, when we had filmed a tour of our sixth form. Our group had managed to keep to time more effectively then the last time, when we had to rush and didn't manage to finish filming the end of our tour of sixth form. This time we had managed to film everything within the time period given.
Our group had never used IMovie to edit films before, but when we had started to use imovie we struggled at first to understand how to edit properly. After a little while we had managed to find it easy to use.
On the 19th June we all had finshed our final bits of editing, and then presented our video to the class. Although our video probably wasn't best in the class as a beginer in using these technologies i thought my group did pretty well in making the video.
The things that i thought that my group did pretty well in were things like:
*More steady camera shots
*location of our shots
*framing of our shots well
*keeping to our storyboard
*managing to edit the video using a new programme 'IMovie'
some of the things we sawe that we need to improve on and look out for in the future when filming are things like:
*when taking shots we need to make sure we don't include unwanted things in the shots and be more careful how we position our shots
*the sound- we need to make sur e we put in apropriate sound with the clip that we are filming (although the sound we used wasn't bad, we could have used it more effectively within the shots)
Overall i thought that our video was made quite well and we didn't have any distractions when filming our vidoe.
i think if i had to give a level using the mark scheme to our work i would give it a level 2 because our video had shown basic knowledge, but it showed a much bigger improvement then our first time filming. our filming was less shaky and we had better lighting then last time.
Now that we know how to edit, we should be able to do a better job when when we next film and should be ble to reach a level 3 by the time we get to making our main task.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
15th June 2009
We were given a sequence that we had to follow called ''The phone call'' with all the different types of shots we needed top put in.
we had to decide what each character would say and where we were going to film the sequence.
i will be putting up a scan of our storyboard as soon as it has been scanned onto the computer.
Friday, 12 June 2009
8th-12th June- A2 course
We have been practicing how to use a camera and looking at all the different camera angles. We have been going out of class and have been taking shots of different camera angles and made a video tour of our schools sixth form, to get new year 12's to join our sixth form.
This has helped us look at what we need to be aware of when filming. Things we need to be aware of when filmig are:
*lighting
*framing shots i.e. not cutting of peoples heads
*keeping the camera steady when using the hand cam
*the use of the different camera angles
*sound
With our video, our camera was quite steady and our framing was done quite well. The things we could have improved on were he lighting and the sound. Our video had no voice over so it was quite silent when showing things like the classes. We have used quite a few different types of camera angles, such as medium shots, tracking etc.
12th June
Today in class we were given a mark scheme of this course. Looking at the mark scheme we were able to see at what level we are at now and we were able to se a target to meet. The mark scheme showed the required ability needed to reach each level.
There are 4 levels to the mark scheme, with one being the lowest and 4 being the hisghest. At the moment i think that i am at level 2 as i have basic ability in technical skills with usig a camera.
Through practicing using a camera i am able to hold shots more steadily, frame shots well, use a variety of shots, and select mise en scene.
By the end of this courswe i hope to reach a level 3.
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Evaluation

This is my powerpoint evaluation for my finished project. =D

Question One

The usage of clour house style and clothing were very important for my magazine. the colours i used had to suit the whole sterotypical rock style so had to be aware the colours that i use. i had to make sure that it fited into the whole dark theme. the house style for my magazine was also very important because it showed a sense of indivifualism for my magazine, it makes it stand out from other magazines. clothing was an important factor fo my magazine because rock bands usually have their own individual taste in clothing that makes them stand out from other rock bands. How rock bands dress makes an impresion on the type of music they play and gives them an image that fans can follow. my rock band has their own individual style of clothing but it has the whole sterotypical dark theme to their clothing.
Most male rock bands usually have long hair , which is another sterotype. the male member in my rock band has long hair and falls into this sterotype but also makes himself stand out like other rock bands with his stlyle of fashion.

Some of my ideas for my magazine came from the Kerrang! magazine. I have circled in different colours the similarities and differences of my magazine to the Kerrang! magazine as you can see from the slide. As a difference, instead of having a barcode in the front cover of my magazine like i have seen in most music magazine i have just put a price on the magazine to make it easier for consumers to know the price and to make it look different then other music magaznes.

Question Two

My media product represents the whole rock genre social group. My Band has done this by having long hair, wearing dark clothing. They use colours that associate with the whole rock genre. Because the band is young and new they would appeal to the young market of the target audience and this way present a whole new rock social group.

Question Three

Two types of media institutions i looked at were Bauer media and IPC media. Between them i would want to distribute my magazine through bauer media as it is a nationalised company and it gives my magazine a greater advantage to come out in the market. IPC media would give my magazine less competiton as the only other rock magazine they distribut is NME. Bauer Media is an international company and it has higher competition for my magazine as it disttributes popular magazines such as Kerrang!. If i choose Bauer media to distribute my magazine it would make it difficult for my magazine to last into the market.

Question Four

My magazine is aimed at Males and Femaes aged between 15-25+. Because rock magazines usually uses inappropriate language if the target audience were any younger it would be a bad influence on younger children. other than that my magazine is aimed at anyone who take an interest in Rock music, Fashion, Instruments and technology. my magazine is for anyone within any age range from my target audience.

Question Five

Appealing to your audience is hugely important for a music magazine. to attract my audience i have put in free posters inside the magazine, used images, bold heading, eyecathing colours and quizzes to win prizes to get audiences attention.

Question Six

Some of the technologies that i have used were difficult and easy. Things like using microsoft powerpoint and cameras were quite easy, but with the camera i had to be aware of camera angles. Blogging was easy to do but it was quite time consuming and keeping a constent blog update was sometimes difficult because of the lack of internet access. Sometimes the blogger website didn't really work the way i would have like it to. I found it very difficult using photoshop for the first time. i had no experience with the programme and found it difficult to manage. it often was very irratating as i wasn't able to do what i wanted during the preliminary task. By the time i had began the main task i have managed to gain more experience with the programme and could use it more easily.

Question Seven FINAL QUESTION!!

By doing the preliminary task i was able to grasp concept of how to use different technology and it had helped me gain experience with photoshop. The preliminary task has helped me learn how important keeping to hose style, fonts style and layout style was important. I was able to improve my work greatly from doing the preliminary task. you can see the difference in my work from the slideshow.

when i did the cntents page for my preliminary task it was quite terrible as i had grammer mistakes, my contents page didn't keep to a similar house or font style as my front cover and the coulours were also very different. I have managed to improve a lot from doing the preliminary task. My preliminary contents page had no images and looked vey dull. my main task contents page keeps to the house style, the similar fonts and contains an image on it. Its not the best contents page but it is a lot better than my prelimanry task contents page.

We had no experience in doing a double page spreasd and so i had to look at other magazines double page spreads in order to get an idea of how to layout my work. i am very happy with my double page spread. The double page spread is quite different to other music magazine double page spread and i am happy with it. my double page spread follows the house style of my magazine and has its own individualism from other magazines.
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Music magazine Mock Up
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
22nd April 2009
This is what they look like:

This is the front cover of my page. I am really happy with the way it turned out. It is pretty much the same as my mock up which i am pleased with because when I did my preliminary task I didn't follow my mock up. I have added a few extra things to my magazine which I don't have in my mock up. When I did my preliminary task i had difficulties in laying out my magazine to make it look better. I had a better idea of a layout for my magazine from looking at the kerrang! magazine. The Kerrang! magazine gave me ideas about layout and types of things to include in my magazine. Overall i am reallyhappy with my front cover, and i feel that it is much better than my preliminary task.

This is my contents page. It is a big improvement from my preliminary task. My preliminary task did not have images in the contents page at all, and i had grammer mistakes. When i did my preliminary task there was a lot of yellow on my contents page and it looked really plain. I have checked my work for any spelling errors and such and I have fixed any errors. I am really happy with my contents page because it looks good. My pages have a house style and it can be recognised as my work, where as in my preliminary task my contents page and my front cover was really different and it did not look very good. My music magazines content page has image on it and includes more text. it does not look plain like it did in my school magazine contents page.

This is my doble page spread. During the preliminary task we did not make a double page spread so i ahve no experience in doing a double page spread. For my double page spread i have looked at diferent types of rock magazines to give me an idea of what to include in my double page spread. I looked around in the internet for ideas also.
My double page spread keeps to the house style and has similar font of writing all the way through which makes it look good. I have used images, text and shapes to fill up the spaces. Overall i am pleased with my double page spread. I thought that it turned out well. It took a lot of time to do the double page spread as i had difficulties in chooing a layout and finding things to put into the double page spread. Some images i put on there were really bright and it didn't look very good so i used photoshop to tone down the bright lighting.
Overall i think my double page spread has turned out well.
I think that my main task has turned out a lot better than my preliminary task and i am really happy with it.
Now that i have finished everything I am now continuing on with doing my evaluation.
20th April 2009
Friday, 17 April 2009
3rd April 2009

I thought about having a solo rock artist and so i asked a freind to pose as a solo rock artist. To make her look like a rock artist i have got her to wear a black wig, as most rock artist have a dark style hair or clothing.
I thought about having instruments with the pictures but it didn't really work out as well as i hoped it would. instead of making an advert for my contents page i thought that i would use an image to make an album cover.
I really like the pose of this image and thought that it would work well as an album cover. At first i liked the background of the image, but later i realised i wasn't quite happy with it. I changed the background of this image to a scenery background image.
After editig the background of the image i added the text onto the album cover and this is what it looks like:
The difference can be seen from looking at the original image of my model and the edited image.
Monday, 13 April 2009
27th March 2009
One publisher we looked at was Bauer Media. Bauer is the largest privately owned publishing group.
· they are a newly established worldwide publisher. They were established in 2007. They offer over 230 magazines in 15 countries as well as online, TV and radio stations.
· Their turnover from their first year was 1.8 Billion Euros.
· They employ 6,400 people
· their main aim is to appeal to their audiences in every way possible (radio, magazine, TV, Internet etc)
· They own Kerrang magazine, FHM, Magic FM, Q, Kiss FM and empire (and many more...)
· Over 40% of people watch their music channels and 1/4 of all Londoner's listen to a Bauer radio station Monthly.
http://www.bauer.co.uk/

This is a printscreen of some of the magazines that Bauer media owns.
The second publisher we looked at was IPC media. IPC is the leading UK consumer magazine publisher
· They have been established longer than Bauer and some of the magazines they own include Guitar and Bass, HiFi News, NME and UnCut.
· IPC publish only in the UK and 66% women and 44% of all men read magazines published by IPC (26 million adults)
it diverse print and digital for everyone.
http://www.ipcmedia.com/

If i had to go with one of these publishers out of the two i would pick IPC because my magazine is new and it is better that it grows out into the market. IPC is better because there would be less competition for my magazine because the fact that bauer magazine own Kerrang and Q could be off putting as it would cause increased competition for another rock magazine. with IPC the greatest competition for a rock magazine like mine would be NME, but there would still be less competitiion as IPC does not own so many music magazines like Bauer which would allow my magazine to grow into the market.
25th March 2009
This what my front cover looks like:






I noticed that this image also has alot of red eye, and this made the image look bad. To get rid of the red eye i used the red eye remover tool in photoshop inorder to get rid of the red eye.


This is what the finished picture looked like when i was done. i have made the whole background black.
23rd March 2009
Later i got more used to the tools and had managed to change the background.
there were rough edges in the picture and it looked like it was cut aound so i had to smooth it out in order to make it look good.
For the background i couldn't get the exact colours as i had in the mock up but i had quite similar colours to how i wanted it.
It was difficult to t6hink of the text to put with the images for the front cover in general. i couldn't find a suitable layout to put the text in but after working with it a little i managed to make the front cover pretty good.
looking at the Kerrang! Magazine has helped me layout the front cover of the magazine in a suitable way.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
18th March 2009

I wanted to use this image as an album cover.



These pictures are of the main band OBLIVION.
Monday, 16 March 2009
16th March 2009
11th and 13th March 2009
13th March:
In this lesson we had talked about uses and gratification.
We have learnt that the basic idea of this theory is tat people consume the media because it fulfils a need. These needs serve as motivations for using media. We have learnt that there are four areas of gratification adn these are;
- Escapeism- this is getting away from 'real life', relaxing. this usually covers on of the senses i.e. video game is on so you don't hear the call for dinner.
- Personal realationships- the audience creates a relationship with celebreties, characters etc. They feel lilke they know them.
- Personal identity- creating an identity by copying artists and magazines, following trends etc.
- Surveillance- getting information about the world.
We have also learnt that with these gratifications there are also dangers. For example with Escapism the danger is that people can escape too much from the real world and can lose track of time. Another example is with personal identity. The danger here is that people can lose their own identity and fall into sterotypes, and people may become offended by those sterotypes.
6th March 2009
In this lesson we have started to lay out the foundations for the main task of the coursework. We went over what the task was, and what we need to do for it. We needed to choose a genre for our magazines, think about the audience, uses and gratifications, design features, what the contents should be like, images should be anchored and that all photos should be original. Also we will need to plan out our photos, how they should be shot, location, props and angles. For homework, we had to come up with our pitch for our magazine, thinking about the aspects mentioned above.
- For the genre for my coursework I have chosen to make my magazine a rock magazine.
- I have chosen to call my magazine ‘’Tune On!’’ as the name refers to music.
- My magazine will be based on a new upcoming band. I have chosen to call the new band ‘Oblivion’
The target audience for my magazine will be male and female aged 15 to 24 year olds as rock magazines often contain strong language (swearing) and audience any younger would be inappropriate. - The magazine has to contain a minimum of four images but I may have more.
- The colours that I will be using for my magazine will be red, black, green, and orange.
- The content of my magazine will contain things such as, interview with the new band, concerts and gigs that are coming up, information on instruments, stories about other bands- existing bands, free posters etc.
- The language I will be using will be informal but I am unlikely to use swear words for this coursework.
I have made a mock up for the front cover of my rock magazine and I will be uploading it on my blog as soon as it has been scanned onto my computer. =D
4th March 2009

For the research I had chosen to research about Kerrang! Magazine. I chose Kerrang because for my coursework to do the music magazine I am going to base my magazine on rock music and Kerrang is a rock magazine.
From researching the Kerrang! I have found out:
• Kerrang! Is published by Bauer Consumer Media in the United Kingdom. It is edited by Paul Brannigan.
• The name refers to the sound made when smashing an electric guitar. Kerrang!
• The Kerrang magazine is published weekly and sells about 70,000 copies a week.
• Kerrang has a readership of 542,000
• It is aimed at people aged 15-24 years old
• Kerrang has male ratio of 60:40
• The Magazine costs £1.99 to buy.
• Kerrang appeals to individualists, who are sharp and fanatical about their choice of music.
• The magazine has bold images of a particular band at the front and also contains a list of other bands that the magazine talks about. In a list around the magazine. This draws reader’s attention, as they may see their favourite band on the front cover and may pick it up in stores to read about it.
• The colours that Kerrang! uses are usually dark but have a bold bright colour going around it to make it stand out and draw readers attention.
• It attracts readers with information on concerts and gigs soon to be on. They do reviews with images of the public. Readers may take interest in this to see what type of concerts and gigs will be coming soon. Others may also buy the magazine to see if their image is on the magazine.
• Readers of Kerrang! Magazines are quite loyal, and are less likely to buy other magazines over Kerrang.
I have included all this in my PowerPoint.
Monday, 2 March 2009
25th February 2009
The magazine had contained things like images with glow sticks to emphasize the relation to dance which we had predicted it would. Overall due to the different targeted age range of the magazine which we had predicted to the real thing our view of the magazine was quite different.
During the second half of this lesson we had gone down to the computer rooms and had looked at the online version of the dance magazine.The online version of the dance magazine was very different from the print. the online version was more interactive andf focused specifically at DJ's. It also focused on things such as, fashion and DJ equipments.The colours on the magazine are different from the print. the colours are darker but it still had bold bright colours on things like the masthead.
overall the online version of the dance magazine focuses more on Djs unlike the print which focuses more on clubs and peeople partying.