Photography Planning

I have produced a grid to guide me in my photography when taking photos of my mode. I may not stick exactly to this grid, but the ideas will be similar hopefully.

Main image research

• The shot type of the main images are mainly medium long shots as they show the celebrities facial expression clearly, but also include some of their costumes which allows the audience to see what type of article is going to be wrote about that celebrity, e.g. Olly Murs' Christmas jumper suggests it's going to be a Christmas related interview.
• The angles of the images are all eye level, this could suggest that the celebrities have the same authority as the audience.
• The type of lighting used within all of these images is high key lighting, this is because as they are pop magazines and aimed at teenagers and children, they need to appeal to them and if they are dull, boring colours then they wont be attracted to the magazines.
•  Throughout all of the pop magazines I have seen, not just the examples above, I have noticed that all of the images have direct mode of address to make the audience feel involved and welcome into reading the magazine.
• Each of the celebrities on the magazine have different poses which represent them individually but are still appropriate for the target audience. It's usually a pose which makes them look attractive, but also look fun too.
• The same applies to the costumes they are wearing, they either reflect their personality or reflect the theme of the interview/time of year e.g. Easter, Christmas... As the target audience for the magazines above are quite young, hardly any of the costumes are  revealing and they are appropriate.
• The representation that is given off from each of these celebrities are that they are fun people and are very attractive. None of them have tattoos or are portrayed to be a bad influence either.
• Having a band or an artist as your main image depends on who the is going to have the most impact on the content of the magazine. So you could have either of them.

Treatment of music magazine

In this document, I have explained about the contents of my magazine and what will be inside of it. It is a summary of the magazine I will be producing.

Front cover&Contents page drafts

Here, I have designed 2 front covers and 2 contents pages which these designs have been adapted from the feedback from the peers who filled in my questionnaire. This feedback has helped me a lot because I knew what colours to include on these pages and how to lay out the pages whilst keeping them neat and not too busy, however still having all information on them.

Music Magazine Double Page Layouts

These are the 3 layouts for my double page spread for my music magazine. I have followed the conventions of a music magazine from 'We Love Pop' in layout 1, however I have designed my own layout for design 2 and 3 because I thought these were very unique ideas and would catch the readers eye straight away.

Music Magazine Contents Page Layouts

I have designed 3 different contents page layouts that I will chose 1 for my final production of my music magazine. Each layout is following the conventions from the magazine 'We Love Pop' which I analysed earlier on in my work. I have included the same conventions throughout all 3 layouts because these follow the conventions of a music magazine therefore I am not challenging any of these conventions.

Music Magazine front cover layout

 

 
I have designed 3 layouts for the front cover for my music magazine I am going to produce. The way I designed these layouts are by looking through different music magazines and following the conventions of the magazine 'We Love Pop'. The masthead for each layout is at the top, which is essential for me because then it will stand out to the audience and they will know straight away that it is my magazine. Not only that but the anchorage text is always covering the main image even if its slightly because this also follows conventions and it links it directly to the main image. Each cover line and thumbnail image that is linked to it is important to the front cover because it shows what is inside of this particular issue and includes images of celebrities which draws the audience in if they notice that their favorite celebrity is on it, or someone that they have an interest in.

Survey results

 
 
I created a survey outside of school to gather results and answers about the front cover of my magazine and how I can make it appeal to a wide variety of people for my audience of teenage girls. The age of the people who filled in this survey were teenage girls, so this is helpful as it gives me the opinion of people from the ideal audience.

Masthead Survey

Click here to take survey

Above is the link to my survey I have made to get feedback about the front cover of the magazine I will be producing. It would be really helpful if you could click onto the link above and complete this survey, it wont take long! 

These images of different masthead styles will help you to answer question number 4 as you will need to see the masthead styles to be able to complete the question.

October/November Blog Feedback

Here is the feedback I received off Mrs Mitchel, I am happy with this feedback and I will continue to make improvements to my work so it is of a high standard. 

Masthead Ideas

Here, I have used the words 'Pop Party' to test out different font styles for my magazine masthead. Each one has a similar bubbly look about it, but this is because teenage girls are bubbly and fun which these fonts represent. Once I have picked the name of my magazine and the final font style I will then go onto picking the colour of the masthead, so these are only examples of the type of font. I think that all of these masthead's are appropriate for the magazine genre, which is pop music, so once I have completed my survey to get advice on which masthead to use, I would be happy to use any of them.

Here I have put together some more masthead designs, a bit different from the first page of designs. I wanted to mix up the designs a bit whilst still keeping them feminine in some way. I started to look at a variety of styles of mastheads to see which sort of styles of writing I wanted not just on my front cover but throughout the magazine I am producing. I have only picked different fonts off the website dafont.com that I think will be suitable to fit the audience for this magazine, and that I can add the main colours to so that they fit in. On the other hand, I do prefer the mastheads on the top design page, so those fonts will be the ones entered into the survey.

House style of my music magazine

A few idea of names for my music magazine:

• Teen Pop
• Pop Monthly
• PopStar
• Pop Hits!
• Pop Forever
• Party With Pop
• Pop People
• Ultimate Pop
• Vibe
• iPop
• Platinum
• PopMatters
• Pop Chart

Here I have thought about many different pop magazine names that I could potentially use for the masthead of my magazine, even though I might not use any of these names they are just my first idea's to give me a rough clue of what font to use for my final design idea.

Above is a few different masthead fonts from the website 'dafont', I might decide to use one of these fonts for my final design idea for my front cover, however for now they are just a couple of examples which will give me an idea of how I want my masthead to look.

   

Here are different colours that represents girls, happiness, purity, and fun. They are all bright colours which would fit perfectly with my magazine. Even though some people may class the bottom end of the scale on the right image as 'boyish' colours, I think that they would fit in well with my magazine even though it is for teenage girls; these colours would fit in well because they are all bright colours and match together well, whilst giving off the idea to the audience that the magazine is full of fun, energy and emotions.

 

I have found some images which show the celebrities to have 'direct mode of address' which means they are looking into the camera and engaging with the reader of the magazine. This is how I want my main image to look because I believe that by having direct mode of address makes the reader feel welcome to carry on flicking through the pages to read more. From these images I can see that all of the celebrities look happy, and this is the way I want the main image to look on my front cover so I will be following the conventions of pop magazines and have happy celebrities on the front, or maybe even have the main image posing more with more facial expression to link to teenagers which go through a range of emotions per day.

House Styles

When starting to look at house styles, I decided to focus on Top of the Pops magazine which is a well known magazine full of celebrities involved within the pop music sector. What I have noticed when finding these images is that the house style has changed and developed through time and as new celebrities are introduced. The first editions of Top of the Pops had the masthead visible as the magazine had only just came out so the readers needed to recognise that it is a Top of the Pops magazine; however, as the magazine developed the main image started to overlap the masthead as this is what people recognised the Top of the Pops magazine to be like. Below the magazine there is always the main image of the band/celebrity with cover lines surrounding it and freebies being advertised, this makes the magazine more recognisable because if the readers see this every time they buy the magazine it will become easy to know what to look for on the front cover. Even though the main images may be of women, Top of the Pops always put pictures of men on it, which are attractive and that teenagers are into. The colour scheme of the front cover is always bright colours, but colours that represent innocence and joy such as yellow, blue pink, purple. In some cases the magazine cover is red to represent the theme(valentines day) or to suggest that the band/celebrity is being cheeky or mischievous.  

Music magazine analysis!

To analyse my chosen music magazine 'We Love Pop' I used Prezi because I thought that this would be the best way to present my work in a continuous flow and for me to include everything in one presentation. I think that my work is laid out well and that is it easy to follow the different topics/parts of the magazine that I have analysed. Within my analysis, I have talked about:

• The front cover
• The contents page
• A double page spread
• An advertisement
• The audience, Institution and the Representations of the magazine.

Independent research - Pop conventions

Key conventions of a pop magazine:

• The masthead always has a relation to music, e.g. 'Top Of The Pops'
• The masthead is always bold and stands out the most
• Cover lines should have some link to the artist featured in the main image
• The band/artist should be appropriate for the chosen target audience
• Main image has to be a celebrity who is the same genre as the magazine
• All main images should attract and please the audience
• Colour schemes depend on the gender audience of the magazine, if the magazine is unisex then the colours should be mixed so it is appropriate for everyone
• The contents page should include a variety of different numbers so it is easy to navigate around the magazine e.g. '15, 26, 48, 60'
• Next to the numbers on the contents page, subheadings should be placed so the reader can clearly see what topics are where
• Colloqial language should be used where appropriate to attract the audience you're aiming at e.g. 'We love boys' for teenage girls
• Bold and colourful headers are always useful to make them stand out 
• Always include a double page spread about a very popular celebrity that is usually the main imagine on the front cover
• A title on each topic should stand out by being something unusual, funny or very different, it should also make it clear who/what the article is going to be about
• An advert/Q&A/story page or competition to interact with the readers but it should be linked to the same genre of the magazine
• Direct mode of address is used within the main image

 

Pop music research

I made a mind map on the website 'mindomo' because this is a clear way to show my research into the history of pop music. It is clear to see the different aspects of the research I have done and to read all of the information given.
I conducted research on the genre of pop music because this  is the style of music I will be basing my music magazine on throughout my coursework.

Initial Ideas - Music Magazine

Here are my first ideas about the music magazine I am now going to be creating. I used Powtoon again because I really like the website as it makes my work look really good and neat. This power point has made me decide on the genre of my music magazine, which is going to be Pop, as I have the biggest interest in it.

School Magazine Analysis - Question 3

Finally, I have used Google Slides to answer my last evaluation question. I got this website from a peer and decided to take a look at it, and found it easy to use, it is just like Microsoft power point, but easier to use! 

School Magazine Analysis - Question 2

Here is my second evaluation question which I created with Prezi, I decided to use Prezi so I could get to know about another technology which might be useful when it comes to making my music magazine.

School Magazine Analysis - Question 1

Here is my final analysis of my Plantsbrook School magazine I had been producing throughout this term. In this, I have covered the target audience, conventions of the magazine, and what I have learnt about technologies. I decided to use PowToon, Google Slide and Prezi because they are all technologies I have never used before, and it gave me a change to try and test out new technologies so I know which ones I like to use ready for when I start my music magazine project.

Improved magazine cover and Final contents page

My final version of my magazine front cover for a school magazine. This has been designed by hand, combined by survey results and made on fireworks, then been improved by being peer assessed, everything on this magazine now has been improved to make it to the highest standard it can be. I have also designed a contents page to go with the front cover which is a bit basic, but it is my first attempt at creating a magazine using a new software programme called fireworks.

Magazine cover self and peer assessment

Here is my feedback sheet in which I filled in myself to see what mark I would gain from my first magazine front cover, as my magazine front cover was incomplete with my image missing, I found that I marked my work too high as I couldn't mark it properly whilst being incomplete. After being given this feedback from my peers and teacher, I have gone away and improved my magazine cover by taking all of their points into consideration to get my magazine cover to the highest standard it can be.

Blog feedback

Task Research and Planning Part	Incomplete/ Limited 0-7 marks	Basic 8-11 marks	Proficient 12-15 marks	Excellent 16-20 marks	Overall
Reflective Technology HW			ü		15/20 Grade B
Conventions			ü
Analysis of music magazine			ü
Analysis of school mag front cover				ü
School magazine names & mastheads				ü
Photography shot types			ü
Photography portrait			ü
WWW:      You are managing the demands of AS Media Studies well and have learnt to adapt to a range of new technologies.    Your blog is well organised and you are meeting deadlines.    You add detailed descriptions to each post so that it is clear to an examiner what you are doing.     Your photography is considered, well framed and developing in preparation for your coursework. EBI:       You need to use a range of media terminology in your blog posts.     Continue to highlight/colour code your analysis to ensure you have included all aspects of the analysis formula.     Try to think outside of the box and research independently. It would be great to see some wider reading, research and ideas on your blog than just those from the spreadsheet. Pupil Comment: I understand that I need to include more key terminology in my blog posts, so when I post new blog posts, I will take this into consideration and make sure I do this to ensure my work is at the best it can be. I think that highlighting my work in different colours will help me to see if I have included enough terminology and included it where and when it is needed.

  

Magazine Cover

Here is my magazine front cover which is currently not complete but I am unsure on how to insert an image and send it to the back so we can still see the writing on the magazine. I used fireworks to create the magazine which was new to me as I haven't used this before, so using something new was fun and interesting to find out about it, I am happy to use this software again. To make my magazine better I will find Miss and ask her for help in order to help me complete this.

SurveyMonkey Analysis

From the results of my survey, I found out that layout number 1 and 3 were the favourites however there was an equal amount of votes for each it, it was 50/50. So I have decided that from these results that I will try to combine the two layouts to make them appeal to everyone. I also found out that the vast majority of the people that took the survey preferred the masthead 'Plantsbrook News' with only 1 out of 8 voting for 'Plantsbrook School'. I had always preferred the first masthead as it is self explanatory for the front of the magazine but I gave the option to see if the public wanted 'Plantsbrook School' to recognise the school name.

I then went to find out that the colour scheme used in my previous magazine drafts were appropriate and appealing to the public, therefore I will keep the colour scheme of white, black and red; but I will add more black to the front cover as in question 9, 6 out of 7 people voted to have the colour scheme black, white and red instead of just black and white.

All of the 8 people that filled in my survey said that the writing over the front cover is big enough and clear enough to read without difficulty, this then tells me that I can keep the font size and style the same as on the draft which is good because I think that it looks effective and suits the style of the magazine well; also I think that this style of writing is appealing to students and adults which is my chosen audience.

I was quite shocked with the results of question 6 because I thought that the most appealing coverline would of been the new build or results, because for me I reckon these would be the most appealing as they are the most important as these affect the learning of the students/their children, however they chose uniform to be the more interesting coverline so I will make this the main coverline meaning that the main image will hopefully be of a student in uniform to link to the main coverline. Following this the next most interesting was seen to be GCSE and A-Level results with 2 votes, then the new build with 1 result meaning that these will still be included but not as big as the article about uniform would be.

4 of the 8 people who answered this questionnaire suggested that the main image should be on the left hand side leaving the writing and coverlines being on the right hand side around the image or above just below the masthead and slogan. The rest of the votes were split 2 and 2 between the main image being in the middle of the front cover or being to the right of it, leaving the text and masthead to go in the space around this. However I will be putting my image to the bottom left of the page but still having the background behind all of the other text.

For question 8 and 9, I asked the readers about having a competition or an incentive included within the magazine, as if they wanted these to be included then they would have to be featured on the front page so everyone is aware they're getting what they pay for. 7 out of 8 people  told me that they wanted a school linked incentive which has made me decide that I will definitely be including one of these to attract the readers and to make this magazine stand out and give them what they want. Not only this but 37.5% of the public said they don't mind if there's a competition included, I think this is because if they bought this magazine they wouldn't take part and it would be a waste of my time, although 62.5% of the public said they would want me to put a competition in the magazine as they would complete it and return it to be in with a chance of them winning.

To summarise my findings, I will take on board everything that the public has put about my work in my survey. I have found that making a survey has made my work a lot easier to produce because I have had the opinion off the people who will actually be reading my magazine so I now know that I will be giving the readers what they want and making them happy!  

SurveyMonkey questionnaire

Below is the link to my survey which will help me decide on my final plan of my magazine front cover.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/X5NLC8F

Magazine front covers

When designing multiple magazine front covers, I decided to stick to a common feature layout, of the masthead at the top of the magazine page which stands out much more than having a masthead between all of the bits of text or images, because logically people read from left to right, top to bottom of the page. 

I wanted to keep the medium close up of the girl so the reader can focus on the expression of the student which is portrayed as happy suggesting that Plantsbrook is a happy school, not only that, you can see the smart uniform which also links to the main puff text about uniform.

I also made sure that the logo and motto was on the magazine as these are an important aspect of the school which would instantly make the magazine recognizable and link it back to Plantsbrook school.

Magazine layouts

I have designed 5 different layouts for my magazine front cover, I tried to make them as different and creative as I could so it would give me a variety of different layouts to chose from when it comes to picking one. However, all of the different layouts all consist of the same aspects just laid out differently.

First draft of my magazine cover

I created a draft front cover for my magazine to give me idea's for different layouts which will then give me a choice of different covers to make and to see which one looks effective and the best.
I chose to use the theme colour red because this suits the theme for the school and links the magazine to the school. This could also be linked to the house style of the magazine for for if I was to get further into producing more of the magazine. The reason I used bold writing as the anchorage text was so that it stands out and straight away the readers notice the main topics that will be covered throughout the magazine.
I decided to use a medium close up shot because this way you can see how smart the student looks in their uniform with their tie and shirt tucked in, and then you can also see their facial expression which will represent their time at the school and what they think about it.
I wanted to include the school motto 'Be the best you can be' because this represents the school and their aspirations to be the best they can possibly be. 
 Finally, I put in a competition and incentive to interest the reader to buy and to take the magazine to read it and find out all about the school. Not only this, these aspects will appeal to adults and children/students which tries to involve a large target audience, instead of just focusing on one.

Reflection of portrait photography

During the photography lesson, we went around the school to take different shots in different places of each other and objects that have a variety of different angle shots and shot types. As we are preparing to make a magazine front cover, the pictures we took are practice for that, this is why we took a range of images with medium close up shot which are usually used on the front of magazine covers.

In this lesson, I found out how to take pictures with different effect such as shallow and soft focus which I didn't know before this lesson; also in our group we all took different images with all of the different effects which I have never done before, so now I know how to use a camera ready for the next photography lesson.

We tried to include different types of lighting by taking different photos inside and outside so we had natural lighting from being outside and lighting coming from the lights inside and the flash on the camera which helped me to clearly see what effect the lighting inside a building has on the quality of the photo, which in this case made the photo more of a hard lighting as it was more dark in some places without the flash.

Portrait photography

Created with flickr slideshow.

School photography

Throughout the lesson, we went around the school with camera's in little groups and tried using different shot types/angles to make each subject look effective, also to show that we understand how to create these different shots with the camera.
We used a variety of different shots and angles including long shots, close ups, point of view etc...

Created with flickr slideshow.