Media Evaluation Essay: Skill Development

EVALUATION ESSAY: Skill Development

 

At the start of my Foundation Portfolio I had to do two Preliminary exercises. One was to create a fragrance advert and the other, which was more relevant was to create a magazine on college life.  To produce this work we had to use desktop publishing (such as Microsoft Word and Publisher) and also image manipulation software, Photoshop CS5 version.  The preliminary task for the fragrance advert helped us learn basic skills within Photoshop and developed further as we did the college magazine for the other preliminary task.  For the college  magazine I had to create a front cover along the guidelines of it being a medium close-up photo of student(s), appropriately laid out text and also a masthead and main headline.  This helped progress into more in-depth skills of photo shop ready to start my music magazine, and how music magazines are conventionally set out for my Foundation Portfolio. For my Foundation Portfolio I created a front cover, contents page and double-page spread. All the imagery for my magazine had to be original and needed at least 4 original photos produced by me.  I chose to create my magazine along the lines of an indie-rock/pop genre and I felt my photos/article would summarise this.

In my Foundation Portfolio I used image-manipulation programme Photoshop CS5 to make my own photography look more professional for the magazine.  As I had no in-depth Media knowledge before I started my Media course (unlike others who had taken it at GCSE Course) Photoshop especially in my preliminary tasks I found this a little bit of a struggle and sometimes confusing.  However as I got to grips with it Photoshop let me edit my photos to a standard that even official music magazines could, the main grasp being finding tools and knowing how to use them properly and effectively.  I also had a little trouble with my first set of photos, the photography didn’t portray the genre of the magazine properly and some photos seemed to unclear after a set the text out over them, so I decided to take another set of photos. The images I set for the final designs were much better and in sync with the genre, and also easy to edit.  An ideal photo to use for the magazine cover was preferably a medium close-up of the artist (in focus) , and to show eye contact. Another issue (which I had trouble with on previous drafts) was to make sure there was enough room for the Masthead above the models head, and not let text overlook the image too much.  This made me do several drafts and as previously said, another photo-shoot . Other magazine conventions that needed to be included was- Main Headline, Bar-Code, Date/Issue Number, Skyline, Subtitle and so on.  Therefore it would look professional with typical conventions, communicating with the audience that it was ‘something worth buying’.

As part of the creativity process I firstly planned a colour scheme of Coral-Red, Black and White. I also used the ‘Layering’ technique on Photoshop so I could correctly create different effects on my Portfolio magazine. I researched the typical conventions of a music magazine.  For my Masthead I used a simple ‘Calibri’ font (previously Onyx in other earlier drafts) and advanced this with learnt skills such as the Bevel/Emboss, Stroke in white, with an Outer-Glow, and also a Drop Shadow on the text.  Using colours such as Black and White was basic, but it was simple yet effective. I also heightened the angles of the text to make the Drop Shadow look more effective, I had advanced a standard font into a professional magazine Masthead.  I also used the airbrushing and spot-removal tool on my model’s skin to make her look more defined, like stereo-typical models on existing magazines which gave her a professional complexion.  I also made the brightness and contrast of the whole image slightly higher as I wanted a professional ‘photo-shoot’ look to my image.  I also gave my model different coloured hair (out of my own Photoshop research)  to a quirky red (this went with the stereotypical indie/rock look I based my magazine on). I did this by using a ‘Soft Light’ layer to the image, lowering the Opacity levels (to make it look less like ‘paint’ on her hair) and also advanced my skills in the paintbrush tool box, using various brushes such as the 300 circular brush on thicker parts of her hair, then the 11 brush which was more delicate for more accurate, ‘wispy’ bits of hair.  After I had finished this I duplicated the layer used clipping masks and Hue and Saturation to change the colour and mess around with it till I got the correct colour I liked. For the backing on my magazine Cover lines I used the rectangle tool, and also used the shape tool for the Splash/Puffs on my cover. I filled these with colour and changed the opacity to make some of the shades more ‘see-through’.  All these skills helped me advance hugely and find Photoshop a lot easier as I was discovering more which advanced my photos.   For the actual photography I was able to dress and style the model in suitable clothing e.g. indie fashion, ‘rebellious’ hair etc. as an identification in relevance to the genre.  Once I had finished my final designs, I printed them off to show my class (i.e. audience) and created my own questionnaire to see their opinions on my final front-cover, double-page spread and contents page. I also filmed one member of my audience with a video camera who did a review on her personal view of my products and more in-depth detail than the questionnaire.

For the research I firstly looked at existing music magazines such as NME, Kerrang!, Rolling Stone and Billboard. I looked especially at the conventions they had used and also to what extent they had used them. A lot of them looked bold and simple, a common convention between all of them.  As for NME for example they have a bold red front, shadowed with black and bordered with white always in the top left corner of the magazines. On some editions they have the whole font in white with no shadowing, e.g special editions etc. I also looked at artists who were relevant to indie-rock/ pop and looked especially into existing music magazines ‘NME’ and ‘Frank’ as they are popular with the genre.  I mainly used the internet and music magazine issues as sources of research, and used the internet and my own personal taste in music for my choice in creating the magazine for my Foundation Portfolio.