Question 7 – Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learned in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at my preliminary my skills on Photoshop and InDesign have improved a lot more this has enabled me to produce a more professional product.  I found it much easier to use Photoshop than InDesign, the contents page of my student magazine clearly shows this as the arrangement of cover lines is messy as they are not even aligned properly. Whilst the layout of the cover page made by using Photoshop is almost as good as the final product’s cover page although this is just affected by the poor quality of the picture place on the background of the page another thing I have learned is to use the space available better but I could still develop on this.

For the preliminary task we was restricted to using small canon cameras which produce poor quality photos and we had no aid of having professional lighting whereas for the final media product we was able to access professional DSLR’s with high numbers of mega pixels to increase the quality of the photo taken this made a big difference between the student magazine and the final product. The photos produce were sharper with much more detail.

The font for the student magazine cover line could have been a bit bigger as there was plenty of space to be filled although the feature article font was plenty big enough I also find this cover line to look more attractive than the one I chose for my final media product. The mastheads of my product both have big bold fonts although one is more attractive that the other. The student magazine’s masthead’s colour wasn’t designed for other issues and looking back I don’t feel like white is suitable for a mast head because in other issues the background may be white. Having a masthead within a text ensures that it will always be able to be read.

Question 6 – What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product?

In the studio-

In the studio we used a lot of lighting based technology for the photography. We used soft boxed lighting which was pic lights that had filter like structures on them which lowered the intensity of light which reached what was being photographed. You are able to increase or lower the power of the flash using the buttons on the back of each of the lights. There was another spot light which you used when using the white background. This was used to make the white background brighter. Each of the lights was remotely connected to the camera; when you pressed the button the lights would flash simultaneously. The Camera we used was a DSLR, an expensive and professional camera producing high quality images.

Software-

We also learned about the software behind making a magazine; Photoshop and Adobe InDesign is the actual software they use in making a magazine. We used Adobe InDesign when making our contents pages and double page spreads and Photoshop when making our cover pages. We learnt how to use the software mainly on our own and were quite hard to use.

Presenting-

There is a variety of things that we use to present our work.

Blogger was used to show the progress of our AS coursework and the production of our magazine by regularly posting updates onto the blog.

Slide share was another way in which we presented out work; it is a website where you are able to upload PowerPoint presentations onto the website to be viewed.

Prezi is a more update to date version of PowerPoint, allowing you to view things in all different ways.

Flickr was useful as we were able to upload pictures and then attach notes to the photo allowing the viewer to understand more about it. 

Question 5 – How did you attract/ address your audience?

to view my flickr notes on this question visit this website.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/92284770@N08/8382321666/in/photostream/

Question 4 – who would be the audience of your media product?

My target audience consists of large variety of people from the ages of 16 to 32 of different social and ethnic backgrounds preventing any stereotypes and emphasizing equality. The audience is likely to come from urban areas or large towns and cities where they are able to access the magazine. My audience will be of those in America and Britain so I have a greater number of people to purchase the magazine. This magazine is purely for those who love music and wish to keep up to date with their favorite artists and genre/ genres of music. 

The way people act or seem doesn't make them your target audience, u don’t know if someone is of your target audience so distributing your magazine to places where a wide variety of people would visit is a good idea for example theatre’s, stadiums and local and general shops. But when thinking about my target audience I thought about the type of friends I have because this is the same music that me and my friends would listen to, and the type of clothes they would wear as this would affect where I would find my audience for easily. My target audience tends to wear a lot of branded goods such as Nike, Hollister, Adidas and more and are easily spotted in social groups.

 Here is an estimate of the percentage people from different social groups that I think would be interested in buying my magazine/ who I am aiming at.

Question 3 - What kind of media institution might distribute your media product?

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Question 2 - How does your media product represent particular social groups?

I think that my media product represents a lot of different social because it varies within the magazine. Although I think that one particular social group stands out over the rest. A young social group is represented by the use of young models in their teens and the use of social networking advertisement because most young people use social networking sites all over the world. The bright colours on the front cover also represent the younger audience because the younger generations usually judge things by their appearance before going any further into something.

My main model particularly resemble the stereotypical type of person that is the face of RAP and R&B music, those of the black ethnicity play a large part in my target in my audience, I also presented the black ethnicity through the large amount of black artists that featured in my magazine.   

Also the fact that my models are not dressed up like in some magazines, where they attempt to look their best, in my magazine they are casually dressed how they usually would be. This would relate to the audience showing them how their artists really are therefore putting less pressure on the audience to spend their money on trying to look good and look as nice as their favourite artists.

Those of a middle or working class are also represented because of the cheap price which was lowered to draw readers in and make it available to more people at the start because a large percentage of my audience are unlikely to be working meaning they have less money to spare.

Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge or develop forms and conventions of real media product?