Skills Development essay

Alicia Baldwin    

                                                                Skills Development Evaluation Essay

I studied the codes and conventions of a music magazine and I began researching which bands and information I wanted my magazine to feature so I could explore the creative possibilities of the brief to their full potential. I began creating a few different examples of bands and information I considered including so I would have more to choose from later. I created double page spreads of bands and existing double page spreads found on the internet and in various different music magazines, this enable me to include a similar structure and some similar ideas in my own magazine, I did the same for my front cover, I found that as I researched more ideas became available to me and my imagination began flowing, so I began experimenting with a few ideas on photo shop and this is when I created the front cover to my college magazine and this meant I could gain a better understanding on how photo shop worked for when I began my music magazine front cover. In the post-production stage of my AS foundation portfolio, I was determined to play around with the program of photo shop so I could discover all the different effects and possibilities I could include throughout my magazine, despite al4ready being slightly familiar with the program having used it in my other creative subjects. I found synergy between other Adobe programs that I had used in college and this made it easier for me to gain a better understanding of how the program worked.  I then tried some of the same ideas out in power point and publisher to see if the effects varied and became any better, this broadened my knowledge and enabled me to create the effects I had originally imagined and intended. I took photographs which were appropriate for the genre of music I did and what I felt was best fitting with the general theme of my magazine. Adobe photo shop allowed me to manipulate pictures and text to create the image I wanted and enabled me to create similar technical effects as those used on the front cover existing examples I had been previously researching.

Once I had completed the task, I posted the work onto my blog and I printed out examples of the various different front covers I had created and I went around college asking my peers which front cover they preferred and why this was and how I could make it better and also which target audience they thought the magazine would be suitable for, this was just a very basic way of me being able to gather some feedback, I then applied what had been said to my work and posted that on my blog. I looked at the college magazine as almost a practice run for me to be able to come to terms with using photo shop and developing my editing skills and techniques. By visually synchronising my own photographs with the text and imagery included in my magazine in enabled me to create a professional outcome that could be convincing to the audience as a music magazine as I followed the codes and conventions, confirming my audience’s expectations of a music video. I adjusted the themes of my front cover, double page spread and magazine as a whole so the theme was consistent throughout. I chose the colours black and red as they were appropriate for the music genre I had chosen of indie/rock. I liked the colour red as it stood out against the black and made my magazine’s image more interesting and professional. The other colours I chose for my other front cover examples were white with black and yellow with green which I didn’t think worked as well and were as genre appropriate as the red and black. I also noticed that the music magazine which inspired mine which was ‘NME’ also used colours white, red and black, and NME magazine follows the same genre of indie rock. From doing my foundation portfolio I was able to recognise how to reach out and grab the attenti8on of my target audience and also how to base my themes around what is going to be appropriate for the genre and target audience, by using Adobe photo shop and Microsoft programs I was able to develop my skills easily and create an outcome that I was happy with. If I were to do the project again, I would make my research and planning more thorough, I would annotate more front covers and double page spreads, despite the fact I have successfully remembered all the terminology for the conventions of a front cover from labelling them for my foundation portfolio. I would apply more of my time into how the conventions are applied to existing front covers and double page spreads and why this is, therefore I would be able to acknowledge them better in my own work. I feel like I have come so far in terms of being able to use technological equipment such as cameras, photo shop, and other programs and I have gained confidence in using them independently also.  

When preparing for the exam, I used the conventions from real media texts and looked at tv dramas and soap operas, after studying the terminology, conventions and stylistics I was able to identify them in examples of tv drama and talk about them in a class discussion, I found that I gained the ability to i9dentify them in many different examples of TV programmes and movies and found myself doing so when watching the television on a daily basis, this meant that revision was constant which I think really helped me in my exam, doing practice questions of how you can apply what you have identified and structure it into your essays, this enabled me to see the points I was making clearly and gave me chance to explain them thoroughly which all the time was developing my skills. This helped me gain confidence in including my ideas for the exam and confidence in being able to identify stylistics and conventions.