1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POjgbK1E01Y I decided to use the knowledge about the codes and conventions I learnt when I first started this subject and used it for my production process. For my front cover, I used a photograph of the main model "Scarlett" with a white background, this colour is always a good choice as it combines with everything and makes the main image stand out. The photograph it's taken with day light that helped me transmit freshness and lighting as well as connoting positive feelings and giving a sense of richness and luxury as famous magazines such as Vogue do to attract customers. The color palette is consisting throughout my whole magazine using blue, black, grey, red and white making a good contrast and appealing to my target audience as well as following the genre of my magazine. I used a direct gaze by looking straight into the camera and a pose that suggests she is relaxed and comftable, giving this feeling to the readers.The body language works well and follows the conventions of the top fashion magazines, it is something really important that the main image communicates something to the customer in order to engage to buy it and I was clear that I wanted to try to do so. The cross arms suggest she is hiding some secrets and fits with some of the cover lines like (She reveals some of her secrets), the gold medal also transmits the success and gives the readers a direct clue of what is going to be the magazine about without reading the cover lines. I used a mid-shot as magazines do because it's easier to transmit body language and facial expression to the audience and gives a sense of proximity. For the masthead I used a bright red that fits perfectly with the color of the leotard she is wearing and with some of the cover lines. Fashion magazines use this type of color to make the main image stand out and compliment. In my magazine the masthead is behind the models head, which helps to give a professional look to the final outcome. Well-known magazines use this method a lot as consumers already recognize the type of font and color they mainly use but it also helps avoiding the masthead to cover "the main attraction". Another fact I notice about is that they always use capital letters for the masthead these are some examples: Cosmopolitan, Fashion, Bazaar and the main example I've been looking from the start: Vogue. The cover lines are a very important part of the front cover, they need to sound convincing, original and catchy in order to attract the reader to buy it. Some magazines decide to use rhymes and alliteration as their main focus. In my magazine I used some connections between the cover lines and the image which makes it more interesting and attractive. The name of the famous person is usually what stands out more, with a bigger font, color, size and position that is commonly placed near the face of the celebrity. In my draft the name is bigger than the other cover lines with a different red tone. My contents page looks conventional but is not the classic design magazines follow. I used some of the typical conventions such as; the page numbers that are shown in a bigger size which explains where each article is placed and makes it easier for the readers to access them, the background with a solid color mainly white and the content structured perfectly and the fact that the majority of magazines include "On the cover" so readers can easily access to their initial attraction. However I show some little unconventional elements; I have the word "contents" as the title and also the name of the magazine "quantic", usually magazines only have one word, contents or the name of the magazine. In this case, my magazine has the main image in the middle of the page whereas in the majority of them appear on the sides and in a bigger scale. Finally my double page spread looks very conventional, following the normal interview article about the celebrity clearly showed in the front cover. Some conventions I used are the capital letter at the beginning of the article, calling the attention to the writing, using one half of the page for a big photograph (normally a close-up), and finally in the interview I used the format of question-answer structure as magazines tend to use because is more direct. 2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OIsr0xsW1Y The research of the magazines helped me to understand what makes the audience be engaged by a magazine, this was my main focus, I wanted to produce something that the readers would like to rapidly buy, for this part I had to think as if I was the customer. I decided that the images of my magazine were going to be the main focus of attraction, blue and bright red are the main colours that are predominant in my magazine as they help to connotate the power of a women and gives a sense of confidence. I decided to use direct gaze for all the photographs and close ups mainly in the front cover and double page spread, the close up and the direct gaze gives the feeling that Im looking direcly to the audience and capturing their attention. Deciding a target audience was the first thing I needed to do, so when finally I came up with the decision to go for a fashion and rhythmic gymnastics magazine I thought that it will mainly appeal to girls between 15-21. It's a familiar audience as I'm 16 and I know what the majority like and don't about this topics.To be sure I made a survey where I recorded data such as : The age, gender, what type of magazines they read, how often they read them, what types of magazines and the colours they prefer. I took the images with the typical clothes gymnasts wear, and using mainly two different leotard will help me to make the audience more intrigued and be more interested in the magazine. I used a solid background to make the images stand out and be the main focus. I think my magazine will be a way to disconnect from the studies, jobs, and overall from their daily routines, it will be a way to be informed from the recent news as there are not a lot of this type of magazines. The interview of the "famous celebrity" will make gymnasts to keep going and possibly to motivate them more, wanting to be like her. In the distribution process, my magazine will be selled via online as it's the main focus for teen agers, as well as in physical newsstands. For the digital media I will use platforms such as: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube channels, which will keep customers in touch of everything and they will be aware of possible gifts as they are more likely to use social media rather than older people. 3.How did your production skills develop throught this project? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cgSL_G8DEs When I first started with this subject I didn't really know all of the process that was behind a magazine, I didn't think I was going to be able to produce a real magazine but choosing Media Studies for AS helped me to understand about media in general and gain knowledge about editing programs and apps such as Pixlr or Photoshop that I never had to use before. I finally understood from first hand how a principal idea is carried to a final product and then get to be known by customers and sold in shops. I learnt how to use and portray my development and all of my ideas in Weebly, making me realize that the pre-production process takes a lot of time as well as the production. In Weebly, where my blog was created I showed my research, analysis, thoughts... The blog shows the process I carried out from when I started the subject until the end. The first front cover shows the little knowledge I had about using editors and platforms, the images were not previously planned in detail before I took my first photographs and I looked at some examples of real magazines. I came up with some problems such as the background, colours and the poses of the model. For my second draft I changed some of my ideas and planned carefully how could I took good photographs that looked professional as well as the costume and styling decisions. The pre-production work helped me to realise that is very important to have a clear idea of what I want to produce and think on the media industry. My skills started to develop with the first work we had (analysing perfume adverts and creating our own) with this work I learnt about the conventions and some key terms that were then needed during the whole year. Once we learnt some of the key factors, we each decided on our own and personal theme in which I then did all my rerearch and tried to produce something similar. My decision was to choose fashion and combine it with Rhythmic gymnastics, I thought it was going to be original so after thinking in other topics I decided to stay with it. I found some problems because there are no specific magazines that talk about rhythmic gymnastics, so my main theme is fashion. I began to analyse and have a look at magazines such as Vogue, Cosmopolitan and Glamour and learnt about conventions of fashion magazines. Before starting this subject I didn't really stop and think about the stereotypical codes and conventions that fashion and overall magazines follow. It was hard to start producing the front cover, I had to look at many examples and videos on youtube and get to know Pixlr well as I was going to use it also for the contents page and double page spread, so that I could work on it on my Mac, as well as the computers at school. The only thing I knew how to do was editing the photographs, I really like taking photographs and modeling, for this I used VSCO in my iPhone 6, as well as my camera. My production skills developed at a high speed during the project, I thought it was going to be impossible to produce a whole magazine due to my little knowledge but I ended very happy with the overall look of my blog and magazine. 4. How did I integrate technologies such as software, hardware, online in this project? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20BfH4JOeI4 During the production of my blog I used a wide variety of software but I used Weebly as my main platform. In here I recorded all my development from the start until the end and the process its clearly showed all the time. This is the look of my blog ........ The main software I used to produce my front cover, contents page and double page spread is Pixlr, I started using this editor in our first task that was producing our own perfume advert. We had previously used Gimp which lacked some essential functions needed to fullfill the task set. In comparison Pixrl is a much more competent programme which allowed me to carry out more complicated and demanding tasks. I used a range of software to test fonts, colours and images such as Powerpoint and Word as well as looking at a website called Dafont for some ideas. I finally used Powerpoint to write all the cover lines,(Bell MT) and save them as a image format that helped me inserting them as layers and get the final magazine mounted up. For the photographs I used a camera Canon, which is my personal camera as well as using the camera of an iPhone 6
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