Weekly Production Blog - Week 3

Progress

Last week I missed my Wednesday lesson due to a college trip and I also missed my Thursday lesson due to two full days of drama. Despite this, it didn't set me back too much as we are still doing production so everything is independent work. On Monday, I began writing the final article for my double page spread. However, because I hadn't finished all of the work in my folder to be handed in, I chose to write my rationale's for my double page spread and for my article in the lesson instead. Also out of class on Monday in my frees I spent the day finishing off my Treatment and going over the work that I had already put in my folder. On the Tuesday, I went back to writing the final article for my double page spread. I referred back to my article planning documents from January as it had a detailed description of what I wanted in this particular article. Again, because I wasn't in on Wednesday or Thursday lessons, I just worked on getting my folder up to date and making sure that I had everything that needed to be in it, done.

Generally, apart from missing those two lessons, everything went smoothly. I got my rationale's done in good time - finishing one within the lesson and the other in my frees on Monday. I only encountered one real problem last week. As I wasn't in college on the Wednesday and I was in drama all day on Thursday and Friday with a different schedule to everyone else, I couldn't track down the man to book my photo shoot with. On Monday, Tuesday and Friday I went to the atrium to book it and each time I went, he wasn't in or I had just missed him. On the Friday, I was promised he'd be back within 10 minutes but because of the timings for the drama performances, I had to leave before he returned. I am hoping that today I can go dow to the atrium after the exam is over and book my photoshoot.

Targets

My main and most important aim for this week is to get my photoshoot booked for as soon as possible. I simply did not have the time last week and because of all of the other things going on within college, I could not find him at the right time. Apart from this being my most important aim, I feel that even if I don't have the photos, I should start to plan the layouts/fonts of my front cover and double page spread so that I at least have a vauge idea on how I want my products to look. Another thing I could finish and get perfect is the actual article for my double page spread seeing as I have nothing else to do.

Contingencies

The only problem that I think that I could encounter is not being able to book my photoshoot. If this this is the case, then there's nothing I can really do apart from get my magazine set up with it ready to simply drop the pictures into.

Photoshop Tutorial - Insert an Image into Text

before

after

To start off with, I went onto google and search 'nebulas' as I wanted to create a galaxy/starry themed font. Once I had found the picture I liked, I saved it and opened it up in Photoshop.

I created a new layer and selected the Text Tool. As it was a picture of the galaxy, I thought that the words 'starry skies' would look quite nice, seeing as the galaxy is technically in the sky and is starry. I also wanted it to look like vintage, hence why I chose a kind of typewriter font. The font is actually called 'Vani' which I downloaded off www.dafont.com. I decided to use white temporarily just so I could see where my text was. I aligned the text on the page of where I wanted which part of the image to come through.

In order to create my text, the first thing I had to do was move my text layer underneath the layer with my image on, otherwise this effect would not have worked.

After moving my text layer underneath my image layer, I selected the image layer again. After this, I went to Layers > Create Clipping Mask. As soon as I clicked it, it deleted all of the image apart from where my text was hidden underneath. All a Clipping Mask is, is where it groups together 2 layers. The reason you get this effect when you clip it, is because it only keeps the part of the images where the two layers intersect - in this case, my text layer and my image layer.

Finally, I cropped my image down to the correct size I wanted it, flattened the image and then saved it.

Weekly Production Monitoring Blog, Week 2

Progress

As I wasn't in college last Monday, I spent the day finishing off my corrections and beginning my flat plans for my final products for both the front cover and double page spread. When I came back in on the Tuesday, I began looking for appropriate fonts and colour schemes for my final products. I ended up downloading 'Varsity' and 'Metal Lord' to compare the two together on my mock-up of my magazine on Photoshop. In the end, I chose 'Varsity' as I believe that it went better with the look and feel of the magazine compared to Metal Lord.

Metal Lord

Varsity

My magazine is more Emo as opposed to Metal and therefore I felt that Varsity would make a much better choice when it comes to attracting my target audience.

The only problem I had with downloading the fonts at college was that sometimes, they don't download properly and it's a pain to get them to work within Photoshop. Along with this, half way through the lesson, the power throughout college went off before I had a chance to save my magazine mock-ups. Thankfully, it was no big loss, seeing as I had only been comparing title fonts to one another compared to actually creating my whole magazine.

On Wednesday, I continued with my mock ups. I successfully finished my front cover mock up in full colour and began to think of sell lines, etc. After this, I began looking at better ideas for my double page spread. I looked through various magazines that suited my magazine's style, such as Kerrang!, Rock Sound and Bizarre magazine. I browsed through various double page spread ideas and finally came to one I liked in Bizarre magazine. It was an interview/article about 13 popular questions that footballers get asked. As my article is going to be the top 10 myths about Global Warming, I found that this layout was a perfect guide for my article. As I spent most of this lesson looking through magazines, I only managed to get the general outline of my article sorted. Finally, on the Thursday, I finished off my double page spread mock up in full colour during lesson.

Targets

This week I would love to be able to get my Photoshoot done and out of the way. I have spoken to my models and they have agreed to either come out of lessons or spend lunch time with me in the studio. In order to achieve this, I must go to the atrium ASAP and book the soonest slot they have for a Photoshoot.

Another thing I would like to have finished is a digital version of both my front cover and double page spread layouts completed with colour schemes and fonts. In order to achieve this, I will have to work very hard and quickly - both inside and outside of class. As previously mentioned, as it sometimes can be a pain downloading fonts on the college computer, I will complete the layout at college, bring it home and then change the fonts to the appropriate style at my own computer.

Finally, I would like to be able to get my article finished and ready to be inserted into the magazine. As I have already done the research in order to help me write this article and for it to appeal to my target audience, hopefully, this shouldn't be too hard to achieve.

Contingencies

One of the main things that could go wrong is that there will be no spaces for a Photoshoot this week, meaning that I will not have the appropriate images for my magazine and therefore, it will be harder to design it without them. However, there is nothing I can do about this apart from book the soonest slot they have in order to get my magazine moving as quickly a possible.

After the powercut last week, it's made me realise that it can happen literally at any time. To prevent losing work like I did last time, I have began to regularly save and back up my work, so if the power does go off, at least I have the most recent copy of the file saved.

Poses

In this weeks Skills Development we learnt all about Poses. What different types there are, what they are used for and what connotations they can give to an audience. As the previous weeks, we separated into small groups of four and went off to take our photos.

We all got a chance to take a photo of someone and to get a photo taken of us doing the photographer's pose. This is the pose that I chose for my model.

I chose this pose for my model because I wanted her to be portrayed as innocent and sweet. This pose does exactly that because of the body language. As she is sat with her knee to her chest and her arms around them, it makes the audience feel that she is quite shy and withdrawn as she is holding herself close. However, with her legs crossed and one pointed at an angle, it also gives the audience the feel that she is also quite stylish whilst at the same time being innocent.

Generally, I think I did a good job with getting my model to pose for me. However, I would have liked more time and perhaps more models so that I could put some people together and see what the outcome was. I believe that if I had more poses that I knew the connotations to, I would have been able to able to do this task to a slightly better standard.

I am glad that we went through the poses though, because this helps me a lot in deciding about what I want my own models to be doing in my final product and what messages their body language sends out to my readers.