Introduction
This is a blog to record the process of my media products. I will make a cover, contents page and a double page spread of a music magazine that will use, challenge and develop the forms and conventions of a real media product. I shall also make a Preliminary piece of work which will be a school magazine.
Magazine Preliminary
The first piece of work created was making our preliminary task using Photoshop and this was a school magazine cover of St. Edmund's College. The image to your left is of the finished product. This task involved taking pictures of different areas of the school and figuring out the best one to use through the quality of the picture, the beauty of the image taken and the message it forwards to any readers (ie the connotations). We were introduced to the idea of promotion and using our pictures and products to attract a certain type of audience which in this case are children's parents. We circled the school taking pictures of the most attractive places and the places that forwarded a message of a good, safe, pieceful and academic environment. We also thought it would be a good idea to have images of students to possibly bring life to the front cover. My favourate image of a person was a medium close up image of a particular student on a computer. With a collection of pictures we then recided back into class to begin work on Adobe Photoshop. A lot of experimenting was done since it was my first time of using photoshop. First off I chose a shot that showed a large portion of the school from a side on view with the sun shining directly on it showing that the school was large and grand but still a happy colourful place. The grass helped to enhance the natural side of the school and also added to the colour and beauty of the picture and showed that the school grounds are not just a 'concrete jungle'. 
I opened the picture up on Photoshop along with the medium close up. I used the Polygonal Lasso tool to cut out the person from the background of the close up and then I dragged the image onto the image of the school for the cover. I then used the Quick Selection tool, Magic wand to cut out my picture of the school crest and drag it onto the magazine cover. The medium shot was moved to the side of the page to show what a happy, smart student looked like and to give an outlook of the school's appearance. Apart from adding life to the cover, the smiling student also invites the audience into the magazine as the student is also looking directly at them as if to say, 'I am happy here. Come and take a look at what is making me happy'. I then faded away any unneeded parts of the medium shot (i.e the computer) so that it was only the student showing with the school in the background. The crest was moved to the other side of the picture to put a balance into the organization of the cover. The crest is essential because it represents the school, it's history and what it stands for. The logo will also be recognized anywhere whether on the school uniform or on the school gates so it is important it appears on the magazine to show ownership. The name of the magazine was then typed boldly on the top to catch peoples eyes. I named it Ediscope because it gives us a scope or insight in to the St. Edmund's College and its atmosphere.
This exercise helped me get used to Photoshop so that I would be comfortable with its gadgets when creating my other media products. It also gave me awareness of the things needed in the cover to attract audiences. I now had some experience in taking the right shots for a particular type of magazine and putting them together with technology. I had also gained the knowledge of how to use certain types of digital cameras.
No comments:
Post a Comment