Question 7‘Looking back at your preliminary task,

what do you feel you have learnt in the

progression from it to the full product?’

PRELIMINARY TASK FINAL PRODUCTION

PRELIMINARY TASK FINAL PRODUCTION

PROGRESSION AND LEARNINGAfter completing the preliminary task, I identified many changes that I wanted to make to make sure that my final production was a progression from the earlier preliminary task. 1. Images – The image on my preliminary front cover was taken in a rush where no additional lighting was used other than the overhead lights and there was little preparation before the image was taken (such as tidying the background and adjusting the mise en scene to suit the theme of the image. Also there are no images (that I took on the preliminary contents page and so I hadn’t gathered a lot of experience with the cameras or the techniques needed to take a good picture. Whereas, when it came to taking the pictures for my main production task, the images are much more suited to their purpose than the one taken for my preliminary as they are much better lit (artistically) and also due to the fact that I spent time planning the images before I took them so could consider things like the mise en scene beforehand. The images for my main production task are also much better quality as I spent more time watching tutorials as to how to position lighting and how to make the most out of the camera (canon 600D) and the features such as ISO and the Iris. Also, throughout the process of creating my final production, I spent more time learning how to use the features of Photoshop, where I learnt how to manipulate images by changing things such as the contrast, brightness and by adding effects to make my images look more professional. I also used more images in my final production than I did in the preliminary task which greatly improved the quality and look of my magazine compared to how sparse my magazine was in the preliminary task.2. Text – One of the biggest things that I improved

upon from my preliminary task to the final production is the quality of the language and content of the text. The text in my preliminary task is basic, the font is large and there was not enough of it to make it even resemble a magazine. Whereas, the text in my final production contains a complex language to suit my older target audience, but also suits the style of the of the common codes and conventions that I found during my research. I also woked with the spacing between each line of text to reduce it so that there were not huge spaces between the lines which you would not find in another magazine and it also meant that I could fit more content onto the page – important for my target audience who like information over images. Carried on the next slide…

PROGRESSION AND LEARNINGI also wanted to make the text in my final production easier to read compared to the preliminary task, as my target audience are older for the main production task and so need to be able to read the text easily. To achieve this I altered the size, colour and fonts to ensure that there was always contrast between the background and the text and overall, so that the text is easy to read. It also allows there to be a distinct separation between features, masthead and anchor text. 3. Layout – The complexity of my layout is another feature I wanted to change and I feel that it has dramatically improved from my preliminary task to my final product. This is due to how I used the templates provided by Microsoft Publisher for my main production task which I didn’t for the preliminary task. This meant that everything fitted together and resembled that of a real magazine – looked more professional rather than the preliminary where everything was spaced out and not complementary. The improvements to the layout of my magazine were also due to the research that I conducted (for example adding more content e.g. text – sell lines to the front cover to make it more attractive to my target audience and eye-catching so they will be more likely to purchase it.

PROGRESSION AND LEARNING

4. Masthead – During this project, I have learnt more about the importance of a masthead. The masthead for my preliminary task was not very bold, too small in relevance to the rest of the front cover and the colour was not very attractive nor did it stand out. Whereas, the masthead for my final production is much improved due to watching tutorials for Photoshop and adapting a serif font to make the masthead look more authentic and hold its own on the page and look more professional. Learning about how to manipulate text (changing letter spacing, height and width) meant that I could adapt the text to look exactly how I wanted it to be which was not possible for the creation of my preliminary task as I did not have access to Photoshop at that time and I had not yet watched enough tutorials to properly understand the features within Photoshop. By changing these things to my masthead for the final production, my masthead now looks more prominent which promotes brand awareness and sets the format for the rest of the magazine/front cover.

FINAL PRODUCTION

I managed to include all of the things that I learnt in the time between creating my preliminary task to creating my final production – front cover, contents page and

double-page spread.

PROGRESSION AND LEARNINGThe changes I made from my preliminary task to my final production and the subsequent skills I acquired during this time; I also applied to the creation of my final production double-page spread. These changes consisted of images, text and layout.• Images – I learnt how to take mysterious and eye-catching images with a digital

SLR camera and how to use lighting effectively to create atmospheric images and furthermore, how to manipulate my images using Photoshop (by editing contrast, saturation etc.). I also learnt how to desaturate an image to turn it into greyscale – the image of the sheets of music which made the image more striking and worked well and co-ordinated with the naturally black and white image of the keyboard – make the image more striking.

• Layout – My knowledge of layouts gained from my research and from the pre-made templates with Microsoft Publisher, allowed me to produce a double-page spread with a flowing, interesting layout which is crucial for a double-page spread where the two pages need to come together as one.

• Text – What I learned about fonts from my research (e.g. serif and sans-serif fonts) allowed me to have a variation for features such as pull quotes (using a bold and italic serif font) as they need to stand out against the regular text but also contrast against the background to catch the reader’s eye. It also allowed me to use different fonts for important bits of information/features such as the anchor text and the main heading which needed to stand out as it is the key feature to entice the reader to read on so it needed to differ from any other text on the page.

CONCLUSIONMy final production greatly improved in quality due to the skills and techniques that I learnt from the progression from my preliminary task to the final production/outcome. These included using different fonts to emphasize important features/text and using lighting to enhance my images. I also thin k that I progressed in terms of skill the most with the use of the digital SLR camera, where having never used one before, I was learning from scratch – where by using the digital SLR camera, it meant that the quality of my photographs was impressive and by learning more about the features of the camera such as aperture and ISO, it meant that I could take much better photographs for my final production compared to the photographs I used in my preliminary task – where all I learnt came from tutorials.

Other factors such as carrying out research into codes and convention, having a consistent house-style to suit my target audience, a variation in fonts, pre-made layouts and by using a photo-manipulation piece of software, allowed me to produce a high-quality final product which would not have been achieved if I had not learnt about and used what I mentioned above. For these reasons I think that my final product does succeed in being a classical music magazine that will appeal to my target audience.