Media Studies Foundation Portfolio Transcript

Slide 1
My name is Toby Lloyd and this is the evaluation of my Media Studies
Foundation Portfolio. We were asked to create a front cover, contents page and
double page article for a music magazine. Before this we were also asked to
produce a student magazine for an introductory task. This allowed us to develop
our skills of the use of technology.

Slide 2
First of all I will talk about Forms and Conventions…

Slide 3
All magazine genres have their own forms and conventions, for analysis of these
I decided to look at a magazine similar to mine “Kerrang!” From looking at this I
was able to find some basic conventions of the genre that I tried to incorporate
into my magazine, for example:
-Large text
-Multiple pictures
-Large fonts
-Varied fonts
-Action Shots
With these conventions in mind I sketched my front cover using some of the
more dominant conventions, although I used these conventions I thought that
from the sketch it needed huge development.

Slide 4
Once I sketched my front cover and general idea I did a photo shoot, outside as I
believe this produces the best light. I used m friend who plays an instrument, as I
believe that having an instrument develops the mise-en-scene. These three
photos are the best ones from my photo shoot, but I think the middle one is the
best one as the pose he is in creates diagonal lines, which draws readers in.

Slide 5
Once I chose my photo I started editing it. The first step I took was opening the
image in Photoshop and cropping it to the dimensions of an A4 page- 21cm by
29.7cm. After this I used the auto-tone function to create contrast and make the
lighting on the model less bright.
After this I used the magnetic lasso tool to go round the model in the
picture, once I had done this I turned the background black and white as I
thought that this would make the model stand out against the page, this is shown
in the middle picture, while this worked to a degree I asked for some audience
feedback and many of the answers I got back were that it looked ‘boring’,
because of this I used an old image of fire and placed it in the background.
 I did this by cutting around the model and adding the image of the fire in.
Once I had done this I used the eraser tool to go round the model and clean up
the edges, I also used the blur tool around his hair as this makes it look neater.

Slide 6
My magazine is named Breakdown; I used this name, as it is a feature in my
genre of music well known as the best part. I also had a very cliché tagline of “get
ready to scream…” while a cliché is not always the best way to go I believe that
this works well as it links to the genre and has several other connotations.
I used some of the main conventions that I saw on the “Kerrang!”
magazine, for instance:
-Large Text
-Varied Colour
-More than one picture
-Banners
I used these particular ones, as I believe that they are the most important
conventions. The image of my draft on the right is an early image of the
production of my magazine and it needed a lot of development to become the
final thing. I decided on the use of red and white text as they stood out really well
and go well together. The font I am using is a font downloaded from the website
[Link] it is called Derailed and I used this to represent the disorderly and
large beats of the style of music. The large picture on the right is placed so it has
the face of the person above the fold so people who look at the magazine will
instantly recognize him.

Slide 7
This is my contents sketch I have looked at the forms and conventions of a
“Kerrang!” magazine contents, some of these include:
-Grid-like formation for photos
-Contents on the right
-Magazine front cover top left
-One large picture
-Multiple small pictures
With the use of these conventions I sketched my contents page, I believe that the
contents I have looks effective.

Slide 8
This is the main photo editing I did for my contents. The top photo features a
close up of the main feature on the contents page, the singer for the made up
band “Deathshout.” To edit this picture I first of all use the hue and saturation tool
on Photoshop to give the photo more colour as the person in the photo originally
looked very pale. After this I cropped the photo so the picture was more square.
Following this I used the healing brush tool to edit the pen off of the
models neck, as I believed this did not look good and for a highlight of a
magazine it would seem strange to have a photo of someone with pen all over
their face. I also edited a spot off of the models face so as to make the picture
look professional.
 For the second photo- a head and shoulder shot, I used the magnetic
lasso tool in Photoshop to cut around the model, after this I blacked out the
background so the picture looked more suited to the magazine.

Slide 9
From looking at the conventions in the professional magazine I developed this
contents, I used many of the conventions that I saw in the magazine, for
example:
-Grid-like formation for photos
-Contents on the right
-One large picture
-Multiple small pictures
I used these conventions, as I believed these to be the main ones. In the
bottom left hand corner there is an image of one of my early contents. It
has the rough outline o what I am going to do and most of the text. The
text I used on this page is same to the front cover- Derailed, except for the
editors message, this is in the font Arial, I used this as it is much easier to
read. I used the same red and white text as on the front cover to build a
brand identity and used red or the titles and white for the body text this
again goes along with the front cover, I also used a flame on the right hand
corner to keep a consistent image with the front cover and to make the
page look more interesting.

Slide 10
Summary:
Most of the work I have done does not challenge the typical forms and
conventions of magazines that are a similar genre to mine.
One thing I did differently to “Kerrang!” was use a smaller amount of
pictures on the front cover to show that my magazine will be mainly focusing
around one band in particular.
I also used two dominant colours- red and white; whereas “Kerrang!”
tends to vary the colours more- I kept the colours the same to build a brand
identity.

Slide 11
The next part of my evaluation will be focusing on Audience

Slide 12
This is a magazine and will therefore represent different social groups that
surround it. The dominance of the teenage social group is shown in the photos
as all of the photos are of people in their teens, while this is good there needed o
be some diversity this is why I laid out my double page spread and contents in a
very grid like manor as this enables and older audience to find it easier to read to
magazine.
Slide 13
The main audience for my magazine would be people aged from 16-26, who
enjoys this style of music, the typical person who bought this magazine would:
-Like fast paced music
-Not go with the norms
-The magazine would target both genders but predominantly males as they generally
enjoy what the lyrics mean more than females.
For my front cover I addressed my audience in many different ways, the following
is how I did it:
-Title: large text and in a large disorderly font, a part of the style of music that is well
known
-Sell lines: use new bands that are famous
-Information: Information about famous bands that people are interested in
-Pictures: the minor picture shows someone screaming this would show people the
genre
-Mise-en-scene of the photos: instruments and people playing them
-Flame: appropriate to genre and eye catching

Slide 14
My contents page addressed the audience by:
-Text: large text and in a large disorderly font
-Flame: eye-catching and it links to the genre
-Pictures: orderly and portraying people in the genre
-Competition: this should entice readers to look for it

Slide 15
My double page article addressed the audience by:
-Captions: entice the reader to read on
-Orderly: easy to read and helpful for young and old audience
-Did you know section: if people read this they will see the interview is with a good
band and are likely to read on
-Text: gives information on the band quickly
-Pictures: show the band members, would interest people who are fans

Slide 16
Once I created my pages I created a questionnaire and asked for audience,
feedback I asked a variety o people to comment on a range of categories:
-Eye catching
-Text
-Pictures
-General Layout
-Believability
-Overall
I asked the participants to give the parts of my magazine a score out of 10 for
each of these categories.
The next three slides address these results…
Slide 17
This graph shows the results for my front cover, the last section is an overall
average score that comes to 8.4 out of 10.

Slide 18
This graph shows the results for my contents page, the last section is again an
overall average score that comes to 8 out of 10.

Slide 19
This graph shows the results for my double page spread the last section is again
an overall average score that comes to 8.2 out of 10.

Slide 20
-Front cover had highest score
-Double Page article second highest
-Contents Page had the lowest

Slide 21
The next section is about Technology Skill Developments…

Slide 22
The first piece of technology that I developed my skills with was Adobe
Photoshop CS4. The main 6 things I learnt are:
-Take your time with the tools… don’t get frustrated!
-Save all your drafts, for use later on
-Edit carefully and save at regular intervals
-Don’t crop too much as this ruins pixels!
-Only save the photo as a Jpeg at the very end
-Check the photo is good quality before editing it too much!

Slide 23
The second piece of technology I learnt about was photography, the main rules I
learnt about for photography consisted of:
-Use natural lighting… its better than artificial!
- Try to take pictures with the sun facing the models as taking pictures into the sun
effects exposure
- Never use digital zoom
- Never take a picture directly into the sun
- Limit the use of the flash
- Try to use a tri-pod where possible

Slide 24
Preliminary Work:
The image on the right hand side is the front cover of my preliminary work.
From the work I did on this I have vastly improved in these areas:
-I have learnt how to take better photographs
-I have learnt to use less text
-I have developed my photo editing skills

From the feedback I got from people about my preliminary task I have learnt to:
-use more appropriate colour schemes and be more consistent with the use of
colour
-use professional fonts
-fill dead space in more ways than adding a bubble with text in
-use a more appropriate background so I don’t have to drop shadow everything

Slide 25
In conclusion I think my ideas since my preliminary task have progressed hugely,
I have developed my photo-editing skills and photography enabling me to
produce my final magazine. I think I have progressed hugely from the beginning
of the year in skill and knowledge.

Thanks for Listening/ Watching

Any Questions??