In preparation for my coursework exercise, I have spent time creating a magazine cover in the style of FHM magazine. In order to do this in a convincing way, I used the programme Photoshop to create my piece. Throughout the process, I learnt how to manage working with a number of different layers, and vastly improved my skills when working with text. For example, I learnt how to create a drop shadow behind the title of the magazine, which made the text stand out from the rest of the page. This made it look effective; however it wasn’t too much to make it look unrealistic. As well as learning how to create a drop shadow, I also learnt how to put a glow around the edge of text. This makes the main headline on the front of the magazine stand out, and by also adjusting the spacing between the letters as well as the spaces between each line on all my text, I think that all of the headlines look realistic. In order to make sure that my interpretation of the FHM magazine cover used similar codes and conventions to the actual magazine cover, I looked at several copies to gain an understanding of how they arrange their headlines, as well as ideas on the kind of fonts they use, the font colours, and the type of headlines that are featured in order to target their specific audience. From looking at past magazine covers, I found that mainly bold fonts were used, with bright block colours, and usually only two or three colours were used on each cover. As well as this, I found that shadows and glows around the text were used in order to make the text stand out to the reader. This links in with Louis Althusser’s theory of interpellation, where the media shouts out to you, and the magazine does this through the aspects used on the front cover. By using bold colours and effects such as subtle drop shadows, the text looks as though it physically stands out from the page, which attracts the attention of the audience, who then read the rest of the text on the cover of the magazine, and through the cycle of investment, are then inclined to buy the product. In order to use the correct codes and conventions for my own cover of FHM, I looked at the kind of headlines that were featured on the past issues that I looked at. Common features of the past headlines were women, music, films, gadgets and fitness, and so to stay in keeping with this, I decided to use some of these as the ideas for my own headlines. The past headlines also had a relaxed and jokey nature to them, and so I tried to stay in keeping with this aspect as well. For example, by putting the headline “Getting hitched?!...” it could be argued that it is seen as a jokey idea for a reader of this magazine to get married, as he will then no longer be single, and as a consequence will no longer be able to do ‘laddish’ things. As well as headlines having a jokey nature to them, they also had headlines relating to women which had sexual implications. For example my main headline “Bianca Gascoigne reveals all...” has sexual connotations as well as its literal meaning. Headlines like this feature on the cover of this magazine as the targeted audience is heterosexual men. The only thing I am slightly unhappy with and would change in the future is the colour of the text for some of the headlines. Although I think white was a good colour to use for some of them, it is still difficult to read some of the headlines because of the colour of the background. To change this in the future, I would find a suitable colour that would stand out from the background, but would also work with the colour scheme, and also the theory of interpellation.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Practice at making a magazine cover
Go to the FHM website
In preparation for my coursework exercise, I have spent time creating a magazine cover in the style of FHM magazine. In order to do this in a convincing way, I used the programme Photoshop to create my piece. Throughout the process, I learnt how to manage working with a number of different layers, and vastly improved my skills when working with text. For example, I learnt how to create a drop shadow behind the title of the magazine, which made the text stand out from the rest of the page. This made it look effective; however it wasn’t too much to make it look unrealistic. As well as learning how to create a drop shadow, I also learnt how to put a glow around the edge of text. This makes the main headline on the front of the magazine stand out, and by also adjusting the spacing between the letters as well as the spaces between each line on all my text, I think that all of the headlines look realistic. In order to make sure that my interpretation of the FHM magazine cover used similar codes and conventions to the actual magazine cover, I looked at several copies to gain an understanding of how they arrange their headlines, as well as ideas on the kind of fonts they use, the font colours, and the type of headlines that are featured in order to target their specific audience. From looking at past magazine covers, I found that mainly bold fonts were used, with bright block colours, and usually only two or three colours were used on each cover. As well as this, I found that shadows and glows around the text were used in order to make the text stand out to the reader. This links in with Louis Althusser’s theory of interpellation, where the media shouts out to you, and the magazine does this through the aspects used on the front cover. By using bold colours and effects such as subtle drop shadows, the text looks as though it physically stands out from the page, which attracts the attention of the audience, who then read the rest of the text on the cover of the magazine, and through the cycle of investment, are then inclined to buy the product. In order to use the correct codes and conventions for my own cover of FHM, I looked at the kind of headlines that were featured on the past issues that I looked at. Common features of the past headlines were women, music, films, gadgets and fitness, and so to stay in keeping with this, I decided to use some of these as the ideas for my own headlines. The past headlines also had a relaxed and jokey nature to them, and so I tried to stay in keeping with this aspect as well. For example, by putting the headline “Getting hitched?!...” it could be argued that it is seen as a jokey idea for a reader of this magazine to get married, as he will then no longer be single, and as a consequence will no longer be able to do ‘laddish’ things. As well as headlines having a jokey nature to them, they also had headlines relating to women which had sexual implications. For example my main headline “Bianca Gascoigne reveals all...” has sexual connotations as well as its literal meaning. Headlines like this feature on the cover of this magazine as the targeted audience is heterosexual men. The only thing I am slightly unhappy with and would change in the future is the colour of the text for some of the headlines. Although I think white was a good colour to use for some of them, it is still difficult to read some of the headlines because of the colour of the background. To change this in the future, I would find a suitable colour that would stand out from the background, but would also work with the colour scheme, and also the theory of interpellation.
In preparation for my coursework exercise, I have spent time creating a magazine cover in the style of FHM magazine. In order to do this in a convincing way, I used the programme Photoshop to create my piece. Throughout the process, I learnt how to manage working with a number of different layers, and vastly improved my skills when working with text. For example, I learnt how to create a drop shadow behind the title of the magazine, which made the text stand out from the rest of the page. This made it look effective; however it wasn’t too much to make it look unrealistic. As well as learning how to create a drop shadow, I also learnt how to put a glow around the edge of text. This makes the main headline on the front of the magazine stand out, and by also adjusting the spacing between the letters as well as the spaces between each line on all my text, I think that all of the headlines look realistic. In order to make sure that my interpretation of the FHM magazine cover used similar codes and conventions to the actual magazine cover, I looked at several copies to gain an understanding of how they arrange their headlines, as well as ideas on the kind of fonts they use, the font colours, and the type of headlines that are featured in order to target their specific audience. From looking at past magazine covers, I found that mainly bold fonts were used, with bright block colours, and usually only two or three colours were used on each cover. As well as this, I found that shadows and glows around the text were used in order to make the text stand out to the reader. This links in with Louis Althusser’s theory of interpellation, where the media shouts out to you, and the magazine does this through the aspects used on the front cover. By using bold colours and effects such as subtle drop shadows, the text looks as though it physically stands out from the page, which attracts the attention of the audience, who then read the rest of the text on the cover of the magazine, and through the cycle of investment, are then inclined to buy the product. In order to use the correct codes and conventions for my own cover of FHM, I looked at the kind of headlines that were featured on the past issues that I looked at. Common features of the past headlines were women, music, films, gadgets and fitness, and so to stay in keeping with this, I decided to use some of these as the ideas for my own headlines. The past headlines also had a relaxed and jokey nature to them, and so I tried to stay in keeping with this aspect as well. For example, by putting the headline “Getting hitched?!...” it could be argued that it is seen as a jokey idea for a reader of this magazine to get married, as he will then no longer be single, and as a consequence will no longer be able to do ‘laddish’ things. As well as headlines having a jokey nature to them, they also had headlines relating to women which had sexual implications. For example my main headline “Bianca Gascoigne reveals all...” has sexual connotations as well as its literal meaning. Headlines like this feature on the cover of this magazine as the targeted audience is heterosexual men. The only thing I am slightly unhappy with and would change in the future is the colour of the text for some of the headlines. Although I think white was a good colour to use for some of them, it is still difficult to read some of the headlines because of the colour of the background. To change this in the future, I would find a suitable colour that would stand out from the background, but would also work with the colour scheme, and also the theory of interpellation.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Further Development Through the use of Dreamweaver
Again, my creativity has been developed through using the software 'Dreamweaver' to learn how to create a website with working links. I had never used this programme before so I have learnt another new skill that will help me throughout the coursework process, as well as other times outside of my study. I specifically learnt how to use Photoshop to create each page for the website, and then how to import them into 'Dreamweaver' to create my website. As well as this, I also learnt how to add links to navigate around the website.
Friday, 13 November 2009
Additional development to my creativity through using digital technology
As well as improving my creative skills through digital technology as previously mentioned, I have also developed creatively through the use of Blogger. Having never used this website before, I have learnt how to create a blog, as well as how to post new information, in order to help successfully display my work in an electronic format throughout the process of my A2 coursework. This has helped my creativity because I have learnt how to use a site that I have never used before and has also provided me with a way of keeping my work electronically organised and ordered in a sensible way.
Another way in which I have further developed my creativity is through the use of Photoshop. Although I am very familiar with this programme for my other studies, I have learnt things that I didn’t know before that will be applied in the later stages of the coursework production. For example, once cutting something out and putting it onto a new photo, I learnt how to make it look more realistic and as if it should be in the original photo by adding a shadow, and also by resizing but keeping the correct scale of what had added. I also elaborated my creativity when adding text to the image and adjusting the kerning and leading.
Another way in which I have further developed my creativity is through the use of Photoshop. Although I am very familiar with this programme for my other studies, I have learnt things that I didn’t know before that will be applied in the later stages of the coursework production. For example, once cutting something out and putting it onto a new photo, I learnt how to make it look more realistic and as if it should be in the original photo by adding a shadow, and also by resizing but keeping the correct scale of what had added. I also elaborated my creativity when adding text to the image and adjusting the kerning and leading.
How has my creativity developed through using digital technology to complete my coursework production?
Improving my camera skills has helped to develop my creativity as I have learnt new skills, as well as improved the skills that I already had. For the preliminary exercise during our AS coursework, we wanted to include a panning movement as the character walked across the room, however when we filmed this we had a problem with the camera not keeping up with the character it was following. As a consequence of this, the framing went wrong, and there was unwanted sound, although the film did still make sense. Even though there were problems with the panning movement in the preliminary exercise, we still wanted to use the same movement in the main exercise. It was my role to film this part of the film for our main task, and from using the problems that occurred in the preliminary exercise, I was able to improve the panning movement. The main thing I did to improve the pan was to move the tripod with just one finger, rather than holding it with my whole hand. This meant the movement was much smoother and also stayed at a consistent speed which made it look more professional and effective once we had added in the cross cuts.
Through improving the panning movement for the main task, I was also able to greatly improve my framing skills. This is because when filming a pan it is important to get the framing right in order for the shot to be good. By making sure the framing for the pan was correct, I feel that I improved the skill of checking the rest of the framing throughout the rest of the coursework, which I think made the overall end product better because everything was how it was originally planned to be.
I also think there were problems with the lighting and continuity in the first exercise. For example, when we were editing the film, there were issues with getting the different shots to match up to each other and make sense through not making sure that the continuity would work during the filming process. In order to improve this, I made sure that when we were filming our main task, when we re-filmed a shot, or moved on to film a different shot, everything was in the same place as it was before. This meant that it was much easier to edit the film together during the editing process, and it also meant that we had a wider variety of shots to choose from. I feel that this greatly enhanced the final product of the main task, compared to the completed preliminary exercise.
Using software that I was unfamiliar with to edit both the preliminary exercise and the main task ensured that I developed a new creative skill. By having to adapt to a new piece of software and to understand how to use it in a short space of time was difficult, however I think it is a skill that I can build on and use in other situations. Even though the programme is limited in terms of some things you can do, for example the choice of credits, I feel I was still able to be part of making the end films look as good as they could with the technology available for us to use. This developed my creativity because I now feel I would be confident enough to use the software for future projects.
Another way in which my creativity has been developed through the use of digital technology is Web 2.0. Through websites that incorporate user generated content, such as YouTube, I was able to publish my work onto the internet, and then also able to evaluate it alongside my uploaded video. This meant that all of my work was electronic, and it was easy to relate it back to the actual film because it was easily available to watch.
Through improving the panning movement for the main task, I was also able to greatly improve my framing skills. This is because when filming a pan it is important to get the framing right in order for the shot to be good. By making sure the framing for the pan was correct, I feel that I improved the skill of checking the rest of the framing throughout the rest of the coursework, which I think made the overall end product better because everything was how it was originally planned to be.
I also think there were problems with the lighting and continuity in the first exercise. For example, when we were editing the film, there were issues with getting the different shots to match up to each other and make sense through not making sure that the continuity would work during the filming process. In order to improve this, I made sure that when we were filming our main task, when we re-filmed a shot, or moved on to film a different shot, everything was in the same place as it was before. This meant that it was much easier to edit the film together during the editing process, and it also meant that we had a wider variety of shots to choose from. I feel that this greatly enhanced the final product of the main task, compared to the completed preliminary exercise.
Using software that I was unfamiliar with to edit both the preliminary exercise and the main task ensured that I developed a new creative skill. By having to adapt to a new piece of software and to understand how to use it in a short space of time was difficult, however I think it is a skill that I can build on and use in other situations. Even though the programme is limited in terms of some things you can do, for example the choice of credits, I feel I was still able to be part of making the end films look as good as they could with the technology available for us to use. This developed my creativity because I now feel I would be confident enough to use the software for future projects.
Another way in which my creativity has been developed through the use of digital technology is Web 2.0. Through websites that incorporate user generated content, such as YouTube, I was able to publish my work onto the internet, and then also able to evaluate it alongside my uploaded video. This meant that all of my work was electronic, and it was easy to relate it back to the actual film because it was easily available to watch.
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