Diary Entry - 29/11/2013

I missed today's media lesson because I was not in college and because of this I have done lots of work to catch up at home. The main thing I did today was add more to my construction page about how I made each section of my magazine. I did not have any problems with this and everything went very well.

Diary Entry - 27/11/2013

In the lesson I had today, I finished getting feedback for my article draft and contents page draft and scanned the feedback into the computer. The rest of the lesson I continued with my front cover draft. I continued to struggle on deciding which picture to use for the front cover as well as the colour to use for the masthead. I asked the people around me and they helped me quite a lot in the decision making.

When I got home I uploaded my feedback from teachers and my target audience to my blog, as well as explanations about how I will improve my magazine contents and article pages.

I have made a weekly schedule for the work I need to complete this week. This is the schedule:

I am now planning to do more work on my front cover photoshop draft.

Feedback from First Contents Page Draft

I also got feedback from the same groups of people about my contents page draft.

The first feedback I got was from two media teachers in my college.

From this feedback, I can see that there are many things that I need to add to this page as well as just finishing it. The first thing I will change is the banner at the top of the page. I will add the magazine masthead to it to continue the house style of my magazine. I will also add the issue number and date to the banner. Another part of this page I will page is that I will flip the far right picture so that it is facing the page and not away from the page. One major thing I will add contacts of the magazine. For example, a subscription box, social media and a web address.

I then also got feedback from my target audience. This is what they said:

This feedback also shows that there are some things I need to change about my contents page. I need to add a page number to the page. I also need to make all the lines on the page the same colour to make it look neater and give it a stronger house style. One member of my target audience raised the interesting point that the main article image should be the biggest. Because of this, will need to change some of my layout to fit around the new size that my main article image will be. I will also change the typeface of the page's heading because it does't quite fit the page and doesn't have the right house style.

Feedback from First Article Draft

Now that I have finished my first draft of my article, I wanted to get feedback from different categories of people to show me how to improve it and what they would prefer. 

The first set feedback I got was from two different teachers in the media department. I wanted to get feedback from them because they know different skills as to how to make it look more professional and I think it will really help my article.

From this feedback, there are many things I will change. One thing I will add is a dropped cap at the start of my article to catch the readers eye. I will also make the questions in my interview stand out more by putting a background colour around them, making the typeface bigger and make it capital letters. As well as that, I will add a pull quote into the text to break it up more. Another feature I will change is to move the artist's name so it is not covering the artist themselves. Also, I will add the name of the writer of the article and use another colour from the image to link the text to the image more clearly.

I also got feedback from my target audience. I got feedback from them because they are the one's who need to like the article and anything they don't like I would like to take into account and change for them.

One mistake I will correct is my use of capital letters in the banner, which is a very simple change to make. One person said I should make a space between the questions and the answers and I think this is a very good idea because it will make it a lot clearer for the reader to understand. My target audience also thought I should make the artists name bigger. This idea hadn't occurred to me and I think it is a good idea because it will make it stand out more. Another mistake I made was that I forgot to put a page number on the article. This a key convention which someone pointed out and I will make sure I add this to it. Like the media teachers, someone members of my target audience said that they thought I should make the questions from the interview a different colour/typeface because they wanted them to stand out more.

Diary Entry - 25/11/2013

I have not yet finished my task sheet from last week or the week before. Because of this, I will do extra work in my free, breaks and lunches and at home to catch up.

In today's lesson, I got feedback from my teacher about my contents page. I also started my new weekly task sheet by starting my first photoshop draft of my front cover. I struggled with choosing an image and so I got audience feedback to help me decide. I also had a problem with making the image go in front the masthead. To overcome this issue, I asked a friend how to do it.

I have now finished my work from last week's task sheet and I have updated my schedule. It shows how well I kept to the schedule I set at the start of last week.

The schedule shows that I was on schedule on almost every task. The only thing I did not do on time was get teacher feedback. I have now got teacher feedback and I am up to date.

Diary Entry - 21/11/2013

In today's lesson, I'm planning to continue with my contents page. If I do not finish it today, I will finish it at home tomorrow because I am missing tomorrow's lesson.

Diary Entry - 18/11/2013

In today's lesson, I got my new weekly task sheet. I straight away started constructing my first draft of my contents page on photoshop. In my free period I will make a weekly schedule seen as I forgot to do it in the lesson.

I decided to make my schedule on the computer this week because I think it saves time, is clearer to read and also makes sure there are no mistakes. This is my schedule for this week:

Diary Entry - 16/11/2013

Today, I completed the work I had to change on my planning and research pages. I did not have any problems with this and everything went very well.

At the start of the week, I made myself a schedule based on what I had yet to complete for the week. I have now gone back over this and colour coded it based on whether I completed things as I said I would or not. This is the finished sheet:

The sheet shows me that the only times when I do not keep to the schedule are when I have to do work at home. Because of this, I will now make more of an effort to do work at home and be more disciplined.

Also, I have now completed my weekly task sheet from the week before this. This is the completed weekly task sheet:

Diary Entry - 15/11/2013

In the lesson today, I finished my first photoshop draft of my article. I have now printed off an audience feedback copy which I will get my audience to fill out over the weekend and on Monday.

One problem I had during today's lesson was getting all the text of the article to fit into the page. I overcame this by printing off copies of it with different size font and seeing how small it could be with me and my target audience still being able to read it.

Diary Entry - 14/11/2013

In my media lesson today, I continued with making my first draft of my article on photoshop. A strength I had in today's lesson was getting ideas for colour schemes and different shapes I wanted on there. All if it works really well together. One problem I had in this task was figuring out where to put my subheading. I have still not found the perfect place for it, however I asked people in the class and they have given me a few more ideas.

Diary Entry - 13/11/2013

In the media lesson today, I continued with my article photoshop draft. 

I had quite a few struggles with it today because I had created another channel on the document somehow and this meant it would not let me change anything on the page. To overcome the problem, I asked my teacher for advice and managed to fix it. 

One strength I had was using the NME article from my first drafts as a guide because I now prefer this to my third draft. This is because of how the photographs I took turned out and also the colour scheme. To see if this is a good idea, I will ask my target audience their opinion on it when I finish this photoshop draft.

Seen as I have finished the analysis of my second survey on my research page, when I get home I am going to start my third drafts with tweaks.

Diary Entry - 11/11/2013

In the lesson today, I continued with making my first photoshop drafts. I had some trouble with how to crop items and also how I actually wanted my article to look as what I had draw for my drafts was not very feasible anymore. I overcame this by asking friends how they did it and asking for advice. A strength I had in this task was choosing the right photo for the article page because it works really well with the rest of the page.

To help me achieve my new SMART target, I have made a schedule of work for the week. This is the schedule:

Diary Entry - 9/11/2013

Over this weekend, I am planning on completing most of the changes that need to be made on my coursework from my feedback. Today, I am hoping to complete the audio for my pitch and the changes to my research page.

End of day update
I have almost completed all the changes I need to make on both the planning page and research page of my blog. 

On my planning page, one main task I did today was to add audio to my pitch prezi. This was very successful however one problem I had what that the program to record my voice on my phone kept crashing. To overcome this I deleted some old voice notes that I no longer needed and this made the program more reliable. Another task I did to complete this page was put more information under each subheading and this gave me more space to explain why I did what I did for each section of the page. All I have left to do on this page is adding another draft showing more detailed tweaks to my third draft. I will do this over the coming week.

I also had work to do on my research page. I changed the link to my podcast because the link was not working and this was quite an easy task. I also added more detailed summaries to most of my sub-headings. As well as this, I added another paragraph to my prezi conclusion to explain the gaps in the market. One I problem I had with this was that I accidentally deleted some of my paths and my prezi no longer when in order. To overcome this, I searched online how to change this. All I have left to add to my blog is the extra market research which I have done, I just need to analyse and upload them.

SMART Target Update 8/11/2013

Seen as I created my new SMART target a few days ago, I thought I should do an update on my other target. This target was to go outside of my comfort zone more when it comes to technology and I think I have been very successful at this so far.

Since my last update, I have used an SLR camera. This took me some getting used to, but after a few days of using it I think it became very natural to me. One issue I had was when shooting pictures for my article page, I couldn't get the camera to focus on the person in the picture and it would only focus on the background. To overcome this, I used trial and error and I eventually worked out how to get it to focus on my model. After this, the images were very good and overcoming my technology comfort zone was very easy.

Photography Lesson

Yesterday, we had a lesson about photography and photoshop and how to take photos that look professional for our magazines. Here are some things that I learnt.

How to book the photography studio

1.Go to the art office

2.Book with a technician 

3.Let the media teacher know it is

4.After use, go back to the technician and they will lock the room for you

We are also not allowed to have food or drink in the photography studio. I also learnt that there is lighting in the media department if I need it.

Hints and tips about photography

I learnt some useful do's and don't in the lesson also. Here are some of the most useful ones:

Do's

•   Smooth the edges after cropping in photoshop

•   Experiment with depth of field and reflection

•   Keep Mise-en-scene in mind - props, pose, hair, clothing etc.

•   Have at least 4 photos throughout magazine

•   Use SLR camera for best quality

•   Keep style consistent 

Don't's

•   Don't put an image in the middle of the double page

•   Only crop when absolutely necessary

Key Considerations

These are some things I need to consider when planning my photography.

•   Lighting

•   Mise-en-scene

•   Background

•   Clothing/pose

•   Models (need to represent the genre of music)

Review of Teacher's Feedback - 7/11/2013

We had our first lesson back after half term today and we got feedback videos of our blogs. I am currently working at a level 4, however it is a low level 4 and there are lots of things I need to improve if I am to get higher marks. These are the notes of things I need to add to get higher marks:

Over the next 2 or 3 weeks I will add these things to achieve a higher mark and make my coursework better.

New SMART Targets

From my feedback I can see that I need to set new SMART targets and link them to this feedback. One thing I need to do is make more time schedules of work for each week because this will my time management much more structured and set out. This will be one of my new SMART targets.

Specific

Setting more time schedules is specific because it explains exactly what I am going to do to achieve better time management.

Measurable

I will make one schedule a week.

Attainable

This is an achievable and an attainable aim because it is not too hard for me to do, as well as being more than I do now.

Relevant

This target is relevant to the task because time management is part of what I am being marked on and will also help me achieve other parts of my coursework.

Time-bound

My target is time-bound because I will make 1 schedule a week and at the end of each month I will do an update to show that I have achieved this.

Diary Entry - 4/11/2013

Over the week of half term, I had done many tasks which contribute to my media coursework.

The first thing I did was research the types of clothing different indie artists where and made 2 mood boards of my findings. I will upload these on to the planning page of my blog.

I then organised with the people I wanted to model for me when and where. And this lead to me taking the photos for the construction of my music magazine. I will write a more detailed blog entry about the taking of photos later this week.