Focus Group

1

2

3

4

This is my focus group, I asked a group of 5 people to look at each of these magazine covers and discuss what they thought of them. For example I asked them how different the cosmopolitan and vogue magazines were in comparison to the total politics magazines. I also asked which ones they preferred and why, also who they think each magazine was aimed at and why.
One of my class mates thought number 3 was very similar to 1 and 4 and she was shocked when she realised that it was in fact the same magazine as 2. Another class mate then suggested that it was because they realised that number 2 didn't interest that many people because it is quite dull therefore attempted to make the cover more approachable to the younger generation. This shows how magazines can look similar and attract the same type of audience yet have a completely different content. This is what I will be trying to achieve in this project.

Copy of magazine spread

For this task we were asked to choose a double page spread in a magazine then copy it almost completely, the software I used was InDesign. I chose a double page spread which had a mixture of columns of text, images and icons. I also understood the importance of using layers on software's like InDesign, for example if I have a separate layer for the text and images they will not effect each other if I am working on one or another and they will stay out of the way. 

Before doing this task I understood the basics of a magazine layout and how different sizes of images and text will catch the reader's eye. I also knew that drop capital are very popular with magazines and are used to tell the reader where to start reading from and that large pull quotes are used to draw the reader to see that certain piece of text.  

After doing this task I now know that magazines have a bleed and that a bleed it used so that the ink printed it larger than the paper so the colour will go to the edge of the paper. This is good because lots of magazines that are being printed in a small amount of time aren't too accurate. I wasn't used to making a page spread on this software and using more columns on the page, I was also new to using text so I used place holder text to fill each of the columns, some had more writing in than others depending on how the magazine I was copying was laid out.

Resolution

This image shows the difference in pixels and the effect they have on an image.

I have chosen this image which is 500 x 334, firstly I will divide these two numbers by 72 to get the physical print size in inches, after this I will divide this by 300. 

Physical Screen Size (inches):

500/72: 6.94 inches

334/72: 4.6 inches

Physical Print Size (inches):

500/300: 0.3 inches

334/300:  1.1 inches

Then to turn inches into millimetres I will multiply the answers I got on the first step by 2.54, finally to get the physical print size in millimetres I will multiply the physical print size answers in inches by 2.54.

Physical Screen Size (mm):

6.94x2.54: 17.6

4.9x2.54: 11.7

Physical Print Size (mm):

0.3x2.54: 0.762 mm

1.1x2.54: 2.794 mm

Accessibility

In this lesson we learnt about accessibility therefore learnt about the importance of subtitles. I went onto my youtube channel and found a video with dialogue, after that I clicked on captions, then set the language to English (United Kingdom) and clicked on set language, after that I went on 'select new subtitles of CC'. After this I selected points in the video that included dialogue and wrote down the subtitles. 

Accessibility: 

Cinemas include disabled access and they also have viewings of films with subtitles. 

TV's have settings which mean you can have subtitles, audio description and sign language.
Radio is only audio therefore it is difficult to make it more accessible however radio presenters speak clearly and use simple language.
Online accessibility can be demonstrated though youtube for example, you can input subheadings 

Signal: The stronger the connection the clearer the feedback when signal is weak the background noise is louder. 

Noise: Something constant, it is also something that competes with what you want to record. 

Interfering noise: Shots hurts of noise which interferes with the noise you are looking for.

Examples:

• Building sites
• Road
• Party
• Restaurant 

Magazine analysis

Here I have started my secondary research, I have analysed a music magazine because it will be different to the style of magazine I will be making for my project therefore I can point out the differences and similarities to help me get a better understanding of techniques to use.
I have chosen to aim my magazine or leaflet at teenage girls, to reasoning for this is because I will be able to focus on a certain theme, for example to colours and font; I can imagine it will be different to Kerrang!

This magazine is more similar to the one I will be creating. This has more text than the music magazine, it is also more colourful. I think this is because of the audience it is aimed at, which is mostly women/teenage girls. However similarly they both use interesting subheadings and buzz words to grab the readers attention. It's quite informal therefore makes the reader feel as though they are having a conversation with the writer which is ideal for a gossip magazine.
If I could change anything about this magazine page spread it would be how amount of text of the pages; I think it looks quite busy and untidy, I wouldn't know where to look first or what to read whereas the text on the contents page on the Kerrang magazine is more broken up and clearer.

Flash symbols

Today on flash practised making a symbol. Firstly I clicked on insert, then new symbol and I named mine 'house'. Using the pen tool I drew a house. After this I duplicated my house by pressing CMD then D. After this I made a new layer to put the row of houses in, I changed the size of them and the lighting to make it look more realistic, then I added key frames at the beginning and the end of the timeline on each layer so that the street would stay how it was throughout the clip.

Recce

I went out to the locations I will be filming in. The first two pictures show the outside of college, I will be filming the middle section of my film here. I think this is suitable because my script contains a car park and luckily there is one just outside of the media centre. The bottom two pictures show the media studio, I will be using this because my film contains a hall/conference room and I think this is a good setting because it has a large space for the actors and it is generally used for media purposes anyway so it will be good to film in.

These two locations are good because they are both in college therefore they are easy for my group and I to get to so we don't have to waste our time travelling, we can just go straight to filming.