Ancillary task 2 Complete...

Magazine cover

Editing My Magazine Cover...

After surveying my Magazine cover around my college I found that it was very helpful as i managed to get some suggestions and new ideas in order to make my work stand out form the crowd. I already knew that one of the main things I had to was change the main image of the magazine cover.

FEEDBACK

In a summary of my feedback, I received the similar rating from my magazine cover across the board, which was a steady 4/5 out of 10. I realised that a lot of people said there was something missing and that the fonts looked a bit odd and that there wasn't enough of it. Furthermore, My teacher pointed that the image wasn't an effective image for the front cover of a magazine and that I didn't have a slogan. I realise that i have a lot of work to do for my next draft and realise that i have to think more holistically so that both my works integrate with each and that my magazine looks to be of an industry standard.

Today I also applied my feedback to my magazine cover and edited it accordingly. Firstly I removed all the things I felt were a problem and made my magazine look a bit more like a gossip magazine rather than a film magazine. First thing to go was the image as it was just not cutting it. I also removed the sticker and the red bar at the bottom of the page as I thought the red bar was a bit too much. the whole approach to this draft was less is more and I realised some things are more effective not being drowned by other elements around it.

After removing the unnecessary things I began re editing my work by placing one of the things i missed whilst constructing the first time around and that was a tagline to compliment my title. I came up with 'World Film News in Your Bag', I chose this slogan as I though it wasn't a tongue twister and could be said with ease, as well as relating to the magazine itself. In relation to the placement of the slogan, I decided to place it where Halloween Special was before, the top middle of the page just above the header. I chose this place as I found it was a conventional place to put it and found it worked perfectly with the rest of the page. I mad the lettering white as it worked with the header as the backing of the header was also white. Another minor piece of information I Included just below the title was a website as it is an industry convention for film magazines to also have a website, This was pointed out clearly through my research. Additionally the implementation of a barcode was also necessary for me to achieve the industry standard I wanted.  After sorting out the minor glitches in my work it was then time to move onto the main bulk of my work and this included me having to fix the font and font sizes of a few things. I found that the font I previously used for Halloween special wasn't really conveying a Halloween theme and after looking for some fonts I found a font that convey this sense perfectly. I kept the same colour and placed it just above the title for the main article PARADOX, which I also changed making it bigger and getting rid of the unnecessary words as titles are normally short and snappy and my previous title was a bit lengthy. Furthermore, I responded to the criticism that there wasn't enough on the front page by making new articles that followed the same red title and white explanation that the main article did, but only in a smaller font. The world of print production places some very modern things on their front cover these days and you can find an App for almost anything. I included an app on my front cover as I thought it directly links with the media today and therefore conforms to one of the industry's conventions. The app I made promotes GLOBAL FILM NEWS and I thought it was a nice touch to put on to my front cover. I also thought that the placement of the app was suitable as it is not the main attraction of the front cover but like every other element of the page, it has to noticed subtly. This concluded my final layout for my magazine and now it was time to find the suitable image I have been looking for.

After the photos of my magazine shoot were finally processed, I found the perfect image for the front cover of my magazine and it only needed some minor lighting editing to maximise its affect. One of my fears about the image I needed to choose was that it might look similar to that of my poster but I think that the image I chose works brilliantly is  different to that of the poster. The lighting and depth of field after editing came as an absolute success and concluded the magazine construction. As a whole I believe my magazine cover looks like it ticks all the boxes as it is suitable, fit for purpose and reaches out to my target audience. Conclusively, I have done what i set out to achieve an that is to make two print production pieces that work so well together and can be looked out holistically

Magazine Construction

Today I began the process of constructing my magazine cover for my film. Before I began constructing the magazine cover I had to bear in mind that it had to link with my poster somehow and I had to make my print production seem like they link together are seen holistically, to add to the professional outcome I want to produce. In order to create the magazine cover i used the same program as the one I created my poster in, which was Photoshop. I found it is the best program to manipulate work to tailor my ideas to exactly how I want it.

Before I constructed my magazine cover I decided that I had to come up with a name for my magazine and going back to my AS coursework, thought it would be a good idea to come up with a variety of titles and survey to see which was the best title for my magazine cover. During on of my free lessons I asked everybody that was in my common room to choose which title the though best fit the genre of a general film magazine:

Global film: 20
World film: 11
Universal: 5
REEL MAG: 2
Cinematic: 0

With my survey completed I can clearly see that Global Film was the most popular and though it would be suitable to use as it was my personal favourite aswell. With my title sorted I was able to construct a header for my magazine and had to make sure it looked appropriate on the page and fitted its purpose. Another thing I had to keep in mind was my target audience as I have to satisfy the needs of my target audience in all aspects of this project.

I started the construction of my magazine with a blank black canvas and created the header of GLOBAL FILM. I created the title font with the font Arial and decided to make it bold with black lettering. The reason for this is that I wanted to create a white brush effect behind the text so that the header would stand out form the page as the white is a direct contrast to the black. I also links with my poster as I did the same for the title of PARADOX and this links into what i want to have holistically between my two print production, and that is a link. Next, I made the heading for the main article for PARADOX in a red urban font that I thought worked really well with the page. I decided to have it red i believe the heading for my film should have a link with the colour scheme of the film, and I think I did this well. The text explaining what the article was about was done in a white futuristic text, which was obviously made smaller that the heading as attention cannot be diverted from the main heading on the front page. Once these two elements were put into place I was then able to work around the main structure and layout of my magazine cover. Through my research, I found that many film magazines have a bar at the bottom of the page showing what other films are included in the magazine. I used the same urban font to type a couple of horror films to match the colour scheme of the page and made it white to stand out. I also created a red, semi-transparent bar behind the text to maintain the colour scheme and to link it with the PARADOX theme that was seeming to piece itself together by accident.

The next steps of constructing my magazine cover meant me having to finish the skeleton of the layout of my magazine cover. This started off by deciding to make my magazine a Halloween special as I thought the colours and films that are on the front cover fit into the theme and timing of Halloween. I arranged the words Halloween Special at the top middle of the page in orange lettering as orange is a colour that worked well with the rest of the page and fitted the Halloween theme. I also chose orange as it broke up the reds and white nicely. In the top right hand corner of the page I placed the price and issue number in white lettering and a small font as it is conventional that it is places here and it is conventional that it is in a small font but at the same time noticeable. Also throughout my research I found that Special articles were promoted on the front page in a sort of sticker to highlight its importance. I tried this out and created a red circle promoting a special interview within the magazine. It was made red to maintain the continuity of the colour scheme and in accordance to the rest of the page.                                                                         

                          

To conclude my 1st draft i included an image from my poster photoshoot. The reason behind me using a photo from my poster shoot and not one form my magazine shoot was that I have been experiencing problems in locating the right picture an for the time being I have decided to place this image as just an example image to survey, mainly for the layout as the image will definitely be changed. So this concludes the construction for my initial first draft and i will surveying it around my college to see what people think and to rate it out of 10. I acknowledge that the rating of my work will be low as it is a draft and I know that there is a whole load of room for improvement.

Magazine research

To get some idea of what my magazine cover should look like. So I decided to some research into current media examples for a film magazine, I chose two examples to analyse, an issue of Total Film and an issue of Empire. The first thing I noticed from these two examples was the colour schemes of both covers. The cover of Total Film uses the colours whites, greys, blacks and yellow. That’s only 4 colours and they all work with each other to make the page work and everything looks like in belongs on the front cover. Similarly, The issue of Empire uses a colour scheme of blues, blacks and whites. This also works very well in giving the issue an electric feel for the promotion of iron man 2. This leads me onto my next analysis, which is the text. On both covers the headers take up the whole of the first third of the page from the top and signal that in is a convention to have the name of the magazine at the top of the page. Both of the headers on each magazine is white and stand out as being the title of the magazine. In addition to this the main article’s heading is the next biggest text on the page and is the next biggest text because it has to catch the attention of the audience but at the same time not take the attention off the actual title of the magazine. ‘Max Payne’ is written in big white lettering and as it works with the colour scheme and is yet the biggest title out of the all titles on the page showing that the focus of this magazine in this issue is Max Payne. Similarly, the same is done with Empire and Iron Man 2. Another convention I spotted was the use of an also inside bar at the bottom of the page. The bar at the bottom of Empire is blue, corresponding with the colour scheme and also includes graphical images of the movies being mentioned as well as the information about what the article is about. In comparison to this Total film uses a simple inside row at the bottom and lists all the films that are being featured inside. All together there are many fonts used on each cover, which show the variations. Both magazines use continuity of their colour schemes and different colours for subheadings and the actual information. For example, in Total film the subheadings are yellow whilst the information underneath is white. This helps distinguish the difference between what is a title and what is the information about the title. Both these magazines share a very conventional, industry standard layout and this is something I am hoping to include in my work.

To conclude my analysis of these covers, I noticed that both the images used on each magazines compliments the layout and colour scheme so well. Max Payne is dressed in black and this helps the white fonts stand out and the iconic image helps to distinguish what the film being featured is. In addition to this, the Iran man 2 issue of Empire also shows the great importance of getting the colour scheme right and how important it is that the magazine looks like it works together holistically.

All these factors I have analysed I am hoping to include in my work and I hoe to reach the standard of these two magazine front covers.

Photoshoot for Magazine cover

Similarly to the photoshoot for the poster I wanted to create an ambiguous effect that would create an impact, as well as being suitable and eye catching for the front of a magazine cover. The first thing I had to decide was the type of image I wanted on the front of my magazine cover. This made me think about which of my characters I wanted on my magazine cover. After considering which character would be the best for my front cover I decided to put use the same character, Patient 13, that i did for my poster. I thought that it would give me a holistic approach to my project so that both production works link with each other and  work with each other to create the professional standard I am trying to produce. After deciding the model for the photoshoot, which is myself, I had to find a photographer  that would be willing and a location that would be suitable and available for the shoot. I found that finding a photographer and location wasn't very hard at all, the only problem was time slots. The availability of the location and photographer varied quite a lot and I had to do the photoshoot on a particular day within a one hour time slot. With this in mind there was a bit of hurry to do the photoshoot.my costume for patient 13 was the same as the poster apart from the fact that the blindfold didn't say 'I SEE U' on it as I wanted to enforce that it was only for the poster and it wasn't how the character would actually look like in my teaser trailer.

The room i managed to secure was my School's photography dark room and found it was the perfect location for what i wanted as it had professional lights which helped me achieve the importance of lighting and depth of field within my photos. Of course we tried different sources of light and different positioning of lights to see which worked best with my idea of creating an ambiguous, effective image for a magazine cover. It turned out that the time allocation of an hour was not a problem at all as half an hour was enough to get some really good pictures plus more. I am very happy with the images and all have that sense of mystery and ambiguity I wanted to capture. My next steps is to create a draft template for my magazine cover and choose what i think would be the best image for the magazine cover.

Ancillary task 1 complete...

Film poster

Feedback and Editing according to feedback....

1st draft of film poster

After getting feedback from my peers and teachers about what needed to be change I began to enhance my work and found that I managed to make my work a lot sharper and more conventional through the feedback I was given and being noted for thing that I had missed out......

FEEDBACK

In total I surveyed my poster amongst my peers and a couple of my subject teachers and found that most of their comment were the same. The reoccurring points were that there seemed to be a lot of dead space. Holistically, everybody said it was good and that the dead space on the sides of the image were the only minor problems they could think of. My subject teacher suggested the dead space aswell and also added a point about shifting the title a little higher and adding the conventional film poster credits at the bottom. These are only minor problems that were exposed but have to be addressed accordingly as it would make my work more conventional to the industry standard and more professional. Next was to put the changes in place...

One of the first things I changed through my feedback was the dead space as it made the image look a bit drowned in the black background was to add some more detail to the image. Initially I thought i might of had to change the image but I then realised that I could just add a bit more to the one I already had, because I really liked the image. I added the wings from a hand drawn image that is going to be in my teaser trailer and lowered the opacity so that it did not make the definition of paradox unclear. I made it white as I thought it was the best colour to use against the black backing.  I thought it created a nice touch to the image on the poster and will now link nicely to the trailer and add more of a buzz, whilst getting rid of the dead space that I wanted to get rid of. I believe that thanks to the feedback I was able to fine tune my work and deal with some of the mistakes that might of been small but needed to be sorted in order to make my work better...

After dealing with the dead space I was suggested, through my feedback, by my teacher to add the conventional feature of poster credits. I did this my downloading a font which allowed me to custom names to make the credits suit me. I placed the credits in the conventional place of the bottom of the poster and made the font white as it is the conventional colour for movie poster credits and so it was noticeable over the black. With the font i was also able to create the symbols right at the bottom of the poster, which added even more to the conventional look of a film poster. I made sure that the font size was small for the credits and that the symbols were also small as they would look out of place if they were any bigger. It is also a industry convention that they are small as it is not the main attraction of the poster, but at the same time is an essential to mention everyone that helped with the production.