First ideas

My music video on Prezi

Chosen Song

The song I have chosen is 'Set Fire To The Rain' by Adele.

Section A: Theoretical Evaluation of Production

1a) I have developed many skills in the use of digital technology for my media production. For my music magazine I used Photoshop to edit photographs for my magazine and also to create the layout and fonts. I learnt some skills on Photoshop whilst I was making my preliminary task project which was to create a college magazine but developed the skills when I got onto the main project which was to create a music magazine. My layouts for the preliminary task were drawn on paint as my skills on Photoshop were minimal. For my preliminary task I created my contents page on Microsoft Word. This was because I couldn’t edit the photographs very good and I was familiar with Microsoft Word. I found Photoshop hard to use at first especially using the ‘lasso tool’ however I practised different techniques on different photographs. A few other problems I had with Photoshop at the beginning was the layering as I kept forgetting to do this and also changing the adjustment levels to fit with the other existing colours I had on the magazine. I posted all my drafts on to Blogger to show the development of my Photoshop skills. Photoshop looked more professional than Microsoft Word and Paint. I learnt how to create different effects such as changing the photographs to black and white. I was able to download new fonts to use which was conventional for my music magazine. For my preliminary task I only used the fonts which were available on the programme. Photoshop allowed me to explore different fonts. Photoshop allowed me to edit my drafts whenever I needed to. I learned new terminology which helped with the making of my product. For example I made sure my music magazine followed the conventions so using Photoshop I created mastheads, a brand image, headlines and strap lines. For my double page spread I created a small image of what my artist’s album would look like. I could have made it look more professional by using the skills I had developed on Photoshop. We published our work and research onto Blogger which was very useful. I had never been on the website before so it was interesting to learn how it worked. I learnt how create a profile to post my work and research on, create polls, add photographs and videos onto it. I added photographs frequently for my research for example of other music magazines front covers. I also added the photos that I was going to use. Adding photos also allowed me to annotate other magazines which helped with research. I learnt how to attach other pieces of work for example my mind maps that I hand drawn and scanned onto the computer. This showed I was capable of using the features of Blogger. Blogger was beneficial as it allowed me to post my work so others could see and give feedback on. This helped me to decide if I wanted to edit any of my photographs or drafts.  For example my first load of photographs were criticised of not being conventional of the rock genre so this allowed me to change them. I also noted why I changed the photographs and why the new ones were more suitable. Because Blogger is interactive it allowed me to go on other people’s blogs and vote on their polls which also helped them. I created a poll on my blog to help determine who my audience would be however I took it off as nobody voted. I should have kept it on to show that I learnt how to design a poll and that I used other features on Blogger other than posting. I used the Internet to help with my research as I looked at different music magazine websites such as NME to help create a layout for my music magazine website. I also used YouTube to listen to some songs which helped me with my front cover because I used intertextual references for example I used ‘Knocking at Your Back Door’ by Deep Purple as part of a headline. Google was useful as it allowed me to collect images of different music magazines. For example the front covers of NME. This helped me find the conventions of rock magazines. Also another benefit of the music magazine websites was that it helped me develop my own reader profile. Using the Internet and Blogger allowed me to access the information at home which allowed me to edit my work whenever I needed to.