The past week I have been creating my flat-plans as part of my planning stage and have created one for the contents, double page spread and front page.

I've also been informed that I was supposed to do an analysis of an actual magazines contents and double page spread, so over the next two days and the start of the Christmas holidays I'm going to be completing them and also completing my test shots for my front cover with a friend as well as doing my very best to complete the rest of my planning and get ahead as much as possible during the time I have off.

For the past 2 weeks I've been filming and editing the Vox pops for the last part of the research that I have to do before I start my magazine planning.

I got a lot more footage than I've actually edited and finalised on premiere pro, mainly because some of the footage that I shot was unusable and my filming skills are really bad, therefore the shots were out of focus and such.

As my magazine has a target audience of females I thought it best that I have more female respondents than male when I interviewed people. In the end I got a male respondent and 2 female respondents.

In the end I got good enough responses to start editing. I’m not very good at editing, so it’s taken me a full week to edit everything. Even now it’s not as good as I would like it to be and if I could change a few things I probably would have shot them all on the same day, and placed the camera in a quieter area so that when I started recording there would be as much background noise.

However this is something I can reflect on later and learn from so that next time I can do it better and get a better grade.

Wednesday 20th November 2013

So far I've been out twice trying to video people opinions about a music magazine. Most of the shots that I took were useless because the camera hasn't been positioned properly or the answers of the people that I used were useless.  

However, I'm going out once more to film some more and try and get the camera steady etc so that the shots aren't all useless. 

My skills using premiere pro also aren't the best and it's going to take me a little while once I've got all the footage that I need to edit them together, I'm lucky enough to have a good teacher and friends that can help me with this.

Week beginning 11/11/13

For the past week I've been editing the different pages that are already on my blog.

So the pages that I have already got up have been going through a strict screening process through my teacher to make sure it's up to a decent standard and has all the right information in it.

My teacher told me about extending the readership profiles on each of the magazines, so I've done this for Q, Rolling Stone and Billboard. I haven't yet finished this for NME, but shall be finishing this over the weekend.

Although all magazines are specific and have a particular genre that they stick to, they also divert from their genre specific content and explore other things which attracts different audiences to the magazine. This is a theme that runs through all three of the magazine's that I've looked at so far, but this is also based on the online content, included and articles that are featured in the most recent addition of the magazine.

After analysing the NME wider audience I'll be able to determine whether this is a running theme with all of the magazines and helps me decide whether although I am creating a genre specific music magazine, to include different articles that might attract a different type of audience than the one I'm specifically aiming for.

Questionnaire analysis

So Today, I've spent the whole day analysing the results from my survey, putting the data into bar charts and such and also evaluating the information that I wasn't able to put into a bar chart, thus to say, this has taken me a very long time and I am glad it's over.

The formatting on Blogger isn't very good, so my page looks rather haphazard. Not much I can do about most of it as that's just the way it looks, although I might get someone to help me sort everything out because it does look rather messy.

I am happy with my questionnaire though, I think it is really helpful and I'm now thinking of changing the idea of my final piece to a rock/Indie/Alternative magazine instead of my initial idea of just an indie magazine. I've also decided on the target audience, which I've decided is going to be female. All other ideas will come a little bit later in the process, but I've got a target audience and a genre of music to base it around, so it's a start.

Link to the questionnaire analysis: http://cavellepayne.blogspot.co.uk/p/questionnaire-analysis.html

Research Questionnaire

Today I created a questionnaire to send to various people for research and for me to analyse the results to help with my own main task in producing a music magazine.

I created the survey on a site called 'Survey Monkey' and included different types of ways to answer questions so it would benefit me when it came to analysing the results further, including both closed and open ended questions.

The link for this survey is here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MRYDGJ9

In a later page I shall be evaluating the results of the survey and seeing what different types of music that people listen to, and what the results mean when designing my own cover for a music magazine.

Contents flat plan

So after trying to scan in my contents page, I finally gave up and decided that instead I would take a picture of it and put that it. Luckily enough the image isn't too bad and is still readable, so that's good.

I may later get someone to scan in my flat plan so that it looks better than what it does now.

For now though, I am up to date on the work that needs to be uploaded to my blog and happy so far with the work that I have produced and ready to get on with the next task.

Magazine analysis #4

So I've finally finished all my analysis' of my magazines, for the final one I've chosen Billboard as they focus more on pop music than indie, this was so that there is variety in my analysis to show that it is thorough.

I've also looked at other magazines while doing my research and done quicker analysis' of them but haven't added them to my blog because they are only quick, this was just a short task to broaden my understanding of my research and see how fast I could pick out everything on the cover.

Right now I have to scan in my flat plan of my contents page, and add that to my blog and once that is finished I should finally be up to date with everything

Using Photoshop- Thursday 17th October 2013

(Sidenote- I'm writing this after the date that I was taught the skills. Actual date is included in title)

I was taught more about Photoshop in the hopes of improving my main task when I get to it.

To edit the title, we were taught about rasterizing the text, which basically means that you edit it so that you can use it as an image instead of editing it as text. So you can rub out parts of the text, and basically do anything you can do with an image. This technique was good to learn because on most magazine covers you often get part of the image covering the title therefore would need to rub it out to make sure all of the image is visible. This has it's advantages and disadvantages on Photoshop, as once it's rasterized there's nothing more you can do with it, so if you make a spelling error, you are unable to change it because you cant edit it again as text.

I'm proud of the Ben Howard cover that I've produced. Although I didn't take the image, I've edited the text and title to fit the colour scheme and used the new skills that I was taught to make it look better than my preliminary material.

So I've edited the title and rasterized it, so that I can treat it as an image and then rubbed it out in parts where his hair would have covered it. This was you get to see the full image but can also read the title.

I was also taught about the effects tool on Photoshop.
which is a way of editing the text so that it shines/embosses and almost any other technique you cant think of to do.

Using this I've embossed The name of the artist Ben Howard so that it stands out against the dark of the background.


However for my main task I wont be using many of the effects as I prefer a minimalist style that I feel will go well with my indie music magazine.

Most of the effects, if I do use them will be kept down to a subtle appearance, so not to take away from the image of the front cover, but enhances it.

Magazine analysis #3

I've got my analysis of Rolling stone magazine up, and I think my analysis of magazines is getting better. I know what to look for and what breaks the rules and conventions of a music magazine, and what conforms. It also helps if I know the music artist photographed as I can tie in their style of music to the image that is taken of them, and say what type of impression it leaves on the reader.

I've almost finished my research, finally, and then I shall upload my flatplan of the contents page and then add a diary entry about that.
Until then though, I have to get my final analysis finished.

Magazine analysis #2

So I've finally finished adding all the images to my analysis of NME. This particular analysis is catered more to the indie style of music magazine that I'm going to produce as my main task. Although I will look at other music magazines that aren't as mainstream and others that are, but not necessarily in the indie style of music.

I think my analysis of magazines is getting better because I know what to look for, what makes a good music magazine cover and looking at other types of music magazine that I don't necessarily add to my blog, but do look at it in detail and help with my final piece.

Magazine analysis #1

So tonight I've been uploading my analysis of the magazine Q as part of my research, I feel its up to a good enough standard and is definitely ready to go on my blog, so I've uploaded it. It definitely took me a little while though. It's very hard to get images in the right format onto the blog, so I've been messing around with that for the better part of an hour trying to get my presentation up to a decent standard for me to be happy with the way that it looks on the page, however I'm finally happy with it.

I cant say much about me further down the line when I have to upload the rest of my analysis' and convert every single image on there that I have to upload, it's a long and tiresome process but I'll get there eventually.

Just a little note....

Although I've been uploading things onto my blogger account for a while, there are things on here that I haven't included, such as my newly acquired knowledge of Photoshop and when an how I got on with my preliminary task, they shall all be included in a separate page available on my blog.

My posts; I've decided are going to be my diary entries that are dated and put up on my homepage to convenience me and to make sure that I keep an up to date schedule on the things that I upload and how I get on with them. So from now on, my new diary entries are going to be posted as pages instead.