Written evaluation questions

Evaluation 1- all on Prezi

Evaluation 2- Evaluation 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

(interview with daisy white 16 yrs middle class, in education)

1)      What do you think about the magazine and do you think it appeals to your age group?      

I love the magazine I thin k it has really addressed the audience with all the attractive models and the up to date music artists.                      

2)      Is there anything you would later like to appear in explosion magazine?

I think if the magazine is complete it would cover everything my aged people look for, maybe some shopping items?

3)      Do you like the articles covered?

I love them especially the one with the really good looking boy in it, it gave me all his latest musical movements.

(interview with Hollie O' Neil 23 yrs middle class, just finished university course)

1)      Do you think the magazine targets your age group well?

Yes I think it has a lot of information surrounding the pop genre however the models may be a bit young when some older girls may want a Jude law look alike!

2)      What else would you have wanted to be included?

Maybe some of the festivals coming up or the concerts being released soon so I can note down when they will be.

3)      Do you think it appeals to the wider middle class?

Yes I think it does very much so but I do not think that limits it as others may also want to read it and buy it.

Evaluation 3- On own blog

Evaluation 4- Who would be the audience of your media product?

My target audience would consist of both female and males but may lead to women. The majority of my target audience would be aged between 16 and 25 but both younger and older people may be inclined to read this music magazine. As my magazine covers pop music it is current on the television and on most radio shows this generalises the audience so anyone could be attracted.

My target audience are likely to attend music festivals such as v festival, wireless festival, t in the park and many more which attract all types of different people from around the world.

Most artists now use twitter, instagram, facebook and snapchat to broaden their fan base. This increases their celebrity status and can be a way of communication between the celebrities and the fans.

The use of social media helps to put more content into magazines as the document things that have happened in the latest celeb music.

Music is communicated to the wider public through lots of different apps such as Itunes, sound cloud, spotify and youtube.  

Evaluation 5- transcript 
 Person 1.

I am a very big fan of the genre pop and when I saw this magazine that’s the immediate feel I got. It enticed me by the striking front cover with the pretty provocative looking girl and the advert for the free poster with the good looking boy; once I started to flick through the rest of the magazine I was very happy to see the good looking boys as this attracted me as a female to the magazine. To me I feel explosion magazine offered me a variety of contents applying to my needs and preferences and there was something for everyone in there. Then to read the story on the artist on the double page spread was very interesting. I thought the colours worked well all together and on every page there was a different colour pattern which was exciting but not messy as it always had a link to something on the page whether it be an orange flame or the eye colour, the pages were very bold and you could not be bored looking at them. For me the content page stood out the most as it had a dark background but I believe it enticed me as a reader with the minimal writing it was not an overload and I liked the look of the boy with the bag over his shoulder.

Person 2.

As someone who is keen listener of pop music I was very happy to see a magazine covering all my interests it attracted me straight away! The good looking girl on the front cover enticed me to start reading the magazine and then to see the smart looking boys on the contents page and double page spread make it appeal to people like me in the middle class especially with it having maybe a higher price tag  then the average skimpy magazine. To me I like the front cover the most as it has a hot girl on it and it has the bold title displayed large so it is clear what it is. With the writing down the side about the awards this makes me want to read as I want to know about the awards show, when I can watch it and find out more etc. the colour schemes I think are very relaxed they do not make your eyes ache and all the individual colours go with the pages they are on, I also think all the colours are very neutral as to not side with one gender this keeps the audience very generalised in terms of gender.  

Evaluation 6- what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

When I made my magazine I had to learn certain ICT programs and technologies in order to complete my magazine. These programs included: Photoshop, InDesign, Blogger, how to properly use a camera and how to use lighting. These benefited me as I could improve my work but each area came with its own technical problems.

Photoshop

I learnt and used this program a lot as it was the starting point for all my pictures I used. I learnt how to use Photoshop to alter the flaws of my picture using the Photoshop editing software. With this I learnt how to use the spot healing brush tool which I used a lot through this process to eliminate any imperfections or blemishes on the skin which was very good as they are not something you can avoid and it would look unprofessional if they had lots of spots over their face. I also had to remove some moles that were very prominent on the face. I learnt how to use the rectangular marquee tool to select an area and then I copied and pasted it to move it into another area that I wanted it to be which was useful as when I had to copy the background onto the double page spread to keep it consistent I could just copy and paste it instead of taking another picture completely with a large amount of background, after I had all that completed I had to select all the area to merge the image so all there pasted bits came into one layer and then I got taught how to put on a Gaussian blur to make it all smooth otherwise I would have had the edges of the original area I had copied. I learnt how to use the magic wand tool and then I used it to select an area for example I used it when I wanted to delete the background of my pictures but sometimes some bits wouldn’t select so I used the lasso tool to select the areas that didn’t select with the magic tool so I had a consistent selection, I could also use the lasso tool to alter the selection line and I could use it to make a sharper or to make it feathered. I think with this program it did come with its difficulties, sometimes my computer would be very slow and as a result of that I would click lots of times but then all of a sudden it would change drastically. I also came across the problem with the magic wand tool and the lasso tool where it would group similar colours even if they were completely different object, for example on my double page spread when I was trying to select the background it selected the white of the cigarette so I had to use the lasso tool to draw the cigarette and separate it from the background, this proved a problem throughout the whole selection process of all the pages. Overall I think this program was very useful as I would not have been able to manipulate my pictures if I did not have this program.

InDesign

InDesign is where I wrote all my text for my magazine. Once I had finished the design and layout for the page in Photoshop I would open it up in InDesign to put all my text. I learnt how to use the eyedropper tool to take a colour from somewhere and using that tool gave me the RGB numbers and I could match that colour with some text for example on my front cover the title is the colour of her eyes which made a connection with the colours I used on the page instead of using random colours. I also learnt how to use the pen tool to draw around the silhouette of the models body in my double page spread so the writing would go in the shape of the outline of his body, the writing only goes where I draw the box and I could draw it in any shape I wish, this made the magazine look more professional in my opinion as it is what they do in the real life media industry. For me InDesign worked quite well and I did like working in this program as for me I thought it was an easy process however it was quite frustrating as it was quite unorganised I thought and there were some things that should have been simple but they were not on there in a simple form, for example in the box where you did all the text editing there was not a bold option however it was there but just located in a completely different area.

Blogger

Blogger is where I had to put all my work. I learnt and had to put everything I had ever done onto my Blogger in order to get marks for it; it is what I will be graded on. On Blogger I had to learn how to add a label on every piece of work so it was easily found by the examiner. I then had to be taught how to add a label and then go onto layout in order to make the labels go to the right hand side of my blog so you can choose easily what you want to look at. To do my Blogger I had to create a Google account and then you log into Blogger using that.

Blogger came with a lot of issues and technical difficulties like when I was on it the program would often crash or not let you uploads document or pictures you also cannot use it on a normal internet page you have to use Google chrome.

Camera & Lighting

I did have some technical issues with my pictures. The first photoshoot I did was ok but I did not think about the clothing to much I took it more as a practice than an actual photoshoot: the dress was see through, The model had no make-up on and I was just playing around with the lighting to see what went well and what didn’t. The second photoshoot I did was a bit different because I had two models and I was going to see which one took better pictures, after looking back through these pictures I thought they were decent but when I bought them in for my teacher I was soon to realise that they had a blue tinge in them. In my other photoshoot’s I had the problem where I had a shadow but I did not know how to eliminate the shadow but I later learnt that a shadow occurs when the model stands to close to the background so that was an easy problem to fix and I just had to bring her forward from the background. However, the blue tinge was a harder problem to fix because I had to learn how to alter it according to the light in the room and go onto the settings on the camera. In some pictures where I had a flash it flushed out the facial features where the light was to strong and to bright so I did over use the flash on the camera, sometimes I had to much of a shadow where I had turned all but one light off and it was on one side and this made the other side way to dark, by testing out all different lighting and settings on the camera I learnt how to find a good balance in the picture. 


Evaluation 7- On own blog