During my AS media course I created a music magazine for my foundation portfolio. I firstly began this by making a college magazine; I did this to get an idea of the different conventions of making a magazine and to also practise using the technology such as the camera equipment and Photoshop. At first I found this difficult and the magazine was not very successful but eventually I got used to using the different technology. I then began to plan my music magazine. I chose ‘indie-rock’ as my genre and researched magazines such as ‘NME’ which is also this genre. I discovered the different conventions for a music magazine and this particular genre. Therefore I used a similar colour scheme as NME magazine to create a similar ‘indie-rock’ theme. For my front cover I asked a friend of mine who is in a band if I could come along to one of his gigs to take photographs, he is in an indie-rock style band so this worked really well and I created a similar image as the one which was on the NME magazine I was researching. The image was of my friend Harry playing the guitar on stage which made the magazine look more realistic and professional. Harry fitted in with the genre really well as his codes and conventions were suited to ‘indie-rock’ for example long hair, baggy jeans etc. I used a black and white image which showed a good contrast of light and dark between him and the background of the stage. I then took these images and edited them on Photoshop to make them look more professional by blurring out the background and making the contrast dark and light more obvious. I then began to place text onto the image, to make it look like a magazine I used the conventions such as: header, barcode, subtitles, pull quote and price. I learnt on Photoshop how to fade the text into the image, for example I faded Harry’s head so that is was still visible but so that you could see the text placed behind it this was a new skill I learnt as I had not used Photoshop I was unaware how effective it could be by edits throughout the different ‘layers.’
Pervious to this I did have other media skills as I took the creative and media diploma before I came to Wyke. In this course I learnt how to use camera equipment in order to take successful and professional looking photos, was introduced to a MacBook and how to use it, I learnt how to appeal to a target audience and what codes and conventions are needed for certain genres, I also learnt the purpose of media texts and advertising techniques. For example my media course was a longitudinal course which was carried out over 2 years, as part of the diploma we had to produce, market and sell a CD. This meant as a team to create a CD front cover which involved photography, so I gained skills from this, I learnt that to produce a good image everything in the image had to be put in it for a reason, the whole setting was part of the image so everything in it had to be suited and related to the genre or theme. For our front cover we used a man playing a guitar with a wall of graffiti in the background as the genre was ‘indie’ which means unique which we thought this was quite a rare and genre related image. We then downloaded the bands (a local band from Cottingham high school who volunteered) tracks onto the CD which gave me some experience in moving music files, this will help me when creating my A2 music video. I also required advertising skills by doing things such as ‘flash advertising’ which is small adverts with just one word for example that doesn’t give anything away but creates a ‘buzz’ effect, we successfully managed to make £63 pound selling CD’s and this was divided out between the band and our shareholders which gave me experience in advertising and business management, overall I got a B in my diploma.
So I did already have some varied skills within media but in the making of my foundation portfolio these skills developed massively as I became a lot more used to the technology and computer equipment that was available at a higher standard than I had originally used. I had already been introduced to a MacBook and shown the basics I needed to understand to use it but within my AS course I learnt how to use certain programmes in more detail and now have a good experienced knowledge when using the Mac or any other similar equipment. I am now familiar with all of that but will still have more to learn within my A2 course about moving images rather than still. I have also covered in more details the different codes and conventions within genre and the important of genre. I have developed a lot more skills for more technical l media terms such as ‘mise-en-scene’ cinematography (and all the different camera angles, shots and movements that go with this, editing and all the correct and professional terms for that and sound. This has really developed my skills further and broaden my knowledge on what is involved in creating just a single shot. When preparing for my exam I learned a lot more about the media industry as we was educated on disruption and consumption of media products and how digitalisation has affected this. This has developed a lot from last year’s knowledge of the industry.
To conclude I think I already had some good but vague skills from my media diploma, within my foundation portfolio I developed these skills in more detail and learnt the proper technical terms which are important to have a well-educated and superior understanding of media and what is involved. Now I feel more confident and informed on media including the technology and all other aspects involved.
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