How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning & evaluation

stages?Magazine

Similar to the research and planning of my film and poster, I began my search with google and research the codes and conventions of a magazine front cover, and a magazine article. As the results were mostly other students work, I felt that to make my information reliable, I looked more at actual hard copy magazines instead. Examples included Empire, Total Film and Sight and Sound. Luckily, copies of these were already in the media room. In order to present my findings in a visually pleasing format, I used a new website which I had used before for my poster research: Examtime. The website enabled me to present my research in a colourful mindmap and I was able to use a variety of fonts to group different aspects together. The website was simple and clear to use, plus other functions are available to help with revision. However, the only drawback is that with the creating process of the mind map, the ‘nodes’ or ‘spider legs’ could only veer off from the 4 sides of the title’s rectangle. As so many different little sections and ideas had to be drawn away from the title, about three boxes came from the same spot. This made it difficult to keep track of, as some boxes looked like they were representing the same thing, yet this was not the case. I then had to use other fonts and colours to make sure everything was separated and nothing was linked that didn’t need to be. By using this programme, I was then able to screenshot the little creation and post it onto the blog.

Research & Planning

SurveyMonkey was a useful tool again, similarly because of the same reasons that was it successful and effective for my film and poster. I was able to ask my audience questions about the layout and design of the article, which helped to determine my final ideas and preparation, therefore it helped me in the process. Whilst creating my designs, I used normal A3 paper and pens, yet in order to put this onto the blog, I had to photograph the posters by hand using an iPhone, as my camera was unavailable at the time. I then emailed myself the photos, to then post them to the blog. This was particularly helpful as I could take the photos whenever I wished, as all it required was my mobile and the poster, allowing me to do this at home. I could also take numerous photos quickly in order to get everything in the frame, which would have been more difficult with an actual camera, especially in terms of exposure and lighting - both of which are simplified to a great amount with the iPhone.

Research & Planning

For my magazine article, I had already captured the photos that I wanted to use in my poster, which was lucky and saved me time. Although, I still had to edit the photos on the software Photoshop. This was because I had to remove the background of the original photos, so I could then use only the creature and young girl to go onto the left side of my double spread article. In order to actually create the review and article, I used InDesign, as the software is famous for work in textual layouts and publishing products. Using this programme, I was able to create a double page spread, and choose the background colour which was what was initially planned. I enjoyed using this programme as it allowed my magazine visions to become a reality and therefore stuck as closely to my original plan as possible. Furthermore, as I had used it for my poster, I knew the basic functions, yet whilst producing my magazine, I was able to discover a lot more settings and functions to make my magazine successful.

Construction