Skills Development Essay

I chose AS Media Studies to explore many creative possibilities, which is how I came to choosing my chosen briefs.

As part of my AS Foundation Portfolio media production work I created a front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine, using all original images and text, produced by myself with a minimum of four images taking into consideration the specific conventions of existing music magazines.

I researched my selected brief by analysing past magazines that I found on the internet or had myself. By doing this a number of times I identified the conventions of my selected music magazine genre. Once I have identified the codes and conventions of the music magazine relating to my chosen genre, which were modern indie, rock, classic indie and Americana, I began to look at how to create the production of the brief. I knew that it was important to use many creative and positive original images to make my music magazine stand out. I used the simple ‘market research’ approach by researching into existing college magazines and music magazine front covers, content pages and double page spreads. After noting similarities and listing the conventions of a music magazine I analysed two music magazine front covers, two music magazine content pages and two music magazine double page spreads which allowed me to understand and see visual similarities. This process produced many different aspects and showed me a wide range of specific music genre magazines. I did research into demographics & psychographics to see how target audiences were selected using S.E.G and age groups and this proved that the front cover of any music magazine is very important as it portrays to a certain target audience depending on their favourite genre. Also taking into consideration the price and how often magazines are to be published relates to the target audience. I countlessly did many ‘mock ups’ of magazine front covers and contents pages  on Microsoft Publisher and hand drawn drafts to help me use specific programs which widened and generated some of my ideas for my production work which then I posted on to my blog. With all of the market research I did, I posted it onto my blog, countlessly getting feedback from different audiences and my tutor which abled me to create more positive traits in my work also aimed to create a strong visual link with my specific target audience.

 In my Foundation Portfolio I used Photoshop to manipulate my music magazine which allowed me to develop many new skills. In the producing stage of creating my magazine I began to edit specific transitions from Photoshop into my own work. I had not used the software before and was new to everything on it but picked it up well by using the key tools to produce a brief final draft. Photoshop allowed me to manipulate an idea and improve it slightly making a key dramatic change. To achieve a clean fresh look on all of my music magazine pages I had to ensure than each page linked into each other so it appeared a continuous music magazine. By visually noting each page the sequencing of specific items where clear and looked very convincing to an audience.