Q7. LOOKING BACK AT THE PRELIMINARY TASK WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE

PROGRESSION FROM IT ALL TO A FULL PRODUCT?

HOW I HAVE MANAGED EQUIPMENT

I decided that I wanted to take my photos in the green room as this would enable me to change the background easily, and the photo’s would remain in good quality- like a professional music magazine. In the green room I was also able to adapt the lighting to get the best and most effective photographs. In the preliminary task I took my photos in front of a building which looked much less professional. To do this I had to book the green room a few days in advance. In addition to this I had to borrow the prop from a member of staff, during the photo shoot.

Specific black acoustic guitar used, that was borrowed as a prop for my model.

The use of the green room.

HOW I HAVE ORGANISED HUMAN RESOURCES

I used two models for my music magazine, and so I had to arrange and book a time that would be suitable for both of them.

I also wanted both of the models to wear black clothing with an edgy appeal to suit the rock magazine. I also needed to communicate to the models, particularly the one on the left to wear bold lipstick and to have “wild” hair to add to the reckless theme of a rock music magazine.

TIME MANAGEMENTI needed to have quite good time management in order to reach the deadlines. I also needed to use appropriate time management to arrange a time for all of my models to get together for the photo shoot.

I managed my time better than I did in the preliminary task, as I needed a specific theme for my magazine and I made sure the photos were much more professional in order to do this I had to organise and book the green room which took good time management skills.

In my opinion my time management was much better in the main task, as I was able to take good pictures in a professional environment, however I think I spent a lot of time on little things, which meant it took me longer, in this case my time management could have been better, because if I had worked at a steady pace I would not of had to rush, but I did manage to reach the deadline in time, so overall my time management wasn’t too bad.

The green room, and a clear view of how the lighting was used effectively.

CREATIVE DECISIONS

My preliminary task consisted of a model standing in front of a brick wall holding a blue folder. I then had matching blue font cover lines on the front cover. Everything on my contents page was really basic and looked very unprofessional.

In the main task I decided to use another prop, in the form of a guitar, to fit the music theme. I also matched the colours to create a professional look. I used more effects, such as a more interesting font and smashed glass.

My contents page was also quite basic with just one photo and a list of what is inside. For my main task I have used boxes, different fonts, and more photos-but in different boxes. I also kept the broken glass theme in the contents page.

Preliminary Task Main Task

I created a double page spread for my main task. For this I used a Q magazine for inspiration. I used different, interesting fonts and placed them in an original way. I also used two photos, and with the main image I had the writing go around the model, to make it look more aesthetically interesting, instead of just having basic straight columns.

My masthead is in an interesting font and is clearly recognisable as a rock magazine. I have used diverging fonts for my cover lines, as well as having a unique position for my model, I didn’t want the photo to just be simple, I wanted it to have some character, as a normal rock magazine would.

I have taken inspiration from other magazines to create a conventional contents page. I wanted it to be quite simple and clear, so that the reader was able to use it effectively. I had unique fonts and a broken glass effect to make it look different and a little more edgy, to make it stand out as being a rock magazine.

OVERCOMING PROBLEMS

I used the green screen so that I could easily get rid of the background. However, I had a lot of trouble getting one of my model out of the green screen, for a few reasons, firstly the blonde hair at times blended in with the green screen and was harder to separate/take out. Also, I wanted her hair to be quite large and frizzy, to keep with the rock effect, however the green was hard to take out of the curls in her hair.

Therefore, instead of just cutting around her using the quick selection tool, I had to make it content aware, and use the colour range to pick out the background and eliminate the green.

The curls in her hair made it difficult to get rid of any green.

Quick Selection tool, normally used.

Instead I had to use the colour range to delicately get rid of any green still left in her hair.

Even though I used both the quick selection tool and colour range to get rid of the green, it wasn’t always completely gone, instead I had to use the eraser tool to delicately, erase the green from around the model and difficult shapes, for example around the guitar.

There was still green around the edges of the guitar that couldn’t easily be taken out by the quick selection tool, and I needed to overcome this problem using another tool in Photoshop.

This is a picture of the eraser tool found in Photoshop, I used this to erase the green in areas where it still was not gone.

I couldn’t use the conventional quick selection tool, I had to use a different method on Photoshop instead.