Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Question 7 

Transcript: 

Looking back at my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot about the production and distribution of magazines. This is also shown by the lack of tools used in the preliminary task compared to the final magazine. When creating my preliminary task, I used adobe Photoshop whereas for my music magazine I used InDesign. Considering I had never used InDesign before, I feel that my confidence with using a new programme and experimenting with new tools has grown.

In my preliminary task I didn't I lacked in the conventions of a typical magazine, which lead into having a very basic magazine. Throughout the research and planning of my music magazine I have learnt to understand the conventions of a successful magazine. The amount of time spent on my preliminary task compared to my music magazine can be clearly seen. This is because when creating my preliminary task I had less time and I had no time to plan what I was going to do. Whereas with my final product, I completed numerous tasks and done research before doing my photo shoot. Also in my photo shoot I used a professional camera and key studio lighting whereas in my preliminary task I took photos in random places around school.

I have learnt a lot since my preliminary task, for example I've improved in my Photoshop skills by adding different effects to the images that I took and changing the lighting of the image, this made the photos that I took appear more professional. I used a video online to help me remove the white background from my images as I had forgotten how to do this. Due to all the new skills that I have learnt you can clearly see that my music magazine looks a lot more professional compared to my preliminary task, this is because I have made sure that I've included all the conventions needed. Also this is because I used a professional camera which gave me good quality images that I could use in my magazine, more over I used the white back drop and key studio lighting which gave the high quality images. Also I had time to plan the types of poses/positions I wanted my model to be in. Whereas in my preliminary task I had poor lighting with no poses, it was all just natural photos.

When creating my preliminary task I didn't have much inspiration as it was a school magazine whereas for my final task I had a lot of inspiration as the music industry is growing with popular magazines. I researched many magazines so that I could understand the conventions of the magazine. I also researched a lot about the contents page, as I was unsure what the structure was. For example the categories, band and artist index and editors note.

I think that creating my music magazine on InDesign gives a more professional standard look appose to having creating it on Photoshop like I did for my preliminary task.