Evaluation Of Preliminary TaskPrajwol Khamcha

The Success of the Preliminary Task

The Preliminary task, was a exercise to produce a front page of a school/college, featuring a student in a medium close up. The text had to be appropriately laid and and have a masthead. The initial mock up was for us as students to grasp the idea of producing a successful magazine, while applying this to engage the audience. The preliminary task was beneficial and time consuming, but mainly beneficial because it helped with time management. The focus of the preliminary was to create a simulation as if we were producing our final piece. I did a magazine about Ratcliffe College.

The Success (MOCK UP)

I have kind of achieved the main criteria of the Preliminary task as I have successfully taken a medium close-up image of a student in Ratcliffe College. As well as in the content page I have used an Medium shot of a student working and laid it out and challenged conventional methods of a content page. I did not lay it out conventionally which was a problem for me and I will expand on this later.

Preliminary exercise: “using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a DTP mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of the program.”

Front Cover (MOCK UP) I felt I met most of the terms of the criteria correctly, but I felt that the front cover wasn't

of good quality, generally because that time was very rushed. I felt that because I tried to use Photoshop to cut out the image and merge it into a background, I felt that the images together did not look realistic. To improve upon this, I felt that I could have used a difference in contrast and brightness to make the image merge better. Another issue that I had was although the image was correct, the quality wasn’t very good, this is because I used a digital camera, because I felt that it would met the criteria. But I felt because the quality wasn’t good, it didn’t again help the case of the two background and Image of the Student to merge together. One of the criteria’s that I feel I didn’t meet was structure and lay out of the front cover. I feel I could’ve improved upon this if I had more time and done more research, but it was good I made this mistake because I learnt how to structure. I also had another issue with the color scheme and the typography. First of all the Typography was not appropriate as I felt that it was to bubbly and looked to childish, I could have improved on this had I research more about typography before the preliminary. Secondly the color scheme again I felt was not right as Ratcliffe Colors are Blue and Yellow, and I used Blue and Green which I felt was inappropriate. The front cover in general looked very rushed to me, it seemed to lack passion as it looked very spacious and unorganized.. I felt that I could’ve filled the front cover a bit better, but I was trying to attract students. Overall I met most of the criteria I just felt the layout was very poor.

Conventions Of Front Page In terms of the layout I did not follow conventional standards of a magazine. As the

cover lines were to close to the right side of the page and they weren’t aligned properly. I followed the convention of a focal image, and because it was aimed for students themselves, I engaged them by using a convention to engage an audience, which is direct address. I also followed the convention of having a masthead, but it was unconventional in the fact that it did not stand out, but I felt the font was the write fit to connote the sophistication of the school. The fact that there was a logo makes it conventional. Another convention I followed was by having a barcode on the bottom right side of the front cover. The color scheme of the magazine wasn’t conventional, as I tried to follow Ratcliffe College school colors (Which are Blue and Yellow) but adding the green text breaks that and doesn’t look like it fits. The typography of the cover line I felt didn’t fit the convention of sophistication in the magazine, it have round edges and it looked more of a less sophisticated and younger audience. The cover lines in general didn’t stand out, which was unconventional as they are meant to engage the audience, as there was a lack of use of blending options to make typography visible. The second image, which worked with the cover line was conventional as it provided the fox thinkers with an image of what actually is happening, but it did not stand out enough, as I did not blend it.

Evaluate the Mis-en-scene For the front shoot, I took an image of the Student at a plain white background, so

I could crop it out and put him on a computerized background of Ratcliffe College. In terms of the location, I felt it was suitable as it had a clock on the top connoting a school atmosphere of being punctual, but because I couldn’t merge the images of the student and the background together it did not look good. I felt that I should do an outside background, because the student was wearing sports kit to connote his success as an athlete. I felt the lighting was poor because I used natural lighting of the building and it was not well lit. So to improve upon this I would use a soft box and studio light, although I also felt I could have tried playing with the contrast and brightness as the background was bright but the student was dim. The student was Chris Curnick, I felt he was a good example of a student athlete and looked the part, as his hair is nice and neat connoting he is sophisticated to go into a private school. The school kit he was wearing connote his association to the school but also represents his relation to sport. In terms of facial expression, I felt that it was very good he had a smile as it is inviting to students and parents, making it more appealing. Overall I felt the choice of Mis-en-scene was appropriate, I just felt that the only thing that was lacking was the technical knowledge of how to merge the background and the student better.

CONTENT PAGE (MOCK UP)

I felt the success of the content page, was not ideal. It looked very unsophisticated. As Ratcliffe College is a Private School, the students are clearly sophisticated hence I felt the lay out was terrible. Again this would be corrected if I had more knowledge before hand of creating the content page. I felt the content page was very plain, this was not very useful as the audience are sophisticated and they would be very bored of the product. The general census of the content page was it just seemed unsophisticated. I felt the image was also very randomly placed and would have been better if it was on the bottom of the page to look more natural. I also thought that the pull quote was placed very randomly meaning that some people might confused from who it come from. The content on the page wasn’t very fulfilling and I felt that to improve this I need to add more content.

Conventions of the Content Page I did not follow the conventions of a content page in terms of a

lay out as first of all I did not fill the content page with information about the pages. The content page is meant to be filled up and the content page looks plain. The layout was very jumbled as the texts did not align with each other, this is unconventional as a content page is meant to be organized. Another convention I broke was the consistency in text size for the pages, as they were very jumbled. I did follow the convention of having a heading and by having content, but it was not enough. Again I had an inconsistent color scheme as the pull quote being in green over complicated the black and red like in the front page. Due to the insufficient amount on the content page I did not follow conventions by putting it in columns and it looked as if it was massed in one area.

Evaluate the Mis-en-scene

The setting of the shot I felt was very appropriate as it is in school, connoting a educational environment. I felt the student who was Maverick Ip was very suitable as I am connoting the diversity of the school, widening my audience range. The uniform again was very suitable as it connoted pride and the sophistication. I am actually very happy with the image, as I feel it represents a school very well and connotes sophistication. The studying connotes how fun it is and as I am aiming towards student I wanted to give them a direct response.

What skill I Integrated from the Prelim to the real Product?FIND OUT…...ON THE NEXT SLIDE

The Skills Integrated I learnt a lot from the preliminary. The Preliminary really showed me the lacking

of skill and organization I had in my work. The main thing I took into the product was organization and lay out. I ensured that the lay out was well organized to make sure audience were more appealed to it. Another factor that I took was the ability to cut images using the magic wand, although in my preliminary it wasn’t the best I further devolved the skill and used it in my magazine. Another factor, was the use of location, I understood the use of appropriate background to connote a message, for example in my main task for Kareem (double page spread) I understand that by having a rural type of background, it shows the persons emptiness, and the if there is a cage behind him to connote the aggressiveness and the his hardship which engages Hip Hop audiences as that is the was Hip hop is represented as being poor and oppressed. Using Photoshop and InDesign really helped me ease into producing the magazine, especially InDesign as I had not used it before. The main way I improved was better time management. It also helped a lot after realizing that I had no skill so I went to research more about InDesign and looked up more tutorials helping me understand the basic fundamentals. I also looked at more magazines and saw how they addressed there audience.

Issues with Skills integrated pt.1

Other issues that I faced while trying to integrate the skills from preliminary to the main task was adding a more meaningful location for Luke, but the issue was with this was the variety in space and how to get it look like he was struggling. One of the locations I wanted to take the picture was in the school church, this was an intrinsic shot, and I wanted to get the cross in to connote how he is suffering but to do that I’d have to have a low angle shot, which connoted how powerful and dominant he is and that wasn’t what I wanted to portray. Another Issue but I adapted to was Kareem’s external environment shot, I wanted to get the CCTV camera in the background, but because it was too high up it would have to be done in low angle, which again connotes power and it might not be relatable with artist and audience.

Improvements with Skills integrated pt.2 In terms of the whole layout of the magazine, I felt that I got a better understanding of how to lay

out the magazine, as I knew my audience were fox thinkers so I structured it so it didn’t look overwhelming. I felt that I improved this the most on the content page, as I filled out the content more to conventionally fit better.

I felt I improved the most on the content page, as I was able to fill out the body text in the content page, to engage my audience, I learned from the mock up as it was not interesting enough.

In terms of placing the cover line, I understand about well spacing text so it doesn’t look like it’s a lot, and I applied this to my main production and had it well spread it out.

I learned the importance of the font to ensure that it can attract the audience, as the consistency was important. Due to my mock up front cover not being consistent I worked on this on the magazine by experimenting a best fit and to use 1 font for cover lines and 1 main font for the main cover line.

For the front cover, I started experimenting and looking at different magazines. I saw how direct address can engage an audience, so for the front cover I shot a medium close up and the model did not have direct address. I played with these different things to understand what they connote.

I also improved the compost ion of my content page, as when I was shooting on the white screen I learned how to white balance which helped me take professional looking shots,

What Success from Preliminary?

Truthfully my preliminary (mock) wasn’t good, as I had never made a print, but doing that gave me valuable skills that I integrated into the magazine production.

I felt that my choice of models, became better, as after doing the preliminary it gave me a vision of how I wanted my magazine to look like and what artists (people) I had surrounding me and what type of people fit each artists shoe. But I also had a problem with this as two of my main models Obinna Anaba and Max Jarvis, did not do the shoot.

I felt that my Photoshop skills were good and it helped me as I became more confident and it helped to use to the magic wand and the lasso tool especially when the background and the cloths were the same color, I used the lasso tool. I also started to use blur tools and dodge tools, that helped me retouch images, that I cut.

I felt that I used InDesign successfully even though the software was new to me I got more confident and new how to proportionally make images bigger so it fit the page, as well as I understood how to use symbols and remove hyphens.

A2 The Future

I felt that in terms of My production I felt I needed to improve, I felt that at times although some were not my fault I could’ve worked better on communication between the models and understood what times best fit them. Another Skill that I want to develop on is to further my skills on Photoshop and InDesign especially if I want to do print next year. I looked up a lot of tutorials and I want to know what each function does without copying step by step.

How to improve Photoshop: I think the only way to improve is by spending time on the software's. As I have good

accessibility to the software's I can use them, hence I have advantage. To have better organization I feel that I should communicate better with the model. The tools I would like to use more and get a better understanding of them would be clone stamp tool, history brush tool and the eye dropper tool. I feel confident with the majority of the tools, but if it comes to most improving its really with just having layers and adjusting the brightness and contrast to ensure the layers look better merged. The tools on Photoshop that I feel most confident is with the lasso tool, the magic wand tool, the crop tool, the healing brush tool, eraser tool, blur tool, dodge tool.

InDesign: The tools that I feel confident with the type tool, the pencil tool, the smooth tool, the erase tool, and the frames to use, I also feel confident with the eye dropper, gradient swatch and the free transform. The tools that I would really like to improve on would be Type on path and the shear tool. But I would like to spend more time on the software to discover new things.

Camera: I feel really confident on taking pictures and what auto settings to use. I enjoy taking pictures, and would like to work more on external environments, that present more of a challenge. I would like to do shots that include more lighting on externals as that would be a challenge. Most importantly I would like to use portable flashes to make the shots look more professionals in case we are in the dark etc. The major improvement is to adjust to the light and color presented by external environments as you cannot change that, you have to adjust to it, so to improve this I would want to work on the Iso and shutter speed. But I have actually found a software Lightroom which i found useful to adjust the lighting of images and have been using that. So maybe an improvement could be improving my skills and knowledge on that software as well.