To help me gain a level of understanding of my own personal improvements during the time I have been present on this media course it was recommended to me that it may be beneficial to compare and contrast together my coursework pieces from AS and A2 level together. This would highlight greatly how my skills have developed regarding photo editing strategies, concept idea designs and how much knowledge I exhibit in acknowledgement of appropriate and important common conventional themes present in media products that I have replicated within my own work. I chose to compare some samples of my work from my music magazine piece from last summer with the brief I am currently engaged with for my second year task.
I compared my music magazine front cover which I developed the previous year for my AS coursework with the advertising poster for my TV documentary 'The Girls Who Wouldn't Eat' as although they weren't identically themed products (i.e they were not both front covers for magazines) in context they appeared fairly similar in construction and layout so made ideal candidates to reflect against one another. Easily the most major criticism of my music magazine is the image that I have opted to use upon the front cover quite frankly I am humiliated at how weak and amateurish my editing skills were at the time of me first undertaking media as a subject. Although my photoshopping skills aren't as severe as what other individuals might be for starting a new course such as this, it can be clearly identified that a magic wand tool was used to cut the image of the two girls out of its original backdrop as there are some slight edges and inconsistencies around the outline of the women, at the time of my constructing the front cover I overlooked these errors however now with more experience I can distinguish them quite easily and it would be understandable for my work to be marked down for this as in whole, jaggered edges make the product look unprofessional and as if any person could have created it - therefore it would not correspond with a mainstream magazine in that particular setting and its likely the audience would easily overlook it if it was displayed in a shop due to these errors. However when contrasting back to my poster there is no rough edges at all, partly this was because I didn't need to use the magic wand tool. Yet this image in particular looks more smooth and of an industry standard then the one above, the model seems to have a purpose in my A2 coursework and she advertises what she is designed to - the horrific physical effects of anorexia nervosa whilst the two girls in the magazine front cover look like they have no real purpose and do not connotate any response or emotion as a whole. This lack of appeal means they fail to connect with the target audience which acts as a deterance for them buying the magazine. The use of colours in both of the pieces of work correspond well with the whole layout, however there is a remarkable difference in consistency and the way that colour has been displayed. For the project 'The Girls Who Wouldn't Eat', the blending of the dark neutral colours reflects well the mature, adult mindset that is required for the documentary - essentially this will appeal to the desired target audience (18 and above) and will act as a repellent to any individual below the age range, I did not want children or teenagers engaging with the product due to them not being able to fully comprehend the seriousness of anorexia but also they might be disturbed and quite frightened by the effects the illness can have upon a sufferer both physically and mentally. On the other hand an adult audience would be able to respond more positively to it as they have had more life experience and knowledge to know how o prepare for what is to be bestowed in the documentary - they can easily regard this is of a serious content and will know how to engage with the situation more throughly. However when deconstructing the colour scheme of my magazine front colour I feel the palette has failed to identify with the target audience entirely. Originally I was aiming to appeal to a more older generation of music lovers from the onset ages of 17-25 and the genre i specifically selected to focus upon was the indie/alternative set. I don't get he impression my choice of colours was very accurate in portraying this - the brightness thoroughly makes the magazine stand out which is a bonus because it means more members of the public are likely to notice it if it appeared upon a newsagent shelf environment and out shadow similar magazines which use darker shades therefore outcompeting them based upon visual purposes. Despite the positivity the overwhelming use of yellow alludes to the idea this magazine is targeting a younger age range as this is the colour scheme that is more associated with ( for example young children to mid teens) this bypasses the age range I was hoping to attract, this consequently means I will lose out on selling opportunities for two reasons - the first being I am not enveloping the immediate attention of my desired audience and secondly although I may engage the interest of younger readers they are unlikely to be able to relate to the content through the use of language and choice of artists involved as indie is not a subculture general related to younger readers. The text on the music magazine in in particular is basically all over the place, there is no consistency running throughout as the variety in font changes far too often (this is noticeable especially on the additional accompanying article names), this loses the conventional appeal and gives the impression none of the articles relate to each other in that of the indie genre but of entirely different spectrums, in addition it may be too visually disturbing for the reader to look at as there will be many different points of interest to engage with, which could discourage them from buying the product as they wouldn't know which of the articles was the most important. The positioning of the text as well is not consistent, kerning is a major issue as some of the wording is not in equal spacing with one another and different sized font is used on pretty much every word which is highly unprofessional I can also pin point some of the letters have been stretched on a number of the titles whilst it remains compact on others which is a major editorial flaw. This makes the whole overlook of the magazine quite immature and not believable in a realistic environment. I can identify the use of drop shadows on at least two of the titles of the adjascent articles on the magazine front cover, although I can remember from last year that I employed these in an attempt to make the product appear more interesting and eye-catching, in this respect the idea failed because without the continuation of drop shadow on the rest of the text throughout the page, these two words look incredibly out of place and therefore pointless as a use of empahasis. When I contrast this back to my documentary poster the use of font is incredibly appropriate for the purpose it is portraying. I used the 'KG Skinny Latte' style for the title of the programme, it is fairly unique against the other fonts and the idea was it to stand out well over the other aspects on the page which i feel it does. The font itself is quite childish but I believed it personified well the anorexic body and how the sufferer returns to a childlike state due to physical complications, moreover the use of 'Girls' in the title rather then 'Women' further emphasises how these females have reverted to a pre pubescent form of themselves and alongside the frail image of the model the whole concept ties in and complements each other perfectly well. This consistency is missing from the magazine screen shot you can see above. The style used upon the review is that of a basic concept, the simplicity is favoured here as if I had opted to use a more extravegant style then it would have conflicted with the headline for the attention as the dominant font, this would create the conflict of the audience being unable to identify which is the most important areas to direct their focus over, the inability to correctly identify which is the title etc could act as a repellent from them engaging with the poster as a whole. I firmly believe in this manner that the simplistic style used on the remaining words aids to avoid this issue as a whole. The bold of the name of 'The Guardian' and the five star rating doesn't necessarily overwhelm the title as although they are both equally as appealing and dramatic to look at, they do not engage a battle for dominancy as the headline (which is the most important of the two) is significantly larger then the latter which prevents this event from occurring at all. In essence it allows the audience to correctly notice which is the aspect they should relate most throughly with. Lastly it is identifiable I used a logo in both of the productions, however one ultimately has a competitive advantage over the other - in this scenario it regards the documentary poster. The BBC institutional logo has been correctly paced in the bottom right hand corner, it is significantly reduced in size as compared to the title of the documentary so as not to create any immediate conflict with another, yet it is still enhanced enough to be noticed by the audience so they will be able to correlate that this networks broadcasting channel is where they will be able to locate the programme 'The Girls Who Wouldn't Eat'. The positioning of it allows the logo to be noticed, but in the same respect it does not overwhelm the main title. Importantly, the symmetry between the headline and the BBC indicates that these two elements are related to one another and correspond together as an entire entity, this means the audience will notice that the BBC network is appropriately the most likely place to view the programme. When comparing these deconstructions to the magazine logo the same unfortunately does not apply to it. Logos are generally smaller in size in comparison to the more important aspects of the product (such as image, title, kicker) because they are the main selling points, the logo is essentially there to establish the company who has produced it, this means it should still be noticeable yet does not have to be bold or dramatic as there is no reason for it to compete with the remaining conventions. This is not the case for the magazine as the logo is almost identically in proportion to the title 'Fleet', this disregards the manner I explained before forcing these two elements to compete with each other which discourages appeal from the product. Whats more I think it is incorrectly positioned in contrast to the poster logo, it should be located more 'out of the way' therefore it would prevent irrelevant competition on the page. I feel my lack of understanding towards conventional themes is ultimately what let me down in terms of grades during the construction of this task the previous year. I will admit it upsets me how little effort or even background research I put into this task, I am grateful at how motivated I was to develop my skills as what can be evident in my documentary poster as I feel I have improved significantly and quite dramatically in the short space of time between these two coursework productions in terms of media knowledge and skill specialism in creating items in such a short space of time. I believe firmly my commitment to improve in this subject payed off this time.
When observing both of these double page spread articles I have produced over the course of my two years in media studies I can identify and bring to attention a large number of major differences that separates them in terms of the grade boundaries. The primary one displayed is from my music magazine brief which I completed for my AS courswork the previous year, this spread was made entirely on the Adobe Photoshop programme which contrasts critically with the 'The Girls Who Wouldn't Eat' article that was specifically assigned as an auxilary task for my video editing brief for A2 this current term, this was develoepd within the Premier Pro software. Deconstructing these two side by side the most primary distinction lies with the layout of the spread themselves. In the music product there is no clear page boundaries, there is no crease aligned down the centre of the document to highlight this is part of a two page article, instead a poor choice of colour palette offers some incentive where it is to be located. The images are placed entirely in the wrong sections with both of them positioned at the top and bottom of the pages respectively, this completely ignores conventional magazine trends as normally an enhanced, enlarged image will act as the central selling point, in this case it would occupy more or less the entire left page, sometimes even overlapping into the adjascent which contains the main body of text for the article. In the first image this layout is not achieved with the vast majority of the pages occupied by texts, to be honest it makes it look boring with nothing appealing or very eye-catching to gaze upon. Just looking it, the layout is so unprofessional and would never pass as a mainstream production, to me its very childish and I'm ashamed that not a lot of thought and effort actually went into producing it. In contrast these concerns are evaporated once you compare it to the documentary double page spread. Because it was created on a very ample and high tech programming software that is used for the creation of magazines used in the media industry, individual pages are easily noticed as that 'crease' has been created allowing the reader to recognise these two pages are interlinked together. This specifically enagages with the traditional conventions required, a large blown up photograph is displayed upon the left page with the text of the article corresponding with it on the opposite. All these elements are placed in their correct positions, unlike the music magazine where the photos have been spread all over with no correlation to each other., this makes 'The Girls Who Wouldn't Eat' article more authentic and therefore more likely to be found in society on our newspaper shelves and stands. Another aspect that appears to me is the quality of the images used on the spread themselves, a clear difference can be seen between the music magazine and the article for my mental health documentary. Although I admit one of the photographs from the music one was created in a studio environment with essentially up to date and high powered equipment/lighting, it fails to correspond with the image that accompanies it (which was taken on an ordinary webcam). This causes confusion between the overall look of the production, the audience can be awed by a stunningly captured photo on the left then be left dumbstruck at how downhill the beauty of these images deteriorates as the pixilation is extremely noticeable in the second. What is made is a boundary showing how much potential this product could have had, furthermore how it was thwarted by the lack of effort in the remainder of the images which caused the quality to rapidly decline. When looking at the model in 'The Girls Who Wouldn't Eat' production on initial glance you are instantly captivated by the expression and posture she is poised in, it truly personifies the sense of emotions being rev berated, how sad and depressed she is through the consequences of her illness. The audience cannot help but feel pity and empathise with her situation, in addition the underlying quality of the image itself is extraordinary and it can be identified this was created with an expensive, effective device. Compared with the music magazine images there is no emotional connection or relationship that is formed between the reader and editors, the model in the photos appears to be 'posing' there is no expression or message she is trying to personify to the audience which makes her sort of a canvas - boring and unemotional. She does not connect with the vibrant, eccentric young woman who is described in the article therefore she does not correlate with the character she was supposed to be pre-disposed to. This could deter the reader from engaging with the article as they may feel the writer has 'lied' about the person in question and they aren't made out to be who they thought, in the end this could make them avoid the piece of writing all together. This however is not the case with the documentary article as the model illustrates the overwhelming sadness and anguish that is described within the meanings of the words of the spread, moreover this emphasises that relation more strongly. Regarding text work and font the key difference between the two products is consistency and variety. The style for the lettering opted for in the music article is very basic like what is traditional of a printed production, yet it does not fit the overall 'look' of the piece - they don't seem to fit together and I would more then liely expect to see something of the sort in a newspaper rather then a music magazine for young adults. This consequently loses the youth and young appeal to the spread so it is not specifically designating towards the desired age range as potential readers but that of a more older generation. A major contrast is that unlike the documentary article it does not contain any further text elements, these include; a kicker, drop caps, names of writer and photographer and a correctly placed headline. All of these inconsistencies further deteriorate its statetory position as an authentic media article, the unprofessional look makes it conform to that of a childs work, it would be easy to assume that the audience would have no intentions of even considering oppsing to read it because without these additional aspects it makes the article appear bland, empty and therefore very boring in comparison with the latter. The documentar double page on the other hand has a certain qyality to it, all of the identifable elements I spoke about are present which give the end resulting product a very noticeable, eye-catching layout with many convetions to graps reader attention. Not only that but it complies with standard media practises containing all the apsects a mainstream magazine spread would include. This point alone is what allows it to drastically overshadow its competitor in terms of professionalism, credibility and most importantly 'wow' factor to its intended audience.
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