The student learned several important lessons from their preliminary college magazine project to their final music magazine project. They learned to do more thorough research on conventions of the genre they were portraying. They also struggled with photo editing when the subject's hair blended with the background, requiring a new photoshoot. Organizing human resources was easier for the preliminary project using peers, while more planning was needed for the music magazine to gather resources. The student also felt they managed locations and equipment better for the music magazine by taking more control of the aesthetics. Overall, they were most proud of learning to use Photoshop design software for the project.

1. Question 7
Looking back at your preliminary
task (College Magazine), what do
you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full
product (Music Magazine)?

2. I always began approaching my
tasks with research. I think it is
very important to do this to
enable you construct a clear,
innovative idea. This allows you
to be able to find clear
conventions that apply to a
particular magazine. For my
college magazine I looked at
‘College Magazine’, to aid me in
creating my magazine
effectively. For my music
magazine I looked at ‘NME’,
which caters for the audiences of
indie/rock music.

3. The first obstacle I came
across was when it came to
editing my photos, because I
originally used another
model, however due to the
fact the background being a
similar colour to her hair I
struggled when it came to
editing the pictures. This
meant that later on I had to
make the decision to do a
whole new photo shoot. This
was still a problem because it
meant I was unable to use the
DSLR camera, my pictures
still weren't of a high quality.

4. Organising my human resources
proved a lot easier during the
preliminary task, as I used my
peers, which made the process
afterwards, a lot more efficient.
As, this was different when it
came to creating my music
magazine, I ended up spending
more time on gathering my
resources than the production
itself. Because of this, I had to
spend more time doing my
planning to make sure I was
more organised with things such
as, costume and location.

5. My management for locations and
equipment for my music magazine
was more effective, as I was more
independent with my planning
and set-up and allowed me to
have more control over the
aesthetics. This is because, during
my preliminary project, I had used
the BOA studio, with professional
equipment, that had already been
set up for me to take the photos,
whereas for my music photo shoot,
I used a different location with
limited professional equipment.
However, I think my costume
choice for my music magazine
worked because it fitted with my
genre and the mis-en-scene of my
magazine, which made my
magazine more visually
interesting.

6. I believe I could have
managed my time more
successfully, However I was
able to produce all of my
work and meet each
deadline. I think I was set
back, after my first photo
shoot proved unsuccessful,
and I had to take time out
of my production stages to
re-organise my entire
magazine. I am happy
with the work I have
produced, and feel as if I
have conformed to the
conventions of an
indie/rock music magazine.

7. The skill, I would say I have
developed most is my ability
to use Photoshop. This is
because I have never used it
before and I had to use it to
create a professional looking
project. I used the image
adjustments to make the
main image on my front
cover black and white. I also
used royalty free font from
dafont.com and then used
the background eraser tool
to remove the white
background. On the main
image, I used the magnetic
lasso tool to remove the
background from around my
models shoe, as the colours
were to similar to use the
background eraser tool.