1. Skills
Creativity
For my A1 project I had to design a music magazine front
cover, contents page and article. I thought that the magazine
cover showed my skills from programmes such as Adobe
Photoshop. I learned how to cut out pictures and stick them
onto a different colour background. I also learned how to use
the blending options to my advantage; to make certain elements
standout such as the title of the magazine „ICON‟. Also with
the image I managed to make the photograph a medium shot so
the face and body are in the picture just like actual
magazines.
The criticisms I hold for this music magazine front cover is
that there is too much free space left that could have been
used for others stories or special features. The photograph as
well is a birds-eye view which makes the person look
vulnerable even though it is talking about positive things in
her life. I also feel that the title is not dominating enough
and that the colour blue for the background doesn‟t really
send a strong message.
The contents page again shows my Photoshop skills with the
page being in half and having two different colour schemes. It
also has photos inside the magazine which I took; two of the
person from the cover and one of another musician. There are
also a bunch of stories on in the contents.
The cons of this page are it is too plain; there are only two
colours for the contents. The images don‟t seem to grab
attention. There could be images of other celebrities to grab
attention. Looking back I do believe that I could have had the
page layered out in a different way.
The article is a double page feature. It displays my
creativity with Photoshop and also how I converted the text
from word to Photoshop. The picture used is a close up of the
face and also I converted it to black and white. There is
large text in the middle of the interview part to grab
attention.
The negatives for this are that my other schemes colours have
been blue and white; on the article it changes to green, white
and yellow. The picture could have been a full body shot and
also have musical props to establish what the interview was
on. I could have also left the picture in colour to make
something stand out.
For my A2 ancillary project I had to make a magazine cover

2. and film poster; the magazine cover has a black background,
the person is in front of the „EMPIRE‟ title; to make it seem
more professional, there is much more side stories and less
space and the photo is a close up; the person in shot has
blood on her face which has connotations of the genre the film
is and also the use of words used also signifies the type of
genre, “Gory” and “Spine-chilling”.
My film poster has black and red writing on it to relate to
the horror theme. I darkened the main image and made eyes
transparent through the photo; as I became more aware of
Photoshop tools. I also managed to make my own production
titles, put an age certification, as well as putting
distribution and production companies.
I will make a questionnaire and ask the audience what they
think could be done differently on the ancillary tasks.
Research and Planning
For my A1 research all I done was look at two other music
magazines; front cover and contents pages. I also conducted on
audience survey to see what they would want! My planning was
only drawing out the layout of the magazine cover, contents
and article.
For my A2 research I looked out two horror movie trailers;
four film posters and two magazine covers, I looked at what
makes a good photo, I analysed them all. Furthermore I done a
questionnaire on every element of the horror genre like; 2what
do you associate with a horror movie?”“Where do you think the
killing should take place?” What name sounds better?”“Who
should be the killer?” I also researched through numerous
distribution and production companies, seeing what successful
movies they had produced and distributed. For my planning I
have done a presentation of roles and responsibilities, the
production and distribution companies that are being used, I
took shots of the locations that would be used, I planned
which font the title would be in, I wrote up the plot for the
trailer and I done an animatic storyboard of the trailer;
which was a first for me and the layouts of my magazine cover
and the film poster.
Digital Technology
For my A1 project I only used a stills camera for the photos.
For the A2 project I am using stills cameras as well as moving
image cameras to capture the trailer for the project. This

3. will give me greater knowledge towards technology that is used
in media.
Also I have a media blog; which for my A1 project rarely had
any multi-media on it and was never that much updated; it was
mostly all text however with my A2 there is a range of multi-
media from slide share presentations to YouTube videos. I
update my media blog with whatever I do on my project; each
post is at least a week apart, I learnt how to make an
animatic story board; which allowed me to show a range of
multi-media.
The programme I develop my magazine cover, contents, article
(A1), magazine cover and film poster were all done with Adobe
Photoshop; I have become more advanced with Photoshop the past
year using more tools to give a better ancillary task, such as
altering the adjustments of the image, using a transparency
tool, being able to use the quick selection tool and making
the eyes of an image red.
Using Conventions from Real Media Texts
For my A1 I only used help from NME and Kerrang! Magazines.
With my A2 I am using Halloween, Friday the 13th, A nightmare
on Elm Street, Final Destination 5 and Texas Chainsaw
Massacre; this helped with certain elements of my poster
because Halloween shows the mask of Michael Myers coming
thought the poster I decided to use my eyes vaguely coming
through also each poster had a slogan which I decided to use
on my poster; “Justice is Revenge”. I used magazines I used
were Fangoria and Empire; so there is already a big leap from
the professional help I have decided to use from my A1 to my
A2.