Evaluation Question 6

Over the course of the production of my music magazine my technological skills have improved no end, particularly using software and hardware I would not have been exposed to otherwise. I have also learnt a great deal about presenting work using a number of methods online that makes my Portfolio far more visually pleasing. The technologies  have used are as follows:



I used Adobe InDesign for most of the year to create my preliminary task (School Magazine Cover) and my final task (Music Magazine Pages). When I began using Adobe InDesign I found it difficult to use, but with some help and demonstrations as well as a great deal of trial and error on my School Magazine Cover, I found it much easier to use when it came to creating my Music Magazine. Much of the production process was spent on this application, and I found it highly useful as it allowed me to become even more creative and experimental in producing my pages.






I used Blogger from the beginning of the year I recording my every step from the market research phases, to actually creating my music magazine pages. This form of application was alien to me at the tart of the year as although I have used various social networking sites before, I was not a fan of online blogging. My mind was changed however soon after first using it when I found it to be an easy way of recording my ideas, using a diverse range of tools such as videos, photos, powerpoint presentations and prezi posts for example. I found this particularly useful in this evaluation stage to be able to look back with ease at my thought process throughout the production stages.

I had no prior experience of Adobe Photoshop before my AS Media Course, and so I originally found it a complicated tool to use. Thankfully after a few demonstration lessons I was able to utilise it to benefit my magazine pages. I mostly used photoshop on my final task, where I removed the backgrounds of a number of photos including the Main Image for my Front Cover. Although I found this to be a laborious task, I did see the benefits on the final product as I felt it enhanced the quality of my images, giving them a more professional look. Because of the time consuming nature of this program I adjusted the filming locations of my article photos to incorporate a blank background so as to be more efficient in producing the images for my magazine pages.






Prezi was a ground breaking piece of equipment I used in both presenting the findings of my market research and answering evaluation questions as two examples. The program allows you to use a diverse number of patterns and animations to invigorate your presentations, beyond other more boring and rudimentary products. The addition of this to my arsenal has made my presentations far more visually pleasing.







Throughout the production process I have been introduced to a number of pieces of software, hardware and programs that have meant I have been able to create my music magazine pages efficiently in a number of ascetically pleasing ways, which has introduced me to the workings of the production side of the media industry, Along the way I have learnt a great deal about photo shoots and the importance of camera angles and the inclusion of props to get the best images possible.