Deconstruction and Reconstruction of a Media Text

Lauren Murphy - Producer + Cast

Abbie Hardy - Director + Cast

Kiera Pollard - Camera

Becky Foster - Editing + Cast

Charlotte Hemsworth - Cast

Mason - Cast

Autumn - Cast

Alex - Cast

 

Skills Development Essay

For my Foundation Portfolio I had to produce the front cover of a music magazine, its contents page and a double page spread. It had to be created for a specific genre, so I began to research all the possible genres I could choose. I began with researching the pop genre, fitting in with the most common genre of my favourite artist Jessie J. Although I analysed magazines such as ‘NME’ and ‘Mojo’, I decided I wanted to create something different. My magazine ended up being a mixture of the pop and indie genres, due to the fact I based my magazine on how an indie magazine would look. I tried to include features from more than one genre, as my target audience was all people interested in more than one genre of music. I chose to do this as most people like a mixture of music genres, and would normally have to buy several different magazines to cater for their taste in music. This however comes at a cost, so I chose to condense pop, RnB and indie into one magazine.

The magazine front cover I created was for the month with focused on the indie genre. I used Photoshop to create this look. Starting on the AS media course, I had never used Photoshop before, so I didn’t really have any editing skills, other than cropping or re-sizing images in PowerPoint. For example for GCSe drama, I made a PowerPoint on the skills I had learned throughout the year. I used PowerPoint to put images on a presentation and then added text. I also used Microsoft Publisher to produce various different posters and newspaper articles for GCSe English. I also never edited an image before. Therefore when I was asked to create a perfume advert using Photoshop, I had no idea where to start. I had never used the software before therefore I had no idea how to cut the background from an image, ‘perfect’ someone’s skin or rotate/re-size images. Unfortunately, my lack of knowledge affected my overall advert, however it did provide me with some basic skills on how to use Photoshop. When it came to producing my actual music magazine, I had a lot more knowledge on how to use certain tools within Photoshop, such as the cutting tool, smudging tool and also how to edit texts and fonts. This helped me greatly on producing the look and design I wanted to create for my music magazine.

When producing my music magazine I completed several drafts using both Microsoft publisher (to get the layout just right) and then Photoshop (to piece it all together0. I then got audience feedback on the overall design of my magazine, which helped me to understand which features the audience liked and disliked. I also wanted to know how to use a camera correctly, to give my final product a proficient appearance (as this was a skill I had not yet mastered!) I also had no idea about all the different camera angles and shots that I could use to create an overall professional image, which showed in my perfume advertisement. Luckily, I quickly learned which shots were conventional for each section of my magazine and tried to stick with using these to appeal to my target audience.

I also had to create a Blog, again something I’d never done before. I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the course as I could make my blog my unique by using presentation features such as ‘Prezi’. I had also never used this presentation tool before so my first one was extremely basic. However now, I use it in all my subjects, including English Language where I was asked to create a presentation on different word classes.

 

Overall throughout the whole time of producing my Foundation Portfolio I believe my skills vastly improved. From creating a perfume advert where I only touched up my models skin and didn’t cut out the background, to creating a front cover, contents page and double page spread where I used the cutting tool, smudging tool and many more features within Photoshop to create the design I had in my head. At the beginning of the course, I had no knowledge of Photoshop and I only had basic knowledge on how to use my own images in Microsoft PowerPoint. I now have detailed knowledge on how to use Photoshop and I can also use Blogger.com easily (a skill I never had before) and also the creative online device ‘Prezi’, another skill I didn’t have before the media A2 course. Looking back I feel that the fact I continuously applied the skills helped me perfect them and therefore show what my strengths and weaknesses are. I also believe that if I were to create my music magazine again, I could definitely better the images and editing I used. I now know that using presentation tools such as ‘Prezi’ are a great way of interesting the audience too, as I got to display my research in a more appealing and exciting way. I hope that I can apply this knowledge to my Advanced Portfolio in order to appeal to my target audience.



Key Audience Terms

Qualitative Data

Qualitative Data is written data with a lot of information. It’s normally personal interests or feelings towards a given subject. For example, asking someone their opinion on something would generate Qualitative Data.

Quantitative Data

Quantitative data is number data. It’s normally quite simple and usually generic. For example asking someone their age or, “on a scale of 1 – 10”.

Demographic

Demographics are categories people fit into naturally, such as gender or age. They also include social bands such as categories A,B,C1,C2,D and E. (The category determined by your profession or income).

Psychographic

Psychographics are personal opinions, views, likes and dislikes.

Influential Media Texts

Katy Perry - The One Who Got Away

Miley Cyrus - When I Look At You

Katy Perry - Wide Awake


 

 

 

Audience Feedback Material on Prezi

 

Looking at each of these influential texts, I then asked the audience these questions about their thoughts and feelings about each of the texts:

1. What is most appealing about each of the texts you have seen?

2. Looking at the three music videos what are your thoughts about the mise en scene used, what about the quality?

3. Do your expectations meet what you first anticipated for the three music videos and images?

4. Looking at all of the texts would you change anything about any of them?

5. Do you prefer something with abstract, narrative, performance or animated connotations? You can choose however many you like, please elaborate which and why.

6. Do the images of the artists represent their music video? If yes, in what way? If no, why not?

 

7. What type of visuals do you see when you listen to my chosen song?

 

8. Does the actual music video for this song live up to your expectations and why?