Evaluation of my print work.

Throughout my production i had to focus on many things to make sure they were correct. For example making sure when i made the covers that the picture was in the right place to balance out my magazine or DVD cover. I felt this was very important as i needed to show i experience in working in my magazines before as i had this experience in making my preliminary project last year. However when it came for me to actually do my print i didn't have to think of things like mise-en-scene as i didn't use actual people for my project. Therefore lighting isn't really included as yet again i didn't really need to light as i didn't use real people, so instead i made sure i focused a lot on colours and the objects and shape in the shots. Many of the images i had to use i had to crop and re size for example my magazine cover is a good example of enlarging images. The main image covers most of the page i made him bigger to stand out, this is why there is only half of him on the cover as he is enlarged it was difficult to place a whole giant monkey on the cover so i decided it would be just as effective to have a bigger image but in half. When i focused on the language i had to make sure it was suitable and understandable. The text on the cover of the magazine had 'simple' language on it however on the DVD cover i decided to use the space for the text on the back more for adults - i made sure this was clear by the different fonts. As i went though i learnt that the variety in fonts and size was important. I mainly kept the same coloured font and text when addressing to children related products for familiarly, however changing the font was a way of address another member of the audience. All of my print work was done through ICT, a cross between working on the Macs and on windows computers.

Development from preliminary to advanced production.

Last year when i started media studied i chose to do the magazine cover as my preliminary project, however this year i decided to step out of my comfort zone to do a project which involved film. Looking back on the prodcution from last year i feel i have developed a lot. I have developed my skills on Pages as i also use that last year - but this year i have just got more confident and trying new things. Using programmes such as iCanAnimate & Garage Band were new to me as this was the first time i have used them as last year i had to create a magazine cover and centre spread .. and this year i had to create a magazine cover and DVD cover which i made on Pages and opening sequence to my children's TV drama which i made on iCanAnimate and edited on iMovie. For a full evaluation of each set of soft ware i used, please look at another port futher down.

Overall Evaulation.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?



The conventions in which i had to look into were that of children's television. I studied such programmes like Peppa Pig, Mister Maker and Balamory as well as many more. From each of the programmes in which i studied i took many ideas from each. For my advanced production i developed ideas and conventions of real media, the reason i did this is because the style and the age group i wanted to work with i felt it would be difficult to challenge conventions of a children's TV drama.


Animation: In my animation i looked at Mister Maker. The producers of this programme helped me think up my idea. I took the creative idea of the spectrum from this programme which helped me to make my ideas come alive. Mr Maker is a creative children's learning programme. As well as other ideas i wanted my animation and my whole advanced production to be a learning programme as well as a creative idea. When creating my animation i had difficulties which were to do with my main character. However in my first post i stated that i would focus on my animation first, then my print work i didn't. I did my print work to come up with the idea followed by my animation. Through out my whole project my main character was a monkey which i took from Microsoft office clip art. The only problem i had when the creating my animation was including my main character. The reason for this is because my image was a 2D flat image from a computer and my animation was a 3D. To over come this problem i challenged the ideas and conventions of typical open sequence. I did this because i would of been too difficult to change my 2D image to 3D without making it rubbish!


Print: In my print work i just followed and developed conventions of real media products. I looked at such products as Peppa Pig and Balamory. Looking at the styles of concluded my ideas about how to show my print work. Examples of this are Balmory. Having a clear DVD cover which shows the characters and what would be happening in the episode. In my Digi-Pak i took ideas from DVD covers such as Peppa Pug and Bamory again. From this i took the ideas of play- and extra things to do. This also reflected in my audience research.
How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?


Within my whole advanced production project i made sure that my main product and ancillary text were linked. The main reason for this is because of the audience in which i studied, this being children's TV. Learning from my audience feedback i realised that children like familiarity meaning that if i linked all the products together children would recognise it as being one of the same. I did this by making sure that on all of my print work i had the main character clearly on the front. On my magazine i made sure that it was larger that the text, this is to make it stand out against the rest of the magazines which it would be sold competitively against. Also as well as the characters being the same and making the production link i made the colours similar also. For this i made the DVD cover and the magazine cover in a blue gradient colour - this is so it would be familiar for children to recognise. However to make the production more child friendly and to make it more to my development structure i wanted to i decided that every month the colour of the magazine would change.


With my animation i tried to link it best i could to the ancillary texts but with also trying to go around my difficulties. Even though the animation didn't have the main character actually featuring in it i tried to over come this by focusing more on the creative side. The creative side is focused on through out the stories which also includes the drama.


What have you learned from your audience feedback?


From my audience feedback i learnt that children like things that are linked. From this i took the ideas of colours and style to make it more recognizable. Also i learnt about what styles of programmes children like and the age of when it changes. From interviewing younger children i realised that girls are tend to like vet programmes and teaching and boys are to like 'goodies and badies', i also learnt the reason why they like these styles is because it is the games they play. For example : Girls play mummies and daddies and schools, and boys play superheros. Taking this into account made me realise what styles and conventions i need to include within my advanced production. Including factors which i took from the audience feedback i wanted to add in a learning part to the programme as my original ideas were for a programme which is for preschool children to help them learn the basics before starting school. After looking at examples like Balmory and Peppa pig i realised that children also like repetition. A good example of this is in Bamory - at the end of the programme they sum up the programme in a bubble.


Also from my audience feedback i realised the type of things they like to see within the programme. When making my advanced production i had to make sure that it fitted to the ideas of my audience as my programme would be made for them. Also my audience feedback gave me a clear idea of what colours would be good as it helped me think about what would keep a child interested.


How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?


For my advanced production i had to create a children's TV drama opening sequence, a magazine cover and a DVD cover. I put a lot of extra effort into the production and this can be shown by the digipak. Though out this blog for each piece of work i have done i have done a evaultion and a run though of what i did and what gave me what ideas. In these paragraphs i am going to explain the teconology i used to create the final images and what i thought about it. If i had extra time to do more on my production i would have liked to create a bigger digipak maybe something like a booklet to show my understanding of children's ideas. My favourite piece of work which i did was my animation. As this was my first ever time of using the iCanAnimate software i thought I did well. I will explain more about the software further down. When it comes to understanding the brief i think i did this well, as i have followed what had to be done and have the finished proof made up. Trying to evenly share out my time on each thing was more difficult that i orginally thought - this is because i didn't follow my original plan on the working production blog.


Pages
After using Pages last year i had a more of a advantage as i knew what to do and where things were. However as i didn't use it for a while between the production from last year it meant i did have to familize myself again. Pages is a software on the Macs which can let you create anything for a magazine cover to a leeflet. Pages let you create text boxs and coloured shapes. I was really happy that i could transport my images from a Windows computor onto a Mac as i didn't know how well it would work. When working on my magazine cover i felt that Pages meant i couldn't do everything i wanted to as Pages has a way of making sure words don't over lay by making text vanish and as i had a big image on the front i felt this was difficult. However if i layed my work in the right places this was ok. When working on my DVD covers i felt that pages used in my advantage. After i mesured the sizes of my cover and put the shapes into Pages i could work on it on a real scale size. Using shapes i managed to size up each side of my cover (front and back) so i didn't go over on any sides. Using the text boxs on Pages is easy as you just select and type what you want - very simular to Pages on Windows.


iCanAnimate

This was a new set of software which i had never used before, this is because last year when i did my coursework i choose the magazine question. When it came to actually using the Macs to record my animation it wasn't as difficult as i thought - so much so i could easily do it again! The camera and the Mac and linked together so i just had to set up the camera on the image i wanted and just press the capture button on the Mac. Using iCanAnimate meant i could easierly delete and duplicate slides if i want to and it had a play back function. After i had created my animation it was easy to transport it to another format to use in other programmes which made it easy to use. If i had more time on my animation i would have like to create another animation to have a choose of programes but as time was short i wanted to focus on the correct things and then if i had time at the end to bulk up the work.


iMovie

iMovie is another set of software which i'd never used before. iMovie meant you could upload files from iCanAnimate and edit them. To begin with i found this completly confusing as i had never been taught how to use it before and as it was all new to me i didn't have a clue. After a bit of help i learnt how to remove parts of a film - however if i didn't have this help i wouldn't know how to edit film. This programme is very confusing to people who don't know how to use it but when i got the hang of it it was easy enough to use. iMovie meant that you could take out unwanted scenes and bits of broken film.


Garage Band

Just like iMovie and iCanAnimate this was new software as well. I knew when i created my film i needed to put music to it and i didn't want to sing on it. After coming across Garage Band i thought it was simple enough to use however i can understand why some people can't get the grips of it so easy. In Garage Band you drag the music seletction you want to create a group of diffenrt instrements at the same time. I understand tempo and keys so creating a small sequence wasn't too difficult as i knew what goes with what and i knew how to make sure it was all in time. However i think that for people who didn't have any music knowledge would struggle a lot more as it is all based on your opinion on what you think fits.

Animation. - Still awaiting Upload.

This was my first attempt at my animation and as i was so happy with it i didn't need to re do it. I followed my story board the best i could which meant that i created a DVD opening sequence which resembled exacally what i wanted.

Using the ideas which i took from ceebbies programme Mr Maker and programmes which i watched when i was younger i created i programme which incorpirated the ideas which i wanted to include which were those of a creative programme and a educational drama. The reason why i wanted to make a creative programme which i did is because from my research and from understanding what children like to do i knew that younger children enjoy to be creative and make things. Even though my brief was to make a children's drama i wanted to also use my knowladge of what makes a child interested. Mr maker helped me come up with the idea of the ending which i did by using all 'creative' things i could find - such as pipe cleaners, pom-poms, sticks and beads to create a idea of all these things in which you can make things with. All of the animation i made was made from creative things. All the numbers and letters were made out of pipe cleaners and the background was just a sheet of purple fome. I had to pad out the animation a bit as it wouldn't have been long enough for opening sequence if i had left it as it was. The clock idea was a idea i created at the time of the story board and by using two pieces of white fome, pens and pipe cleaners i created the clock. The reason why i had the clock in the animation is because my programme is a learning drama so for example i had the clock, numbers and letters so it shows that these would be things that you would learn.

The music which i used for my animation was something i made of Garage Band. Garage band was a new piece of software in which i used. To create the music on the animation i knew it had to be something that was cheerful and creative. The music in which i decided to use in teh end was made with percussion and guitars. At the end of the piece there is laughter which is intended to be the sound of my character. This is because i haven't got a picture of my main character through out the opening sequence and this is because the image i had used was a 2D image and i as said in my working production blog it was difficult to make a 3D image. Using a 2D image just wouldn't look right in my production as i thought it would just look to fake.

The colours i chose to use though out my production were meant to look happy and interesting as they were for children. When i padded out my animation i used other creative things as i thought this would link back to the idea of it being a creative programme.

Left Side

This is the final finish of the front of my DVD cover. To start with i am going to evaulate the left side. at the top of the left side i have a still image of a example of what my DVD would look like, the reason why i put this on here is so it looks more realistic. This still image is made by the combernation of clip art images together. Next to the still image i have made up a quote by the guardian as i thought this would also make it seem more realistic and also to fill the space. I really like how the top of it looks as i do feel that it does look really professional. To follow the images and the quote is the main text. This text is more for adults that children - which is why i have changed the font to american typewriter. Within the text i explain the elements of the drama behind the stories in which the children learn from. Each paragraph is relevent as it tells the parent what to expect and what its all about. Once again to start the begining of the text i have a single star to follow along with the theme. As just like the magazine front cover there is a dark blue line however this time it is not used as a type of bench or seat, this time as a divider.
Underneath this there are two more made images which i made with clip art. These images are differnt to the top one as the top one is a image to show the drama of the programme but the bottom two are to show the learning element of the show.

Right Side

The right side is very simular to the magazine front cover by the main heading and the image and the symbol. I tried to set it out simular to the magazine so it can be recognizable. The main image is bigger so it can be seen and also the text is larger so that it can be seen. The 'Kids TV!' is in the same place as it would be on the cover to the magazine so that once again it can be linked to the other product.

Other Features

To make my DVD look more realistic i scanned in a cover of a children's DVD to take a few things from it. One of these is the bar code (which also features on the front of the magazine cover). I put the bar code on to make it look like it is a professional product. Another feature which i scanned in is the certificate sign. I think this is important as it shows that i have thought about my project as a whole. The colours are yet again the same as the magazine and this is to keep familyer to children, and yet again there is also a small gradiant on the colours. The last thing for me to mention on my cover is the spine. To begin with i had the spine covered in stars from the top to the bottom - but as they weren't all in line it was too difficult to change it so i scrapped the idea of all the stars and changed it for a few at the bottom. As well as this being a more sensible optition i also feel that it was the better optition as i think it also looks good aswell as makes it less complicated. Finally at the top of the spine i scanned in a 'DVD video' symbol to make it look more proffesional.

This is the inside of the back of my DVD (the bit on the inside). Once again the colours are the same as the front of the magazine and the DVD cover. Unlike the digipaks i put the gradient back on as i thought it would make it more interesting.

Right Side

To start with i am going to evaluate the right side (the space which goes behind the disc). I didn't want to make it to complicated as in my opinion this part of the cover will be seen the least as there is a disc in front of it. When i was creating the ideas for this i thought something simple as the stars would be just right. Using the colours of the other stars in project i made a upward correlation out of different shaped stars, the only thing which is different with the coloured stars is that the bigger ones are a slightly darker shade to the smaller ones. This is because i thought they would look a bit better if they were slightly brighter as they would stand out a bit more. The reason why i didn't cover the whole of the right side in stars was because when you look at it as a flat plan as it is now i didn't think it looked quite right. So from this i worked out that a few stars would look better - especially as the disc would be covering most of the space. The colour used in this part is the darker shades of the blue as the gradient falls on the lower right corner, the reason why i put the gradient to this side is because as the disc is in front of this i didn't want it to look completely dull but at the same time i didn't want it to be too over powering.

Left Side

To make the back of my cover more exciting i didn't want to put the episodes on the back, and after some research on children's DVDs many of them didn't have them on the back they had other relevant information - so i took influence of them. The colours from the top are a lot brighter as the lighter shade of blue starts here. Underneath the text i have placed some stars as i have tried to link it back to the title and other texts within the production. The texts on the left side are the episode lists from one to ten. When i finished this i was really happy with the way it is on the inside this is because it frees up space on the back for other information. At the bottom in the lightly shadowed text i have put about special features. This is something i learnt of other DVDs because many other children's programmes have bonus episodes of interactive features. The reason for why i put it in a shadowed text is so that it stands out some more - i wanted to do this but not changing the colour of the text. Yet again through out the text font is the same. I feel it is important to have repetition within children's work as they are more likely remember things if they have the same things in them or bits of text which come to mind. A example of repetition within the actual program itself is at the end. Many children's programmes 'go over' what they have learnt or discussed through out the programme. Examples of things which work well through repetition isn't just from children's programmes but it is also in many adverts such as gocompare.com.

This is my third and final digipak piece. Just as i mentioned in the other two about colour the base colour is the same which is also a shade of a colour in the main magazine cover, just so they all stay interlinked. Just like the word search i wanted a simple game which would entertain children. As i briefly mentioned earlier i asked a few younger children their favourite games or things to play, this being one of them. The young children which i asked really enjoyed playing games such as puzzles and strategy games. In my opinion i think this is because they can then think and learn skills through having fun at the same time - this is how i got my idea of the drama within stories.

Each image within the main one are all from clip art which i placed over a background. For each image i tried to pick things which were relevant to the background - of being in a jungle and that of which looked friendly as this was a main theme throughout my advanced production. From using paint i added the lines to create the game. Throughout the project the font is the same and this is to keep a familiarity.

This is the next part of my digipak, this is part 2. This part was one of the first things i thought of as i think a word search is a simple yet fun thing to do - which is why i did it.

The colours for this are the same as the other digipak - this is because i wanted them to all link together as they are all part of the same thing. The other thing which i linked between the two digipaks is the colour of the font and the colour of the stars. There is only one star on this as i didn't want to make it too over powering as the word search itself took up a lot of the room. The words which i had chosen for the word search are all things related to the drama itself. Time and numbers are too words which only work because within my drama the characters have to over come the drama through stories - which is why my stories work as a children's drama. The reason why i chose time and numbers is because these would be two things in which they would have to over come. As for the words within the word search i wanted to keep them simple as this is aimed at pre-school children to early primary i didn't want to make it too difficult. From this i made sure that the longer words would be easier to find as they were along the bottom of the grid.

After research on digipak's i didn't really find a lot on children's ones unless they were a pull out for adults - which i didn't want. One thing i did look at was the Balamory. Even though Balamory didn't actually have a individual pull out as a digipak i did have extra information in the inside cover. I took ideas from this and from children's magazines and things children enjoy doing. I asked a few younger primary school children what they enjoyed doing and what was there favourite thing to do out of a book. Many children say colouring which is why i had chosen the colouring book as a prize as i thought creating a image which i have to remove the colour out of would be quite difficult. From this i also took the way to get the prize - by a colouring competition as i had learnt from the information i had gathered that many children would take part in this.

For extra work towards my advanced production in my DVD package i decided to make a digipak also. I did alot of research about children's DVDs as i didn't have any younger siblings i had never really looked at one before. The one DVD which i did look at most was Balamory which is a product of ceebbies.



The colour of part three of my digipak is linked to the same colour of my magazine and DVD cover, this is because as it is inside the DVD cover i thought it would be a good idea to link it all together. Another idea i had which is about my DVD cover is also incoraged by the magazine. In the evaualtion of the magazine i mentioned about the colours of the month i thought this would also be a simular idea through out the dvd series. For example: differnt series being different colours. This isn't a idea which i'd got from any other source, its a idea which i came up with to make it interesting and not so boring.

As before i have stars on the small section of the title and still the same fonts - however this time the stars are a differnt colour. This is because it is high lighting a 'compertition' meaning that is a bit more exciting then your normal small games. I got the element of the compatiotion from a magzine - this is because i felt that my DVD cover needed to be more exciting as it was only a cover at the time. Most digipaks within a adult DVD are more information about the film/series. However as mine was a children's production i didn't want to create a adult pull out as i thought it would ruin the idea of the childrens theme.

The text within the third part of the digipak is simple yet effective. I didn't want to put to much onto the pull out as it was only small and i didn't want to clutter space. What i wanted to put was only the main factors - those being what you won and what you had to do. Once i had written these out the bottom of the sheet was empty so by adding pictures made it more real. The pictures which i added were just hand drawn images of what it could be so they would just be examples of last months winners. I thought this gave it a more fun edge which linked in with the interactive development of the production.

This is my finished magazine front cover. In these few paragraphs i am going to evaluate my piece and explain why i did what i did.

The Colour.

As i did my magazine first, i choose the colour blue as it is a unisex colour, and i feel it didn't contrast to much with the other colours to much from the picture. Since choosing the background colour blue i made the stars a different shade of blue - this is so they don't stand out to much but at the same time they are noticeable. At the bottom of my magazine there is the text which says ' The Colour of The Month is BLUE', I did this because i thought as it is a children's magazine to make it more interesting i would change the colours of each magazine each time (however for my advanced production i only had to make the one magazine). This is because i think that children would enjoy it more if there were other colours on it but if the style stayed the same so it recognizable. Underneath the image there is a blue thick line which is also on the DVD front cover, this has many reasons why. One being that for being able to remember the magazine by the front page each time, and the second reason is that as my image was from clip art on word the image was slightly slanted one way - to even this out i changed it so that it looks like the monkey is sat on a wall.

Colour with Extra Features

The stars on the magazine are to make it more exciting and to stop it being so plain. Also i put the stars there for the 'fun edge' of the magazine. As the main background colour is a gradient of two different shades i made sure that the stars were the same colour the whole time as i didn't really want to change the colours as i thought it would distract away from the actual characters and the text. Through out the magazine and the DVD colour i have kept the title text and the stars in roughly the same place, this is because it can be recognized by children and adults. The stars which are behind the title are placed to highlight the title to make it stand out more, this is also done by the gradient, as you can only see the stars a little bit and as your eyes go further down the cover towards the text the stars are allot stronger as the background it darker.

On the 'wall' underneath the main character there is five stars at the end in the colour of the other stars. Originally i had only three little blue stars on the stripe but after thinking about it and what i could do with it i changed it to five stars as i thought that through my work i could portray my magazine as the connotation of being five stars (similarly in the same way it is done within a film). I thought this would be a good idea to do it shows that i have thought about what could make my magazine cover better than it already is.

The Text

As briefly mentioned above about main text, the colour stands out from the background. I decided to put the text on a slant to catch your eye and make it more exciting, i think this works well. From doing a magazine for my AS level preliminary texts i have learnt a lot about magazines and where to place things, so this helped a lot with the texts this year. From last year i had learnt where to put the main title. Originally i had the title lower down towards the bottom of the magazine but after last year i had learnt that the title needs to be towards the top of the magazine other wise if it is stacked up in a shop of other magazines on a rack the title won't get seen if its behind another. So from learning this i have placed the title towards the top left corner so even if there is a small gap between magazines you would be able to see a little bit.

Through out my advanced production i have studied lots of children's magazines and programmes - mostly being those of ceebbies. This is because ceebbies is around a lot and is a typical example. From looking at these i had realised that i need to produce a sign or symbol which shows that my magazine/programme appears on this. For example: Balamory is a ceebbies programme which on all its DVD covers it has the ceebbies symbol so parents know its linked. So for this i created a simple sign which is in the top right hand corner which is three bright coloured triangles and 'Kids TV!' in text over the top.

The rest of the text on the front of my magazine is placed all over to give it more of a relaxed feel. Seeing as my actual advanced production is meant to be a 'children's TV drama' i had to make sure that when i wrote 'main' stories on the front cover they had to be drama based as well as still relevant to children. For the drama element of my magazine front cover i had stories such as ' Micky's first day of school' and ' the magical jungle'. When i wrote the titles for my dramas i didn't want them to be too ahead of there time - for example I didn't want the stories to be able anything which wasn't relevant to them at there age. As well as the drama element on my magazines i didn't want to get rid of the fact it was still a children's magazine so i still wanted in incorporate things which children would enjoy - like making things, so this is how i came up with the idea of 'mothers day card'.

The Main Picture

The main picture on my magazine is of a monkey which is from clip art on windows. I will touch upon this image within the magazine and the DVD cover as i have use the image on both of these. The main reason why i choose this character as i have influence from other children's programmes such as peppa pig, 64 zoo lane,sesame st and in the night garden. Many children's programmes have animals in them which is why i choose a monkey. I got the image off of clip art as i thought this would make it easy to access. The image of the monkey looks friendly and happy which is very important within a children's programme.

Overall Evaluation

Overall i feel that my magazine front cover went well. The difficulty i had with this part of my advanced production was that i felt that my magazine would look to plain as i didn't want to over fill it with things as it is only for children but also at the same time i didn't want it to look like i hadn't put any effort of time into it. So from this i wanted to create the right type of magazine which is relevant to each thing i want to cover.

After seeing the final product of my magazine i am extremely happy. Even though this is only one part of the whole thing i feel that the magazine is a strong part as well as everything else. I took a lot of time to make sure that it was all in the right place and it was similar to any other children's magazines. As i mentioned earlier i wanted the magazine to look as if i took the time and effort on it but it still be simple as it was only for children. If i had the time to go back and change anything to make it better with the magazine i don't think i would change a lot as i feel that this is the strongest it would get!