Contents Page Flat Plan for 'Sixth Sense' Magazine

This is the flat plan for my contents page of my Sixth Form magazine. I think all the articles and features mentioned are relevant to appeal to the magazine's target audience (students) as they are all age-related. A negative on this draft is that i wrote the Ellie Goulding interview to be on page 3, which is a page that must be involved in the assessment as a double-page spread. After starting to plan the double-page spread I realised it was unrealistic and unhelpful to have the interview on the double-page spread because I will not be able to take my own photographs of Ellie Goulding which is essential for this task. To solve this, I will have to change the expected content of page 3 to a more mundane article of some sort.  

6021 Television Drama

Link to TV Drama Blog

Mastheads

I believe these fonts are the top three for my magazine because they are all messy and untidy which students will most likely be able to relate to. It will also give an overall informal tone to the magazine which will make buyer's feel more comfortable to purchase the magazine as they could feel it will apply to them more. 

I used alliteration of S's to draw in reader's, and used the pun of "Sixth Form" and "Sixth Sense" implying there will be gossip and all the information students need to know in the contents of the magazine. Because of the catchy conventions, I believe these are good reasons for the name "Sixth Sense" for my magazine.  

Front Cover Flat Plan for 'Sixth Sense' Magazine

Media Magazine Example - Analysed

20/09/11

The OCR AS Media Course


Today we had a lesson explaining different elements of the media AS course ahead of us. We learnt many different terms which will be key in aiming for a high results in media studies. 
The first thing we were told was 'diegetic sound' means the same and natural sound. Un-diegetic sound are noises such as music being played over a scene. Diegetic sound is the noises made naturally in the scene such as voices of characters, sirens on cars, and babies crying for example. 


We then looked at conventions of media and read "conventions are usually described as the ingredients of a particular form or genre." 
The term 'ingredients' in media was then described as the base of all forms of media. The ingredients in a piece of media is everything that makes the scene how it is meant to look. 
I also learnt about a theory called semiotics - the study of signs. This involves connotations and denotations which depend entirely on the audience and the context of which they are written. 



For example, for the image, the denotation is a skull and crossbones, but the connotation will differ depending on the audience. If a cleaner was cleaning a chemical cupboard and saw this sign, she would automatically refer to it as a sign of poison or danger. But for a pirate-obsessed child would probably look at it as a sign from pirates. 



"The basic meaning of the sign that most people can recognize and agree on is known as the signifier (denotation). The more complex individual meanings that people give to signs are known as the signified (connotation)". 


I also learnt that 'secondary audiences' is an important key term to use in exams to score higher marks. It means to not only look at the obvious target audience for a piece of media, but look further into who else it may interest. An example of this would be "Fantastic Mr. Fox" which tells the story of a puppet fox's life and the troubles he faces with people. Its obvious target audience is children as the story is puppet-made, and the content (including the story-line) is simple for children to understand. However, its sense of humour and a lot of the words used could be mainly aimed at adults. Although the story is obviously fiction, there are 'one-liners' and comical phrases that an adult would genuinely find funny. 


I also learnt about micro and macro elements, and that every small detail (micro elements) such as the style of jewellery a character wears, the shoes they wear, and the pictures they have in their room all add up to a macro appearance - a whole outlook of the scene so viewers can get an idea of the lifestyle of the character, what era they are in and what is happening in their life at that time. 


Today was full of new information to learn including what the form and style of a media text is, how important the small details are along with an explanation of different audiences.

Edited Images

I cropped the picture to get rid of the girl in the background which makes the photo more focused on their two main subjects.

I have retouched the photo to get rid of any spots or freckles on their faces. I made the photo 'warmer' in its temperature so the light looks as though it is on their faces which gives a nicer, friendlier feel to the image.  I also added a slight tint to the image for an even sunnier look. I changed the shadows, highlights and sharpness of the image to make them look more flattering. 

How to take a good photograph

Composition
     - what is include in the frame
     - rule of thirds
Here is a link to explain the Rule of Thirds in detail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds
     - colour (blend, balance, depth of colour)
     - subject (object, person or scene)
     - spatial arrangement (positioning of the subject and key points in the image)
     - light and shadow (where the light falls on the picture and where the dark areas are)
     - perspective (the angle of view)

Focus
     - using the correct depth of field (link)

Lighting
     - the direction of the sun

Camera Angle
     - experiment with different shots