Blog entry 1

blog entry 1

This week I scheduled that I would achieved many tasks in my lessons and outside of lessons.

In my first lesson I scheduled that I would receive feedback on my blue folder so I could improve some of my work. I did manage to receive some good feedback in this lesson and started on improving work such as my treatment which needed some more detail in the last few sections. The last few sections included, image control, language control, colour control and layout control objectives. I believe I can produce a treatment to much better standard due to the amount of research I have taken out on this project as a whole. I have researched fonts, colour schemes, many articles related to my genre of my magazine and many images within magazines.

The second lesson I booked my photo shoot for the 5th of February. Before I booked the photo shoot I made sure that my model was available at this time as well as my back up model. my original model is available this time and date yet my back up model is not. This means I may have to find another back-up model to ensure that my photo shoot is complete on time and I can start designing my pages. I also took out some research on fonts. The research I gathered gave me an insight to the problems I may come across when I start designing my pages. For example I may feel when I'm designing my pages that the font does not match the style of article or something as simple as the license on the font may be for personal use as an oppose to commercial use. I found a very useful site to help with finding free fonts that can be used commercially called fontsquirrel.com.

The third lesson I researched colour's for my magazine. The research I obtained within the session was very helpful to my project as I designed my own possible colour schemes for each article. The main process I had for designing colour schemes were to gather images related to my articles. I then observed the colours within the images and took colour samples using the eye-drop tool within photoshop. and then put them into various webapps such as mudcu and colourhunter. I learned that many colours will hold many connotations within my articles. For example for my article YouTube: A ticking time bomb I found that many of the colours I sampled were very saturated and almost radioactive which will be very relevant to the article itself. I learned that I need to use very simple,clean and pale colours for D.I.Y designs to make the tutorial very clear and to almost tell the reader its quite simple to build. I think I could have done a lot more research within this lesson as I did not manage complete my research for all the articles and the front cover. I will have to finish this research in my own time to ensure my schedule is not jeopardised.  

Production Schedule and monitoring document

Production Schedule and monitoring document

Week	Date	Activity
1	13th Jan	1 Schedule Creation: this week I will make sure that I create a realistic schedule to enable me to submit a completed project for the 15th February in accordance with the objectives outlined in my treatment. The schedule will be realistic, detailed and will contain 3 meaningful activities to complete as homework. Homework activities should take up four hours additional study time per week. 2 Schedule Creation: Today I will look at other commitments I have in my other A Levels including scheduled exams – this will enable me to produce a realistic schedule. In order to do this I will need to ask my other subject teachers about deadlines for homework/coursework during the next six weeks. 3 finish photo-shoot plan. This will enable to take my photos with confidence knowing what images I will be taking. 4 Project Monitoring & Homework 1: To create an article plan for the article D.I.Y designs. This document is to be uploaded to my blog. Homework 2: To fill in some extra commitments and tasks to the schedule. This will enable me to start my production stages. Homework 3: To research the components I need for my props and order them. Exams/other subject deadlines: 27th January brochure hand in (ICT) 29th January Graphics interview
2	20th Jan	1 Feedback- I will ask for feedback in this lesson on my Blue folder so I can improve some of my work. 2 Organisation- In this lesson I will book my photo-shoot for the for the first week of February. This will allow me to start the production of my magazine. I will also Research some fonts and create a fonts folder in my A2 media folder. 3 Colour research- This lesson I will research the colours I would like to use for the product and noting down colour codes. I will also be creating the call sheets for my product. 4 Project Monitoring & Homework 1: Start to build the dolly slider for the article D.I.Y designs and take photos throughout. Homework 2: Write the article D.I.Y designs. Homework 3: Start to make and prepare my props for a photo-shoot. This will include painting and decorating the props to make them look realistic. Exams/other subject deadlines: 27th January brochure hand in (ICT) 29th January Graphics interview
3	27thJan	1 Photo-shoot Preparation- Setup call sheets so that the models know the arrangements. Ensure there is a camera available for my photo-shoot. 2 Create a questionnaire -To add to the articles YouTube, A Ticking Time Bomb and The Online Film Revolution. This will give me data to support my arguments. 3 Research story styles- I will research similar articles to gain an insight on how to structure my articles. 4 Project Monitoring & Homework 1: Research headers, sell lines Homework 2: Statistical research Homework 3: Research other magazine DPS designs  to use as reference imagery. Exams/other subject deadlines: 27th January brochure hand in (ICT) 29th January Graphics interview (Teesside Uni) 6th February graphics interview (Cleveland) 12th February Graphics interview (York St John) 13th February ICT overall hand in
4	3rd   Feb	1 Setup Photoshop and InDesign documents- In this lesson I will be setting up my documents in Photoshop and InDesign. This will enable to start designing the pages for my articles to insert in. I will use Photoshop to create the components for my pages such as break out boxes and headlines. I need to ensure I have the correct column guides. 2 N/A (Interview) 3 Photo-shoot- This will allow me to insert my images into my DPS and finish my DPS to a professional standard. 4 Project Monitoring & photo-shoot review- In this lesson I will be going through and organising all the images I captured on the photo-shoot. I will also be editing the images I will use for my DPS. Finally I will download my fonts that I have researched into my folder ready to use. Homework 1: Make a second draft of the online film revolution Homework 2: Make a second draft of YouTube a ticking time bomb Homework 3: Make a second Draft of DIY designs Exams/other subject deadlines: 6th February graphics interview (Cleveland) 12th February Graphics interview (York St John) 13th February ICT overall hand in
5	10th  Feb	1 designing elements- In this lesson I will design the elements of my magazine such as mastheads, kickers and textures. 2 InDesign production- This lesson I will import the final textures into my file space and then start on the production of each page ensuring I import the photographic and illustrative content necessary. 3 4 Project Monitoring & sub editing individual pages- In this lesson I will continue with the sub-editing of the pages. I will also try receive feedback so that I can produce second drafts Homework 1: Create the second drafts of the DPS Homework 2: Create the second drafts of the DPS Homework 3: Create the second drafts of the DPS Exams/other subject deadlines: 12th February Graphics interview (York St John) 13th February ICT overall hand in
Half term	17th Feb	Homework: Complete Monitoring and make sure that blog elements are complete
6	24th	1 Ensure that my product is consistent- In this lesson I will ensure that my product is aesthetically pleasing and follows a certain and consistent standard throughout. 2 contingency lesson- I’m leaving this lesson free just in case something is wrong with my product. 3 contingency lesson- I’m leaving this lesson free just in case something is wrong with my product. 4 Project Monitoring & contingency lesson- I’m leaving this lesson free just in case something is wrong with my product. Homework 1: contingency period- I’m leaving this period free just in case something is wrong with my product. Homework 2: contingency period- I’m leaving this period free just in case something is wrong with my product. Homework 3: contingency period- I’m leaving this period free just in case something is wrong with my product. Exams/other subject deadlines:
	3rd  Mar	Audience/Assessor Review Week 1 Create Audience review questionnaire 2 Teacher assessment of project 3 & 4 Complete prep work for evaluation E exam Unit 5 Blog Deadline 7th March

Article plan “YouTube- A Ticking Time Bomb”

Article Planning Sheet-

“YouTube- A Ticking Time Bomb”

Article target audience: 17-24 males ABC1

	Planning Comments
article genre	The article genre is online video and film. The purpose of the article is to inform YouTube video/film makers or aspiring YouTube film makers what is happening to the the service and they are taking advantage of their users.
Narrative voice	The article will be 1st person from a YouTube’s point of view. This way the reader will experience the frustration that most video makers are experiencing.
Register	The register of the article will be informal using a wide range of colloquial language and mild use of taboo.
Stylistics	The stylistics of this article will use a wide range of powerful adjectives to exaggerate Google and YouTube’s situation. The article will include many metaphors to compare the situation to other services.
Tone of address	The tone of the article will be quite humorous and ironic yet jargornistic at times.
Structure and pace	Due to the age of my target audience it is important that my article is structured in short paragraph and sentences.

Contingency Plan

Problem	How will you avoid or solve this problem?
Loose or break a USB drive	Back-up using multiple online storage services such as sky drive or Google drive. I will also ensure that the files will be saved on multiple computers and the college network space. Another method which has proved effective for me in the past is emailing the file to yourself.
You save work in a place and then cant remember where you saved it.	To save time looking for this you could double check that it’s saved in the correct place and also back it up. I will take use of the college’s cloud storage services to search for the files in my work area and then relocating to a more suitable folder.
Camera breaks	Make sure you have a secondary camera or make sure the pictures are going to a SD card. I have my own DSRL which I keep on me most of the time.
Problems with model	If the model does not turn up then I would have a back up model. To check if my model is going to participate in the shoot I will have to keep contacting them on a regular basis using different methods of communication such as Skype, texting and Facebook. If I cannot contact them for any reason I will try to replace the model ASAP.
Make sure that the photos are great quality.	Take a few sample photos at the beginning of the shoot just to check if the camera is functioning correctly, if the photos are out of focus and check the quality of the photos in general. I may need to change some of the camera settings to suit the environment I’m taking the photos in. It maybe case of changing the lens to ensure that the quality is reasonable.
Software breaks or crashes	Make sure that I have a backup of all the work in that software. I have purchased many pieces of software and downloaded on to my own computer such as Photoshop, InDesign and Microsoft word.
Running out of network space	You ask the administrator more network space at least gigabyte. If this does not work then use online storage such as dropbox, external hard drives or just delete files that you don’t need.
Deleting files	Go to the network admin and ask him for the latest back up of the work. Use multiple methods of backing up your work.