Evaluation - Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product

The preliminary task was set very early on during the A-Level course and at this point I did not have a particularly good knowledge on Photoshop which meant that the overall design of the Sixth Form magazine was much more basic then the design of my Music magazine.
In the editing process of the preliminary task I began to find my feet with the tools that are included within Photoshop. The editing of the preliminary task was very basic for the Sixth Form magazine and I knew that in order to improve I would have to push myself even further for the actual project. The models for my Sixth Form magazine were wearing simple suits, which is the uniform policy for Sixth Form, however for my actual Music magazine I was allowed creative freedom with the mise-en-scene and this allowed me to get the photos with the models exactly how I wanted them in the final product.
Once I got used to the camera I felt as though my photos had improved from the preliminary task. The preliminary photos was a simple portrait photo of two students standing in front of a wall and the editing process was very minimal at most, however when it came to the actual project I made sure that I used different angles for the photos and tried to do more editing to the photos which I feel as though I accomplished.
In the final product I made sure that I added barcodes, Issue numbers and dates in order to give it a realistic feel, and make it feel as though someone could go out and purchase the magazine. This was helped with the amount of music magazines we had studied in previous sections of the actual task, as well as feedback that I received after the preliminary task. I also looked into the pricing of rival magazines in order to make my magazine seem more real and this helped with the little details that I felt were important for the magazine.
The preliminary task helped me to begin to understand the software that I would be using for the project and I feel as though I made progress on my Music magazine based on the mistakes that I made on the preliminary task.