Skills Development – Evaluation essay

   Previous to starting As media studies , the only real knowledge I had on media was the fact it involved studying different types of media such as magazine and TV shows as well as films to look for conventions for specific genres. However I didn’t know what these conventions where and how exactly they were used in order to create an effective media piece. Before choosing media at Wyke I had no understanding of what technologies where involved in creating media products and didn’t consider myself as a creative type of person, yet I had used different types of cameras such as compact, bridge and SLR’s and in addition had used Photoshop on several occasions.
The course content of media entailed creating a perfume advertisement which initially was quite scary as I had never before created a media piece, the perfume advertisement had to be first sketched, images to be taken and then to edit on Photoshop. This idea of creativity is something which I struggled with so decided to take the perfume bottle and take pictures of it from all angles and prospective, I then chose the image I liked and began editing it. Looking at existing products for inspiration was essential as it gave me an idea of how brands advertise their products effectively  using semiotics and media language. Semiotics are signs and symbols which are essentially hidden media language for example, red means love or danger. Media Language falls into the acronym of  ‘LIIAR’ which stands for Language, Institution, Ideology , Audience and representation. This acronym is to be thought of when producing any media product or analysing an existing media product. The institution being the association which publishes the product, the ideology being the values and beliefs of either the institution or the main focus of the media product, the audience being who the product is going to appeal to and who it is aimed at and representation is how the ideology is portrayed through either mise-en-scene or the media product itself.
I needed to establish my target population and audience for both my college magazine and music magazine, for my college magazine it felt quite straight forward because the people interested in a college magazine would be either the students or the teachers, so the content had to relate to either education or exam techniques and guides. However my music magazine wasn’t as clear. I knew who I wanted to aim my magazine at and what kind of ideology and representation I wanted to illustrate yet I didn’t know how to include different interests to broaden my audience and make my audience choose my magazine over any other. To gather this research I looked at NME’s reader profile and that gave me an understanding of what other interests people who read NME have and what they spend their spare time doing other than listening to music. It gave me an understanding of what type of people read NME and how NME appeal to their audience. From reading the reader profile I then concluded that NME cater more for the male audience and therefor include many other interests in which a male might have. This was useful when creating my music magazine as through the use of the internet I established how to appeal to my audience.
Demographics was something I had never heard of until starting media studies. Demographics are measurable characteristics of media consumers such as age, gender, race , education and income level and are used to identify who your customers are now and in the future, where they live and how likely they are to purchase the product you are selling. By studying your customers and potential customers through demographics, you can identify changing needs in the marketplace and adjust to them. By using the social grading table I identified that I wanted to aim my magazine at the lower middle class and skilled working class so therefore would not price my magazine very high and would have my magazine issued every other week.
I used several different technologies whilst creating both my perfume advertisement, college magazine and music magazine, which helped me greatly with research and planning as well as the production of the media products. The internet benefited me greatly while doing my research as it allowed me to explore the existing products and allowed me to produce a LIIAR analysis based on my own opinion as well as the information given by the institutions, for example my music magazine was focused on NME. From the research I conducted on the internet, I was then able to develop my creativity skills. NME have an online version of their magazine which allowed me to see the latest copies every week and allowed me to understand what the conventions are of magazines and what the strongest selling points are. The images on the front cover were mainly of one artist or band so I followed this by making the front cover of my magazine have just want artist. The main conventions of a magazine in general consist of the magazine having a masthead, the date, issue number, price of the magazine and a barcode as well as pull quotes on the front cover leading to other articles within the magazine. Knowing these conventions helped me produce my  college magazine and from that I had the basic understanding to then create my music magazine. All the images I used when creating all of my media products such as the perfume advertisement, college magazine and music magazine had to be original and for this I needed to use a camera and have people willing to be in the photos. Once I had gathered my models and I had to arrange a time and place to take the images, I could then edit them on Photoshop.
Peer feedback helped to recognise what was affective when creating my music magazine and how my work could have been improved, by having the feedback from my teacher and class members it allowed me to make changes which my target population felt would make the magazine appeal to them more.