Case Studies and Preliminary Task

So, I haven't really been blogging what I've been doing since last Friday, and I've been doing quite a bit to do with my course since then, so this is kind of like a diary post and I'm just going to outline what I've been doing this past week or so.

Saturday

Bought my magazines for my Case Studies - Q and NME. For my coursework, I wanted to do a CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) magazine, but there aren't actually any CCM magazines available in the UK. There is one, sort of, but it's only available from the website which at the moment is closed for maintenance. However, as CCM is basically music with lyrics inspired by the Christian faith, it covers many musical genres - from folk to heavy metal. Therefore, as I knew I wanted to do CCM that is rock and indie-style, I used Q and NME magazine as these are indie-style magazines and would therefore give me a good idea of how to do an indie magazine.

On Saturday I also analysed the front cover, contents page, and a DPS of Q magazine. I was going to do NME first, but I discovered that because it was a 60th anniversary issue, there wasn't really a contents page as such, but just one page that said where the 60th anniversary article started, so I decided to ask my teacher about this and analyse Q first.

Monday

On Monday, my Media lesson was cancelled because my teachers were on a trip. As it was my only morning lesson, I decided to do my work at home. In this time before my afternoon lessons started, I typed up my analysis of Q magazine. I scanned the front page, contents page and DPS and put the images onto PowerPoint. I then used the tools on PowerPoint to create a mind-map style analysis that incorporated my notes onto one page.

After college, I spoke to a Media teacher and showed them the problem I had with NME, but they said that it still worked as a contents page and that I could still analyse it. I therefore analysed the front cover, contents page and DPS on Monday evening and typed up my notes.

Also, after looking at the assignment brief again, I remembered that I had to look at the press pack for each magazine and learn about the audience, and also do some research on the publishers of each magazine. Therefore, I got online once more and found the press pack for Q and NME and did research on the publishers. I found it quite difficult to find the press packs of each magazine, but I figured out how to find them:

1. Find out who publishes the magazine
2. Find the publisher's advertising website
3. Find the magazine on the advertising website
4. The press pack/media kit should be there

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I had my first Media lesson of the week. We were working on our Preliminary Tasks - the student magazine - and we were finishing off our plans. We also began taking pictures. I took a picture of my cover star, and two pictures to use on the contents page. One of the pictures for the contents page was a close-up, but it also included the shoulders of the person I was taking a photo of, so I uploaded it onto Pic Monkey and cropped it so it looked how I wanted it to look. I then went onto PowerPoint and created some titles for the sections on my contents page, such as 'features' and 'regulars'. I also created a little title for articles that had been mentioned on the cover.