Magazine Post

As my class transitioned from learning factors apart of film production to media, I was introduced to magazine conventions. Through learning about magazine conventions we broke down what magazines should include some of these being the masthead, cover lines, strips or banners, puffs, dates and even details such as the barcode. We discussed and took notes on the significance of each convention, understanding their purpose. To get a better picture of these conventions in action we looked at examples and then went on to label a magazine, identifying these conventions. Practices like these were able to help me recall and use these conventions properly when making my own magazine.

When deciding my genre choice regarding my magazine, I took into consideration that I wanted it to draw in the younger generation such as young adults and teens who want to expand their taste and discover underrated artists, places and shops. Therefore, I went ahead with choosing a entertainment/lifestyle genre to use for my magazine. To adhere to my genre, I used, bright colors with a more sophisticated font to attract the audience. This makes my magazine pop and get people interested about what the magazine entails, but is not super overpowering.

To achieve this, I used a colorful cover image that matched with the masthead, "Undercover" as the image is a blurry image, making the magazine more interesting. With my masthead I wanted to communicate a bold, yet mature and cultured magazine that gives insight to things about music, food, places that are not talked about as much. I used puffs to show other things my magazine will cover to show this and multiple coverlines.

When creating my magazine cover, I came across challenges and successes that encouraged me to learn how to use Adobe Indesign and how it works. For instance, when it came to adding text, changing fonts and controlling text size and spacing, I was easily able to navigate. This helped me make my coverlines and masthead in my magazine as well as my strips at the bottom. What I also was able to accomplish was making a puff using a shape tool that included a variety of shapes which I was also able to use to change the background color. When making these shapes, I was challenged by changing the color as it seemed more complicated. Sometimes, when toggling with the color it wouldn't let me change it, or prevent me from doing so. As I kept working with the software, I eventually had a better understand of how to work around these challenges by changing the editing approach from ''Advanced" to touch to make it more simple.



  From this process, I was able to learn and practice creating the conventions of a magazine and how to then apply the foundations in a way where I can produce a magazine based on a genre. I was able to get more comfortable with Adobe Indesign and the features available to me so in later projects, I will be able to efficiently produce magazine covers in a more timely matter. I also now can recognize a magazine conventions almost automatically as I am more familiar with the conventions in general. Due to this, creating my portfolio project will be less intimidating as I can more so focus on the creativity and content then worry about editing or applying foundations as much.

 

Video Editing Practice Blog Reflection

  As I progress through Aice Media Studies, I was recently introduced to Premiere Pro, an editing software that enables creativity and limitless possibilities through its numerous tools and features. To understand the basics of the software, I first watched videos provided by The Academy of Scholastic Broadcasting that walked me through on how to use crucial tools that provide a foundation of editing. These videos included tutorials on every step of the progress even before even editing in the software. Tutorials from showing how to prepare media and adjusting audio to exporting a edit correctly. 

  While watching the tutorials, I was following along to explore the software for myself and play around with it to get myself more familiar. As I followed along, I understood how to prepare media and organize clips to ensure an easy process while transitioning to editing. I was able to learn how to locate my clips, organize the types of media into groups and edit it before putting it into a timeline. This made things easier as I went along through tutorials as creating new sequences, making edits on a timeline and putting text to efficiently use lower thirds.  

  Creating the clip was overall fun since I was able to see my vision for the video come to life. Deciding what parts of B-Roll I wanted to use to cover cuts between interviews was entertaining while it allowed me to be creative and connect clips to the actual answers of the customers. I enjoyed adding in audio to create a welcoming fun and playful tone in my video. Adding the audio in the beginning and the ending made my video feel more complete. Throughout the process it took patience while I had trial and errors.

  These trial and errors took place while I was still learning to get comfortable with the software. While creating my clip, I had some challenges especially when it came to tiny details. Some of these challenges included understanding how to manipulate audio so that the sound and focus on certain clips stood out more than others. I also had trouble understanding sequences at first as I didn't understand the point, but then after adding another sequence I saw that it helped to break up the editing process so that everything is less complicated. Lastly, as for challenges, I wanted to add cleaner transitions and time them properly, but my custom timing would not work. Moving forward, I want to learn how to get more familiar with the timings and the types of transitions I can use in a timeline so that I can create a smoother video overall.

  Despite the challenges that came along with creating the clip, I had many successes. Many of these successes had to do with my approach to the fundamentals. The use of B-roll specifically was fun to use as I was able to use overlapping to create smooth transitions between interviews and clips used to show what the interviews were talking about. This was able to make my clip seem much more cohesive overall. I also was able to use the organization folders that the tutorials had suggested to create. These folders helped organize my media and overall have a smoother process.

  Altogether, in future projects I will use my experience with creating this clip to practice and navigate the software faster and more effectively. I will use fundamentals to be able to create the basis for projects in my portfolio and get a better grasp of the different ways I can use it. I will also use this to see and work on the parts of editing I still need to get familiar with so I can later utilize more tools in adobe.

 
This will help me with my portfolio project while it will support me in major parts of the process of my project. These parts include editing and organizing my media to help me work most effectively when it comes to using the timeline. Not only this but as I make more projects in the software, I will be able to better understand little details that I may want to use in my portfolio project.

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