Production Review Week 1

When looking back at my schedule, I set out this week in my lessons to:

a) a photo-shoot for both my front cover and for my ‘Cuts Crisis’ article

b) pulling all the images from my photo-shoot in York, as well as my photo-shoot in the studio, and deciding which ones I think work the best

c) start editing up the images for the York article, front cover and Cuts article

For homework I set out to:

a) staying at college and in media, and continuing with the front cover production, by this point, adding in the main sell lines, and starting to construct the final layout

b) looking over the first DPS I did for University Blues as I have already mocked it up

c) beginning to write the article for the ‘Cuts Crisis’ article

Out of the things I set out to do, I have completed all of the above except for editing the York images and Budget Cuts, and this is due to me working with my schedule almost entirely and really trying to follow it, as it makes my life easier if I can keep a structure. 

The reason for not editing my York and Cuts images was because I have taken more time editing my other images for the front cover, and came across an issue after the photo-shoot, in which the image I wanted to use didn't quite fit the page dimensions, thus I have to re-shoot it, which set me back slightly. However this concentration on the front cover has enabled to me get it to a stage where it is nearly finished, and then I can leave it alone, and go back to it in the coming weeks.  This has meant that although the editing of the York and Cuts images hasn't been successful, the progress with the front cover has been, so I can now free up the time I set aside for the front cover to go and start editing the images in the coming week.

The shoot itself was a success as the images I have, minus the one image I had to re-shoot worked well, this was due to the lighting been set up in the butterfly effect that I wanted to use and the being models ready to work, and enthusiastic which is always helpful. Also they came prepared with everything I asked of them, and my props were built over the weekend so they were ready to use.

These are some shots from my photo-shoot. The top shot of Joe has been edited up since then, as is the photo which is on my front cover as you can see below. I brightened the image up, as well as using auto colour, auto tone and auto contrast to balance the image out, before finally using the dodge tool to lighten up the background.

I will begin to edit the 'cuts crisis' images in the coming weeks when I start production on that particular DPS, as it makes more sense to do it at the time of creating that page, than before hand.

This is where my front cover is currently at, and as you can see, I have got quite far this week, and hopefully by next Tuesday I can leave it and start to move onto my DPS's. By editing the image on Wednesday I could move into designing the page. I already had all but one of the fonts selected from my mock up last year, so I knew which ones I wanted to use. The title font used on the 'Liquorice' logo took some time to choose as I changed my mind from my flat plans, but I kind of knew the style I wanted and by going on Dafont.com it didn't take long to find one that worked well.

I think the reason for getting it to this stage was simply working in my frees and coming into Media when I had the time to and this was really because I wanted to be able to nearly finish it, which now frees up my time at the end of production to look back and make any changes then, instead of dragging this part of production out for too long. I think the front cover production this week has therefore been pretty successful, and I am really happy with what I have got at the moment.

The other things I have done this week was looking over my University DPS. This was successful as I could really concentrate on the parts that needed editing, and because of my target audience feedback, I had actually already made the changes needed beforehand, so it was a case of simply looking over it, and then using the colour schemes from it in my front cover to create and brand and continuity with the article. 

In terms of my 'Cuts Crisis' article, this has been drafted, and I am now at the stage where it can be proof read and any editing that needs doing can be done in the coming week. This is something I need to factor into my time, and make sure that this gets read by Mark, and checked over, but because I am ahead of schedule on this particular homework, I should be able to factor it in easier than if it was not fully drafted.