Media Studies Coursework Evaluation

Untitled from Euan Lynn on Vimeo.

Finished magazine

Diary entry 7

This week, I have further evolved my magazine, based on both the feedback I recieved from peers and from feedback directly from teachers. I mainly focussed on my front cover, improving both the layout and general look.
I also compiled the entries that I need for my planning blog, to meet the Thursday deadline.

Edited images

For this photograph, I used the dodge tool in Photoshop to lighten the background underneath the text - this makes the black text stand out much better. I also adjusted the exposure, contrast and saturation to improve the look of the image.

I heavily cropped this photo, to improve it's look and remove any undesired elements from it. It's also cropped to a square format to fit in with my contents page.

I used the clone stamp and healing brush on this photo to remove any blemishes on the skin, and the reflections from his eyes. I also played around with the exposure, contrast and saturation to improve the look of the photo. It is also cropped to a square format to suit my contents page.

This is the most heavily Photoshopped image I have produced - using the clone stamp and spot healing brush I completely removed the doors from the background. This was a hard job to do, as I had to preserve both the shadows and the effect of the light on the wall behind. I then increased the saturation to increase the impact of the photo, and cropped it square to make it fit in with my contents page.

Other than increasing the contrast, exposure and saturation of this photograph, the only thing I have done is crop it - I made sure to preserve the original format of the photograph. One of the main pieces of feedback I recieved was the way this photo was cropped, as there was only half of the LIFE logo visible in the background. Despite efforts to photoshop the logo out, it was far too complicated, and instead I opted simply to crop the photograph differently.

Original images

Picture plan

Picture	Time and date	Model / pose / costume	Location	Lighting	Set-up time	Mise-en-scene	Camera angle and distance
1	2pm 12/3	Joe Playing music Casual clothes	Center For Life	Outdoor, plain	5 minutes	Plain, street	Low angle – medium distance
2	2:30pm 12/3	Joe Posing with gameboy Casual clothes	Center for Life	Outdoor, plain	5 minutes	Plain, wall	Straight angle, medium shot
3	5pm 13/3	Rachael Looking down, aiming flash at self Casual clothes	Home	Chiroscuro	10 minutes	Plain	Medium shot, straight
4	2pm 15/3	Matt Confused/scared Can’t see clothes	School	Flat	10 minutes	Plain background	Straight, close up

Rough Cut Feedback

In my feedback, I was praised for my images and colour scheme. However, I was also given some bits of constructive criticism – the front cover, for example, is missing it’s date and issue number, and the caption “TAKE TO THE STREETS” is not particularly clear. I will be sure to rectify this for my final draft, as the date and issue are important conventions.

On the contents page, my photography again was praised, as well as the continuation of my front cover’s style, including the colour scheme. However, it has been noted that there are some dead spaces – I will adjust my layout accordingly to fill these spaces. It has been mooted that the text is fairly difficult to read – this is mostly due to the awful contrast of the screen the magazine was displayed on, but I will experiment with fonts, colours and sizes to try and rectify this.

My photo from my double page spread was also praised highly, as was the positioning of the quote I used. However, I need to remove the black line marking the middle of the sheet, and readjust the photograph so the background is more neutral and clear.