The image on the left is the front cover from my preliminary task, and the image on the right is the finished cover from my main task of creating a conventional acoustic magazine.
It is rather difficult to compare my front cover and contents page from my prelim to my final drafts, as they were based on completely different topics. However, by learning to use different technologies and software, I feel like I have learnt a lot since and am much more pleased with my main task cover compared to my prelim one now.
Looking back at my preliminary front cover, it is actually rather plain and boring in comparison to my music magazine cover. I didn’t realise at the time, how little colour I had used and how much space was left unused. If I had to go back and edit this particular task, I think I would make numerous changes, mainly as I feel more confident on using different software and that I have much more knowledge of the conventions of magazines etc.
Regarding the contents page of my preliminary task, again, I feel it appears rather boring due to the lack of any colour, which on reflection wouldn’t appeal to my target audience. Although, I’ve always said less is more, I don’t think I pulled this off with my preliminary contents page! At the time I was really pleased with the end result, however, in comparison to my main task contents page I think it looks more professional. I remember thinking at the time what the point of a preliminary task was and now, on reflection, I understand why as I fell I have learnt so much since and hopefully this shows.
Although at the time, I thought I had spent a lot of time perfecting this task, I wouldn’t say on reflection I had taken as much care and attention as I have done with my main task and I believe this is rather evident with the results of each page. Now I realise if you put all your time and effort into your work, then the stress will definitely pay off with the results. Also, the fact we only had 2 weeks (roughly) to make a front cover and contents page, we didn’t have much time to plan things to the last detail to perfect the magazine, like we were able to in this task.
I think one of the main things I realised from doing the preliminary task is research and timing is vital! If I didn’t plan out my timings or researched about the conventions of the magazines, I wouldn’t have had a clue how to have gone about making my music magazine. For my prelim, I didn’t spend half the time researching than I did for my main task. Therefore, I realised the more research you do the more chances of producing a conventional and profession product. When it comes down to time management, I would say I am a rather organised person, so I tried not to leave things to last minute. Due to the fact I went on holiday for a week, I had to make sure I was up to date with work (if not ahead) to ensure that I didn’t fall behind and have loads to catch up on when I came home. I feel that overall, I have learnt a lot about carrying out detailed research in order for my final product to be the best that it can possible be by putting in the effort and planning out my time efficiently.
Since my prelim task I have learnt a lot about reliability, for example, I was planning to use my friend to be my model for my magazine pictures. However, due to the fact that she lives a while a way, it was hard to find a day we were both free, so I decided to use myself, as I would be more reliable. Although I didn’t like this idea at first, due to the fact I’m not that confident in front of the camera, I knew that I had to complete this task, so I had to put my insecurities to one side and get on with the photo shoot. Additionally, I made sure that I took the mise-en-scene into consideration for my main task, as I didn’t really think about this in my prelim task. I knew I wanted a white background, but I suppose the toilets weren’t the best place to takes pictures for my task reflecting back on it. Therefore, I made sure that I planned out where to take the pictures for my main task and look at the weather forecast beforehand, to ensure that I took my pictures on a sunny day. The best time of day is usually around about mid-day, so I kept this in mind, ensuring I stuck to my shooting schedule and following the to do list I made, so I got everything I wanted. Another mistake I made in the prelim task was that I didn’t take hardly any photos, so I was restricted on which ones to use. This caused me several problems, as I couldn’t ask my models the following day to take some more, as they wouldn’t have been wearing the same clothes the day after. As I wanted to keep continuity throughout my prelim, this wasn’t an option and just had to make do with the ones I had already taken. Therefore, I took this mistake into consideration for my main task and took over 100 photos to make sure I didn’t do the same things again.
In comparison to the preliminarily task, we only had to make the front cover and contents page of a school magazine, so I had no experience of making a double page spread until we started researching what the typical conventions where for the main task. I think due to the lack of experience of making double page spread, I found this one the most difficult at first. However, once I had created it I felt that this was my best page and I guess this could be down to the fact that I had never made one before and it was more of an achievement doing that with no previous experience like in the task before we had with the front cover and contents page.
Overall, I would say that constructing the preliminary task was really helpful, as I learnt a lot about time management, how important research is, as well as making sure I put the most effort into my work as I possibly could. It has also made me aware of how much of a perfectionist I truly am too, which is not always necessarily a bad thing! Not only this, I have learnt about new technologies that I had never even heard of before, as well as taking into consideration that your target audience must be your mine priority at all times, because without them you’d have no magazine sales.
