Oct Calendar

This is my Calendar for the month of October. I worked very hard this month and I spent all of my time productively. I don't think I will be able to keep this speed of work up but I am pleased with all the progress I made.

Contents Page Flat-plan

This flatplan is very exciting is full of interest.
 I think that it covers many conventions and will appeal to an audience because of the visual interest. The amount of subimages may be too many for a mature audience and could alienate older people - however, I will see how this looks when I fill this flatplan with the images
. It's very different from the minimalistic front cover but this will create contrast between the two pages and separate the two function of the pages.
 I will be going for a red colour scheme here and I will expiriment with less standard fonts on the page title - though the features section will only have standard fonts as I need it to be readable or it doesn't do it's job.
The photos that I use will be filtered and edited slightly. The photos will be the focus of the page instead of text to reflect my teen/young adult target audience as they are quite young and will prefer visuals over blocks of text.

29th Oct

Aims:

- Create cover flatplan
- Create contents flatplan

Reflect:
I have created two flatplans. Both are similar to magazines that already exist so that they will look professional. I believe that I've covered many conventions and that these will look professional.

Front Cover Flat-plan

This is a very simplistic flatplan and I've based it from this image:

The Fly is a British Indie mag like my own and they were relatively popular. I feel as if the simplicity and minimalism is aesthetically pleasing and I could base my magazine around it.

This flatplan appeals to me because of the minimalism. I think it would stand out from its competitors because of its simple approach. It would look different clean amongst it's competitors crowded pages that are over-stuffed with content. I'm going to have the background white like done with The Fly (to further my attempt at minimalism.) The fonts I use will emphasise the minimalistic approach and they will be simple.

28th Oct

Aims:

- Look at photoshoot images
- Choose best images

Reflect:

I feel as if I've chosen the best of the images though it was a tough choice because there were a lot of good images to choose from. I will use the images I have selected in my final product.

Photoshoot

Overall, my photoshoot was a huge success and we made the most of the two hours that we were in there, taking a range of photos. We took the photos that we needed in just over an hour and then had just under an hour left in the studio. Because of this, we had a chance to take some additional photos. As I said in my minisite on model choice, I have some very creative girls who had a lot of ideas of their own. When our ideas merged, we came up with some additional poses together. All of the girls understood the importance of their facial expressions and body language - which was much appreciated. 

To look at the photos we took, I have put them into gifs using imgflip. This is a good way to show off all the photos that I took.

Pose 1:

Pose 2:

Pose 3:

Pose 4:

Pose 5:

Misc poses:

Best photos:

This photo was the final one of the set. After we took the first photos, we reviewed them and we looked at how to improve - then we took this one based on the improvements. What set this photo out from the others was that Leah's stance was a lot more relaxed and natural. Her facial expression was meant to mimic the invitational expression and I felt that she did it best in this particular photo. Eve struggled with having her hand against her face as it didn't look or feel natural. The more that Eve worked with it, the more comfortable she felt. In some of the other images, she'd struggled with her smile as well - either smiling too wide or looking too uninterested. With this one, she had the invitational face was perfect. Becky managed to do almost all of her photos well as she managed to have a stance that looked relaxed and natural, however, in reality was totally focused. In the earlier photos we took, the girls were more spaced out - which I wasn't too fond of. However, in this image - the girls were close together. I wanted them like this to show a bond between them and show them as a group of friends. 

Eve nailed the super smiler expression just as she had done in the earlier post on facial expressions. We took photos from different angles and we experimented with the intensity of the smile. However, this photo was, firstly, the most attractive in my opinion and, secondly, her facial expression was very vibrant and exciting. Another reason I chose this image was because the headphones were very visible.

Becky did very well with her pose. Her body is on a slight angle, tilting to the left. This is an interesting pose. Her head is also lifted ever so slightly more than it was in some of the other photos that I took.  In some, her face was barely visible at all - which wasn't optimal. The headphones had to remain visible at all points - though the parts her hands resting on are not visible at all due to the nature of the pose.

This is one of the most exciting photos that I took because it's an action shot. This was taken when Leah was throwing her hair around and back. Because we used a very professional Canon camera, I managed to take these shots. If they'd been taken on a weaker camera, this photo would've been blurry. One of the reasons that this photo was so difficult to take was that the hair kept going out of shot and facial expression was hard to control. Leah did better than most would have done I think and managed to keep her face from becoming too scrunched up but a little scrunching was impossible to avoid. Also, if the hair got in front of the headphones, the shot was ruined because the headphones needed to stay visible. In this shot, they remain fully visible.

This photo was one of the most difficult to take. We ended up changing this the most from the original shot from which everyone was sitting on the floor. This photo was taken with the addition of a couch. The reason we chose to make such a change was that Leah firstly felt uncomfortable in the position. Plus, the pose that Jesy from Little Mix was doing, the one we were taking inspiration from, was quite difficult for most people to get into as her back was quite curved. It's quite likely it was made this way through photoshop but also from the fact that Jesy is a dancer and therefore is more flexible than the average person. Another problem that was evident was that the girls were too far apart. This could have been an oversight on my part as Becky is the tallest of the girls and she was the one standing. She towered over the girls and it was difficult to get them all in the shot. Bringing in the couch and having them all on the same level made the shot easier to take. One more problem was making sure that the candy fell in the right place. Our crew was limited. I was taking the photos and my models were modelling. Thankfully, my mother stepped in to throw the candy onto the umbrella. She could only throw it from the side of the set though and therefore we only had candy on one side. This can be fixed later using photoshop and editing. 

 

               These photos are very ranged. I may use them as subimages. I need to look into making flatplans and decide whether or not I will use subimages. If I decide to use them, I will analyse these poses more then. Each pose was talked through and has been done for specific reasons. 

Whilst we had the studio, we took this photo of me to use if I decide to have an editors note. Editors note tend to very chatty and informal so I went for a pose that was quite informal and fun. This pose has open body language and isn't very serious,  so I feel that it would fit perfectly. 

Getting ready

Prior to the photoshoot, my three models came to my house to do hair and make-up. They did their own makeup but I sat next to them and briefed them on color and style. We also recorded the process of doing the makeup with this video. I was going to record doing hair as well however, due to the decision to leave it natural, there was no real way to record this.

This video showcases all three girls doing their eyemakeup. The shoulder to the right of the model is mine and I can be seen making suggestions. I'm very happy with how the girls looked and I feel that it was very appropriate for the photoshoot.

Alternate video: