Magazine Advert Research

Below are magazine adverts from Indie genres. Typically I think it is best to follow the codes and conventions of the adverts and this is an indictor of what already works well for the target audience however I could challenge the codes and conventions as Indie culture is based upon differentiation. Common characteristics that have appear is that the picture of the artist is usually a medium close up and this can be seen amongst all the averts below. Another convention that I noticed was the the Artist name was either above or below the artists head and is always in a font that is at least twice the size of the album name.

Production Diary: Entry

Today I continued editing the music video from 9am till 10.30am.

Production diary: Entry

Today in my lunch times and free periods I continued to edit the music video with the footage my partner and I had filmed on the 11th of December.

Adobe Photo Shop

In my media lesson today I learnt the basics about adobe photo shop and how I would use it to create the magazine advert. This included how to add layers, how to change the font and size of words. In addition to this I was taught how to adjust the texture of the words for example from sharp to smooth as well as change the colour of the text. Below are some examples of what I did in class today and how I played around with photo shop in order to get the hang of it.

Editing: What I have done so far

Below is our music video and what I have edited so far this may change as after looking at it my partner and I found elements that we did not think worked well and
would need to be changed in order for us to meet our expectation of level 3/4.

Production Diary: Entry

As some of our footage was a little shaky I researched on Google how to edit this. I then discover a tool called stabilisation which detects any hand movement and tries to slow it down to seem as if it’s not shaky this became very useful when editing from 1.46 onwards as initially this part of the footage would have not been used if this editing technique was not added to it.

Final cut technique: overlaying

After watching a video tutorial on YouTube I decided that overlaying was a simple and effective technique that would transform our media product if used and that further on during the editing process I would experiment more with this technique.

Overlaying Used In The Music Video

Below are screen shots of when the technique over laying is used in my media product

Music Video Deleted

Unfortunately today when i went to edit the music video all my work had been deleted. Mr Roberts believed that this was to too many students using the hard drive or final cut pro crashing. As no one actually knew the cause of it and the IT technician could not recover it I had to stat editing all over again which has inconvenienced me.

Production Diary: Entry

Today I used played around with different effects on final cut pro including colour wash, how to add heat to footage and how to make footage black and white below is the tools I used in order to carry this out effectively.

Slow and Fast Sequence

Production Diary: Entry Six

Today in Mr Roberts lesson we evaluated each other preliminary tasks; fast and slow sequences. From evaluating ours peers videos we learnt how camera shots and angles as well as good editing can change a music video from being a level three to a level four. below is a table that shows the classes response to our fast/slow sequence the table includes the strong and weak elements of the video and what we could do to improve this.


Audience feedback for fast/slow sequence

Production Diray Entry Five

Today my partner and I finished editing our preliminary task. From completing this task I learnt the importance of planning and other elements such as the storyboard. This process will definately help me to produce a sucessful music video as it teaches us the importance of script writing storybord and how to edit footage effectively it also depicts how to create different moods using music, filming and editing whether thats with a slow or face pace song.

Production Diary: Entry Four

After discussing and sharing ideas about the preliminary task. My partner and I decided that it would be best if we made a storyboard each for each one of the sequences based on our individual ideas. I opted to do the fast sequence as I felt it would go more with the ideas that I brainstormed i.e. the robot dance movements.

Below is an animated story board that I created for the fast sequence, as my partner did not create the story board for the slow sequence I cannot upload it onto my blog.

Production diary: Entry Three

Today I contacted my friend that said he would help us with our preliminary task. I thought of him as he was reliable when used to make our AS preliminary task so I knew he wouldn’t let us down. I informed him of the day, time and location of the filming; Friday the 15th of June at 9am till 10am in the common room. In order for the preliminary task to be a success he had to ensure that he had all the appropriate clothing and props e.g., different coloured t-shirts and hats.

Production Diary: Entry Two

Today’s lesson consisted of our class listening to the track that we had to create visuals to for, the preliminary task. The first time the track was played we had to just sit and listen to it. The second time we wrote down our ideas, or what came to mind when we heard it, then we shared these ideas and discussed what was actually possible to achieve in the set time limit we had.


After listening to the track and brainstorming these are the ideas that I had in mind:
•Top cat
•A person doing the robot dance
•Someone constantly looking around
•A person tapping their feet
•Hand gestures
•An individual counting down for something to happen
•Various close ups
•Angles constantly changing as well as the person’s image


At first my partner couldn’t grasp my ideas and thought they were a little strange. After looking over it I combined majority of my ideas together. As the character top cat is deemed to be a cool person that has a vivid walk a thought that our preliminary sequence should have a “cool” element to it and this could be the idea of them doing the robot, as well as this my other ideas such as taping their feet and hand gestures could be implemented as well. It order to make it interesting we could use various angles and shots. Although not all my ideas were used some were changed for example instead of changing the individuals physical appearance we decided to change their clothes instead as this would be more practical and could be completed in the time limit set.

Production Diary: Entry One

After our lesson with Mr Roberts the class was informed that in order for our music videos to be a success we had to create visuals to a slow and fast piece of music. We were advised to 5 seconds shots and not to make the actor/actress not to do much work as it would test our camera and editing skills. In addition to this it would help us gather ideas for our final production pieces.