Moving on to main task

On Tuesday's lesson (24/02/09) we started the foundations which will turn into research, we done this by splitting into groups, we were then given four large sheets of paper, each depicted a different musical genre, these were: pop, rock, dance and hip-hop. We had to spring ideas from these genres, ideas of what sort of demographic these musical genres are aiming at, what colour clothes this target audience wore (this is important as we would have to use this colours in our magazine.) We also noted some sub-genres and some of the well known artists that related to these genres.

For pop we related the clothing type as being normal, everyday clothes, this is unless the song would fall under the category of 'cheesy pop' if the song did fall under this always cheerful sub-genre then the clothing would generally be a fun, bright and 'wacky' uniform, such uniform is shown in many songs by 'the cartoons' who are probably the most famous of the cheesy pop genre, which is necessarily something to be proud of.
Pop generally has a wide demographic, as anyone can get into songs by well known names such as Madonna, Kylie and Take That, the fact pop's audience can range from young to old is probably the reason pop music is what the masses endorse to the state of 'poptastic' songs dominating the charts, leaving other genres without a look in on such shows as 'top of the pops'
The lyrics featured in the songs are generally family friendly, meaning grand children and grand parents a like can appreciate this genre.

Rock generally goes hand in hand with dark colours and depressing lyrics and tones, however due to the wide range of sub genres that could be listed for rock it is difficult to place one dress code on the main genre, some of the sub-genres featured with rock are indie, heavy rock, screamo, grunge and alternative all of which carry their own unique dress codes and lyrics. To talk of rock though would normally make one envision baggy, scruffy, black clothing, this is so it can fully appeal to the majority of it's target audience of young teenagers who normally have angst's against everything and anyone. There has always been an older audience for rock though, due to the fact there are rock bands out there made up or 40 somethings such as metallica and iron maiden who are still going strong today and attracting young and old, however whatever the age the clothing is the same for rock stars, with black clothing seeming to be an essential.
The lyrics can once again range throughout the sub-genres, if one considers slightly less heavy forms of rock, such as indie and alternative the lyrics aren't as strong as in heavy rock, due to the fact indie bands often aim to go far in the charts so their lyrics cannot be too obscene. Once you start exploring heavy rock and emo lyrics you'll find nothing but depressing lyrics, where swearing and incoherent screams seem to be used as connectives and are evidently necessary at the end of every line.

The fans and followers of dance music usually throw on bright coloured clothing to go to the latest rave or dance party. For the females it's all about wearing as little as possible, and for the fellas it's about bright clothes that will get them more attention while they showcase their latest dance moves to impress the opposite sex. Dance music has a very small demographic, as it's only in ones youth that they can enjoy the fast paced, loud and bassy tones that are necessity for any good dance song. So generally speaking dance music is aimed at 18 - 22 year olds, who are still enjoying the club scenes in which dance music is played. There are many sub-genres that spring from dance music, ranging from rave to house, garage, techno, jungle and drum and bass.
It is hard to comment on the lyrics of dance music as frankly there are very little lyrics involved, as this genre is all about getting the drunk listeners to get to the dance floor to jump around and 'throw shapes.'

Hip-Hop followers generally wear clothes too big for them, often with big details scribbled over the front, all to create the impression that they are from bad neighbor hoods. This genre is definitely not one aimed at the family, due to the violent and sexist mannerism featured on nearly every track that labels itself under this genre. It would appeal to young teens, the lyrics normally relate to those in poverty, as the multi-millionaires that usually rap on hip-hop tracks talk of being poor and homeless, irony is strife throughout hip-hop.
There are many sub-genres that follow hip-hop, the most known is rap, rap has had it's fame in the charts thanks to stars such as eminem, who appeals to the masses, as he rarely talks about having sex with any girl with a pulse that go to the clubs, which is generally the repitive lyric recited by the artists who think it's the world against them.

Preliminary Task

In Thursday's double lesson we were given the time to start and complete our preliminary task.
I think i started off well, getting all the photos ready on seperate windows on photoshop, from here i could tell what would look good together, from this step i realised that two of my photos did not fit with the general mould that i was going for, and therefore i left them out.
When i started to transfer all the photos to my main window i was really happy with the way they worked together, i believe i got the fon size and colour just right, i was also happy with the article headings that accompanied my photos.
With all this in mind i was ready to finish, then i realised my bacjground was still plain, and looking round others looked like they put a lot of effort into theirs, so i set about changing mine, however there was no 'background' icon in sight, changing backgrounds is one of the things that i've never experimented with on photoshop, this resulted in me using the gradient tool, which does fill the whole background but never looks hugely professional. In the end i think i spent nearly half an hour experimenting with different colours and finally settled with one that was easily a case of 'the best of the worse' and the background colour is probably the thing i am most disappointed with, but luckily this is only the preliminary task so i hope that when the main task comes i can remember the difficulties i had with trying to find a background and be more prepared.
Another factor i believe i could have improved is my contents page, which i had an extension of about 20 minutes into lunch time to finish, but the prospect of me eating my lunch was fresh in my mind, so i'm ashamed to admit i did rush my contents page and it did not involve a huge amount of planning like my front cover did.
However i believe both of these weaknesses can be worked on, and hopefully by the time the main task needs to be completed i would have revised these issues.

Photo time

In tuedays lesson we were given camera's and told to go off into the big world of St. marks and take photos. This is where i'm glad i planned my photos, as it was merely a case of finding the right candidates, luckily there were many people around in free or study periods who happily posed for me. I got some crucial pictures which will go well with the article headings i've planned to use, i'm confident the pictures i took will suffice, as i have a good mix of students and teachers, i even managed to persuade my form tutor to let me take a couple of photos of her teaching a secondary school class, this was useful for my 'youngsters looking forward to sixth form life.'
I did forget one of the major criteria of this task though, as my medium close up featured a teacher and not a student, this was easily fixed yesterday (wednesday) however, as a friend from St. Mary's sixth form agreed to let me us her as my medium close up.
There were a lot of nerves surrounding this task, especially after the majority of our nature photos turned out to be lacking in quality and many did not fit the guide lines of being close ups, we had to remember the golden rule of you must start of with good photos, as even the most apt user of photoshop cannot make a bad photo work.

Lesson 04

In today's lesson we had the opportunity to use photoshop independently, we were told that we had a full two hours to make a nature magazine using the images that were taken in the previous lesson. The lesson was very useful as we had no guidelines to follow (except to ensure it was a nature magazine) this was useful as it meant we could fully experiment with effects and alterations to the images.
We now have a due date our preliminary task, we have to have our school magazine printed for Thursday the 12th of February, this is why we needed a session for photoshop, as without previous experience with the software our preliminary task would be our test run with photoshop, this would have resulted in a lower quality of work and some confusion towards the software which will be used in our main task.