In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I believe my media product follows real media conventions through the layout. I tried to keep the layout similar to that of the newspaper I had researched. I found that 'The Times' was the most inspirational when creating my product. I liked the idea of keeping the masthead to the left hand corner of the page accompanied by the places in which you can purchase it. I liked the idea of adding the colour blue onto the page making it more interesting and vibrant. I basically used a combination of ideas from each of the exemplar newspapers below.



Another thing I considered was the headlines keeping only the first letter as a capital while the rest lowercase as if following either 'The Mercury' or 'The Times'. From researching I saw that each newspaper sticks to approximately three columns consisting of about 5 words per line, so I decided that was the way to go to achieve a professional looking newspaper. The actual text was something I had to consider also, I wanted it to sound friendly and achieve a community spirit. So after reading a few articles I got the gist of what they consists of.

Here is the initial design I decided on for my newspaper:

While following certain conventions, I also challenged them by designing something that combines all these ideas that I have collected from each newspaper. I decided that my newspaper had to be original and not copy exactly what each of these layouts consists of. By moving around the key elements of the layout I was able to create something different which still looks like a newspaper.

My feedback from my peers and teachers was also very positive as they all believed my newspaper followed real media conventions saying that it looked professional and realistic.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary?

Well, I would say that my main product and ancillary tasks were effective as I believe that my newspaper could pass off as a representation of a real life newspaper as it follows real media conventions and looks professional. My newspaper was created and designed from different examples of local newspapers including;

I used elements from each individuals convention creating a newspaper of my own. By deconstructing these local newspapers, I was able to create a realistic but original design that sticks to real life media conventions.

By also analysing stories and headlines I could get a clear idea of how newspapers write their stories and what type of stories they write. I found that they write about what things effect there local community and would be of interest. So, I wrote about things considering their local cinema and library, and an annual fayre. The stories don't seem to have the same seriousness as a newspaper in the mass media; it has a more friendly tone that a community would expect and relate to.

The pictures needed to have transparency about them so the audience would be able to relate to them and not find them too distant from reality. So, I decided that a simple picture taken from a slight angle of the library was more appropriate than that of a picture "over photoshopped". This picture has hardly been "under the knife" of photoshop - all I basically did was to alter saturation to make the picture look brighter as if on a brighter day.

My ancillary tasks advertises my newspaper, so I thought the most effective way to advertise was to place an actual image of my newspaper as the centre point. This ultimately shows the reader/viewer what the newspaper looks like perhaps making it easier for the purchaser to visually find it in the shops. Unfortunately, I was unable to find posters for North Somerset newspapers when researching but found that even so mass media newspaper adverts helped a great deal. I found that my poster was mostly based on that of the newspaper 'The Star', an example I found when researching posters:

I found that the radio advert was effective to some point. However, being critical I found my advert slightly long and tedious and I think that I could have spent more time on my jingle. Perhaps considering the effectiveness that it can have on the audience. I believe that a jingle should be catchy whilst I feel mine was slightly dull and long winded. Although, I can find things I would like to change, I do find that the narrative reflected what the newspaper is all about; the community revolving around the newspaper. The two women: Edith and Joan emphasis why the newspaper is so good by staying in character.

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used all of these media technologies in the construction of my newspaper:

• Google for Research
• InDesign for the construction of my newspaper and poster
• A Camera and Photoshop to create my photos for my newspaper and adverts
• Garageband and Soundbible to make up my Radio advert
• NeoOffice accompanied by Word when writing my articles
• Blogger to record everything I have done without the production

What skills have you learnt from the Production?

I have learnt various things when constructing my newspaper; furthermore I have enhanced my knowledge of using the Mac computers. The main programme I used was indesign which I had never used before, so I found myself having to learn how to use it as I went along. I found that indesign was the best choice for me as I was able to set the layout of my pages out clearly in this document.
I learnt the following skills while working in indesign:

• How to layout my page.
• How to keep to the conventions of my newspaper.
• How to use various tools in indesign to for example draw lines in which to divide up my page into sections.
• How to transfer pictures easily from other documents.
  
  
  

Also, I was able to make use of skills I had already learnt from my AS production last year. However this time round, the alterations and changes I made to my pictures were more simplistic.

One of the most important techniques I learnt throughout the course of this production was how to construct my newspaper. By looking at different local newspapers;

I viewed the newspapers front page and masthead to get an idea of the different ways in which newspapers use conventions to create their newspaper pages. It was interesting to see how (even though they all are newspaper from the same area) they varied in their layout design. I've seen that basically adverts, stories, mastheads etc. are just positioned different around the page suggesting that there is no particular convention to a newspaper layout. All the newspapers still maintain a professional look of a newspaper despite their differences. However, they have similarities in the number of adverts, pictures and stories, also where stories are placed.

Other technologies I used for the first time were garageband in order to put my radio advert together. At first I found it difficult to get the hang of it, finding that I had to experiment with the programme before putting it to actual practice. I learnt a lot about how to produce my podcast/sound file easily and efficiently still sounding effective. I found that I could import sounds from different Internet sites such as soundbible, which enabled me to get the church bells and bird effects I wanted for my background noise. I also learnt how to record voice on garageband. My friend and I really enjoyed this and had lots of laughs in the process of creating. Overall, garageband enable me to work with sounds to create something on a bigger scale which you could pass off as a radio advert.

I learnt the following skills:

• to record voice on the mac computers
• to make my own jingle
• to use other sounds from soundbible etc. to help create my advert
• to use garageband efficiently

What do you consider the strengths of your Production are? What do you think you have done well?

Strengths:

• Layout similarly to real life local newspaper conventions and realistic.
• Reads like a local newspaper and focuses on local stories which inform the reader of community activities.
• I believe that I have taken photos which are relevant to the stories and that show a sense of community spirit. Also, considering techniques such as the rule of thirds to make the photos look more professional/interesting.
• Focused clearly on the layout in which allowed me to create my newspaper as a professional and articulate product, although making it slightly dissimilar in order to make it original.

What did your target audience think?

Feedback: - During a media showcase held at my school, it allowed me to let others view my work and get feedback. I created a questionnaire with the following questions:

1. Do you think that my newspaper resembles that of a real local newspaper? If so, why?
2. Would you buy/read this newspaper? If so, why?
3. Is there anything you would change/alter?
4. What do you think of the pictures?
5. Does it read like a newspaper?
6. What do you think of the adverts? Do they grab your attention?
7. What do you think of the title and slogan?
8. Any other comments?

These questions allowed me to focus on people who live in the local area and have all experienced newspapers at first hand.

1) Real media conventions?

• Layout - photos in place/ captions etc
• Well laid out and detailed
• Has what a newspaper should have
• format is good, and the stories seem relevant
• layout and pictures are accurate.

2) Buy/read?

• Would read the newspaper as it is informative and detailed
• interesting local news, accessible
• it looks well informed and entertaining
• covers local stories in detail
• it seems more fun than a standard local newspaper

3) Change/Alter?

• picture layout
• pictures could be slightly smaller, as they take up a large amount of space
• the advert (top right) doesn't look professional
• put borders around photos - looks more professional

4) Pictures?

• Nice and Cheerful, illustrates points well
• good quality and good compositions
• good - effective
• they are chosen well, and make the cover stand out
• good but maybe too many of them

5) Read like real stories?

• Good stories
• seems very realistic and typical of real paper
• The bottom article is in a slightly odd place

6) Adverts?

• the adverts are effective and bold
• good logos and text
• the adverts are each distinctive
• The Mulberry Post advert is great (concerning the radio advert)

7) Mast head and slogan?

• It looks unique and stylish
• good use of photos/font
• nice using once again 'community'
• I feel the font is sligthly dull but like the picture
• simple and to the point

8) Any other comments?

• Is very professional - Well Done

How would you change things if you were able to (based on the feedback you've recieved)?

If I were able to change anything, based on the feedback I received, I would perhaps alter the sizes of the pictures and the number of pictures. This would ultimately alter the dimensions of the layout allowing me more space for further writing if I wished to write in more detail about the stories concerning the area.

One person's feedback commented that "the advert (top right) doesn't look professional". If I were to listen and act to this advice, I may change the advert from a photography advert to something more relevant, which refers more to the made-up town of Mulberry. At first glance the advert does seem brighter than a conventional local newspaper where the adverts may be more conservative. However, I disagree with the comment as I like the advert as it is more diverse than other adverts. It also shows that this advert attracts the attention of the target audience.

Other suggestions from my feedback was to:

• change picture layout
• put borders around photos as it looks more professional

These all concern the layout of my newspaper and what I could possibly do to enhance it. I think that I would have liked to act on this advice/feedback by planning out different layout ideas and experimenting with different designs. I had beforehand done several design ideas but this advice has given my things I hadn't thought of before - it has given me fresh eyes.

What do you think you could have done better?

I think there are many little things that I could improve or do better; one being the quality of my pictures. If I had had more time I would have liked to have taken more interesting pictures with a better, high quality camera. Also, I would have liked to have thought more thoroughly and carefully about the composition as I find that my pictures are a little too static and do not reflect the general atmosphere I wished to portray to the reader. If there was one other thing I would alter would be the mise-en-scene of the fayre pictures, they do not really reflect the setting I was hoping for as I found I had a limited amount of time and did not pay the possible required attention they really needed to have.

Another thing I would like to improve would be my subsidiary task of the poster making it more creative and original. I would have loved to juggle a few more ideas looking for more inspiration from previous research on Newspaper posters, especially that of The Times newspaper with the ballerinas. I believe that an idea including real life situations, emphasising the importance of newspapers in our society and how they cover a vast amount of the world would have been really interesting to do. Newspapers are a document that many people read and it would be a good idea to show that they reach a diverse audience. My idea would have been to have two people sitting on a bench reading/attempting to read their newspapers in blistering/windy weather with slippers on. This idea emphasises the British love of newspapers and shows the typical weather we have come to expect.

Lastly, I would have liked to have spent more time thinking about my radio advert to advertise my newspaper. I liked my basic structure of my advert and the script but it would have been better if I experimented more with different effects (from garage band and relative Internet sites) to add onto my advert making it more realistic and professional.

What problems have you encountered? How have you adapted your project to take these problems into consideration?

I didn't find that I encountered any serious problems concerning my production. The biggest challenge I came across was just working out how to use the programmes on the Mac. I overcame this problem by just practicing and continuing to get used to the documents: indesign and photoshop.

Another challenge I found was placing the articles in the newspaper format as there was a lot of copying and pasting to be done and I found that some text was transfer across. It was useful to print out a copy so that I could check over typos and other mistakes which were harder to spot via the computer. I got several people to read and look over my articles so that I had several eyes spotting awkward expressions and spelling mistakes etc. Doing this made it easier to get an more accurate newspaper. All this made me realise that these small jobs are equally important as the reading of the articles need to sound and look profession.

The worst problem I encountered was most definitely losing my memory stick with my work on it. I found that I had to redo my work basically from scratch. Fortunately, I had saved/uploaded all by pictures, adverts and article onto my blog already. This saved me a lot of time when doing it again - all I had to do was put the layout together again. However at times it was more complicated than I thought it would be as I had to continually move things around to get the right fit and layout. However, despite this trouble I learnt a valuable lesson to back-up my work. The one advantage of losing it was that I got to practice putting my newspaper together, I found that I learnt more about the layout of newspapers too.

Have you met your Deadlines? If not, why? What have you learnt from these difficulties?

During the course of the A2 Media production, I've meet the majority of my deadlines but have ound that at times these deadlines have been extended. This is partially to do with what I have had to do in the week and whether I was able to fit in the right amount of time to dedicate my time to my media coursework. I've learnt to keep up with my work and to try and balance my work load so that I can give an equal and appropriate amount of time to each topic.
One deadline that I didn't meet was one for my pictures; due to the poor weather we had had in the week I was unable to take decent quality pictures at that time. So, I decided to leave the pictures the taking to a brighter day on the weekend which we fortunately had. This enabled me to take decent quality shots that I could use in my newspaper.

My biggest difficultly which effected my deadline dramatically was the fact that I lost my memory stick and did not have any back ups. I lost it at the end of term and found that due to not having the appropriate programmes at home I had to wait til returning back to school. My teachers were thoroughly understanding and allowed me ome extra time to redo it. Luckly however, I had saved my pictures, adverts and headlines onto my blog already so it didn't have to start it all over again. I quickly finished it again and change things as I went along making it better in my opinion. It allowed me to analyse my work and change things that I may not have liked as much beforehand. I learnt a great deal from this; most importantly to save my work multiple times.