Wednesday, 6 September 2023

Coursework: Preliminary exercise 2023 - Print brief

The first aspect of your GCSE Media Studies coursework is a preliminary exercise that introduces the basics of photo editing and page design.

This is a brilliant opportunity to get to know the basics of planning, photography and page design. You may even produce something that you can end up using in your actual coursework production!

Preliminary exercise: Magazine cover task

Your preliminary exercise involves coming up with a new, original magazine aimed at a wealthy, educated audience and creating a front cover for the magazine. 

Deadline: three weeks

Help and advice

Watch this YouTube video on how to make a magazine cover using Photoshop. You'll find it gives you ideas to use in your own production as well as technical tips for Adobe Photoshop:


You can also find an extended one-hour Adobe Bootcamp Photoshop tutorial Adobe here:




Preliminary exercise: Magazine cover task

Task: Create a new, original magazine aimed at a wealthy, educated audience and design a front cover for the magazine. 

Equipment: School camera for photoshoot in class. Note: you can take your cover photo at home if you wish using your phone or your own camera. You may need to bring in the cable to capture the image from your phone or use data to upload to Google Drive or iCloud.

Groups: None. You MUST work individually. However, you don't have to appear on your own magazine cover and can use someone else (they can be from outside school if you take the photo at home). 

What your magazine cover needs to include

Content: Your cover must include your title and slogan, a central image and main story to go with the cover image. In addition, you need at least four cover lines that will appeal to your audience, a bar code, date and price. 

Main image: You need to plan out your central image - think about who your cover star will be, what they will wear and what type of camera shot and angle you will use. 

Editing: You will need to create your magazine cover using Adobe Photoshop.


Deadlines

Planning: this week's lesson.

Photoshoot: next week.

Editing and final deadline: see Google Classroom


Preliminary exercise tasks: planning

Before creating anything in Media you need to plan out exactly what you are going to do. You need to complete the following planning tasks on your blog before you can edit anything.

Create a blogpost called 'Preliminary exercise planning' and work through the following tasks:

Statement of intent: 100 words explaining what you plan to make.
Example statement of intent [114 words]: 
I plan to create a magazine called 'Frontier' with the slogan 'Get ahead in YOUR life'. The magazine is aimed at wealthy young people working in business in major cities like London, New York or Dubai.   
My cover image will be of a young male in a sharp suit and sunglasses looking at the camera. The main feature to go with the cover image will be an interview with the cover star - the youngest tech millionaire in London. The magazine colour scheme will be light grey, quite futuristic and sleek. The rest of the cover lines will focus on topics my audience will be interested in such as life hacks, cars, technology and travel.  [114 words]
Title: Come up with the title for your magazine. You can use your summer project planning if you have it. 

Slogan: What will your magazine's slogan be?

Cover star: Who will be your cover star and what will they look like? 

Main story: What is the main story to go with your cover image?

Cover lines: What other cover lines will go on your magazine cover? you will film (ideally film off-site as this will create a stronger production). 

Sketch: Create an A4 sketch of your front cover making it clear where each aspect will appear.

Extension task: Will you include any additional images on the cover? What celebrities or key topics could you include that will appeal to your audience? 

Planning deadline: on Google Classroom. Good luck!

No comments:

Post a Comment

Final exam preparation and revision links

Here's everything you need to know for your revision and preparation for the final exams. The final weeks and days before the final exam...