A transferable skill is ‘an ability or expertise which may be used in a variety of roles or occupations. Examples include communication, problem-solving and self-control’.

Throughout the process of making my music magazine, exploring mise-en-scene and developing meta narratives to create a meaning, I have developed my transferable skills. I have achieved the skills listed below:

• Communication: I’ve learnt how to communicate with peers in class who I wouldn’t normally communicate with. I have also used different forms of communication e.g. speaking to people in person and over social media. My teacher has also communicated with my via comments on posts.
• Problem-solving: When facing issues on Indesign and Photoshop, I have overcome them by researching ‘How to’ online and especially YouTube. These have helped me, however there have been cases where there wasn’t a video, so I used persevereance to tackle these issues. When all else failed, I asked my peers and my teacher for advice.
• Self-control: I have given myself targets and fixed improvements that I dislike and listened to feedback from my peers.
• Team work: I have worked together with peers, showing them how to do some things on In Design and Photoshop and vice versa. I have worked well in groups, adding my bit to contribute to discussions and group essays.
• Time management: I have managed to get in any essays or work in for set deadlines, and I have prioritised certain tasks that need to be completed before others.

In my opinion, I believe that I have used my time wisely which has enabled me to come out with good images from my photoshoots, detailed research about the pop genre, artists and magazines and carefully planned magazine pages. Even though I think positively of my work, there are improvements to be made. For example, I need to keep working on my colour scheme and I need to edit and experiment with my main images, adding flourishes of colour to them so that they fit in with the pop genre. I would also like to alter my mast head design.

Throughout the process of creating my magazine, I have developed my design skills on Indesign and Photoshop.

Overall, I think these design techniques that I have been experimenting with and using have been very beneficial in the process of creating my magazine because they’re helping me to convey my narrative and genre.

When creating my magazine, I have learnt and used many new skills in Photoshop and InDesign. These skills have helped the pop genre to effectively come through in my magazine as they help create the conventional aspects of the pop genre. Here is a presentation on the skills I have learnt and what I used them to do:

Overall, my design skills have significantly improved. It is really useful to know these skills because it has allowed me to change my images to suit my genre and to adapt my text to also suit my genre and to attract my audience. I think my front cover and double-page spread is now also starting to convey my message and narrative as well as my genre.

Mission Statement: 

‘Express’ is one of the top ten magazines for those that love Pop music. We cover your favourite Pop artists as well as upcoming stars, giving you exclusive interviews, top stories from your most-loved artists, new album releases and new tour dates from artists topping our charts daily. Express magazine inspires young people to fall back in love with Pop as the new-age of Pop drives the magazine forwards, allowing our readers to express themselves and become the best individuals they can be.

Brand Values:

‘Express’ aim to provide good customer service, fast replies and to provide top quality gossip and exclusive interviews from your favourite pop artists.

In lessons I have learnt some crucial things about using my camera:

• shutter speed
• aperture
• framing
• distance
• shot type
• angle

About the importance of mise-en-scene:

• costume
• lighting
• acting and proxemics
• make-up and hair
• props
• setting

My research into my artists costume and their appearance and body language willl also help me when photographing my artist. I can also refer to my Pinterest  moodboard whenever I need help. and through camera techniques and mise-en-scene I can think about how my magazine is presented and how it can reach out to my target audience.

I also learnt about Richard Dyer’s Paradox of the Star theory which presents that an artist can be both extraordinary and ordinary and both absent and present enabling them to be relatable to their fans and to also help them engage with their audience. Furthermore, an audiences response to an artist can be presented through Stuart Hall’s Reception Theory, also helping the artist discover their target audiences demographic and psychographic. All of this helps me to create a bigger audience for my magazine, also helping my magazine to be as successful as possible.

After learning about all the different components I will need to create successful media, I can now put my knowledge into practice. I have listed the aspects I will need to consider below:

Blumler and Katz’s Theory: Their theory about the uses and gratification in media are going to be very important aspects of my magazine. This includes the aspects of entertainment, social interaction, personal identity and information. I will need to keep this in mind when creating my media in order for my audience to be informed and entertained as well as including aspects for them to identify and interact with.

Mise-en-scene: When thinking about costume for my model and taking photos of them I need to consider all the aspects of MES in order to convey the correct narrative to my audience. (Costume, Lighting, Acting/ Proxemics, Make-up/ Hair, Props, Setting)

Camera Techniques: I will need to consider the angle of the camera, the proxemics between the camera and the model and the lighting of the space when taking photos for my media in order to communicate a clear meaning to my audience.

AIDA: I need to make sure that my magazine attracts the target audience, interests them, creates desire and gives them tools to take action on (e.g. information about where they can buy tickets from).

Target Audience: I will need to research the target audience and find out their demographics and psychographics in order to make my magazine appropriate to them.

Layout: I will need to include all the conventions of a magazine – e.g. masthead, pugs, captions –  and they will need to be spaced out so that they are legible.

Typography: I will need to research and include conventional fonts of the genre and I will also experiment with the stroke, alignment and size of the text. As well as this I will need to consider how easy the fonts are to use, whether to use sans-serif or serif fonts and what is actually written, thinking about the type of language being used – e.g. using slang for an audience of baby boomers wouldn’t be very appealing to them.

Colour Scheme: After researching the conventional colours of my genre, I will apply them to my magazine.

By considering these factors, it will help my magazine successful. This is because all of the aspects above will suit the target audience and address what they would be interested in, in a magazine. By researching my genre’s conventions, it will also make my magazine recognisable to the target audience, helping my magazine to become successful. I can use my skills that I have learnt on InDesign and Photoshop to make my magazine conventional and suitable to the target audience.

After looking at mise-en-scene  and camera framing I have learnt that these factors are important when portraying a narrative in photography or films.

Mise-en-scene is very important when helping portraying individuals, groups, events or places. Mise-en-scene includes:

• Costume
• Lighting
• Acting & Proxemics
• Make-up & Hair
• Props
• Setting

Without these aspects the narrative wouldn’t be cleasr to the audience. An example of this would be if an actor was meant to be portraying a character in the lower class but their costume was covered in jewels, the audience would misinterpret their character as someone wealthy, creating an incorrect narrative, confusing the audience. This highlights how important it is for the mise-en-scene to be correct, so I will plan all of these aspects out carefully when creating my music magazine.

Camera framing is also very important when creating a meaning in an image. Using different angles and distances from the camera will connote different ideas. This reinforces that each shot must be carefully thought out because an incorrect angle could communicate an incorrect story to the audience. For example, if you want the audience to feel inferior to the character in the image, but you use a low angle, the audience will feel intimidated instead, creating a completely different narrative to the intended one.

It is also very important to get the correct denotations and connotations across, when creating media. The connotations must be easy to understand through the denotation, otherwise the audience won’t understand it straight away, making the narrative of the piece of media difficult to understand.

There are also a number of different rules that you can follow to make your piece of media successful. For example:

• The rule of thirds – balancing composition evenly across three sections of the frame.
• Lead room – the space in front where the actors are looking or moving.
• Depth of field – considering the background, middle ground and fore ground of the image.

Overall, I have learnt that the mise-en-scene and the camera framing are extremely important when creating any form of media and are crucial to get right. Therefore, I will carefully plan and design any media that I produce, keeping in mind the narrative I want to create, in order to communicate it successfully. This will help me when producing my music magazine because I will ensure that every aspect of my images is there for a reason in order to portray a meaning.