Weekly progress & plan

 Here is my weekly progress & plan for my project documentary 

Start Date		Task		Blogpost Title	Content	Deadline
22 July
29 July	Pre Production	Research	1	Brief	Description of the brief, embed powerpoint	W2
			2	Plan & Weekly Progress	Plan for the whole project, Weekly diary	W2
			3	Team	Your team + Links ot their blogs	W2
			4	Research	Research into documentary openings of the same genre	W4
5 August		Plan	5	Statement of Intent	Plan for the product	W4
			6	Storyboard	Scene by scene storyboard	W5
			7	Location Scout & Risk Assessment	Possible shooting locations, risk assessment table	W5
12 August
19 August	Production	Produce	8	Behind the Scenes	Images of the shoot	W8
			9	Social Media (Research & Development)	Research into similar social media pages. Development of own ideas.	W9
			10	Thumbnail (Research & Development)	Research into similar thumbnails. Development of own ideas.	W9
26 August
2 September	Post Production	Edit/Reflection	10	Editing Process	How did you edit? Challenges, solutions	W9
			11	Self Reflection	Self Reflection Essay	W9
9 September		Edit
16 September		Submission	12	Final	Final doc, social media page, thumbnail	W9

Week 1: This week our teacher gave us an overview on what we're going to learn for our first term in year 12, so no real lessons were taught during this week. This helped me in knowing what to expect so that I don't feel left behind and I get to familiarise myself with them. 

Week 2: Our class was introduced for our project brief which this time was producing an opening for a crime documentary. I feel so excited to start my project because Im an avid fan of watching crime documentaries, so I hope my team and I will finish this project with satisfactory results. We also researched a lot of different documentaries from different genre's and sub genre's such as crime, sports, murder, mystery and so much more, this taught me how so many documentaries that conform to typical conventions. This allowed me to brainstorm a lot of different ideas as I was able to gain more knowledge on what crime documentaries should look like and how technical elements (camera, mise en scene, edit, sound) play a crucial role in how audiences view the documentary. 

Week 3: This week I was excused a lot as I was preparing for a competition outside of school so I missed out on most of my classes but my team mates informed me that we have started making our statement of intent and location scout & risk assessment. But Ive reverted back to my year 11 weekly progress plan format as its easier to read and looks more organised as all the information that I need will already be categorised. 

Problems: managing my time in doing my parts as I have other assignments and events to do outside of school and we have to be able to come up with a well planned idea 

Solutions: prioritising what needs to be done first which is why this plan has helped me in doing that and coming up with a finalised idea on what concept to do for our project 

To-do: brainstorming ideas for possible locations we'll film at and finishing up our statement of intent (doesn't have to be that detailed but clear with main points jotted down) 

Week 4: Continued with our location scout (more detailed) but this week I would like our statement of intent be finalised. We also started to make our storyboard and script where we assigned 2 people to do one task, so Me and Kalista made the location scout & risk assessment while Audrey and Chelsea made the storyboard. Since I was only present during one meeting I did most of my work at home and just coordinated through my teammates through whatsapp. As  for our script we all decided to work on it together in a collaborative document and since I wasn't able to do most of it with all my teammates I sent it my ideas through them so they could input it in the document. Although we are still unsure on which cast members to pick, we already have an organised idea on how we would like our plot to be as the cast members require to have a strong chemistry which other due to how we want our characters to be played.

Problems: Trying to make time to visit the locations and deciding which cast members to choose 

Solutions: We all ended up going to the locations ourself or not choosing locations which we've already been to a lot as for the cast members we ended up picking the people closets to us in order for it to be easier to schedule a time to film. 

To-do: 

- continue working on script 

- finish the location scout & risk assessment 

- picking our cast members 

Week 5: This week me and Kalista ended up changing the format of our location scout so that it could be more organised as well as finalising our script and starting our shooting process this Friday and we are also going to shoot our beach scene this Saturday. Since our team already creating a filming schedule it was easier for us to navigate the dates of when we can film, we also had already picked our cast members which are Angelene (clara), Gaby (sasha), Nicho (Kyler), Anargya (interviewer/officer). We also started our first scene which is the interrogation scene in an empty classroom even though I wasn't able to be present I gave feedback on what my teammates should do best during that scene in order for it to conform to the typical conventions. Our teacher also gave a theory lesson where my classmates were shown an Indonesian documentary called, "Ice Cold: Murder, Coffee and Jessica Wong" in order for us to identify the representation used, again I wasn't present which is why for this classwork I choose to use a different documentary. 

Problems: Bad time management as I had to make time to finish up my classwork and difficulty in understanding the extra research for identifying the representation used 

Solutions: Made a to do list on what to prioritise as my teacher gave me an extension for my classwork and asked feedback from friends on how they did their classwork as well as reading other students answers and my teachers feedback for them so that I can understand what to do and what I should not do

To-do: 

- finish up my classwork on media representation 

- beach scene of clara and sasha 

Week 6: In class we were introduced with the our Critical Self Reflection which is going to be different from the one we did in year 11 as back then we were told to use canva or google slide but now we were told to use a paragraph format which I didn't like to be honest. Since I preferred having visual effects to support my ideas as well as having it in more separated sections but now its just one big sentence and I don't even know where to start it structurally even though our teacher said its up to us its still something I take a long time thinking about as my CSR should be cohesive. So our teacher gave us an outline on how we should compile our ideas based on the questions we need to answer, and even though this must be done individually my team still collaborated in choosing what ideas to put making it a lot easier to form them together. We were also told by our teacher that we should start editing but my team prioritised finishing up all our scenes first. 

Problems: Dont understand how to structure the CSR and finishing up filming

Solutions: Took my time in creating my plan for the CSR and asked for insights from my team mates and made time to film the extra parts as a team 

To-do: 

- finish up my plan for the CSR 

- 80% of the filming done 

Week 7: We started finally editing during this week by using an application called capcut however we encountered a problem when we wanted to edit together only 1 person can edit at a time so we ended using Chelsea's laptop to do most of the editing but we all came together to give inputs and advice on which effects to use, how to compile all the videos, etc. I also started my research and development for our thumbnail where I tried different typographies in order to find the right one. This week I also finished my general research on documentary openings and making of a script. We also added to our behind the scenes blogpost where it showcases what we did during our production stages. 

Problems: Managing time as this was by far the most hectic week we had and trying to find a way to finish editing on time with some scenes still left un filmed  

Solutions: Sacrificing my sleep on most days since I didnt want to be that left behind on the project and we all communicated what day to meet up again which most likely will be a weekend

To-do: 

- finish my general research 

- finish up my mock of our thumbnail 

- trying different typographies 

Week 8: DEADLINE WEEK! we were required to have fully finished blogposts by the end of this week, but since most of us weren't done our teacher gave us an extension till Monday but some parts of our blog will already be graded by Friday. My group and I prioritised on completing our behind-the-scenes, editing, thumbnail research & development, and - above - all - the most time consuming task, the critical reflection. I realised how time management was something I still need to work on as I wasn't done with most of the intended tasks during the beginning of the week but by the end I managed to finish up everything with very little sleep. What weighed the most on my back was finishing up all my research and development as its very time consuming thus I started by doing that first and finishing up my CSR second to last. Editing was also something my team had to handle since we were all so busy finishing up our own individual work, so we decided on a specific time to gather in order for us to have extra time to do out other tasks. 

Problems: Not enough time to finish up everything 

Solutions: Our teacher gave us an extension so that we can get extra time and I decided to make a to do list and check off every blog post I have completed 

To-do: 

- finish up all my blog posts 

- having the finalised documentary and CSR 

Self Reflection: This weekly progress was actually something I hated doing cause it gets so boring and sometimes I even forget what I was doing in other lessons since we always do something different. Which is why I only put bullet points of everything I did in class and just expanded it at home, but then again as time passes by I got the hang of it since I got to reflect a lot on my work trough this. I could see what I've improved in or if Im stuck and not improving at all this term however I dont think anything has changed or improved since I started year making self reflections during year 11. But Im happy that the results of our hardwork paid off during this documentary project as I used the skills I have already learned and even improving them. Learned how to use different websites, improved my photography/videography skills and even built a more solid communication skill this is why Im happy I got to experience doing lots of skills in this project. Even though everything didn't really go as planned due to our teams hectic schedule and last minute late night studying session, it was well worth the results and im satisfies enough to call this project finished.  

All project brief

Here is my brief on my project documentary 

Self Reflection: After hearing about the brief I  was pretty excited to start this project as Im an avid fan of watching crime documentaries, so before we even started I had so many ideas rushing through my mind and because this was a project that required a team im pretty sure this project will go more smoothly as we will all split our tasks. So I cant wait to starts filming this documentary but then again im pretty sure editing it will take ages but cant wait!

Final magazine

Here are the images for my magazine: cover, contents page, and double page spread 

Front cover

Contents 

Double page spread

Here is the link to my digitalised magazine: final magazine

Critical self reflection

Here is my critical self reflection for my magazine project 

critical self reflection media magazine by raraa

Double page spread: research + development

This will be my development and detailed research for my double page spread 

Reflection: This was yet again another time consuming task, I could say second most time consuming. I really focused on my design this time other than the article content as I have finished making it, but what made me shocked was how the process was so intricate and every element should be well placed in order for the negative white space to not look off. Which is why I felt frustrated every time my teacher says theres something wrong cause its like I cant get it right all the time, but then as time passed by and I took advice from the input I received I made lesser mistakes and was able to finish making it on time. 

Problem: Dealing with small mistakes in my double page spread and trying to make it more appealing for the audience to read

Solution: Made lesser mistakes by learning from experience and feedback so that I don't have to re do it over and over again. I also made my text easier to read by using a font and style that was easy to read as well as a separation with a pull quote 

Starting with the research I've done on a couple of double page spreads that caters to the genre my magazine will be (fashion) and what target audience my magazine appeals to (young adults/adults). I will also be listing out my likes and dislikes and what typical conventions fashion magazines double page spread follows (more research took inspiration from old research as well)

We can see that most double page spreads only uses one main image on one page or even two, but all double page spreads uses the same typeface but some use justified or not left aligned text and all articles use a dropcap for the beginning letter of the article. Every double page also includes a pullquote that separates the text or not in a whole new text box, some are even in the image page of the double page spread. However one thing all articles don't use is a byline as no authors are mentioned in a fashion article magazine. Another similarity is that most magazines have a caption explaining what the article is about or who photographed the picture and what the picture was used for on the double page spreads but again captions are only (mostly) used on the image page of the double page spread. 

I also researched on what type of style I want my pull quote to be positioned as there were many designs and layouts to choose from, but I ultimately decided on the one that is positioned like a box as its what looks the neatest even though most fashion magazine do not follow this convention, this is what I subvert in order for it too look different and unique but still keeping my audience engaged and interested. 

As for my caption, we can see that most magazine double page spreads has a small body of text on the image that explains more about the article or what the image is about, so I decided to follow that convention but with who photographed my image in order for the audience to be more aware on who photographed that image. 

Step 1: sketches (rough draft of different layout I have in mind for my double page spread) red text to indicate the type of picture and type of text elements used 

Step 2: digitalise some drafts 

Step 3: choose one draft and experiment

I decided on my second draft as it was actually a hassle for me to add and align all the images in order for it to go through both pages 

 

After getting it rechecked by my teacher I decided to revise a lot on my double page especially on aligning everything with my border. As you can see I moved my pull quote higher and changing the colour of it as well to pink since my teachers gave me input that my double page seem too text heavy. But I also re aligned my texts as you can see from the first draft the middle column of text seemed bigger than the rest which is why I revised it in order for everything to look the same. 

I got my double page checked again and this is when I finalised everything. I decided to make my text left aligned as it made it easier for my audience to read, because if I used justified theres a lot of white empty space in between texts which makes it look messy. My teacher also recommended me to move my pull quote to the middle of my article so that I can balance everything out and not making it look text heavy. 

I also added a pull quote on my other page which was one full image of my model, and I also experimented with a different alignment of text which was justified but as you can see it looks very spaced out and in my opinion theres too much white spacing in the middle, making it look untidy.

But in the last minute I decided on using a caption instead of a pull quote since I wanted to follow the typical magazine convention where they add a caption on the image page 

Step 4: finalised double page spread 

On the day of submission I finally had one last input from my teacher which was fixing the alignment of my article text that was near the pull quote, as you can see now it looks tidier and is more uniform with all the other alignments of text. I also changed my pull quote to a caption and I also enlarged the text that since my teacher said it should cover up more of the empty space. Lastly, I moved my page number of the second page to the right as before it was on the left and it did not follow the typical convention I intended my double page spread to be.

Contents page: research + development

Here is the development and detailed research of my contents page for my magazine 

Reflection: If I had to be honest this was actually the easiest part when I was making my magazine I was able to come up with a final draft within the first lesson of working on it which was 2 hours. All I had to do left was fixing the minor details with my teacher in order for it to look very nice. As I enjoyed experimenting with different layouts and designs and finding out which typefaces work well on this page, however I hated compiling the research and needing to remember to screenshot each time I wanted to make a change within the page as sometimes when I get into the zone and enjoy putting everything together I keep forgetting to screenshot from time to time. 

Problem: Although I had a problem in finding inspiration from different magazines as most didn't suit my taste due to it looking very vintage and not matching up with the style of magazine Im going for 

Solution: So instead I made most from random ideas I had in mind or not I look at real magazines some of my classmates brought as most were more modern looking and I took most inspiration from that 

I will start off with the research I have on some fashion contents page that caters to my target audience (young adults)

I also referenced some from my old research that I first done about magazines, however I will pick a few to draw out drafts for it and here are some that I recreated from my research and some from my own creativity 

Step 1: sketches (red text indicates the type of shot taken)

Step 2: digitalise some drafts 

Step 3: choose one draft and experiment 

After I had rechecked with my teacher he came with a whole new idea on my contents page which was this layout, he was able to come up with this as it came from my first draft I made just shifting it to look more cohesive. 

He also reminded me to use the borders from the website I used to create my magazine in order everything looks aligned as a problem i had before was not having everything spaced out evenly for each text which can be seen from my first draft. But a noticeable difference was that i rewrote most of my content as it can be seen from my first draft that my main models name was used for all parts of the content and when my teacher went around to check everyones work he told me I could use celebrities name that attracts the target audience from my magazine. Thus, why I used celebrities such as Anne Hathaway, Gigi Hadid, Dua Lipa, Haily Bieber, and Kylie Jenner as thats what attract my target audience (young adults & teenagers). I also added a my page number and fixed the borders in order for the texts to be spaced out evenly. 

As I already figured out to use this layout I just tried experimenting with other elements which was the typeface of the heading. One example would be this 

I tried by covering some part of my picture with the heading but I didn't end up using this design as it looked messy 

Step 4: Final contents page 

From my first and second draft I decided to keep most the same such as the texts and layout of the entire page. What I did change though was the heading, even though I thought my second drafts heading was good I received input from an upperclassmen to change it to an italic look similar to my front cover as it looked more elegant and luxurious. Due to my seconds draft heading looking quite tacky.  I also added a small coloured box for my page number as I thought it looked quite empty. 

Front cover: research + development

This is my development for my front cover magazine 

Reflection: I believe this was the most time consuming task I ever spent in this whole project even though the end result looked very simple it was quite hard and hard to compile everything in order for it to look cohesive. Even though I enjoyed playing around with different typefaces, elements, and positioning this took such a long time to the point where I took up 2 full class lessons just to fully finish it to my liking and being able to get approval from both my teacher and classmate. 

Problem: The hardest part for me was finding a colour scheme that could match every single element present. I tried using the typical pinks, blues, yellows but it always turns out too be too soft or too bright 

Solution: I decided to just use colours that were already in my image and that worked out to be the best option, even though I had to make my own colour palette using those from the image is so much easier all thats left is to darken or lighten the colour to our liking. 

Starting off with my research I have collected for my front cover this is all that peaked my interest or what I think are good front covers but there are still parts i disliked and tried to avoid. We can see that most front covers uses direct mode of address and they all have a colour scheme that ties everything together, all mastheads have a similar typeface even though its for different brands which is why the typical convention for a fashion magazines are that all typefaces are stylish or even blend in with the background so not all elements of the magazine should be recognisable right away, at least theres a difference in how the main cover line is decided in order for that one part to stand out more than the other cover lines. But again each colour theme for every magazine will be different depending on the season of its production, normally it would use white for the masthead but again it can be different depending on the season. We can also see that most uses left or right aligned for the texts of the magazine but it can be different at times which we can also see from magazine that uses the justified text. 

Step 1: Started of with 2 digitalised drafts with pictures I took during lesson time as I still didn't have my final pictures that I will use for my final magazine

Step 2: This is when I started to make my front cover drafts with my own image 

1. First draft where I decided on all the typefaces and how i want each to be placed on the front cover

2. But again I experimented with different colours for the front cover as it looked too soft in the first draft, this is when I decided to try a darker colour for my cover line

3. Then i tried a darker colour for my masthead 

4. I also tried a different colour combination for my cover line which by making it darker (grey) but keeping my masthead soft 

5. Then I decided to receive advice from my teacher with all the different colour combinations that I came up with and this was the one of the final drafts 

This is also where I changed the typeface for my texts below the cover lines as my teacher had mentioned it all look too stylish together. Another part was also how I combined my models name and the word 'unfiltered' together making it seem like it was her name even though it was supposed to mean a 'unfiltered interview'. This was also the time where I experimented with the colours for my main cover line as the white colour blended too much with the background. 

6. Afterwards I changed the colour to this darker brown colour and even though I liked it my teacher had mentioned it blended too much with the staircase near the model

7. But I still decided to stick with this colour palette as I will follow the typical convention where most texts in fashion magazines follow a stylish typeface and the colours all really blend in together making it harder to read at first this is shown through fashion magazines of HARPERS BAZAAR and VOGUE.

8. I started to finalise my front cover page and this was the final result, I received feedback to change "top 10 anileve best looks" to "top 10 anileve looks". I also changed my masthead in order for it to be more spaced out allowing it t fit the border I made and then I made the texts for my cover lines to be a bit smaller as I wanted to follow the typical convention of having smaller texts on the front cover. I also decided to also make this a november edition magazine as I used warm autumn colours such as browns and reds for the front cover.

Step 4: finalised magazine cover     

Not much has changed on my final cover as I already had it revised with my teacher before, but all I added now was the year my magazine will be published as before I only added the month. 

Magazine layout tutorial

In this post I will demonstrate some basic design skills that i learned in class 

Reflection: This task was actually quite simple and enjoyable but I do prefer doing it digitally then on sketch as its not easy for me to come up with ideas within 5-10 minutes. Even though this made me have to brainstorm ideas quickly I was able to go out off my comfort zone and try styles I never thought would look good which is why most of these drafts aren't very detailed but at least I got my main ideas down which was the placement of masthead, cover line, main cover line, barcode, and image. Most of these drafts weren't connected with my research as again it was very time limited so I just tried making it in any way for it to be similar to my genre as most were came from the top of my head. This also made me try different interesting shots such as long shots or very close up shots as most aren't that common. 

Problem: I actually forgot to save a lot of my drafts which was why I had to re do some and screenshot it again since I was mainly focusing on the placement of all the elements. 

Solution: I keep remembering myself to take screenshots even for slight changes which is why is why now I have many screenshots for all the minor and major details I took. 

Task 1: sketching

I started by sketching my possible front cover designs and it actually took me a long time as I am very indecisive and just kept on drawing-erasing back and forth. But I discovered that in this stage my drawings don't have to be detailed just drawn well enough that my idea shines through. 

Task 2: Drafts

My teacher gave the class a template to practice making our front cover layout drafts on google draw. As it was similar with my first step we now just did it digitally, and were given 10 minutes to do this assignment. Here is the template my teacher gave

Then my teacher told me to experiment with some default layouts and it looked pretty bad 

Task 3: Once the timer ran off, my teacher explained to the class about 4 important fundamentals when designing a magazine cover which are (borders, hierarchy of type, typeface, colour). We were then told to re do our magazine and consider to apply all these 4 elements. 

- Borders

Borders are placed on magazine as a boundary. In order to arrange content appropriately, avoid visual clutter, and appear neater—all components of a magazine cover, including words, photographs, and other elements—must stay inside the designated border and be perfectly aligned to it. This will make the cover appear more professional.

- Hierarchy of type 

Hierarchy of type sometimes referred to as visual hierarchy, takes into account the way individuals read and capitalises it by repositioning text (such as the masthead and primary coverline) from top to bottom or left to right depending on how important it is. This will help with the audience's rapid and easy navigation of the content by emphasising the important details. The masthead and primary coverline, for instance, must stand out from the rest of the text by having a distinctive attribute that sets them apart, such as a different size, font weight, typeface, colour, and much more.

- Typeface 

Typeface is defined as the type of design used in a text, its a crucial component of its visual identity since it conveys the personality and readability of the publication. Certain typefaces are associated with specific tones due to their themes and traditions. For instance, the idea of sans serif is more laid-back and contemporary than that of serif, which is elegant and refined. This little variation in typefaces can affect how far a publication can reach its intended readership.

- Colour 

Color selections have a big influence on the way appealing a magazine design looks since they can imply feelings, establish a mood, or pique readers' interest visually. They could direct the reader's focus or add to the cohesiveness and attractiveness of the magazine.

Here are my revised magazine covers with pictures I took during lesson time 

Photoshoot

 Here is an additional post where I add all the pictures I took and some bts pictures as well 

I took many pictures but I ended up finalising them to only 25 pictures where I edited most of them 

link to my google drive: edited magazine pictures