Pre-Production

In my weeks of planning, progression was slow but I quickly came to a finish when the deadline was near. I was very happy with the level a had worked at and I thought that what I had done was very good and will definitely help me when I start production on my magazine. I think strongest part of my pre-production was the mock-ups I did; they give everyone a clear idea of what and how I want my magazine to look like. If I was to give the mock-ups to someone to make, they would easily know what to do and I think my ideas would be produced very well. The first set of mock-ups that I drew show the fine details of what goes where etc... The second lot of mock-ups then show how the magazine would look as a finish product. The two sets of mock-ups will make it very easy to make the magazine and you are given a very strong and clear idea of what is to be made. I think the mock-ups were my strongest part of pre-production as it is very neat and organised; I can tell it will make things a lot easier when make the magazine. The weakest part of my pre-production is probably the planning of my props/locations/costumes; the planning was very vague. Although it was vague, I explained what style and type of props/locations/costumes I would have; at least then people aren't going to get the wrong idea when they come to making the images. With the set style and type of things needed there is a broad range of things that can be used in my photos; I can think of new ideas of the day of a photoshoot, as long as that new idea fits in with my style and type. Again, although this part of my planning was vague, therefore, it being my weakest point, I believe it will benefit me in the long run.
The bit of work I am most confident with is again, my mock-ups. I think they are very thorough and detailed. They will help a lot with doing the final magazine production. The bit of work I am least confident with is my research on what company will print the magazine. This is because nothing is set in stone yet. I don't know who exactly is printing it and I'm not too certain on how much it will cost so I need to hurry and decided. If I don't, I will rush and be stressed later down the line.
By following my detailed mock-ups I will be able to make the magazine with ease and I believe it will be very successful. My digital mock-up will help me the most as all I need to do is substitute certain things for my images and text. Following my production plan too will be very helpful as I wont lose track of where I am meant to be and what is next to do. Keeping calm and organised will also be a very helpful factor for success in my magazine.

Planning Week 2

Since last week, I have completed my flat plans for my magazine pages: it took me much longer than expected. I still need to complete my planning for the adverts that will go in the magazine. I will then places all my flat plans together and make a mock-up out of them. I am also half way through doing my mock-up pages on Photoshop. I have also written down a list of models that I will use to go in my magazine and images. I have done some research on who and what company will print my magazine; I have found that most big companies will only print a minimum of 50-100 issues of the magazine rather than the 1 that I need. I have noticed that it's not too much money to print a few issues of the magazine with a smaller company so if I can't get 1 issue printed, this is what I'll have to do. I have also done the planning production schedule of producing the magazine after Christmas. A few final things I need to do, is to finish off remaining job and I need to pick apart all the different, big images that will go in my magazine and do the location, props and costume planning of them. I need to focus on completing my planning for the deadline which is very soon.

Planning - Week 1

When planning for my magazine, I did a range of things to get my ideas flowing and going. I started by looking at my mind map and seeing what I could plan first and I decided that doing some stylesheets of my magazine's theme. It helped my alot when decideding a theme and style of the magazine; I started off doing a sheet of potential colour schemes and then develped my chosen colour into a final stylesheets along with images and fonts. After some inspiration of work with stylesheets and mindmaps, I've started making brainstorms and flat plans of each of the magazine pages. I feel as if I need to do a lot more work on the flatplans. I need to hurry up when doing them so I can carry on with the other parts of planning, but otherwise I see myself completing the planning on time.

Follow-up Questionnaire

Doing the follow up questionnaire at the start of the week, I didn't really think it was going to be much help to  me, but as the week progressed, this proved wrong. I thought that I had covered all aspects of my product in my first questionnaire (which I had) but doing the second questionnaire helpled reinforce what the public want in a magazine. The questionnaire has let me know that the ideas that I had in my head about my magazine were good, creative but still had conventional roots that the public seem to like. I think the questionnaire also helped when finding out people's opinions on how magazines work. Overall, the follow up questionnaire was good and helpful; it had helped me with deciding what will actually go in my magazine.

Mindmap