Initial Skills Assesment

Introduction Project

AS Media Production: Induction

AS Media Production: Induction

Personal Evaluation Write Up

Through creating my print article, I have developed skills in both Photoshop and in photography and in creating storyboards.

There are still lots of aspects of Photoshop that I have yet to learn.  For example I want to learn more about the different types of filters and their effects.  I also want to learn more about layers and how to use these and especially how to cut out parts of images.

I already have quite a good understanding of photography, but still need to develop certain skills such as ISO control.  I also need to get used to using different types of cameras as I am less confident when picking up a different camera to the ones I am used to.

I felt less confident using the storyboard techniques as I was unfamiliar with some of the terminology and techniques, for example different types of shot.

I feel that this assignment has helped me to develop new skills and to practice skills that I already had.  I want to become more confident in using Photoshop and to find out more about its potential.  I really enjoyed the photography aspects of the assignment and designing my print design.

Looking back at my skills development initial assessment, I can see that I have used a number of Photoshop skills in my print advert.

I successfully placed text onto the advert and experimented with different colours and textures to my font. I think my text is fairly effective as I have managed to make it appeal to the target audience.

I have used a filter on my image. I made a duplicate layer of the photograph and applied a Gaussian Blur filter. On this layer I then erased the filter off the model wearing the rain hat and the face of the girl in the background. I think this was effective as it made these areas really stand out from the image as it threw the rest slightly out of focus.  I also erased the blur off the wet pavements in the foreground to emphasise the weather.

I made adjustments to the brightness and contrast of the image. This was effective because it made the whole image much stronger and gave it more depth and definition.

Firstly, I shot the image vertically as most adverts in magazines or posters are vertical so I thought it would make it easier. I then cropped the image further in Photoshop to make it a more effective and better composed.

When I was happy with my image, I decided that I needed to create extra space to add text about my product.  I re-cropped the image and then used canvas sizing to add space at the bottom of the page.  Then I used the sample tool to re-create the colour of my main font and used this to fill the background area.  I feel that this tied the whole advert together as it created a link between the image and the text area.  I was much happier with the finished product once I had made these final adjustments.

Another skill that I feel I used effectively is composition.  The positive image is in the foreground and fills the majority of the frame, showing their superiority.  The negative image of the second girl is part of the background, although you can still clearly see the contrast between her ‘miserable’ state and the ‘happy’, ‘confident’ pose of the girl in the Rain Hoody.

I feel that the work that I am blogging demonstrates the range of skills that I have developed and used in this assignment.  I have tried to improve each aspect of the work as I have gone along, to make the finished product the best of my ability.  I know that there are probably lots of further improvements that could have been made, however I have done what I can given my current skill levels.

 One of the weaknesses I have identified throughout the project is how dark the images were. This is because I was unsure of how to use the external flash on the particular camera. Because of this, on a lot of my images when the sun isn’t shining, the exposure was all wrong. In the future, to improve this, I would learn exactly how to use the flash so I could have more control of the lighting before editing it in Photoshop. It would just save time.

If I were to do this project again, I would probably try and find models that were slightly older. This is because the models we used were aged at the very bottom of the target audience age range so therefore if we used models at the top of the age range, the audience would probably look at the model and aspire to be them more.

I would spend more time on the moving image project as I feel there was less thought gone into producing a high quality standard. The types of shots aren’t very varied and some of the images don’t really reflect the messages we wanted to get across.

To move towards the standard achieved in professional working practise, I would have to change a couple of things. For example, we could use studio lighting to achieve the exact desired effect rather than simply relying on the natural light. We would have to use a rain machine to make the background appear wetter and therefore more effective.  Although it was raining when I took the images, it would have been more effective if it had appeared to be absolutely pouring down.

Before we re-branded the rain hat, the target audience for the product was elderly women, probably 65+.   This is a product that has gone out of fashion in recent years and now only has a small target audience, probably of existing users rather than people new to the product.

Our task was to re-brand the rain hat with a new target audience of female teenagers and young women, especially those aged between 16 and 20.

To make sure our product appealed to the new target audience, we included a number of techniques within the promotion.  In both the print and moving image adverts, we used models who were within the age range of the new target audience. Doing this will immediately attract teenagers to the advert as they will know it’s aimed at them. I have also used female models in the print and a female model to model the hat in moving image. This is because we chose the target audience to be females.

The font I used in my advert is a fairly modern one again so the target audience will be automatically attracted. I have also used a bright colour to stand out from the rest of the advert and be an eye-catching feature. I’ve chose the colour of the text carefully. I needed to find a colour which was fairly ‘girlie’ however be a confident, happy colour to reflect the feeling of wearing the product.  I renamed the product to ‘Rain Hoody’, to bring it more up to date and to appeal to the target audience.  I also chose to make reference to the fact that girls love their hair.  This may be stereotyping, but this was a deliberate marketing ploy.

I still think that my target audience is unlikely to be attracted to the product.  The product would require a total re-branding and modernisation before it was likely to attract a younger target audience.

If I could do my project again I would make the changes to the lighting and the models mentioned earlier. 

I feel that I have tailored my project to meet the demands of my target audience.  To make it more interesting for my audience, if money was no object, I would like to have been able to use a celebrity model for my advert.  This would have the effect of attracting celebrity media pressure on my target audience to follow the fashion.  It may also be good to use models that represent different cultures or ethnicities – again ensuring that the product appeals to the widest possible audience. 

From learning in previous lessons about audience segmentation systems, I was able to specifically tailor my ideas to the target audience. The most specific segmentation systems I took into account were age and gender (teenagers and female).

Chloe Jemison 1.05