How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary?

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My Finished Magazine Cover

My Finished Poster

My Finished Film

Creating my Magazine Cover

Firstly, I wanted to 'airbrush' the image, in order to give it the same treatment as images in mainstream magazines. To set the image up for airbrushing, I had to remove some of the "flaws" from the skin. To do this, I used the spot healing brush.

Following this, I used another flaw reducing technique which utilises the yellow layer of an image. To do this, I switched the images mode to 'CMYK Colour' (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Key). I then duplicated the yellow layer, put this layer in front of the original, changed the blending mode to 'Soft Light' and reduced the opacity, giving the effect seen in the third image above.

Next, I started the 'airbrushing' process. I duplicated the image and named the new layer 'Smoothness'. I used the 'Surface Blur' filter and blurred the image until the details of the face could barely be seen.

Next, I needed to bring back the details. I duplicated the original, and used the 'High Pass' filter, which highlighted the details.

 I then changed the layer's blending mode to 'Vivid Light' which gave the effect shown above.

Next, I increased the size of the axehead, in order to make it look more threatening.

Next, I used the spot healing brush to remove more "flaws" such as stray hairs and creases in the clothing. This gave the effect seen above.

 Next I began work on the masthead. I decided that the magazine's normal masthead would be most similar to the 2nd one shown above. However, for this particular issue, I wanted give it more violent connotations, to match the feature article. 

I found a bloody texture and changed the layer's blending mode to 'Subtract' and reduced the opacity. The effect can be seen above.

Next I increased the saturation of the image to make it look brighter and more visually appealing. I also increased it's size to give more space for text on the right hand side. I found a somewhat grimy texture and put it in place of the background.

Next, I added all of the cover lines, puffs and plugs etc.

Magazine Cover Photoshoot

These are some photographs that I took for my Feature Article Photograph for my Magazine Cover, based on the design of draft design 3. Although I like all of these images, I ended up using the third one. This is mainly because there is plenty of space for text such as the masthead and cover lines. The picture is very similar to the draft design. 

Magazine Cover Design Drafts

These are 3 drafted designs for a Magazine Front Cover featuring my film. All of them follow the conventions of a magazine cover.

 This design features an extreme close-up of the subject of the photograph. The proximity of the photograph would suggest that the article is entirely about the actress, as there is nothing (except what little of the costume you can see) that references the film in the photograph. This is not what I want from the cover.

This design focuses mainly on aspects of the film, rather than the actress. It is a long shot that would have a prominent background relevant to the film's setting. Although I do like this design, I want there to be connotations that the article will be partly about the film but mainly about the actress. Also, I feel that having puffs and plugs on both sides of the subjsect of the photograph will make the cover look messy.

This design features a mid-shot photograph which allows the reader to see most of the character's costume. Also in this design, the actress in holding an axe. Obviously, holding an axe will not be something that the actress is known for, so this references the film itself. However, she is looking directly at the camera, which will communicate that the article is mainly about her. I also feel that the design is not too crowded. I have decided to use this design for my final magazine cover.

Creating my Poster

Firstly, I isolated the two subjects using the 'Quick Selection Tool' and copy and pasted them into a layer of their own. This will allow me to edit the background without affecting the subjects.

Next, in order to make the world look more ruined and post apocalyptic, I wanted to 'smash' the window that can be clearly seen.

I used the 'Skew' transformation option to fit the broken glass image into the window space.

I then altered the blending mode to 'Overlay' and changed the opacity of the layer to 50%, this made the window look more in place in the scene.

However, the window was too sharp, and needed to be more out of focus as it is in the background. I used the Gaussian Blur tool to achieve the desired effect.

This is the finished smashed window effect.

Following this, I added more elements to the background to make the world look ruined. This includes papers at the character's feet, piles of rubbish, mould on walls and puddles in the pavement. This gives the impression that the street has been abandoned.

I wanted to make the poster more ominous, so I set out to add some fog. To do this, I used the Render Clouds tool.

This was the outcome of using the tool. The effect is too aggressive and does not look good.

To fix this, I changed the layer's blending mode to 'Multiply' and altered the opacity to 70%. This was much closer to the effect that I was looking for.

I then erased the bottom part of the clouds so that they appear to be in the background.

I used a small, soft brush to add shadows beneath the feet of the subjects, making it more convincing that they are standing on the papers.

I also used the Render Clouds effect on Abby's t-shirt to make it appear dirty and worn.

At this point I thought that the image as a whole was too bright, and did not give the 'bleak' impression that I desired. To fix this, I used the colour Variation Adjustment tool to make the shadows slightly darker and the highlights slightly lighter. I also altered the saturation of the image to make it less colourful. 

This was the effect of the colour variation.

I also wanted to make the picture look more rugged and give connotations of violence. To do this, I added two different scratched textures by changing the blending mode and opacity of each layer. I erased part of the texture around the subject's faces so that they can be seen more clearly

This is the result of adding the textures.

Finally, I added text to the poster. I textured the text by using the same technique as shown above. I also added subtle drop shadows to each piece of text to make it stand out more and be more legible.

Title & Date Design

These are some designs for the text on my poster. I experimented with different fonts and decided that the font 'Swiss911' was the most appropriate. I experimented with different positions and styles for the title and decided that the bottom right one was most appropriate. With regards to the dates, I decided on the one that uses '.'s as I feel it looks best.