Task 11 evaluation

EVALUATION

Melissa Storey

TIME MANAGEMENT

Personally, I feel I used my time well. I was given enough time to complete all my work to

a good standard. For example I was given, at a minimum, two three hour days to

complete two drafts of work. One would need to be completed before the end of the first

day and sent off to be marked and this gave me a full day to improve for a second piece.

Every time I got my work in on the deadline. This is important to do because in the real

journalism industry you would be expected to create a piece in a certain time so it could

have time to be printed and if not consequences would be given. It is best to keep to a

strict guideline.

But if in any case you were to fall behind then extra time was planned. There was a week

dedicated to contingency time, but sticking to the strict schedule we did not need to use

this time.

Some tasks needed more time that others, for example the obituary needed some

research but this was because I had not seen many obituaries and needed to see how to

write them. But the longest task was the production of the interview. Choosing a

magazine like NME, that uses different layout styles every month to keep the audience

interested, I needed to research a lot about the layouts.

The only problem I came across was during production I was ill for two days. Luckily I

was ahead two days so I was not behind. It is very important to stick to a schedule so

incase someone is ill there will be a way to work around it in the industry.

REVIEWING WORK IN PROGRESS

By sending a first draft to my tutor he was able to review my work and give me helpful feed back

on this. This definitely improved my work, for example in my first draft of my interview it was just

simple question and answers. But with a one to one with my tutor he suggested to make it a more

following interview and to intertwine quote rather than have straight forward question answer.

Here is how the interview was in the first draft:

“Personally what is your favourite album and why? Meg: Hard choice, you are asking a no.1 fan.

I'd say AM as its just lyrically incredible, the music is amazing and also the look of band during

this 'AM era' is just sexy. Elle: I can't choose definitively, but today it is Humbug - the musicality

intrigues me and the lyrics continue to be an enigma. One day when I feel I know exactly what it

means, the next I will entirely change my opinion on it.”

And this is what I changed it to after the review of my work:

“When asking the three fans in front of me, they turned to each other and laughed, “Hard choice,

you are asking a no.1 fan.” Meg replies. “I'd have to say AM as its just lyrically incredible, the

music is amazing and also the look of band during this 'AM era' is just sexy.” Elle too replies with

the same confused voice.”

I like the way the second piece flows and it feels like you are actually having a conversation with

three people about the band but with a few hidden extras around the sides. As with the first draft

it is more block like and not as interesting. But both forms are used in journalism depending on

the style.

Having someone review my work I felt worked well for me as I was given way to improve and

show that I can work in different styles.

TECHNICAL COMPLIANCES

When creating the text part of this assessment I didn’t need to use any technical

compliances, I just used a Word document to type up my interview etc. But with

production I used both Photoshop and InDesign. First of all I started to use Photoshop for

interview layout because I was confident with this program but I had a bit of a struggle

fitting the text so then I used InDesign for the rest of the production.

Although I am more confident with Photoshop, InDesign has a lot of pros to make me

choose it over something I know a lot about. With InDesign I can use the text wrap tool to

place the text around images in a quick, professional manor. I feel it is a lot easier to

create a layout because text can be fitted in and around shapes and images, it gives you

more freedom than Photoshop, layout wise. The only thing I do not like about this

program is using it for images. You cannot resize the image without going into Photoshop

and changing the size and then placing it in. This took me the longest change to get used

to on this new program, but once I get used to it I found the software extremely

productive and helpful, even more than Photoshop.

With InDesign I was able to create drop caps in seconds, cross text over to the next

column without the need of copy and pasting constantly and place images in different

shape boxes to give them a different shape, for example I placed album covers in a small

circle to make it look different and reference a CD.

This first layout was designed on Photoshop. Although I am

please with this, there are pros and cons to creating a layout

on Photoshop.

The image was incredibly easy to place, because it is such a

large image this could have caused a problem in InDesign. I

also slightly burned into the jacket Alex Turner is wearing so

the white “Arctic Monkeys” text stood out more, I would not be

able to do this in InDesign. All editing and resizing needs to be

processed before being placed in an InDesign document.

The problem with Photoshop is it can be harder to sort out the

layout for the text and make it all fit. Photoshop is more for

small bits of text and images not large interviews like this.

Effects such as drop caps could not be achieved without

creating two layers and spacing the letters out carefully. I also

feel if I produced this on InDesign I would possible be able to

achieve more of a professional standard although I am

pleased.

At first InDesign took me a while to get used to. It had new

features and a different way of handling images and text. But

eventually when I started to understand tools I felt like this

program was worth the time as it made my work look more

professional and it was easier to use mainly for the fact of the

placement of the text. Although placing images take more

time and work in the end it does look more professional in a

way.

I was able to create a drop cap and move text into the next

column in a click of a button. The spacing of the text looks

better when using InDesign and it is easier to change the

layout if needed too.

CREATIVE ABILITIES

Each style of writing needed me to be creative and use different creative skills to show

my wide ability. I feel I succeed with this as with as each task I achieved a different

creative style from interview to obituary. Each style needed to include different things

such as in the news report it needed to inform the reader in the first paragraph who,

what, where and when, where as the obituary needed to celebrate their successes and

be much more positive.

In my final production I was able to be a lot more creative as I choose NME. This

magazine is more casual about their layout, this helping me to be more creative than

other magazines such as Cosmopolitan that stick to a strict style every month. The

reason why NME are so casual is because of the gender of the magazine, Indie Rock,

they want to be individual and although they keep a house style the layout can change

around making the magazine different and more exciting. I did two final pieces that

showed different ways I could portray an interview in NME. The first one consisted of one

large image that took up most of the page, while the other one has a lot of smaller

images and take up two double page spreads, with one bring mostly an image and a

large quote as a heading.

Being able to be creative has helped me a lot in this project

as I could think up new ideas for each individual text, for

example for the obituary my celebrity has not died therefore I

needed to create a believable death. My creative abilities also

helped me a lot to create the layout for my interview. I was

happy with the outcome due to being able to be a little

eccentric more than other magazines.

FANZINE

To what extent have your intentions been realised?

Creating a fanzine I needed to be creative about a particular topic that concern the fan of

the Arctic Monkeys. Therefore I choose what is the best album and ranks they go in. This

is a hard topic for the fans as each person has their own opinion. In my first draft I was

able to talk through the pros and cons for each album. Once I had some feed back I did it

from my opinion. I could be more honest and more biased in this fanzine article. I could

be informal and relaxed with this article as it was only aimed at fans who wanted to talk

about the Arctic Monkeys. The intentions of it being a fanzine lie in it being biased and

informal language such as “after becoming chummy with P Diddy.” Press releases would

not usually use the word “chummy,” showing this is a relaxed article.

Appropriateness of your work for the audience:

The audience would be teenage girls and boys who are fans of the Arctic Monkeys. They

would be interested in their new music, tours and opinions. They would like to hear what

other fans have to say about their favourite band. Therefore talking about a hitting subject

such as the ranking of the albums would get them interested and they would want to read

about this. They would been teenagers so the language used would be simple, often

using slang.

Content, the style and the skills you have used:

The content had to be interesting to keep the young audience interesting, therefore

opinions which they could agree and disagree on would be heard. It would also need to

be biased because although they want to hear opinions they couldn’t be confused and

wouldn’t want to hear bad things about their favourite band.

How your skills have developed:

I have developed skills to show I can be biased, but in a controlled way of giving my view

to keep an audience happy. Although their ranking of the bands could be different to mine

they can still relate and be interested in what I have to say and probably agree. I have

been able to show skills in slang, which personally I do not like using, but if aimed at

teenagers I feel it is a good thing to use as it keeps the text alive and flowing.

Areas for improvement:

Areas I could improve it would be to make it more biased and talk more about how great

they are as this is what fans would like to hear rather mostly positives but some slight

negatives. I would have liked to research more fanzines and see how they produce their

layout and content. This would have helped me see how other journalists write about a

topic that is important to other people. I also need to look at being able to end my fanzine

in a better way rather than just leaving it on a vision of my memories while listening to

that album.

INTERVIEW


To start off I created a survey on surveymonkey.com where I got 19 responses. From this I analysed them and choose the three people who gave the best and most detailed responses. This helped me find people who were interested in the Arctic Monkeys and this made my interview more interesting as they gave their honest opinions. They were able to do this because of the open questions I asked leaving them to expand on their answers giving me more to talk about.

The first interview draft I did was very simple and straight to the point. It was a straight forward question answer layout. Very simple but used a lot in magazines. When I got feedback from my tutor he suggested I make the interview more flowing. I placed quotes from the fans inside sentences such as When asking the three fans in front of me, they turned to each other and laughed, ““Hard choice, you are asking a no.1 fan.” Meg replies. “I'd have to say AM as its just lyrically incredible, the music is amazing and also the look of band during this 'AM era' is just sexy.” Elle too replies with the same confused voice.” This makes the interview much more flowing and you can add things rather than leaving it down to specifically what was said.

Being able to practice both interview styles I have realised many intentions within the interview style of writing. I am very please with both my interviews that I used it to make a final product of which strived to a NME layout interview. This relived intentions on how NME would produce their own interviews and the style they would use. I feel like I succeeded with this after looking at many examples online and on paper I was able to create a professional looking interview layout.


When putting the survey online I pasted the link into social media sites such as Facebook,

Twitter and used the hashtag to link it to Arctic Monkeys fans. I also embedded the link into

the Arctic Monkeys forum on their official website. I got a lot of responses from around the

world, giving me get a good variety of fans.

I choose fans who seemed to be No.1 fans. This made the interview biased but they were

able to give their honest and detailed opinions about the band and the lead singer.

I ended the interview with when the new single would be out, this is so fans could go and

and buy it and even for new fans who have read the article and see how good the band is

can go out and buy it.


Using Arctic Monkeys fan I was able to gain exclusive information about what they thought

about the band and music they have produced. The simple question and answer style was to

quickly grab the attention of teenagers as they wouldn’t want to read a interview that was

hard or difficult to read. Myself when reading about what other say about artists I like to see

the question and answer as I can quickly see what their opinions are to that specific

question. Although a long handed interview is good and it lets you include more detail it

doesn’t really link to my audience.

How your skills have developed and development:

From my first drafted interview from just being a straight forward answer and question

interview my skills have developed into being able to make the fans answers flow into

related text. This is a more professional way of completing a layout but the Q&A will mostly

be used in magazine. I have been able to develop on my production technique with this

interview by using new programs such as InDesign.

Ways to improve would be to make the interview more interesting at the beginning and end

and maybe including some more factual information.

OBITUARY


This was a style of writing I had not done before. I research obituaries as I had not read

many before. By looking at Peaches Gelfdof and Amy Winehouse I creatively though my

celebrity, Alex Turner, would suddenly pass from drug overdose because of his

background and the rock and roll lifestyle. When reading the existing obituaries I found

they were very positive and used a lot of quotes from what other people thought of them

and what they might have said about themselves in the past. I interpreted the quotes like;

“‘Sometimes writing songs is waiting for a delivery,’ Turner said reveling his song process

to Spin.” This would be to show his struggle but in a calm way and how he was a

successful man trying to please. I feel my intentions on creating a obituary were

successful and have shown a positive look at a celebrity who tragically died. Speaking

about his achievements and family is something obituaries do to make them seem loved

by many people no matter what they have done.


An obituary would be for people who are interested in who has died and why, these are

usually printed in Newspapers therefore it could be more towards an older generation.

But fans would want to read about it too. But they would probably first see Alex Turners

death online rather than in a Newspaper.


They way I portrayed my celebrity to be was successful. Although he passed because of

drug overdose, something socially wrong and bad, he still needed to be celebrated for his

work. Including quotes from him and other people make it seem he will be missed and it

was a sad tragic loss. Showing his success by saying “Alex Turners music spoke to

people lyrically and musically and with the success of the Arctic Monkeys debut album

becoming the fastest selling debut in British music history he became a inspiring

musician,” shows how he will be missed by the people he inspired with his music.


This is the first obituary I have ever written therefore my skills have developed to let me

able to pick out the good success’ that my celebrity has achieved to make it look like he

has achieved something to other people in his life no matter how he died.


Areas to improve would be in include quotes about what other celebrities or parents have

said about Alex Turner. This would again show how much he is missed. Including more

information about recent successes would also be a thing to include more of.

PRESS RELEASE


My intentions of my press release was to announce the release date of AM. Starting off

with a catching first sentence, “An analogue radio frequency, a new morning and the

bands initials- AM is the new title for the Arctic Monkeys fifth album.” This gets straight

into the point of the title of the album. I then talk about how you can purchase the new

album, CD, mp3, vinyl. Getting straight to the point starts the article off making it very

clear what it is about. Talking about what you will expect in the album is good so

audiences know before they purchase it. Including other celerity names that have worked

with the band to produce this album is a good thing to include so fans from Queens Of

The Stone Age and Sir John Cooper Clark may also buy this album too. Including some

of the song title names gives people a little experience of what they are going to get. But

finally ending it with when they can hear the second single which would be at

Glastonbury, advertise not only the single and album but for everyone to watch the

performance to hear the new release.


The press release will be targeted towards fans but would be placed in a

magazine/newspaper so the language would need to be informative and not use slang

like the Fanzine. Including other celebrity names that would consist in the same genre

would link to the same audience so there is no split in genres when reading this article.


The style of writing is very informative on what is in the album and what you can expect. I

choose to put in quotes from the drummer suggesting if there was going to be a new

album after Suck It And See It.


I developed my first draft to the send by making it more than an introduction to the album

rather than both the audience and the journalist finding out about the album. The

journalist should be telling the reader what to expect in the new album before it comes

out. From changing the style from the first draft to the second I was able to talk more

about what to expect in the album rather than finding quote from people about the

upcoming of the album.


To improve this press release I need to talk about what you are going to expect from the

album more as as a journalist I would have heard the full album to comment on it in the

article and make sure the Arctic Monkeys get the best press release so when the release

of the album comes out they get the best sell out.

TABLOID


The tabloid was about the BRIT award speech which blew up the social media. This

tabloid was for a newspaper like The Sun, therefore it didn’t need to be serious or use

proper English. For example I could use the quote from Peaches Geldof’s twitter after

she watched the speech saying "Alex Turner acting like a pure t**t #bethankfula**ehole.”

I did star out some of the letters so they were less recognizable but still readable just

because it is a social thing to do even in a lower class newspaper. The first paragraph

needed to include who, what, where and when, which I did. This is so the audience know

what the article is about straight away. It explains what he said then goes onto his

response after and then the response from the social media and other celebrities.


It will be aimed towards people in their early 20’s and being placed in a newspaper that is

more for the younger society the report is quite casual and bitchy. Talking about the social

media also links to the younger audience.


Using relaxed language links to the audience being in the C2DE social grade. Due to the

style of writing I was able to use a lot of quotes to back up my story. At the end of the

article I said, “other acts who performed on the night were Katy Perry, Beyonce, Bruno

Mars and Ellie Golding who hit the stage with an acoustic guitar.” This linked in other

events that happened in the night as if I was reporting about the whole night rather than

just the speech.


My skills improved from the first draft just talking about the one subject as if that was the

only big thing that happened that night, but being able to include other things that joined

that night made it seem like a big event that everyone was talking about. I used different

words such as “bazaar”, “blurting” and “Twitter warrior” to show I can use a range of

language to aim to a certain audience.


Areas to improve would be to inform when the event happened more in the second draft.

The first one I did this but missed it out when I did my final drafted tabloid.

I am happy with my tabloid as I have made sure it was for the C2DE audience by using

casual and slang language. It is easy to read and gets straight to the point involving all

information in a small area. I like the way I have involved other things that happened in

the night making it seem like a huge event being talked about over the world.

PRODUCTION 1

To what extent have your intentions been

realised?

I choose to take my interview and put it into a

layout that would be used in an NME magazine.

By looking at examples of NME layouts I was able

to take their house style and place my interview in

it. NME has many different layouts depending on

what they are

talking about, if it be an interview, views on new music/albums or just an

article. This let me be a bit more creative but I did try to follow an existing

layout that appears on the left. This layout consists of a image that takes up

a third of the page, with a large white heading over the left hand corner with

a sidebar down the right with related text to the artist.

I used red to separate questions from answers. This gives a bit of space and

makes the text easier to read.

Something I took from the original layout was the image of the album cover

displaying it as an advertisement. Instead of placing it at the beginning of the article

like the existing copy, I choose to place it at the end to advertise a new single coming out and when.

The sidebar is separate from the interview as it doesn’t have anything to do with the interview, it is just

some extra information about the Arctic Monkeys that fans could find interesting.


NME has a medium audience at 23 year olds, mainly men. They are seemed to be

obsessed with music, they feel they need this magazine to keep them up to date with

new and up coming music. This interview is to do with fans and their opinions on a large

indie band, which fits perfectly in the genre for NME.

The layout splits up the interview nicely. It is not too spaced out so it seems like there is a

good amount of information to read. Although young adults would not want to read a lot

because of the large image it compliments the text.


With this layout I used Photoshop as I found it easier to place the image and side bar. I

like the way the image takes up about a third of the page, not only does it fill the page it

gives people something to look at but text and straight away you know it will we an article

about the Arctic Monkeys. I put in a sub-heading and lined this off to start the interview

which I gave it a opening paragraph as well as a closing paragraph. The opening

paragraph in NME usually sets the scene and the closing one announces a new single or

album from the artist.


Honestly, I do not feel I have developed much on my knowledge of creating layouts as I

have used Photoshop and the same tools over and over again. Unfortunately I did not

have the confidence to use a new program but I will develop on this and try it in the next

layout production.


I struggled to use at first InDesign, therefore this made the layout of my text not at its

highest standard. Next time I would try and use InDesign as I feel this would help me

separate my text a bit easier and make the design look more professional and together.

To what extent have your intentions been

realised?

This layout came from two NME different

articles on the Arctic Monkeys. The bottom

layout came from the Arctic Monkeys NME

World Exclusive and the first layout comes from

another Arctic Monkeys article I found when

looking through NME magazines in the library.

The first double page is very simple but eye

catching. It is different and indie relating to the

genre of music and magazine. I like the way

the images are in black and white but the

image on the front is in colour. It splits them up

a bit but the consistent red brings them back

together. I wanted this layout to look like an

existing special edition for the Arctic Monkeys

in NME. I looked at many existing

PRODUCTION 1

Original NME Layout

magazines and

took parts I liked

to create my own

layout that could

be used in NME.


NME’s medium age that read their magazine is 23, they are usually male who are very

into the music scene. The Arctic Monkeys genre fits well with this magazine and they

usually feature in it regularly. Using images that look like they have been taken while at a

festival or gig look good next to professional shoots. The on stage images give you a feel

of what they would be like live and what sort of band they are. The look is very sleek

compared to other NME layouts, this is because it would be in a special edition for the

Arctic Monkeys.


With this layout design I was able to fit all my question and answers and a side bar which

I separated from the main text by a red line. The style is more tidy than a normal layout

from NME, this would end up in a special edition, just like the “ArcticMonkeys World

Exclusive” edition where I got my inspiration from. I like the classic black, white and red

house style that is used by NME, this keeps it consistent.


I have developed my skills by using InDesign for this

production. Eventually I found out how to get the images to

fit well and I found the text was easier to place on this

program and change, making it more spaced out and easier

to change to layout if needed.


Things I would like to improve would be the lining on the

first double page. I feel this could make the page, rather

than letting it feel rather rough. On the second double page

spread I would like to change the font for the quote as I

don’t think it fits with the rest of the text.

Education

Task 11 evaluation