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Showing posts from April, 2022

Compulsory Question 4

 Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be answering compulsory question 4. Prezi Presentation:  https://prezi.com/p/-ovwsyoexlzb/?present=1 Prezi Video: https://prezi.com/v/y4em-lccoiy7/ Transcript   Hello, my name is David Martinez, my candidate number is 1421, my center number is US154, and today I will be answering compulsory question 4 for my AICE Media Studies Class.  Compulsory Question 4 asks, how did you integrate technologies - software, hardware, and online - in this project? To which I have to say, throughout this project, technology in the form of hardware, software, and online websites were heavily ingrained in the entire production of my magazine from the first blog to the entire final magazine. Without technology, I would have been unable to complete any of the tasks required of me. Software such as PhotoShop and the game Elden Ring helped me in the creation of my magazine. PhotoShop allowed me to edit and remove the background of the photos that I took, and the game Eld

Compulsory Question 3

 Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be answering Compulsory Question 3. Prezi Presentation:  https://prezi.com/p/vz7yt4yqhl6e/?present=1 Prezi Video: https://prezi.com/v/j_qaogdenhl0/ Transcript  Hello, my name is David Martinez, my candidate number is 1421, my center number is US154, and today I will be answering compulsory question 3 for my AICE Media Studies Class.  Compulsory question 3 asks, how did your production skills develop throughout this project?  To which I say, while developing my magazine, my skills especially in digital design have improved tremendously. This is obvious when comparing my submissions for the preliminary task compared to the submissions for my final magazine. I have improved my ability to use software such as PhotoShop to edit my photos, and Canva to compose my designs into a working item.  The preliminary task allowed me to dip my feet into the world of magazine creation. I had to gather pictures relevant to the topic, edit them, and then make sure t

Compulsory Question 2

 Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be answering Compulsory Question 2 Prezi Presentation:  https://prezi.com/p/g_mxf37za4qy/?present=1 Prezi Video:   https://prezi.com/v/60fvz_qf_zf7/ Transcript  Hello, my name is David Martinez, my candidate number is 1421, my center number is US154, and today I will be answering compulsory question 2 for my AICE Media Studies Class.  Compulsory question 2 asks, how does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? My answer to that is, my magazine would be targeted towards young teenagers aged 16 years of age to young adults around 20 years old. This is due to the fact that though a lot of gamers are very young, much younger than 16, not all of them would be interested in magazines. For that reason, I believe 16 is a reasonable starting age. The same goes the other way around, I believe not many gamers over the age of 20 would be interested in a gaming magazine. However, everyone is welcome to enjoy my

Compulsory Question 1

  Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be answering Compulsory Question 1. Prezi Presentation Link:  https://prezi.com/p/rk-9blvh5bca/?present=1 Prezi Video Link:  https://prezi.com/v/gltauyjihsvn/ Transcript     Hello everyone, my name is David Martinez, my candidate number is 1421, my center number is US154, and today I will be answering compulsory question 1 for my AICE Media Studies Class.  Compulsory question 1 asks, how does your product use or challenge social conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? My answer to that is, my magazine is in line with the guidelines of a standard magazine, which include a masthead, tag line, cover image, barcode, cover lines, an issue number, and a date. To gain an idea of how these principles are applied by real magazine publishers, I used PCGamer and GAME as an inspiration. So, let's look at my cover page conventions. When looking at the cover of my magazine, the first thing you notice is the masthead, which is written

Final Magazine

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  Welcome back to my blog! Finally, I have finished my magazine, and with the completion of the double page spread I can put together all my work into one finalized piece.   Magazine Cover Content Page Double Page Spread Goodbye, and see you soon with another update!

Final Double Page Spread

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 Welcome back to my blog! So, with the picture edited and ready to go, I can finally upload it to canva to create my final double page spread, which looks like this!  I'm very happy with how this turned out. I feel like it looks authentic, and I properly used my sources of inspiration to create a well-thought out double page spread. Goodbye, and see you soon with another update! 

Interviewee Picture

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Welcome back to my blog! Today I took and edited the my friend's picture in order to make it suitable to go into my magazine. After seeing the picture with it's background removed and how it would look in the magazine, I decided to keep the background for this image, as I believe the dark background goes well with the color scheme of my magazine.  This was the original photo taken  I decided that in order to make the picture look better, I could put it through a filter, which I did. Uploading the picture to Canva and adding the 'Nimbus' filter gave us this:  I like the look of this filter because it improves the overall clarity of the picture, and in my opinion puts more emphasis on the face of my interviewee. Goodbye, and see you soon with another update!  All pictures taken by me and belong to me.

Double Page Spread Layout

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 Welcome back to my blog! I've finished the layout for my Double Page Spread! I've finished all parts of it except for the feature picture of my interviewee. Here is my almost finished product.  Though it will be removed, you can see that I put a black line down the center of the page. This was to help me figure out what would be the page boundaries that would in turn create the double page spread effect that I was looking for. There is also a placeholder where my friend's picture will go. I made sure to make this seem as real as possible, so I wanted to fill out much of the page, which I believe I succeeded in doing. There were several inspirations to this layout, which you can find below. Obviously, these layouts were inspiration and no direct transfer of information was made. I simply used these two as guidance when creating my spread, using their layouts and such for ideas on what I could do for mine. Goodbye, and see you soon with another update! 

Final Content Page

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 Welcome back to my blog! Another part finished! The content page of my magazine is done, and with it just remains the double page spread that I've already begun working on. Here is my final content page!  Combining all the work that I've posted about on canva, this is the result, and I'm certainly more proud of it than the content page that was on my preliminary task, which means that I've gotten better!  Goodbye, and see you soon with another update!  All content created by me in Canva:  https://www.canva.com/design/DAE_GW2wegA/LgwQfOUp9Li_oUwYUNrUow/edit

Final Magazine Content Photo

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 Welcome back to my blog! So, I've retrieved the final picture that will be used in my magazine content page, which will finally finish it. Here it is.  I mentioned previously that this picture would be of a character that is well known and kind of symbolic about the game. This is the Maiden, one of the main characters of Elden Ring that you meet very soon after you start the game, and she serves as kind of a guide throughout the game. Already a beloved character among fans, it makes sense to include this picture that I took of her as one of the pictures in my magazine.  I went ahead and manually removed the background as well as color corrected the picture to remove the bright hue on her skin, and this is what I got. I'm really proud of how this photo came out, and since the over the top brightness that was present on it beforehand is gone, it looks a lot more natural now. Goodbye, and see you soon with another update! All pictures taken by me:  1st picture - Elden Ring (FromS

Final Magazine Cover

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 Welcome back to my blog! So here it is, the final magazine cover that I will utilize for my magazine. Remember the last post I made that detailed me choosing a black/white/orange color scheme? The way this cover looks played a huge role in me choosing that scheme. Anyways, have a look!     As I said, I did use that picture I took while playing Elden Ring for the cover, and I think it looks really cool with how the ray shoots through the middle of the magazine cover. It makes it feel really authentic and I love that! Goodbye, and see you soon with another update!  Canva reference:  https://www.canva.com/design/DAE_Ajsukr0/8moOwS9Wtz8ZmyfXnwCklA/edit

Final Magazine Color Scheme

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  Welcome back to my blog! So, last time I published the updated layout of my content page. Today we're going to be explaining that chocie of color and exactly why I'm going with an Orange, Black, and White color scheme. First things first, I believe these colors harmonize very well with each other, we see them all the time used during events like halloween, plus black and orange are one of the most common color combinations that people use.  I ended up choosing a split-complementary color scheme if you remember what that is from my previous post about color scheme and more importantly color theory, but if you don't that's fine, let me refresh your memory.   Split-Complementary Scheme- Combination of the complementary and analogous color schemes that places complementary colors by each other, with a buffer between them being a different color from the color wheel. This is meant to reduce the contrast between the complementary colors which could be harsh or distasteful t

New Images!

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 Welcome back to my blog! As I get ever closer to finishing my table of contents, I present 2 more images that will go on the page!  Both are meant to be the images on articles as a bit of a teaser at the front of the magazine, however the second one was much more painful to edit than the first, as I had to remove the entirety of the backgroud, which took A LONG time. I tried using Canva's auto-remove feature but when that didn't work I had to resort to doing it manually which was a real pain. The second one was rather simple to make and just took some creative thinking to get rolling. I've already added these two images onto the layout which now looks like this.  Once again, this is bound to change! This is still a work in progress, and as it slowly fills up more and more I'll continue to update you guys! Goodbye, and see you soon with another update!  All images created by me.  Canva reference:  https://www.canva.com/design/DAE_HIbPKrw/aPUbkMLjw-LBzG2CpS3dvQ/edit

Potential Interview Questions

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  Welcome back to my blog! After securing my interview, I've been considering what it is I should ask. After considering the content that is going to be on my magazine (reviews, strategies. etc.) I've come up with a batch of questions that I could possibly ask for the interview. Have you played Elden Ring Have you completed the game How much time have you invested How would you rate the difficulty of the game How did you like the game  What was the hardest boss in your opinion Any tips on fighting them These are only questions that I've thought of so far, when the interview actually happens I'll probably ask on the spot questions based on the answers I receive to make the whole interview seem more conversational as opposed to me asking an endless stream of questions. Goodbye, and see you soon with another update! 

Final Content Page Draft 2

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Welcome back to my blog! So after I made my previous blog post I continued working on and off on my content page to make sure that I had something I could be proud of, and I added a couple more 'features' that make me think that this WILL be the final draft and will be used for the real content page.  So, we had a lot of empty space in the previous content page, and that was bugging me a lot, so I decided to fill in that empty space with a large FEATURES section like I see on other magazines. This helps fill up the page and also give it a more authentic look. Now that I also have my interview finished I think I'm going to work on getting the last 2 pictures to put in the content page, and then we can move on to the last step, the double page spread! Goodbye, and see you soon with another update!   

Interview Finished!

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  Welcome back to my blog! So, I've finished my interview! It went according to plan and I got the responses I needed to begin writing the double page spread. Below I'll write what I asked as well as the answers I received in order give you a look into the interview. Have you played Elden Ring? Yes, in fact it's one of my more played games this year. Have you completed the game? Yeah. How long did it take you to complete? It took me about 110 hours, I didn't really keep track, but it could be a little more or a little less, it's definitely over 100 hours though. And how much time have you invested in total? Around 220 hours. So you beat the game and are still playing, why is that? I'm just grinding out trophies so I can 100% the game, it's just like a personal achievement, plus there's still a whole lot of weapons and other abilities to try out.    How would you rate the difficulty? Oh, yeah, it's definitely hard. But that's part of the appeal of

Final Content Page Draft

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 Welcome back to my blog! I've completed the layout of my magazine's content page. Here it is, I hope you like it!  Obviously this is only a layout. A lot of things still need to be ironed out, such as the font, the color scheme, and the pictures. Those will be done once I have all the pictures ready to upload. Until then, I'm just basically waiting for the interview. In the meantime, I'm going to begin working on the layout for the double page spread so I can at least have something that I'm doing. Goodbye, and see you soon with another update! 

Preliminary Task - Writing Leads 3

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  Welcome back to my blog! Hello everyone! This will be my final practice lead story for the preliminary task. After this blog I plan to begin to post my plans for creating my final magazine's content page, as well as my interview results once it's finally done. Now with that out of the way, let's begin. New York Senator John Doe in hot water today as some documents recently surfaced that show him involved in several transactions with private individuals in exchange for political favors. Though interests groups are nothing new in the United States, the investigation which followed showcased several of these transactions would be considered illegal and actually fall under the grounds of corruption. The president issued a short statement following this revelation condemning the actions of the Senator, and that his behavior "does not represent the United States or its people". Leaders from both parties also issued joint statements condemning the Senator for his actio

Preliminary Task - Writing Leads 2

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  Welcome back to my blog! Hello all! So last time I began writing practice leads to prepare for my final magazine's double page spread. This will be a continuation of that as I write yet another short story followed by a feature lead that would go along with it.  Scientists at NASA wait nervously as the first manned launch to Mars is scheduled to take place this Thursday. The launch, over 5 years in the making will be the first of its kind, and could open the way for continued human exploration of our solar system and the eventual colonization of the red planet. Final preparations and flight checks are underway at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a small crowd has already begun to gather ahead of this historic launch. These astronauts, handpicked as some of the best in their field, form the group of 4 humans that will pierce the heavens and move humanity towards new frontiers. Experts are excited for the launch, as they believe that  due to the extensive preparation undertak

Preliminary Task - Writing Leads

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  Welcome back to my blog! Hello everyone, welcome back! Today while we wait for our interview candidate to become available we're going to be working on our writing skills, specifically our lead writing skills. Writing leads is an incredibly important part of this magazine, as I'll have to write a lead story that will go with my double page spread. Since I'm going to be writing said spread relatively soon-ish, I'm going to write several practice lead stories and split them up between 3 blogs. So one here and 2 in seperate blogs as to not use too much space. Anyways, here goes.  Yesterday evening, shots were heard from the Golden Gate mall by 51st Avenue after two armed gunmen stormed the mall and proceeded to rob several stores over the course of 3 hours. In that time, police responding to the scene formed a perimeter around the mall, and a siege quickly began. The men, threatning police with hostages, remained holed up in a jewelry store inside the mall until more spe

Final Magazine Cover Inspiration

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  Welcome back to my blog! So, a couple blogs ago I mentioned how I finally had the cover image for my final magazine, and several blogs before that I went alhead and laid out the layout that would end up creating my final magazine. Those looked like this respectively:     These ideas didn't simply pop into existence in my head, like all great artists, there is often some kind of inspiration that pushes us to create what we create. And my inspiration was the cover of this video game magazine that I saw while browsing looking for inspiration. Obviously, not everything is a direct copy, because that would be plagiarism, but you can notice similarities here and there between the style of this magazine cover and the style of mine. Besides, most magazine publishers have working formulas that most of the time look very similar to that of their competitors' which makes you think where these big time names got their 'inspiration' from.  There's another thing that inspired m

Magazine Cover Image

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  Welcome back to my blog! Hi! Today I'm going to continue working on my final magazine by detailing my  plan to get the final background image that will be used on the cover of my magazine as well as throughout my final product. Since my feature game is Elden Ring, my plan is to venture into the game and take screenshots of noteworthy moments that would belong within the magazine without spoiling too much. This would make it so that the content I use would be created by me, as it was taken by me and would be edited by me also.  I have several in-game events in mind that could constitute me going back and screenshotting them, and after I have the selection of screenshots saved on my PC, I would proceed to select several outstanding candidates that would be edited and transferred onto the final product, much like with the preliminary tasks's content page.  Hopefully, it won't be too hard to gather these images, as it can be quite difficult to capture a perfect moment in a vi

Distribution

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  Welcome back to my blog! Today we're going to be going over the potential distribution of my magazine, since it is one of the  questions asked by the course. My magazine is a gaming magazine, meaning that it probably wouldn't be found in your run of the mill bookstore, meaning that avenues for distribution would probably involve stores that fill certain niches such as video game stores, large retailers, and online retailers.  Many of the gaming magazines that I've seen have been distributed through video game shops like Gamestop and GAME in the UK, this is most likely where most of the copies would end up, considering its where most of my desired audience would go at some point or another. Another potential avenue is online sales. Many game magazines offer either digital versions for sale or straight up sell the product through online retailers like Amazon, where it is then shipped to your home. Large retailers like Walmart and the like are the melting pot of magazines. Y

Audience #2

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  Welcome back to my blog! So, I've made a post about audience before, however in said post I only really scratched the surface as to who my potential audience would be. Obviously, my magazine is going to be targeted at gamers, but 'gamers' is a very broad term that could use some defining. First off, lets get an age bracket. As time has progressed the age of average video game players has gotten lower and lower as more young  children are introduced to video games before they reach adolescence.  Also, with the explosion of computation technology, games are becoming more and more ambitious per year as the platforms that support them become more and more powerful, this is a very strong appeal factor as more and more people are drawn in to the video game scene every year. This leads me to believe that my target audience would most likely be within the age range of 13-20. This is a pretty wide bracket, however we must realize just how many teens and young adults actually play

Update- Elden Ring Screenshots

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 Welcome back to my blog! Recently, I was thinking about my magazine and my plans to use screenshots from Elden Ring taken by me as content within my magazine. Immediately I thought of what constitutes fair use, and whether the developers of Elden Ring would be fine with me using their game as my magazine project for AICE Media Studies.  For that reason, I decided to go over to FromSoftware's contact information on their website found here  in order to make sure that everything I was doing checks out with them. I'd hate to have to cancel and rework my entire magazine because of this but I was not disappointed! This screenshot was taken under a Q&A section that clearly states that the usage of images by me falls under fair use, meaning that they can be used on my magazine.  Even if this wasn't explicity stated on their website, I'm certain that my screenshots would be considered original because: They were taken by me Screenshots are not extended portions of game foo