Level 2 Print Media Production

Okay we're at the very end of this unit. So far you've analysed the living hell out of a newspaper and mag, proposed a magazine you're making, as well as creating first and final drafts of an article, and a first draft of a front cover for that mag. Time to wrap things up. Do this in the following way. REMEMBER DISTINCTION CRITERIA DEPENDS UPON YOUR FINAL ARTICLE & FRONT COVER LOOKING WELL PROFESH. MAKE IT AS GOOD AS YOU CAN AND TAKE YOUR TIME - DON'T BE IN A RUSH TO FINISH UNLESS YOU'RE HAPPY WITH PASSES.  1. Create a new post. Give it the title 'PRINT PRODUCTION WEEK 7 - FINAL ARTICLE & FRONT COVER'. IN BOTH THE FOLLOWING STEPS MAKE SURE WHEN SCREENSHOTTING THAT YOU VIEW THINGS AS A PREVIEW SO THERE'S NO FORMATTING LINES/BOXES. I WANT TO SEE WHAT YOUR MAG WILL LOOK LIKE IF PRINTED OUT.  2. Put in the heading 'FINAL ARTICLE'. Using the FINAL DRAFT of your article text (so it shouldn't be the same as your first draft but sh...

Okay, you sent me the first draft of your article. I will have sent this back to you with corrections. You now need to create the FINAL DRAFT of your article. Once you've done this, this is the text you should use in the final layout of your article. Complete this week's production tasks as follows. 1. Open up a new blogpost. Call it 'Print Production Week 6 - Article Final Draft'. 2. Add the heading EDITING. Screenshot your first draft AND my edited draft next to each other into your blogpost. Explain what the images show and what you're going to do. 3. Make the changes to your draft I've recommended. Then save the finished document, separate to your original piece, as a 'final draft'. 4. Add the heading FINAL DRAFT and screenshot your final draft in. Explain that you've made the changes to your document and this is now the final text you will use in your final layout for your article. 5. Add the heading PRODUCTION DIARY and just expla...

So far you've Analysed Proposed Pitched Designed and you're now in a position where you have A First Draft Front Cover A First Draft Article Time to swing back to working on your FRONT COVER - there's no avoiding the fact that you need INDESIGN TIME - the thought that you'll get the design aspects of your magazine ready in a week is for the birds - not gonna happen. You're only spending about five or six hours a week in here and you'll need it to improve your skills. Well aware that when left to your own devices you'll mainly muck around on your own devices I want this creative process to unfold like this. 1. Open up a new blogpost. Call it 'Print Production Week 5 - Front Cover Second Draft' 2. Open up your First Draft of your front cover in Indesign, and open up your production diary from the week you created it (Week 1). Are you still going to stick with your original draft layout or are you going to change it? If you want ...

Okay, on your magazine production work you should have - Done a DRAFT LAYOUT and FIRST GO of your FRONT COVER - PITCHED the article you're going to write. - WRITTEN a FIRST DRAFT of that article & sent it me. - Done a DRAFT LAYOUT for your ARTICLE While you wait for me to edit your article and send it back to you, it'd be a good time for you to continue experimenting with Indesign towards making a FIRST ATTEMPT at laying your article out on the page. Complete this part in the following way. 1. Open up a new blogpost. Call it 'ARTICLE FLAT PLAN' 2. Paste in your DRAFT LAYOUT and just add the sentence. 'This is the draft layout I will be working towards'. 3. Using Indesign or Photoshop, try putting the text from your FIRST DRAFT together with pictures to compose your magazine pages. You'll need your draft layout open so you know where things should go - your first attempt should be roughly to your layout. You should be averaging about 500-8...

So, you've proposed a magazine, had a first go at designing a front cover, have pitched a suitable article for your magazine giving yourself a word-count and deadline . . . . it's now time to do the most important part of being a writer/journalist - get your bum in the chair and WRITE. Complete this week's post in the following way.  1. Open up a new Blogpost. Call it 'PRINT MEDIA PRODUCTION WEEK 3: WRITING MY FIRST DRAFT. 2. Write your article in MSWord according to your pitch. Aim for your full exact wordcount, although 10% above or below that wordcount is acceptable. Give it a headline, and get your byline in there too. A few pointers at this early stage . . ..  READ similar articles, they'll give you guidance as to the kind of tone to strike.  READ your own article before sending it to me. Does it flow? Does it have rhythm or is it unwieldly and stilted? Are you getting out of breath reading anything - if so, you need to break that pa...

You've finished your proposal, as well as a first go at your front cover as well as a diary-entry. It's now time to also think about the ARTICLE you're going to write for your magazine. Nobody for any mag or newspaper simply writes things without first checking that someone is going to run it. The way writers do this is by writing an email to their editor where they PITCH an article for consideration that they want to write. It's a vital part of pre-production for a magazine (often pitches are discussed at editorial meetings - remember the preproduction stage for print media products?) so it's something that I feel is essential for you to do also. I want you to pitch the article you're going to write and design for your proposed magazine. You'll do this as follows. 1. OPEN UP A NEW BLOGPOST. Call it 'PRINT MEDIA PRODUCTION: WEEK 2' 2. Add the heading 'THE PITCH'. Then using these headings tell me the following . . . .  WHAT I WANT...

Until we get Indesign up in this room it's going to be tricky to actually complete design elements of this unit - however initially you just have to PLAN it which doesn't require Indesign. Complete this part in the following way and remember to carefully give the post the right title. The moderator is going to want to see a Print Production Process that goes from Week 1 through to Week 8. Complete this first part of your Print production process in the following way. 1. Open up a new blogpost. Call it 'Print Media Production Week 1'. 2. Insert the subheading - 'FRONT COVER DRAFT LAYOUT'. Have a look at this, yes I made it in MSPaint, I'm an old man. But it's a basic draft layout of how I think the front cover of my mag should look (yes I'm making a mag too). As you can see, it points out where images are going to go and where text is going to go and that'll do.  HAVE A LOOK AT A MAGAZINE - you'll find there's a bit ...

Here's a few Indesign tutorials to help you get started. Remember - we're just playing.  Here's a few short tutorials from Adobe themselves And here's some longer vids. I know you'll get annoyed with their voices or SOMETHING. Can't help that, sorry. 

You probably won't know who this is. This is  Daphne Caruana Galizia , a journalist from Malta who wrote stories about the ties between organized crime, government and gambling in Malta. In 2017 in mid-October she was killed in a car-bomb attack, suspected to be the work of the mafia. She was killed for telling the truth.  You possibly also won't know who this is. This is Mahzer Mahmood , a journalist for the Sun and the News Of The World who has been writing undercover-stories for them for decades, often stories he's got by posing as an Arab business man ('fake sheik' was his nickname) and doing 'sting' operations on celebs  (selling drugs, offering business deals) and others to entrap stars and gain information. He was convicted in October last year of perverting the course of justice by publishing false-information that prejudiced a court case. He was sentenced to 15 months in prison for lying in print and getting his stories in ways that bro...

Ok, so far in your magazine proposal you should've told me  What your magazine is about  Who it's for (target audience)  What the content is going to be like  What the title is going to be  What fonts you'll be using for headlines and text What the language/style will be like  What colours you'll be using  What the USP of your magazine is Today I'd like you to start rounding off your proposal by adding the penultimate element to it - giving yourself a deadline for completing at least the front cover and one inside page article. You'll then tell me how you're going to make sure your magazine stays the right side of the rules and regulations.  Throughout the process of making the magazine you'll be working towards that deadline so you must stick to it. If you miss it I'm afraid I'll have to mark you down or keep you to a pass. Miss deadlines in the workplace and you lose your job - miss them here and you'll lose the ch...

OK - you've told me  what your mag's going to be about who it's for what the content is going to be like and  what the title is going to be.  These are all essential for a pass on the planning criteria but in order to let you hit merit indicators it's crucial that you go into more detail about your proposed magazine. Time to tell me the following . . .  What fonts will you be using?  For headlines? For sub-headlines and standfirsts? For the main text of the articles? Choose carefully - it's crucial that they're readable and that they suit the subject matter of your mag, the content and the target readership. Have you seen these fonts used elsewhere? If so, where?  What will the language be like?  Will it be specialized/technical - only really understood by people into the subject or is it going to be simple and readable for anyone? How will the mag 'speak' to its readers? Like a teacher, or a friend? Think about the target audience...

The analysis part of the print media unit is DONE. You've now covered Learning Outcome 1.  You've told me about a publisher, the production process and job roles associated with newspaper/mag production, and you've analysed parts of a newspaper and a magazine. It's now time for you to stop analysing and start creating . I want you to create your own magazine, with a front cover and at the very least a double-page spread inside. This is the minimum requirement but obviously the bigger your mag, the more opportunity you'll get to hit criteria in what you hand in. As you can see in the image below, from here on in, this unit gives chances to hit merit and distinction criteria so the more quality work you do, the more likely you are to achieve high grades in this unit. START your proposal as follows 1. Create a new post. Call it 'PRINT MEDIA PRODUCTION: MAGAZINE PROPOSAL'. Then have a think. What do you care about? What do you care abo...

You are now approaching the end of Criteria P2 - You've told me about a publisher , the job roles and production process behind newspapers and mags, the way those publishers distribute their products and also the regulatory bodies (IPSO) they have to be monitored by. You've also analysed a newspaper  front cover , feature article and advert telling me about the genre (tabloid/broadsheet), the content, style and target readership of that paper.  As you can see the criteria P2 explicitly states that learners explore 'an existing newspaper AND an existing magazine' so today I want you to conduct exactly the same analysis as you did of a newspaper, but with a magazine. Go through the following stages to get this tucked away.  1. OPEN UP A NEW POST - CALL IT 'MAGAZINE ANALYSIS'. Paste/embed in a picture of the magazine you'll be looking at.  2.  OPEN UP A HEADING  'THE SECTIONS' - Have a look through your magazine, see if you can find ...

Complete your analysis of a newspaper in the following way.  1. Open up a new blogpost called 'NEWSPAPER ANALYSIS - AN ADVERT'   Find an ad, preferably either a half-page, full-page or double-page ad. Again, take a shot of it and slot the image under the heading.  2.  Then tell me about the advert, again answering only the questions you think are relevant.   What’s the style of language? (Formal/chatty/serious/funny/young/old)?  What sort of  colours and fonts are predominant – why?  What kind of image features in the ad? Why? What is the images denotation and connotation?  How is the meaning created through the layout – why do you think things have been placed where they have? Would you have done things differently?  Does the ad actually appear close to an article that refers to what’s being advertised?  Does the ad seem targeted at the same audience that the newspaper has (working class for a tabloid newspaper, middle cl...

Continue your analysis of your newspaper in the following way. 1. Find a FEATURE article or LEAD STORY. This should take up either most or the whole of a page or better still  is a DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD. Try and find a feature/article about something that interest you, even vaguely, otherwise your analysis will just end up as a load of moaning about how boring you find it. 2. Open up a new blogpost called NEWSPAPER ANALYSIS - FEATURE ARTICLE Take a photo of your chosen feature/spread and put it into your blogpost under that heading. 3. Then perform a similar analysis of the feature as you did for the front cover. (a) Firstly, in a 2-d sense tell me about the LOOK of it. LOOK at it, don't read it in depth yet. How is it laid out? Is it Picture-dominated or text-dominated ? Is the headline font/typeface unique to that piece or used throughout the paper for headlines (sometimes headlines in gossip/sports sections can have different headline fonts than usual)? Does th...

Publisher part - DONE. Alleflippinlujah.  Now time to look at an individual newspaper according to the pictured criteria. Start this in the following way. As you can see you can ONLY GET A PASS for this criteria. The chances for merits/distinctions only start occuring when you start proposing/producing/creating your own idea for a magazine.  START THIS ANALYSIS PART AS FOLLOWS  1. OPEN UP A NEW POST. Call it 'Print Media - Newspaper Analysis - The Front Cover' 2. Take a picture of the front-cover of your newspaper and put it in your blogpost.  One of those unfortunate story/advert combinations that can happen. 3. Then, tell me about THE LOOK of the front page. Can you see a MASTHEAD ? Where is it? Is the page Picture-dominated or text-dominated? Is the headline font unique to that piece or used throughout the paper for headlines (sometimes headlines in gossip/sports sections can have different headline fonts than usual)? Do you think the page has...

Paperboys, circa 1900, New York City OK, so you've nearly finished the first criteria of the Print Media unit. You've told me about a Publisher , the products they bring out, the production process they go through to create their print products and who their target readership is, tabloid or broadsheet . We're nearly there. As you can see the final bit of this criteria is about how Print Media Companies get their products TO US (i.e how do they distribute them) and what organisations keep an eye on what Print Media Companies are doing (regulation). This bit should be quite quick to do (one session) and because you can only get a pass on Criteria 1 doesn't need to be exhaustively detailed (although if you want to, feel free). Complete this part as follows. 1. Open up a new post. Call it 'Print Media Production: Distribution & Regulators'.  Newsagents (or 'Newstand' as they were known) late 30s, NYC 2. Under a heading 'Distri...

So far in Print Media Production you've told me about a PUBLISHER , the JOB ROLES at a magazine or newspaper, and how those job roles come together in the PRODUCTION PROCESS . Today I want you to tell me about the TARGET AUDIENCE or READERSHIP (same thing, in print media we call the Target Audience our 'readers' or our 'readership')  for the publisher you've talked about and you're going to do this by telling me the difference between TABLOIDS and BROADSHEETS . These terms used to strictly be descriptive of the size of the newspaper - Tabloids are small, broadsheets are bigger. A tabloid used to be defined purely as a newspaper with a compact page size smaller than broadsheet, "roughly 17 by 11 inches (432 by 279 mm)" and commonly "half the size of a broadsheet", although there is no standard size for this newspaper format. Broadsheets (as the word implies) were bigger, "characterized by long vertical pages (typically 22 i...