1. Steering the OCR Magazine Brief

2. Targets
• 60 posts on individual blog, each illustrated e.g. with a
picture or a video embedded
• a structured process with constant (formative)
feedback
• students knowing how to work the equipment
• A music magazine cover, contents page and DPS
which look like they belong together and are fit for
purpose
• a critically reflective evaluation on the blog with seven
different creative tasks
• every student achieving their full potential

3. Step 1: assess
• what’s the task?
• what’s the assessment?
• what’s the timeframe?
• what’s the equipment?

4. Task and assessment
• Front cover, contents page and double page
spread for a new music magazine
• All original images and text
• 20 marks Research and Planning
• 60 marks Construction
• 20 marks Evaluation

5. timeframe and equipment
• Time to build skills
• Time to research existing texts and target audience
• Time to plan production
• Time to research and write articles
• Time to do photoshoots
• Access to cameras, appropriate DTP and image
manipulation programs, online resources

6. Step 2: structure
• set up blog hub
• set up individual student blogs
• set out timeframe
• structure series of tasks- mini-deadlines

7. Step 3: activity
• teaching students to use the equipment
• camera exercises: shot types and mise-en-scene
• Caption and headline writing
• Standfirsts and opening paragraphs
• (b)logging evidence and reflecting critically and
creatively

8. Photography task
Give students a brief with a number of images to take
e.g. long shot conveying isolation; close up conveying anger; an extreme close up of time
Image manipulation task
Give students two images and ask them to crop one and erase the background
and combine it with the second image to create a different mise-en-scene and meaning
e.g. A close up photograph of someone pushing against imaginary walls (like the best mime
artists!) combine with an image of a television set (Photoshop makes the impossible possible!)
Writing captions
Give students images and ask them to write captions for specific contexts
Headline writing
Writing standfirsts
Opening paragraphs
For all writing tasks give the students the text of an interview and ask them to write
the headline, standfirst and opening paragraph. They don’t have to be original: you could
lift the text from an interview in a music magazine and then show the students the
completed article as laid out in the magazine on completion of the task.

9. Prelim Task
• Limit time
• Evaluate images
• Evaluate design, layout, fonts
• Consider appropriateness for audience
• Proof read

10. Roles a student must adopt
• Journalist
• Photographer
• Sub-editor
• Graphic designer
• Proof reader

11. Keeping it real?
• What’s on in the area?
• Gigs
• Local artists
• Use twitter and facebook to make contact?

12. Step 4: investigate
• structuring research activities- classwork and
homework
• magazines: sub-genre, audience, institution, media
language
• looking at examples of other student work-
critiques and criteria
• re-make activities

13. Step 4: investigate
• Who is the target audience for a magazine?- look at
the adverts in real ones!
• Look at different magazines and steal ideas- NOT
JUST music magazines for FORM
• How do different fonts work together?
• Tracking, leading, kerning…

14. Research Conventions
Magazine codes and conventions
Front cover
Images
Coverlines
Fonts and sizes
Design and Layout
Contents Page
Column structure
Images
Categories
How many articles?
Design and Layout
Fonts and sizes
Double Page Spread
Images
Column structure
Fonts and sizes
Design and layout
IDENTIFY HOUSE STYLE

15. BUY ACTUAL MAGAZINES AND TAKE PHOTOS OF THEM
DON’T JUST GOOGLE THEM!

17. Step 5: helping the idea
• give some possible options for market niches
• moodboard pitch
• peer and teacher feedback
• realistic expectations about audience and
genre, not personal preference!

18. Audience
• Focus groups over questionnaires
• Existing data
• Audience profiling

19. GENRE RESEARCH
Make sure research is detailed and thorough
Specific codes and conventions of the genre

20. Step 6: Planning
• experimenting with camera and lighting
• models and mise-en-scene
• examples of shots, costumes, props, etc onto blog
• logistics planning- including risk assessment

21. More Planning
• House style
• Draft designs of production
• Peer and teacher feedback on drafts
• Images, contents, layout, fonts

22. Step 7: production
• Have a photoshoot day with lots of models?
• ensuring process is recorded
• Upload all photos to blog
• keep comparing to professional production
• Constant feedback on work in progress
• Deadlines for each component

23. Step 7: production
• More than one shoot with main artist for variety of
costume
• No found images or family/facebook photos!
• Some ‘motion’ in photos- don’t be too static
• Flatplan the WHOLE magazine

24. Step 8: on the page
• Layout, design, font
• Image, text, genre, audience
• Draft deadlines and peer feedback

25. Step 9: evaluation
• make time to do it properly
• opportunity to demonstrate creativity with digital
tools
• beware style over substance- needs depth and
detail
• Seven tasks, not seven written answers

26. Step 10: marking
• mark the blogs as you go along
• rank order the magazines
• benchmark against online support material
• best fit may = bottom of the level
• evaluation - covering all questions, critically
reflecting, making good use of creative
opportunity

27. Step 11: moderation
• prepare the blogs: final product at top, evaluation
next
• label everything clearly, make sure links work, add
candidate numbers on hub
• justify your marks with reference to criteria and
candidate

28. Step 12: feel the benefit
• skills developed for A2
• material stacked up for G325 1a/1b
• better marks for this unit

29. Steering the OCR Magazine Brief