Newspaper Layout Development

Equipment I Will Use

- Digital Camera (Still + Video) (Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS62)

- Imac (Garageband and Photoshop Elements Software and Voice Recording)

- PC (Microsoft Word, Publisher and Excel and Internet Explorer (Blogspot etc)

How I Will Be Using The Generic Conventions Of Local Newspapers

Layout- Simple and Compact

- Articles laid into columns - Big Headings with smaller Sub Headings

- Little or no bright colours

Mode Of Address-
- Language - Informative and descriptive layered into stories (When, what, who when why in the first paragraph)
- Tone - Friendly (more so than a national or international newspaper) due to the nature of the stories

Content- Local events and news. Ranging from Campaigns for local thing e.g. charity run etc to car crashes in the local area.

Pictures- Of subjects displaying the emotion portrayed in the story

- None or little editing, no visual effects

Advertisement- Local Business, Services and events - Normally not big national companies etc. - Take up a high proportion of the newspaper to pay for the running costs.

- No space on the page wasted, anything spare is filled by adverts.

Newspaper Title - Research

The Evening Post title uses a professional and smart font. The colours used are not black and boring but they are not to bright and tacky. The ship logo in the middle relates to Bristol's docking history. I used the blue in the font for my title and as a house colour for my newspaper.

Newspaper Article -Research

1. Evening post (Local)

A restaurant and takeaway boss is back in business after a remarkable effort by his loyal customers to make sure they can still get their favourite Chinese food.
Henry Wong's restaurant in Yate had to close down two months ago when he hit financial problems.
But he and his family are so popular that his regulars got together and put up the money so he could carry on in new premises just up the road in Chipping Sodbury. The whip-round brought in £20,000 while many other customers, who didn't have any spare cash but still wanted to do their bit, donated their skills to get the restaurant up and running.
An army of volunteers turned out to do painting and decorating, sort out electrics, stock the kitchen and get the tables ready for the first customers.
Now Henry's Oriental is up and running above the George in Chipping Sodbury's Broad Street, where a party was held to thank everyone involved and wish Henry, his wife Jane, daughter Natalie, 18, and 10-year-old son Harrington the best of luck in his new venture.
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An overwhelmed Henry, 40, said: "It's just incredible. I can't believe this has all happened. But when you live in a small community, it's like one big family.
"I've lived in Yate for a long time and my customers are my friends.
"We are very consistent with our food and try to maintain a good standard, which I think is why people like it.
"I hope we will do well in Chipping Sodbury. It certainly looks like we are going to be busy."
The customers who stepped forward to help Henry – his name is Hareton but he's always been known as Henry – have formed a limited company called Dragon Phoenix Catering, with Yate businessman Jeremy Milner and Jane Wong as directors.
Jeremy, who runs Camb Machine Knives International, said: "A couple of months ago I got a text from Henry saying he had to close down the restaurant in Cranleigh Court Road and apologising to his customers.
"Within 24 hours I must have had up to 20 calls from people saying 'We can't let this happen'.
"Despite the economic climate, they were asking how much it would cost to set him up again and a number of people decided to contribute.
"We just wanted to get him back on track. He and his family have no relatives in the UK and he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. We just couldn't let him leave.
"And anyway my wife, Chris, won't cook for me so I have to get a takeaway four times a week."
Mike Harrington, who runs the George, was keen to let Henry have what used to be a restaurant above the bar and in just seven days, everyone went in to get it ready.
Those who put in cash were prepared to do so without earning any profit but once the business is established, will hand it back to Henry and get their investment back. In the meantime he is employed as manager and will continue to run the restaurant. An outside catering service will also be established.
Henry has four kitchen staff and five waiting staff, including students working part time, and their jobs have also been secured.
Henry said: "I've been in Yate since 1992 and ran the restaurant in Cranleigh Court for 12 years.
"When my friends asked why I hadn't asked for help, I said times were difficult for a lot of people. The next thing I knew, they had come back with the idea of setting up the company."
More than a dozen people made financial contributions, with another 10 or 15 helping in kind.
Yate town councillor Sue Walker said: "Henry is so kind, visiting people when they are in hospital and getting involved in the community.
"We shall miss him not being in Yate but he's not far away and we can still pop up to Chipping Sodbury to support him."



2. The Portishead Mercury (Local)
FIRST he switched on Portishead's Christmas lights – now sales assistant Nigel Parker has become a recording star.
Nigel, who works as a sales assistant at Homebase, was joined by a crowd of fans outside the store to record the fun charity single Oh I Wish I Could See Nigel Everyday.
Residents said the 21-year-old, who has worked at the store for two years, deserved recognition because of his consistently happy and pleasant attitude at the tills.
More than 1,200 people joined the campaign and last month Nigel flicked the switch in front of a 3,000-strong crowd.
Bosses at the hit rock 'n' roll show That'll Be The Day struck on the idea of making the charity record after hearing about Nigel's meteoric rise to stardom.
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The lyrics to the song – to the tune Oh I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday which was originally recorded by Wizzard – have been changed for the Nigel song by show creator Trevor Payne.
The main verses of the song were recorded by members of the That'll Be The Day cast and on Saturday, dozens of people joined them outside Homebase to record the chorus of the song and be filmed for the video to go with it.
Portishead Town Band also performed and Nigel was recorded talking to staff at the store checkouts and his voice will be dubbed on to the track at certain intervals.
Initially the song and video will go on YouTube, but if demand is high enough, it will be put on to a CD and sold around the town with all the cash raised going to the British Heart Foundation.
Nigel was filmed as part of the video being hugged and kissed by his legion of fans and sang along with the crowds.
He said: "I was thrilled to be asked to do the record – it's something I have never done before and it's all very exciting."
Nigel fans – some wearing their "I Love Nigel" T-shirts – said they were delighted to get involved with the charity single.
Gill and Steve Hall, from Pill, said: "It's great that he is being recognised in this way."
George Long, 22, who set up the Facebook campaign, said it only started as a bit of fun. He said: "I have known Nigel for about six months and he has become a good friend."

Newspaper Advert - Research

Newspaper Front Cover - Research

Media Skills I Hope To Gain

As I previously made a print option in my AS coursework my skills with publishing software and photo editing software are fairly advanced. However, i would like to build on my photography skills.

I have a fair amount of experience writing articles so this will be easier than most for me however, i had never built a newspaper layout and put together all the different aspects of a local newspaper so it will be a good experience and learning curve.

What Production I Chose And Why

I chose to do the print option in my a2 media project. This is the option I also took at AS and have had other experiences writing article for papers such as “The Gordanian”, my school paper. I really enjoy this area of media and wanted to further develop my skills in the area. Also another big reason is because I am hoping to be going into journalism at university and pursue it as a career.

Preperation work before summer holidays and start of term 1

Week 1
Ms Rappel
In our first lesson we looked at the overview of the course and then are coursework unit.
We then looked at question 1b and started off by looking at genre in detail, identifying the different sections (Hybrid, Repertoire of Elements, Iconography, Style, Setting, Narrative, Themes and Audience Response). We also picked a couple of genres and split them up into their sub-genres.
In our next lesson we moved onto Representation. We looked at good and bad stereotypes and talked about dominant beliefs, for example, notion that Native Americans were uncivilised which made their killing and taking of their land seem justified in western films. We created a set of 6 questions which are worth asking, “Who/What is being represented and How?”, “Who is representing them in this way and why?”, “Is it fair and accurate?” and “What opportunities exist for self-representation by the subject?”.
The last thing we did in week 1 was look at the “Public Enemy” movie trailer and “T-pains – Freeze” music video and evaluated the stereotypes and how they are being represented themselves and their music.

Mr Dignan
In our first lesson we looked at an “Adidas Originals” advert and accessed the genre and purpose. We then looked at the regulations of the advert and a complaint that had been made towards it.
We also made a movie trailer checklist of what we thought should always be in a movie trailer. An example of some of these is Movie title, release date, plot (overview), and the stars and so on.
Week 2
Ms Rappel
In this lesson we began to look at Narratives and the difference between plot and narrative. We examined Tzvatan Todorov’s Theory of the basic 3 part structure for all stories. We then applied this theory to a film of our choice and a short Pixar animation.


Mr Dignan
We have now started to look at previous A2 music videos. We looked at the different features and the positive and negatives of each one – reviewed each one.
We also looked at a number of local newspapers and accessed the features. We made a list of what we thought every local newspaper should have and then mind mapped what we found from looking at real ones from different areas in England. We looked at very local newspapers like Portishead “The Mercury” and big city local papers like Manchester.

Week 3
Ms Rappel

We continued to narratives and explored a few more peoples theories (Vladimir Propp’s Theory, William Labov’s Theory and Roland Barthes’s Theory). We tried to apply each theory to a couple of films each.