OVERVIEW
I used the 2022 film Weird: The Al Yankovic Story as the focus of this issue as it lends itself to a host of intertextual references, as well as the fact it received a recent surge of relevance due to winning an Emmy award.
THE BOY WHO LIVED - reference to Daniel Radcliffe's famous role in the Harry Potter film series, based off J K Rowling's book series of the same name.
ANOTHER ONE RIDES THE BUS - reference to Weird Al's 1983 hit, Another One Rides the Bus, a parody of the Queen song Another One Bites the Dust. It also serves as a segue into the other story advertise on the cover of the issue, that being the new, fully electric bus routes in York.
REFLECTION
I learned a lot from this task, as it was my first proper project involving Photoshop, which can be very difficult/frustrating to use at times. My frustration at the project stems mainly from Photoshop's UI - without somebody there to tell you where everything is, it can quickly become overwhelming (especially compared to easier-to-use, if somewhat limited alternatives such as Canva).
Improvements I would make to this project include:
- Changing the lighting on Weird Al - the bright lights reflecting off of him to not match with the background I selected for the cover of this issue.
- Finding a way to make the text POP more - The red on red at the top doesn't particularly stand out. Nor does the red text overlaying Weird Al. Brighter/contrasting colours are needed to make the features of the issue stand out. This is paramount for The Big Issue, as it is sold on the street by vendors; it needs to be eye-catching.
- Selecting a different image of Weird Al altogether might have been wise - in this one, his body is obscured by a massive accordion, and the colours are somewhat muted/dull; also the fault of the accordion, which blocks Al's bright shirt.
- Figuring out how to properly crop a character out of a scene. I made several errors when experimenting with this, resulting in the thin transparent portion which cuts across Weird Al's hair.
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