Describe now your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your own creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer and show how these skills developed over time.
For my AS foundation portfolio I made a thriller film opening and for my A2 advanced portfolio, I made a Indie Pop/Rock music video. As Bentley wrote ' creativity is the rearranging of the old, among of the new', a principal I adhered to whilst making my two production pieces.
When I began my AS course I created a blog to record all my research into film openings and the genre of a Thriller. By using YouTube, I was able to analyse other successful film openings in order to gain ideas for my own. I was able to source my information from websites and books and collated all my findings into one, easily accessible place. I was bale to make a collage of images sourced from the internet of films in the genre to exemplify use of the colour in thriller films, typically dark and cool toned: and mise en scene which tended to be dark colours, very normal settings and plain, to inform my planning. I conducted several 11 shot analysis of well-know films in my genre such as 'S7even' (1995) and 'Taken'(2008). This was useful to understand how shot types were used to create suspense, and also to know how the start of a movie was introduced and gave me ideas on how I could use the conventions to produce a much more professional product such as the use of music: often none or, a very sinister piece of classical music like I used.
At A2 I continued blogging as I needed to research the conventions of a completely new topic area of media : music videos. i made use of Survey Monkey to find out what my target audience thought of the key conventions of music videos and used feedback from this to help me to act on expectations. A particularly strong portion of feedback suggested that our video should be slightly quirky and original. I did this by choosing a variety of different locations (Italy, forests and road) as well as the use of stop motion which features heavily in my music video and to follow a story line: this I kept to by translating the lyrics visually through the music video's plot. These overall results from the survey lead me to emend my original draft plan to make sure my finished product would appeal to fans go the Indie Pop/Rock genre. It was particularly useful to find out about the other artists my audience enjoyed listening. It was interesting to learn about the variety of music with the genre that our target audience listened to, and reenforced the fact that our music video had to be innovative to appeal to a wide range of tastes.
One area where I built on my skills from AS was that I wise media theory to inform my research and planning. In particular, I applied Andrew Godwin's theories on the conventions of music video from his 1992 book 'Dancing in the Distraction Factory'. This enabled me to focus on key conventions such as the way the record labels require close ups of the artist and the inclusion of symbols and iconography such as (….).
Additionally at A2, I needed to research the conventions of two further media products, these being a magazine advertisement and an album digipak. While most of this could be found online, I went out and found magazines which as Indie Pop/Rock band album advertisements to ensure mine was truly reflective of the real thing. This ensured I included all the key conventions such as a bar code, record label logo and song list. Furthermore, I noticed that synergy was usually created within a brand, using stills or photos from the music video or photo shoot and similar colours and fonts.
By the time I moved into the production stages of both portfolios, I had a clear idea of the conventions I needed to apply. Whilst filming I had both my storyboard and shot list with me at all times to ensure I was able to include my analysis of real media texts. This was particulary useful at AS when I was planning what camera angles to film of my actress painting such as different types of close ups which would each add suspense and mystery: a common convention of thriller films is to show extreme close ups of the main character. At A2, my skills further developed in the application of conventions. I was aware that at AS, my narrative was too 'long winded' so when filming the music video at A2 I was able to refer to a more detailed storyboard so I did not have to re-film.
At the post-production stage of my film opening, I was able to refer back to my shot-by-shot analysis of other films to ensure I applied the key conventions appropriately. For example, during the editing stage, I spent some time altering the mood of shots by adjusting the exposure, brightness, contrast and saturation as well as the colour hues of certain shots to give them a cold feel; giving them the appropriate creepy effect I wanted to achieve. With another scene, I made the shots black and white so it contrasted with these cold blue, coloured shots when cross-cut so it was clear I was switching between two linked narratives to create tension. Because of the conventions of a contemporary music video, I over filmed so I had multiple shots of the same action, meaning during this editing process, I would have choice and find it easy to make my music video fast pace and overall create a more professional product.
In conclusion, Bentley's 'rearranging of the old, making of the new' was key to both my film opening and my music video; at A2 my in-depth analysis of a huge number of music videos of the Indie Pop/Rock genre enabled me to create a really successful product which was confirmed by my audience feedback.
