Plan a detailed response to the exam style question following.

"Sometimes working within constraints produces the most interesting work" (Branston and Strafford) How have you used real media conventions to produce interesting or effective coursework productions?"

• what does the quote mean and do you agree or disagree?

-the quote describes how conventions followed gives the cornerstones for producing media
-by addressing the conventions of a media piece you can easily target an audience and know how to move     them
-with media productions put together, comparing them along the same conventions helps to see which ones address the genre more successfully
-by working via conventions previously set specific for a type of media it means that by sticking to it will be a sure way of creating an impact


-I agree to a certain extent as there is the opportunity to create interesting pieces of work via amplifying conventions as it's the conventions itself that give an essence of how something should present itself


-I disagree more as people are constantly demanding change with what they see and now with so many sub-genres of film and TV there is a need to break free from conventions to create new interesting work
- true inspiration doesn't come from a pre existing convention. Someone's creativity maybe hindered by the acting of conforming to conventions
-want to start fresh and address a new audience
-breaking outside of the box and offering a fresh media product can only be done by contradicting conventions

conventions from my Foundation Portfolio

• The use of flashbacks
• The use of obscuring a characters facial features
• The use of music to create a feeling of tension
• Adding a twist in narrative plot

conventions from my Advanced Portfolio

• Creating a relationship between the audio and the visuals
• Using the notion of looking 
• Using an image motif
• Intertextuality within the music video

Post-production essay

"How important has the post-production stage been in your foundation and advanced portfolios and how have your skills developed over these two years?"

The post-production stage for me has been very instrumental in the production of my foundation portfolio thriller opening and advanced portfolio music video. I believe that the opportunities to edit my raw footage really enhanced the ideas I wanted to create.

For both my projects I used the software apple imovie to put the pieces together. During my thriller opening production, imovie allowed me to add transition effects such as the fade to white. This was a effect I used predominantlyfor my thriller opening in the hope that it would represent my character about  to reflect on her previous experiences; the use of a flashback is a convention of thriller films that I decided to amplify to match my project to real products. From the use of the flashback I could allow the audience to gain some incite into the character's history and suggest further themes in my proposed thriller movie. The transitions I used for my advanced portfolio were predominantly for style over content. I realised that the use of transitions within my music video should be minimalistic and not intended to provoke an emotional response therefore I incorporated a lot of straight cuts and quick fades that would initiate fast cut montages. Instead of creating connotations simply through my transitions I was able to create connotations via the linking of the frames via the transitions and by doing this I could address the relationship between the visuals and the audio. By understanding more about transitions and the effects they have on the audience it helped me develop my skills in terms of awareness of where to include them within my music video production.

Eisenstein was a theorist who believed that editing was the foundation of film art. One of his editing styles he created was the 'intellectual montage' a technique that incorporated editing style that stimulated thought. This editing style is only effective when juxtaposed with other frames to create metaphoric meaning. I believe that this is a style that I contradicted with my thriller opening as many of the frames that were edited together were done so for continuity and a simple jump to the next location. My advanced portfolio music video however did incorporate Eisenstein's intellectual montage technique. Some of my shots involved my character handing out love hearts to the public followed by close-up shots of the recipient smiling and accepting the offer. As these shots were juxtaposed it creates the metaphoric sense of happiness and love generated from my characters actions. I believe the use of theory within my post-production was more evident within my advanced portfolio as I could link the processes and outcome to the theories I had previously researched.

My knowledge and use of colourisation was evident within both my foundation and advanced portfolio. With my thriller opening I used the preset image effect 'bleach bypass' which worked really well. The use of this effect created an emphasis on the dark brown and black colours which aided me in obcuring the identity of my character. When juxtaposed against other scenes within my thriller opening, the bleach bypass effect really stood out and created a sense of enigma which I intended to provoke. I took more control with my music video via the use of changing the raw image properties in oppose to using a preset effect. By doing this I could boost the saturation and contrast to really make the colours I wanted stand out. I believe editing the selected clips was relatively easy and it allowed me to make decisions specific to the clip in order to offset any excess lighting, by doing this I was able to create a music video with frames that all had the same colours. By boosting the colours within my advanced portfolio I was able to address the quirky feel to the music as the overall project looked more fun; because I further enhanced the relationship between the audio and visual it allowed my audience to consume the media with more ease.

Both my foundation and advanced portfolio featured the effect of speed alteration to increase appeal. My thriller opening incorporated two scenes where the real-time speed was slowed down. Imovie allowed me to select my desired frame and specifically reduce the speed to suit my preferences. By doing this I hoped that it would add emphasis to the action; the frames I slowed down included a character running away from the camera and another character dropping onto the floor. I believe that by slowing down the action it created the feeling that the efforts of the character running where becoming less impacting and his task seemed harder; whereas for the second character hitting the floor I attempted to create a sense of giving up by adding the slow motion to elongate the falling action.

Digital technology and Creativity essay

“Digital technology turns media consumers into producers”. In your experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?”

The digital technology at hand helped me to develop my creativity through both coursework tasks. The foundation portfolio was where I was initially introduced to the ‘Imovie’ software and blog to present my work. By getting to know the abilities of the software it helped me to develop my thriller movie opening as I was aware of what I could produce therefore the digital technology helped enhance my creativity. For example I was enabled to use transitions such as the fade that provoked a sense of continuity that built up to the conventional twist in narrative. As I was more aware of the capabilities of Imovie approaching my advanced portfolio it allowed me to produce the music video with less time taken figuring out what I could and couldn’t do. I also came into the second project with a lot of my own ideas that I knew could be achievable on the Apple Mac such as the boosting of colour. The visual colourisation effects tab allowed me to boost the saturation and contrast of each of my selected frames; by doing this my images stood at more and increased the emphasis on my red and white house colours which are a convention of music promotion.

I believe that my creativity for the Advanced portfolio was initially sparked by my own inspiration so would amplify the theory by Anthony Storr, “The ability to bring something new into existence.” My creativity allowed me to come up of the idea of a narrative/concept of a character going on a journey and handing out love heart sweets in an act of gaining appreciation and sharing love. I didn’t knowingly gather this idea from past real products and therefore shows how true creativity comes from the mind and is merely enhanced by digital technology. I enhanced this idea through digital technology via synchronising the audio and visual. Creating this relationship between audio and visual, the pace of the frames shown could be matched to the music therefore not creating a mismatch in the themes, allowing the audience to digest the music video easier.

The relationship between the audio and visual is a principle of Goodwin’s that I strongly decided to amplify. In my foundation portfolio I also decided to amplify some conventions to show my understanding and reflection of a real production. I completed techniques such as creating scenes portraying flashbacks by using a ‘graining’ image affect on the Apple Mac; I also used edgy, ‘dark’ music that provoked a sense of enigma and hostility. Reflecting on my foundation portfolio I think that by amplifying so many conventions of thriller film openings, it restricted my creativity as I gave myself less original ideas to push the boundaries of my work. This factor was very different in my advanced portfolio as I had the initial ideas for the music video that were enhanced by a smaller amount of amplified conventions instead of my ideas being based on the existing principles.

David Fincher’s ‘Seven’ was a film that incorporated the convention of obscuring the characters facial features. In my foundation portfolio I was able to copy elements of this real media product by using the Canon DV to create images that cut out the characters face. I used a Sony HD hard drive camera to record my advanced portfolio project. I used this opportunity to my advantage as I could enhance the picture quality to tie in with my ‘quirky’ music feel and use the ‘steady shot’ feature that allowed my recording process to occur with the footage being less jumpy. Because of this my tracking shot footage was smoother therefore the newer technology allowed me to create a better music video. Knowing that this feature had helped me create a successful music video, I could go onto to create more projects with the digital technology as I would know the footage would be smooth therefore not disrupting viewing due to shaking of the camera shot, promoting continuity.