Cultural Positioning

• I have represented wealth in a subtle yet positive way in my music video; I did not intend to make this a strong feature in my music video, as it was mostly to represent women in an independent way. Also as I am using a young teenager who wears glamorous clothes and bright colours, other children watching this may interpret it in that you need to be happy only if you have nice clothes or be surround by houses, a lot of land.
• People with different ethnic backgrounds may not be able to relate to the music video and artist, as I used a British actor. However, they may be able to relate themselves to the lyrics and the settings of the music video.
• As I have used a young teenager in my music video, my target audience of 15-24 may be inspired and relate to the lyrics and the settings of the music video. As they may have been experiencing the same sort of feelings or would be able to recognize the Intertextuality references I have added in my music video such as Alice in wonderland, Ed Sheeran - Lego house music video.
• I think that women would appreciate this music video as I have represented them in a independent way, where although it may be tough growing up, not being able to fit in – I have shown a positive way of getting through it – making the artist looking happy with her life.

Audience 1(b)

Conventions Essay Planning Notes

Real Media Convention Notes

Conventions Essay

How have you used real media conventions to produce interesting or effective coursework productions?

“Sometimes, working within constraints produces the most interesting work” (Branston and Strafford)

Throughout my two products of making my music magazine and music video I have adhered to many set conventions and I have also challenged the conventions. As I have followed these conventions, this has also helped me to adapt my creative ideas. Whereby improving them to make my ideas more interesting for my viewers. I think that you could agree or disagree with this statement as I feel that keeping with conventions you can still produce successful products, however, you could reject some conventions and still produce an interesting product.

When I started my foundation portfolio, I analysed real media magazines such as NME, Q and MOJO magazines to guide me to build my own magazine using inspiration from each of the magazines to follow my brand identity of alternative/indie. The main conventions I used when creating my front cover was having middle sized direct image with headlines around the image of my artist, this is to symbolize the importance of the artist, to show viewers that she is the main feature of the magazine.  In my advanced portfolio I was more willing to explore different techniques and take more risks when creating my music video. The conventions of a music video I followed Goodwin’s Principles to the best of my ability to follow my brand identity such as using notion of looking, Intertextuality, and visuals to lyrics and sound and by using these conventions it helped me have a starting point in creating my music video when planning using my lyrics before I started to film. For example I used Intertextuality where I used an Alice and Wonderland reference where I had my artist come out of a dolls house in my beginning and ending scene to add to my child like theme. However, I challenged Goodwin’s principles by rejecting to use his convention of voyeurism as I felt that this did not suit my brand identity or the ideology of my artist or song. This gave me a better understanding of conventions and how we can benefit from them and how we might not. This shows my progression as I was more confident in taking risk’s at A2 as it shows that I did not have to use all the conventions with benefited my music video to follow my brand identity.

In my music magazine double page spread I used bold headlines for my article to make it stand out and be eye catching for the viewers. I put the headline in different positions of vertically and horizontally; this was to add a unique way of presenting the headline.  As I had not seen this is the real media magazine I analysed it may have challenged the convention in a small way of using headlines in articles. When I started my music video, I thought that using a narrative based music video suited my artist and song to keep in with my genre characteristics. By using this it would make the music video more effective as when I was analysing my lyrics I felt that it represented a story rather than a performance or concept based music video. When creating my music video I felt I was more decisive and decision that I made would benefit my music video. Where as, in my foundation task I lacked experience in producing a music magazine and did not fully understand the conventions I needed to maintain my genre characteristics and felt that my music magazine did not follow a specific a brand identity correctly. This shows my progression from foundation as I adapted in making important choices to follow my correct brand identity of a child like film.

In my foundation portfolio, I followed a convention of house colours where I used blue, white and red. I used these colours as I wanted my magazine to be suitable for females and males and also this enabled to make my magazine recognisable to viewers. However, I was more willing to explore different ways in presenting my house colours in my advanced portfolio for example in the locations I had used such as my garden scenes, the props I used were brightly coloured with followed my house colours of white, blue and green. This shows my progression from foundation as I have adapted to new ideas in showing more detail in showing my house colours. This made my music video more interesting and exciting for viewers, as they are able to recognise the reference to the colours.

In conclusion, I have progressed from foundation in different ways as I have explored in following the correct conventions and how I have challenged them to follow my brand identity to create a successful product. 

iMovie Editing - Meanings

Task 2 – Post Production

I used iMovie to edit my music video and enabled me to use different effects to represent more meaning for my scenes featured in my music video for example;-

I used aged film effect in the picnic scene featuring my artist and a bee, this enabled me to symbolize the artist telling a story, to give the impression it is old and of her looking back in the past and by using aged film it emphasized the meaning of her story for the audiences. It also gave it a vintage look, which added to the representation of the scene. This effect also followed the ideology of the artist and the image I wanted to create of a child – like and unique look.

In my advanced portfolio I also used an editing technique of jump cutting, this was to show that the artist could teleport to different positions matching to lyrics to visuals which followed Goodwin’s principles, this enabled me to add more interesting visuals for my viewers to create more eye catching scenes and also by using precision editing I was able to precisely edit each move on the beat to create a fast cut montage.

Using iMovie enabled me to use a fast forward effect; I used this for the beginning scene to give the impression that the artist is evacuating a house where I filmed in point of view shot running down a staircase and out of my house. I was also able to add an alarm sound on top on the footage, which created more meaning so the viewers can easily identify what it symbolizes.

In my music video I used a stop frame animation where I used scrabble pieces to spell out lonely, this was produced by taking individuals photos of each scrabble piece moving, and on iMovie I was able to speed up the pace of the photos to match the tempo of that specific section of the song. This worked really effectively as it enabled me to explore new ways of presenting different meanings to portray my child-like theme. 

Essay Plan - Creativity

Essay Plan - Post Production

Research Notes - Digital Technology

Research Notes - Planning and Research

Essay Plan - Research and Planning