Research and Planning - Essay

My understanding and creativity when making media products over the course has been developed. This is as it has impacted the way in which I use connotations and codes to create different media text effectively. In my preliminary task, I did not understand the codes and conventions as I had not done any textual analysis or layout planning. Additionally, I did not use any references. This effected my college magazine as the result wasn’t clear as conventional college magazine. This limited my creativity as I was required to create from what I could remember about magazines and therefore missed conventions such as: main cover lines, boosts and appropriate sizing for secondary images. My music magazine was more successful due to my textual analysis which helped me to create a more conventional rock music magazine. By using multiple references, I identified different conventions for example the rule of thirds – meaning that the magazine works in triadic form that allows for a concise outline. The more magazines I looked at meant that I could use examples of different elements from them to create a combination of different conventions. However, it could be argued that had I not used more references then my work would be less creative due to the lack of real media conventions. For my trailer, I did more in-depth analysis. Unlike in the first year, in the second year I researched: sub-genres, production companies, conventions and semiotics. Doing this meant that I had a better understanding of the background of the product before I made it, considering the meanings of the props, stock characters and how to shoot footage to show binary opposition. This shows my development as I now have a better understanding of the conventions and theories and can apply them or re-imagine past trailers. It also means that my creativity expanded in this section as I know when to combine the conventions or subvert them. It allows for creativity as horror has multiple sub-genres that you can then chose conventions from. However, these convention are what make them recognizable and if you made the decision to use them then it would not be recognizable as its sub-genre. Lastly, my horror movie poster developed my understanding of genre conventions that would be applied to the trailer as well as how to convey representation and sub-text. I researched past horror movies that were monster based as that is the type of horror trailer we were creating. I then drafted both paper based and digital copies looking at the colour, texture and billing block. I copied the billing block style from mirrors. Centering the text and creating built up text. Had I not done this the block may have not been created correctly and hinder the future poster. This shows development as due to past research I can recreate conventions, the poster is more creative since I have used more references but narrowed them down so that they can be combined or ‘reimagined’. I have developed from last year as I have begun to understand that thorough research the creation of media can be made easier and more meaningful. It has also speed the time it would have taken to begin to create the work. As a postmodern producer, there are more conventions I can use due to all the past real media texts. The process of producing media is itself creative, but heavily impacted by the research and planning as it can hinder or help the creation.