Convention essay plan (Hammond).

How has your understanding of real media conventions developed over the past two years?

Instruction- task completed over the past 2 years

Essay plan:

For my first year the task that i had to complete first was to make a school magazine. This was to help me get used to the use of photoshop and also to get used to the type of things i would be doing. This then lead me on to make my music magazine. With this i had to create a front cover, a contents page, and also a double page spread. We also had to learn how to make a music video and so made one with the teacher to make sure we got used to how to do things. I then went on to my second year and within this then came to main music video in which we had to make up and do all in our own time by ourselves. Then to go with this were the ancillary texts in which we had to create a magazine advert and also a digipack to be able to put our CD into.

Instruction- discuss first big project of music magazine (fc,c,dps) by using conventions

Essay plan:

• first big project was the music magazine
• FC- used layout, photo, from real media products
• FC- challenged colours, and font of real media products
• C- Used layout, and pages from real media products
• C- challenged photos, fonts, colours of real media products
• DPS- used use of questions and layout from real media products
• DPS- challenged photo, colours, and main font of real media products

Instruction- understanding and knowledge of conventions for decision making

Essay plan:

• Knowing the conventions helped because it meant i was able to use them quickly and relate it to my work
• Help with my decision making as i could clearly see how to either use or challenge the conventions of the real media products.

Instruction- discuss A2 coursework

Essay plan:

• I established the conventions by looking at other music videos of the same genre and having them show what type of things look good in music videos and also to help spring off ideas.
• Used them to help with ideas and also to look at what has been done so i don't copy what is already out there.
• i used conventions for my digipack and advert too as i struggled with things to fit in with my type of layout and genre.
• Comparing this to my AS i found it much easier to get hold of the conventions and also i was able to use them better as i knew what i was capable of.

Instruction- Conventions challenged? conventions followed? why?

Essay plan:

• I challenged mostly the music video as i wanted to make something different but also i wanted to connect to the storyline. This is why we picked a song that had no video with it so that we could completely think of something to go with it by ourselves.

Instruction- conclusion

Essay plan:

• Conventions were useful as they allowed me to look a different media texts and relate it to my own work.
• I understand conventions better now that i have used it on my own work and have gotten used to how to work with it

Essay

How has your understanding of real media conventions developed over the last two years?

For my first year the task that i had to complete first was to make a school magazine. This was to help me get used to the use of photo shop and also to get used to the type of things i would be doing. This then lead me on to making my music magazine. With this i had to create a front cover, a contents page, and also a double page spread. We also had to learn how to make a music video and so made one with the teacher to make sure we got used to how to do things. I then went on to my second year and within this then came to main music video in which we had to make up and do all in our own time by ourselves. Then to go with this were the ancillary texts in which we had to create a magazine advert and also a digipack to be able to put our CD into.

In the first year my main big project was the music magazine and in this is had to create three different pages and these were a front cover, a contents, and a double page spread. It all had to be on one artist and my choice of genre. For my front cover i used real media convention for my main photo. this is because it original came from a real photo of john mayor and i wanted to base my artist and genre of music on that. I also used the layout from conventions of real media products as they looked the most professional and so decided it would be best to base the layout of my front cover the same way. I looked at magazine such as 'Mojo' and 'NME' as this were the ones that best fit to my style and genre. things that i challenged on my front cover were the colours that i used. This is because i didnt follow the norm of have black, white and red. But instead i went for black, yellow and red. Therefore i challenged real media conventions. this was also the same for my contents as i used real media ocnventions for the look and style of it and only really changed things so that they best suited to my magazine. As for my double page spread i both used and challenged my use of questions to my artist as i wanted it to look real but also connect to what my target audeince would want to know. Whereas for this i challenged the use of my picture as i did a long shot which was not the norm for real media conventions.

Knowing how to use and look for real media conventions helped with this as i was able to look for what i wanted and convert it to my work quick and easy and so it saved me a lot of time whihc was good as i had many problems with the technology when i was creating my music magazine. Doing this also helped me to make my decision on how to design my final music magazine as i could see what i was going to use and see what i was going to challenge with the conventions of real media products.

For my A2 work i needed to make a music video of my own and also create ancillary texts to go with it. I established the conventions of real media texts by looking at other msuic videos of the same genre. By doing this i could then see the type of things that looked good and went with that genre so that i could make sure i got the look right to go with my genre. This also helped me to spring off different ideas. Althought i was looking at music videos that had been done before with my genre i was also making sure that i didnt copy any of the conventions exactly as i want to make sure i came up with some of my won ideas. As for my ancillary texts of the digipack and the music advert i found it difficult too find things that fit with y genre as most of the things that had shown up were more to go with hip hop and the modern look. By comparing this with my AS work i found it much easier to look for the type of media conventions that i wanted and so it was better for me to come up with more ideas as i had more of a variety of things to look at.

I challenged mostly the music video as i wanted to make something different but also i wanted to connect to the storyline. This is why we picked a song that had no video with it so that we could completely think of something to go with it by ourselves. Also the song choice and choice of band was not popular and so we knew that it would completely be us thinking it through and that we will not have copied a real media product. I wanted to change certain aspects of my work as i wanted it to be my ideas and to just copy something then it would not be my ideas and it will just be a copied piece of work with minor changes. Howver some bits i did follow, for exaply the costume as i thought it looked more profissional.

The conventions of real media products were very helpful towards my work as they gave me inspiration but also helped me to make my work look professional. Now that i have been looking and useing and challenging conventions i now undersand them alot better as i have gotten used to how to work with it.