1a – Creativity

My creativity developed from the production of my foundation portfolio to my advanced portfolio. When starting on my foundation portfolio, I had little knowledge on how to be creative because of my lack of experience with digital technology and not knowing how to use conventions properly. Research and planning helped me develop my initial ideas into more direct decisions which helped me decide which direction I wanted my work to go. I used digital technologies to research how conventions are used on other real media texts so I could gain knowledge on how to use and challenge them if possible. I found it was very hard to be original even by the time I was producing my advanced portfolio so I just used the conventions but made them look similar to other media texts so that they looked realistic.

For my foundation portfolio, I started off by researching album art for ideas on what conventions would be suitable for my rock music magazine. I did a lot of detailed analysis on different types of magazines on both front cover, contents pages and double page spreads. This helped me identify what conventions I could use and which ones didn’t look so successful. Without this research I would not be able to think creatively and my ideas would be very basic. The digital technologies that I used also helped me think more creatively because I learnt how to present my ideas in more than one way. I produced mood boards, videos, presentations, posts, surveys, posters and pitches to present my ideas and shoe the progress that I was making. Before actually making my foundation portfolio I produced artist and audience profiles as part of my research to identify who my magazine was targeting. The artist profile was used to present my ideas and to also compare my artist to other existing artists in the same genre and to also build hype. By identifying my target audience which was individuals aged between 16 and 24, it allowed to pick out suitable conventions that they find appealing by getting their feedback on particular features that they like on real media texts that they read. This developed my creative thinking as I was building my magazine on what my target audience like and I was learning crucial information about conventions before actually making the magazine so I was also learning in the process. When it came to the practical work and actually starting to make the magazine, this development of background knowledge helped me. I started to produce draft versions to experiment with initial ideas and play around with basic conventions such as layout, font, images, colours, location choice for images, costume, artists, mastheads, cover lines and plugs. When these draft versions were completed and had been adapted, I gained feedback from peers and teachers to get honest opinions to see which were successful or which could be improved before the final version. Once I got the feedback that I wanted, I used this for the development of my final music magazine so that it was up to the standard that I was hoping for. The development of my editing skills also aided my creative thinking because I had very little experience with Photoshop before this portfolio. I used tools such as the magnetic lasso tool, the colour fill tool, the eraser, the cropping tool and many more. I also learnt how to alter the brightness and contrast of images, add filters, add picture boxes and also add text. Outside of the practical work, I produced more research on rule of thirds, the golden spiral and also using different camera angles when taking test shots such as close ups, mid shots and long shots.

By the time it came for me to produce my advanced portfolio, the creative skills that I developed from my foundation portfolio came in handy as I felt a lot more confident with using Photoshop although I also had to learn how to use Premiere Elements for this portfolio. I conducted further research on the band members for the music video and ancillary texts such as costume, style and acting so that they looked and sounded like any other indie band. I once again analysed a range of real media texts to gain further creative ideas on conventions. As I had never produced a music video before, I found this was a crucial stage so that I understood how to make it as realistic as possible. I made a storyboard for each shot of the video and then used my creative skills to develop an animatic using Windows Movie Maker to give me an idea on what the video will look like as a whole. This was also important so we could identify any obstacles at an early stage. I applied my creative thinking for making decisions such as set design, acting, costume, lighting and space. We researched all of the features in other indie music videos and used the same conventions and made them our own. The music video was shot in a basic drama studio which was confined with only the instruments as props. We made the band members fool around and told them to have fun with it to enhance their personalities as the song is very upbeat.  We dressed them like any other band such as vans, chinos, shirts, ray bans and ankle socks and the band made direct address to the camera to involve the audience which also brought more focus to the band themselves. Experimenting with editing skills on Premiere was also crucial before making the final video such as adding effects, cropping clips, syncing music, adding cross cuts, using fading tools and adjusting the brightness and contrast. I also used social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to get a wider range of audience feedback and create a buzz for our band.  For the ancillary texts, I challenged myself to use more complex conventions and put my creative skills to the test. For example for my digipack I drew my own cover so as part of my research I developed a range of sketches then edited these on Photoshop by adding filters and colours.

Overall, I feel that it was easier to be creative for my advanced portfolio as my skills has developed over time by using technologies and gaining ideas in the process. I could be more imaginative for my advanced portfolio as me and my partner combined our ideas together and worked as a team so we challenged ourselves to aim higher.  We found it very hard to be original so we just took suitable conventions from other media texts we found inspiring. I found it was easier to be creative for my advanced portfolio because I had more time to experiment with software by developing my editing skills. By A2, I learnt how to present my ideas in more creative ways rather than just doing basic research and presentations at AS.