R&P and creativity

During my first year of studying media, we were given our first preliminary task. The task required us to create a magazine for our college and make it look as similar to real magazines as possible. After months of researching the typical conventions found on magazines and planning my own music magazine, I was able to produce another magazine at a better quality as all the conventions needed were there and I had understood other features that must be considered when making them i.e. Colour scheme, layout of the conventions, typical shots used for the dominant image and so on. The lack of skill when creating my first magazine did affect my creativity because I had never worked on this kind of task therefore my understanding of it was low. Only by practicing did I develop skills which ten helped me create another magazine whilst purposely including conventions. Although my level of understanding was low, I believe there was creativity there because as Gauntlett said "creativity is bringing something into existence" and that's exactly what I did with the preliminary task despite the standards not being as high. I also believe that my creativity was only enhanced as i learnt more about the softwares used such as photoshop and indesign. After learning how to use these, I realised that in comparison to the softwares I would've tried to use at the beginning of the year( such as Microsoft word; inserting images and text boxes and rearranging) and this would've gravely affected the quality of my work, but not the creativity, because the intentions were always there. 

After deep research of your typical music magazines and the conventions they include with their reasons to be included, along with analysis of magazines and their typical layouts and colour schemes, our second major task was to create our own music magazine of which I believe was at a better standard than the initial preliminary task as I was now fully aware of the conventions needed to make a magazine look professional and appeal to the audience. There were conventions such as the masthead and headline that I wasn't aware were 2 different elements found on a magazine, one being the magazine's company, the other showing off the person on the dominant image. With the research and planning done on this, I was then made aware that they're both included on magazines purposely, all to appeal to the audience with their favourite celebs on the magazine (who most likely are very popular therefore further appeal to a wide audience) whilst promoting the company's brand. All of this is done to appeal to more people so more purchases of the magazine are made which therefore makes it successful. It is the skills and understanding of these conventions acquired and how magazines work that helped me obtain a higher grade as I was then able to apply them to my magazine. 

For my A2 film trailer, the research done was obtained through watching several trailers and analysing the timings, typical conventions such as minimal lighting, the makeup and costumes and how they varied depending on whether the character was an antagonist or victim. Furthermore, the typical genders and ages for the roles and what characters would die first. There's much more, but all of this research helped hugely when creating our own trailer as a clear understanding of what they needed to look like was gained.  Furthermore, as well as acknowledging the conventions, I understood the reasons why they were included and the effects they had such as the lighting which connotes certain ideas of evilness and the sounds used to give the audience certain emotions whether it be visceral or emotional pleasure furthermore the effects it can have on the audience and whether it's the suitable response (i.e. A physical response could be laughter but that's not a suitable response to a horror movie trailer). Although the final trailer has not been created yet, even just the summer trailer shows a huge improvement and understanding of what it should include. The final trailer will now finally show all the research done and understanding of it on the trailers. To further show my understanding and the planning done, my group and I even subverted the idea of having a final girl and the antagonist instead was a female removing the ideas of males dominance. 

The difference between the AS magazine and the A2 summer trailer shows further understanding of horror movie trailers. Although the themes are not the same, the creativity shown through the help of research allowed me to acquire skills and understanding which helped me produce a piece of work that resembled your typical trailers. 

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