using conventions essay

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

For our AS media studies coursework we were asked to produce our own music magazine, for the magazine we were asked to create a cover a contents page and a double page spread with an article/ interview that we have written ourselves. I chose to aim my magazine at the age group 15-25 and used the pop genre to them my magazine. For our a2 coursework we were asked to create a music video in a pair, group or on our own. We were also asked to produce on our own a digipak and magazine advert for and promoting the artist or bands album to collaborate and create a brand for our band. We created a band called intoxicated with the music being dance genre we chose to aim it approximately at ages 16-25.

During my AS project I followed typical conventions that I researched from magazines, some of the conventions included a Masthead on the cover- I have used a bold masthead on the cover of my magazine to grab attention and create a brand, I also repeated this through the pages. I also used Photographs- I have created and used images of my artist on the cover and throughout the contents and double page spread; this gives her a believable identity. Ive included Pull quotes- I have used a pull quotes of my double page spread page this gives the artist a personality straight away and the reader an idea before they’ve read, I used ‘Quirky is my middle name’.

We were asked to create a music video in a pair, group or on our own. We were also asked to produce on our own a digipak and magazine advert for and promoting the artist or bands album, we researched videos for similar genres and looked at what we think works well, conventions we followed for the music video were Lip syncing- we showed several shots of the female artist lip syncing on different backgrounds using different style shots eg. Close up. Props- we included props such as the dj deck for our male member of the band, this creates a more realistic view. We used a Location- coloured backgrounds on a screen this is appropriate to the genre and style of music.

I used conventions in the ancillary texts such as including the Website- on both my digipak and advert I included the website name for the band and their twitter feed, this makes it more personal and believable. Compared to AS level work I have developed my understanding of what conventions are and have learnt how to apply conventions to make my work appear professional.

For the music magazine I challenged conventions such as the way my artist was positioned, I wanted her to look current and cool so wanted to include a unique pose to pop on the front cover. However I chose to follow typical conventions such as including the masthead at the top of the page and text around my image. For the music video we chose to challenge a lot of conventions, we chose to keep one location but change the colour, this was risky because it might mean you lose interest half way through but I think it works really well, we followed typical conventions by including shots of one band member lip syncing towards the camera, this is seen a lot in music videos.

Understanding the conventions used in texts made it more successful to apply them correctly so they work, my knowledge on typical conventions used helped with decision making because it meant I knew more about what decisions I needed to make. My understanding of conventions has been advanced since AS level, I have learnt more conventions and how to apply them effectively in my work. For our A2 work on the digipak and advert I had more of an idea on what the typical conventions were which meant I was able to create more of a convincing piece of work.

Conventions are vital in tasks such as these, without conventions there would be no way to recognise what works well on texts and what to include, being able to follow, understand and develop conventions using my own ideas means my projects are produced to the best of my ability.