Conventions essay

"Sometimes, working within constraints produces the most interesting work" (Branston and Strafford). How have you used real media conventions to produce interesting or effective coursework productions?

Personally this quote means that working within conventions of music magazines and music videos creates limits but not enough to effect the quality of potential that your product can be. I agree with this statement as I stuck tothee conventions of both of these products and feel that I made interesting products.

In a music magazine one of the main conventions is to have a central image, normally of an artist or band. My central image was my artist, following the conventions, to which I used direct address with the audience and had her overlapping text and other pictures to show she was the main importance. This made my product look very interesting and convincing to be a really front cover of a music magazine.

In my advanced portfolio, being a music video I used Goodwin's theory and followed the conventions of notion of looking. To do this I had a shot of Jonny singing to himself in the mirror and therefore us seeing his reflection. This caused direct address to the audience making it more personal and adding interest to the video. A particular part of motion of looking was voyeurism which was a convention that I challenged. The reason for this was because it would have not have matched my song or genre therefore I did not feel that it was appropriate. This shows my progression from foundation as I had more confidence to take risks in challenging conventions rather than sticking by them and by doing this I feel that it has benefited my music video in that it is better than my music magazine. Therefore I could say that I actually disagree with the quote as by not following the constraints I produced an interesting product.

In my music video I used red as a house colour. I felt that this enhanced the ideology of the product and matched my genre characteristic appropriately. As I used the red throughout it was able to add a flow to my magazine and create a brand identity. This is an example of me following the conventions but in a minor way.

In my advanced portfolio I also used red as a house colour, but I produced this colour in so many other ways. For example using props such as the red frame, and the red ribbon, etc. even down to the detail of clothing and sweets. Therefore this shows my progression of my understanding of this particular convention from foundation to advanced as I was able to enhance it so much more in my music video which made my product extremely exciting and interesting.

On my music magazine I also followed a convention of having a masthead which was the name of my magazine 'Impulse'. I did this in a fairly ordinary way being at the top of the page in big letters, generally standing out so that it is familiar to the audience. I also took inspiration from other magazines and overlapped the picture of the artist on top of the masthead which shows progression of the general convention.

For my music video I chose to follow the convention of having a narrative video rather than a performance based or a conceptual based as I felt that it matched my genre characteristics more. This shows that when making my important decisions I kept thinking about my genre characteristics which is something I was not as good at with my music magazine, being that I chose my masthead actually before my artist. The narrations matched well with the location that the video was set in, and also I had a interesting aspect of hannah dancing on the beach acting as the voice in his head which is part of the narrative. This is something that I have not seen be done in other music videos and therefore you could say that I slightly enhanced the conventions to make my product look more interesting which is agreeing with the quote.