Question 1A creativity.

In question 1(a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media production work you have undertaken.

1 (a) Describe a range of creative decisions that you made in post-production and how these decisions made a difference to the final outcomes. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time. [25]

Notes- 
Music video: from story board to final editing, 360 degree shot already planned in story board when filming had to be re shot a number of times to accurate, in editing post-production tried using effects to make the more distorted look to audience, ending up not looking good and we didn't like that editing, so went back to normal filming without any extras with editing to distort it, creative decision. This made the final outcome of the video look like all the shots flow well all together and that none look out of place with completely different effects and look better for the audience as its easier to follow. 

digipak/advert: the decision of using the images paneled across the back sides of the digipak, was my initial idea which changed to being images of the band and random images from the filming in a grid like shape filling the whole 3 back panels in a black and white effect, to then being those same images but edited to very dark black and white effect so the images are very faint in seeing what they are of, to then creating a bold white border around these images to help make them stand out to look more organised and professional to give that sophisticated clean look i wanted. 

magazine: Originally my draw out plan for my double page spread was to place my article across the two pages with an image on the second page in the middle, when Clash then influenced by designs of having a full image on second double page a some of the article towards the bottom of the first page i had to then decide whether to keep this style and layout and make a second page for my article to fit in or keep with my original idea, so i create a single page to place the rest and most of my article on, the design of this had to fit with the design and layout of the double page spread so alterations had to made to fit the whole article on all the pages with the best presentation and style i wanted. This made the outcome of my magazine like clean, sophisticated and simplistic the way the wanted it to be without having to make too many alterations to style of Clash magazine i wanted my magazine to feel and look like. 

30 minuet timed essay-
The projects i conducted that tested my creativity where the music video i created for my own made up band that i drafted, directed and constructed to produce. There was also my digipak and advertisement where i designed and made for my made up band to show their music video song and album as well as a product to advertise and help market my digipak. I also have my magazine that used a range of creative skills that included a front cover, contents page and double page spread. All these products tested my creativity and skill in the making of them in a wide range of ways in post production.

My music video involved various creative decisions that developed in the making of this product. For the planning of the video we designed a story board of how the video would look and included from props to shot styles and timings, which this story board was the base to designing of the video and these ideas soon changed in the processes to the final editing of the video. Originally we planned to do a 360 degree shot of the whole band, that was planned in our story board, however when it came to the filming this shot had to be re-shot a number of times. In editing in the post-production i tired using effects and edits to make the shot more distorted to make the audience feel disorientated by the shot. However this editing of over laying the shot over its self ended up not looking very good and i didn't personally like the editing. So i decided to use the normal filming without any extras of editing to make the shot more distort, this was my main creative decision in the editing of the music video as i ended up not using much editing and shot effects so my skill was not portrayed in that area. This made the final outcome of the video look like all the shots flow well all together and that none of the shots looked out of place with completely different effects and also look much better for the audience as its easier to follow.

The designing of my digipak went through a number of different creative decisions to create the final outcome of the product. The decision of using the images paneled across the back sides of the digipak was my initial idea from the inspiration of one of the Kings of Leon digipak inside covers. This idea turned into images of the band and from the filming in a grid like paneled shape filling the whole back panels in a black and white edited effect. But after my draft of this idea it then changed to the same concept but that the same images were edited in a much more darker black and white effect to make the images look very hard to make out what they are of. I then wanting the paneled images to look bolder a more organised and professional, so i a created a bold white border around all the images to make them in line and give that sophisticated clean look i wanted back to the digipak back design in the final product outcome.

I feel i showed a great deal of creativity throughout all my media products from start to finish in all stages of the progress to the final outcome. I feel all my skills have been developed through these processes to create my media products into some fantastic pieces of work. 

Question 1A layout.

Question 1a is always about how your skills developed. Here's how the chief examiner recommends you tackle the question.

This was requested from the e-community; there are other versions elsewhere, but this is probably the simplest!

Paragraph 1 should be an introduction which explains which projects you did. It can be quite short.

Paragraph 2 should pick up the skill area and perhaps suggest something about your starting point with it- what skills did you have already and how were these illustrated. use an example.

Paragraph 3 should talk through your use of that skill in early projects and what you learned and developed through these. Again there should be examples to support all that you say.

Paragraph 4 should go on to demonstrate how the skill developed in later projects, again backed by examples, and reflecting back on how this represents moves forward for you from your early position.

Paragraph 5 short conclusion

1B Genre analysis basic questions.

D.I.Y. Generic analysis-

The following questions are offered as basic guidelines for students analysing their coursework in relation to genre. This is a potential question in Section B of your summer examination. Note that an analysis of a text which is framed exclusively in terms of genre may be of limited usefulness. Generic analysis can also, of course, involve studying the genre more broadly. This is something we simply don't have time to do in class so you will need to spend time outside of class doing this (although you will hopefully have done lots of this when planning your production).

General-

In what context did you encounter it? (web, film, TV etc) 
I used the web for research for my music video, magazine and ancillary texts and examples of that genre of work i was aiming for as well as sources of inspiration and ideas. Film helped with the making of the music video how realistic it will need to look for the audience to think of it as a real music video, as well as help with shot ideas to use and how to conduct shots together to create a film/video. TV again showed examples of text and how professional mine should have to look, as well as inspiration and ideas from real life texts.

What influence do you think this context might have had on your interpretation of the text?
Whether the piece of text i have created is realistic to real life examples of the text and if my text would sell compared to other products that have been influenced on this text and how well it would do in the real world as a product.

To what genre did you initially assign the text?
Indie/alternative genre.

What is your experience of this genre?
I listen to this genre of music myself and from this i would believe i have the indie/alternative fashion style as well which gives me a good idea of what the indie/alternative genre should be look and come across as but also what the audience of this genre want and look for in texts of this genre.

What subject matter and basic themes is the text concerned with?
A very simplistic but stylish and clean look that is different to other main stream common designs of magazines, music videos, digipaks and adverts. The music video had the idea of a four piece boy band just playing their song as if in a studio hanging out together jamming a very chilled out and natural setting.

How typical of the genre is this text in terms of content?

What expectations do you have about texts in this genre?
That the texts would be very stylish, simplistic, cool and should show that real care had been put in to make it look presentable as this is the style of genre and the way the audience of this genre also present them selfs. also that the texts are different from other mainstream and common styles of these texts as thats what indie/alternative is looking and being different to everything else thats out there and standing out. 

Have you found any formal generic labels for this particular text (where)?

What generic labels have others given the same text?

Which conventions of the genre do you recognize in the text?
The mono tonal colour schemes, a simplistic and minimalistic style, bold fonts, alignments of text to look clean and neat, music video well planned and thought through, music videos shots very basic, a chilled and relax vibe. 

To what extent does this text stretch the conventions of its genre?

Where and why does the text depart from the conventions of the genre?

Which conventions seem more like those of a different genre (and which genre(s))?
There are no other conventions of a different genre because i didn't want to use and be influenced by any other genres. 

What familiar motifs or images are used?
Colour and style of clothing and the simplistic and clean cut style of the texts.

Which of the formal/stylistic techniques employed are typical/untypical of the genre?

What institutional constraints are reflected in the form of the text?

What relationship to 'reality' does the text lay claim to?

Whose realities does it reflect?

What purposes does the genre serve?

In what ways are these purposes embodied in the text?

To what extent did your purposes match these when you engaged with the text?

What ideological assumptions and values seem to be embedded in the text?

What pleasures does this genre offer to you personally?

What pleasures does the text appeal to (and how typical of the genre is this)?

Did you feel 'critical or accepting, resisting or validating, casual or concentrated, apathetic or motivated' (and why)?

Which elements of the text seemed salient because of your knowledge of the genre?

What predictions about events did your generic identification of the text lead to (and to what extent did these prove accurate)?

What inferences about people and their motivations did your genre identification give rise to (and how far were these confirmed)?

How and why did your interpretation of the text differ from the interpretation of the same text by other people?

Mode of address-

What sort of audience was your text aimed at (and how typical was this of the genre)?
An age group between 16-27 which is both male and female who are interested in indie/alternative music and fashion and like to be different from the crown and stand out from others in their personality and style. This is a very typical style of audience being as the genre is indie/alternative, as this is what indie/alternative people are like and how the express them selfs as. 

How does the text address your classmates?

What sort of person does it assume they are?

What assumptions have you made about their class, age, gender and ethnicity?
That the audience are middle class young students between the age of 16-27 being both male and female and fitting into the stereotype of a 'white' different, unique styling, young adult. 

What interests does it assume they have?
The audience would be interested in music festival of indie music bands, as well as simplistic but stylish fashion from vintage and unpopular stores, as well as listening to older cool music with a chilled out style to the sound, following trends from the past of the older generations, regularly reading unpopular music magazines to find new and smaller styles of musicians.  

What relevance does the text actually have for you?

What knowledge does it take for granted?

To what extent do you resemble the 'ideal reader' that the text seeks to position you as?

Are there any notable shifts in the text's mode of address (and if so, what do they involve)?

What responses does the text seem to expect from your audience?
A positive response showed that the audience wanted to view these texts and even buy them, due to the genre and audience being met in the design and making of the texts.

How open to negotiation is their response (are they invited, instructed or coerced to respond in particular ways)?

Is there any penalty for not responding in the expected ways (think in terms of enjoyment for the audience or consequences for the institution)?

To what extent did people find themselves 'reading against the grain' of the text and the genre?

Which attempts to position your audience in this text do they accept, reject or seek to negotiate (and why)?

How closely aligned is the way in which the text addresses you with the way in which the genre positions you (Kress 1988, 107)?

Relationship to other texts-

What intertextual references are there in the text you have created (and to what other texts)?
My magazine design was influenced by Clash magazine, the music video was inspired by The 1975's music video Sex and Girls and my digipak was design with the thought of Jamie xx's album covers, Kings of Leon digipak panel, The XX and Arctic Monkeys album design, then my advert was design with the inspiration from The XX and Arctic Monkeys poster simplistic design.

Generically, which other texts does the text you created resemble most closely?

What key features are shared by these texts?
My magazine and Clash magazine a lot of the style and layout has been followed through into my own magazine design copying and taking their magazine design forward into my own work, like the contents page the whole design has been copy and inspired my clashes contents page.
My music video and The 1975's music videos sex and girls influenced being in a plain white room with just the band playing and singing the song, some of the shots where copied shot for shot by then placed different in the whole frame work of our own music video, the clothing style was influenced by those videos too the plain simplistic style of mono tonal colours used in our video. 
My digipak cover having that one symbol came from Jamie xx's album cover the same with his, then the Kings of Leon grid photo design across the panel inspired my grid of images on the back panels too.
My advertisement using the simplistic and minimalistic style of having not much text giving much information away and keeping it short and snappy the same with The XX and Arctic Monkeys advertisements.

What major differences do you notice between them?
In all these similarities i placed my own ideas and styles into my products so nothing was a exact copy of any of texts that influenced my designs. In the magazine i used my own text style as well page number location on the page and actual contents in the magazine was all made up not copied. 
Then my music  video i used some of the same shots used in those music videos but i replaced in them in different parts of my music video as well as made up some shots of my own, but also the actors in my video look different and have their own style to the video that makes it seem different. 
My digipak is different to the Kings of Leon grid panel digipak design because i used my own images of the band and random elements as well as a different front cover thats different from Jamie XX's album cover because i used my own shape design and placed it in a different direction and positions to his covers. 
Then my advertisement is different from my inspired advertisements because of my black and white colour scheme as the others have a bit more colour to them unlike mine design, also my text font and style is my own idea that fits in with the genre and look of the package well.

1A and 1B example questions.

In question 1(a) you need to write about your work for the Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units and you may refer to other media production work you have undertaken.

1 (a) Describe a range of creative decisions that you made in post-production and how these decisions made a difference to the final outcomes. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time. [25]

In question 1(b) you need to choose one of your media productions to write about.

1(b) Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre. [25]

Advice from the exam board:

Genre-

Generally, this should cover not just generic conventions of the particular sub-genre of their product but should include ideas about how genres develop/evolve (in relation to their particular product (e.g. Changing sub-genres of music video, magazines) and how institutions use genre to target audiences.

1A and 1B tips.

Question 1a Research and Planning from Mr Smith

Question 1a Post Production from Mr Smith

Question 1b general tips from Mr Smith

Question 1b Media Language from Mr Smith

Question 1b Representation from Mr Smith

The postmoderism and music work, Kanye West.

Kanye West is a very well known Hip Hop American artists. He's known as a rapper, songwriter, record producer, director and fashion designer. His style of production originally used high pitched vocal samples from soul songs incorporated with his own drums and instruments. He later broadened his influences to include 1970's R&B, trip pop, arena rock, house, folk, alternative, eletronic, synthpop, industrial and classical music. Kanye does play live at his own concerts when on tour for his new album as well as doing festival shows at wireless festival for example. Many of his concerts have a show with them where Kanye performs an act to the audience with a huge show of dancers, lights, effects etc, he's known as a performer. Kanye is a strong example of post modernism, he uses many modernist tools such as samples, bricolage, pastiche and is a strong performer as well as more importantly looks like an artists more than sounds like one.
Kanye uses a lot of intertextual references in most of his songs where he references other songs through many ways. Here are just some examples of when Kanye has sampled songs and used intertextual references of other songs...

A very popular song by Kanye called Clique was created via using many samples from different sources, from African vocals to a folk punk band song. 

This is the sample Kanye took for in his song as the backing music through out the whole song, Zero G 'African voice'. This is from a guy called Zero G who actually records samples for musicians to use in their songs, they are random samples of sounds and lyrics for artists to buy for their own songs. This is an example of  bricolage as Kanye is using a sample from a different genre, African music from a completely different culture of sound. This is also an example of paying homage, Kanye is respectfully using this African sound and bringing this sound of music back into the lime light by making it current in his song.

This is a song that's sampled in Clique, James Brown 'Funky President'. This an example of inter textual reference, where an artist has references another song in their own song, in this case Kanye has taken the lyrics from this song into his own song and done very obviously.

Kanye's song was then sampled through out the whole of this song in various elements, lyrically and musically, Rick Ross 'Clique'. Rick Ross almost used the whole song and all its elements just renamed it by himself.

This song, Papoose 'Most hated alive' also samples Clique and by sampling Clique this artist is sampling all the other tracks that feature in Kanye's original song. This sample was a direct sample of many elements in clique both musically and lyrically.

This is another song by Kanye called Mercy, this also has many samples in it that created the whole song from various sources.

These are two similar samples used in Mercy, Super Beagle 'Dust out a sound boy' and Reggae Stepper 'Cuh Oonu' which use the lyrics and sounds of theses tracks, again this is an example of bricolage as this sound used is of a completely different genre of music to what Kanye produces, African reggae, but as well as genre the time era is of a much older era to now. Because Kanye has been known to use this genre and era of music before in other songs he is paying homage to this style of sound, being respectful about using this style of music on his own tracks. Reports show that after Kanye produced this song, Super Beagle found his song and himself had renewed their fame thanks to Kanye's sample in this song, bringing himself and this genre of music back into the current lime light.

This is another song sampled in Mercy, the hook and riff of this track by Giorgio Moroder 'tony's theme'. However this is a completely different genre and style of music to the style Kanye produces, so this is another example of bricolage using sounds from different eras and genres. However this doesn't seem to change the meaning and style of Clique, as Kanye made the sounds more hip and hop and current with the use of his lyrics and other sounds sampled.

This song YB 'Lambo' has its lyrics sampled in Mercy a number of times. However this the same R&B, hip hop genre that Kanye's music follows under, so therefore he has sampled this respectfully, another example of homage from Kanye due to being from the same genre of his style of music.

Lily Wayne feat Nicki Minaj and Big Sean samples Mercy in 'Mercy' and 'Higher', through various elements both musically and lyrically. However both these artists are of the same genre of hip hop as Kanye West so they are paying homage to Kanye's song using it respectfully. 

Another song of Kanye's thats more recent is called Bound 2 from his most recent album Yeezus. This song again includes many samples from various random sources. 

This song by Ponderosa Twins plus one called 'Bound' from 1971 is sampled throughout the whole of Bound 2 through various elements musically and lyrically. This song has the genre of soul, dance and funk which is again a completely different genre an era to Kanye's style of music he makes. Making this again an example of homage as he's respectfully using this forgotten and old music style as well as bricolage using sounds from different genes and eras to make current and bring back into the lime light of now. 

This is another sample in Bound 2 by Brenda Lee called 'sweet nothings' from 1959. This again is another example of bricolage using samples from different genres and era's as this song style is easy listening and is from a very old era, Kanye uses a lot of older long forgotten sounds and music to bring into the current lime light in his own music. 

Kanye's song Bound 2 is then sampled in many more songs that are of the same genre as him of hip hop and R&B. Here are some song examples where bound 2 has been sampled into these songs via multiple elements musically and lyrically. By Jon Connor 'Bound 2' and Rick Ross 'Bound 2 freestyle'. However as Rick Ross has sampled many others songs by Kanye West as seen in my research he is paying homage to Kanye and his songs by respectfully sampling his work into his own songs over and over again.

Seth Rogen and James Franco created a micky take music video of the sound bound 2. They used pastiche to mock and take the mick out of Kanye West's music video of this song, however Kanye and Kim found their music video impression hilarious and very funny.

To conclude Kanye West uses a lot of sampling in many pieces of his musical work, from music items from the 1970's to reggae music and current hip hop tracks too. His samples are always done respectfully by using various random elements from everywhere to make a current hip hop piece of music. This all why Kanye West is an example of post moderism.

Post moderism and music.

Postmodernism and Music V3