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

During the beggining of contructing my AS coursework I didn't have much if anything no clue as to having an understanding or the knowledge of different media conventions. Furthmore we carried out preliminary ancilliary tasks for both AS and A2 coursework which when using media conventions in these was new to most of us students.

Our AS coursework consisted of creating a music magazine that had to include a front cover, contents page and a double page spread featuring out artist article. Once convention that I incorporated was the rule of thirds. This helped assist me with the direction and placement of the cover image and double page spread by dividing it up into 3 sections that the magazine reader and audience would be drawn to.

From looking at current music magazines such as NME and daze that have the same genre to what I wanted to create helped and inspired me, looking at websites such as 'dazeddigital' and reading creative photography books. This allowed me to gain a better understanding of what conventions I should consider to include in order for my final product to be successful. My front cover used the basic magazine conventions such as, coverlines, capturing interesting image, masthead, captions and a barcode. I then continued and passed on with these real conventions in my contents page and the double page spread article that included a large image stretched across one whole side of the double page spread, a masthead inspired, a kicker and collumned text boxes which held the article content and information about my artist. I feel that I implemented a bricolage idea in my music magazine as I was inspried and took some ideas from a variety of different sources and was then able to apply these similar features within my individual work. 

As for my contents page, this had a patiche which has the meaning of a direct copy and mine contents was the same as one of NME's contents page, with the same colour scheme, the idea of 'band index' going down the side and band images place in similar places. The contents page is more than likely to be the first thing the target audeince will turn to when they open the magazine therefore this meant that I wanted it to be colourful, realistic, professional and easily readable for the audience. I was able to achieve this by using the conventions taught to me through the different examples that I was able to see. I attempted to use the conventions I learn't as effectively as I could. There was also an element of intertexuality as the reader will be familiar with the conventions I let inspire me from current music magazines. 

From having the ability and knowledge to understand different conventions needed for a successful music magazine I could develop them with my creative ideas to make it more interesting and eye capturing. I also thought about certain conventions I used during AS and applied it to my A2 ancillary texts. By looking at album artworks from a variety of different music genres, interesting wesbites such as dazeddigitial and also looking at exisiting music videos on YouTube when planning my video, I was able to gathered information of what conventions I had to use for my digipak, advert and music video.

In mine and Sammy's music video we used variety of colour, lipsyncing, jumpcutting and interesting styling with the costumes. These particular conventions were easier to interpret due to already having the knowledge about conventions for a music magazine. When it came to planning our music video we wanted to make something creative and that wasn’t too similar to any other videos however by interpurting current videos this would reinforce that since it was already used in exisiting videos by us copying it would allow our video to be good as a similar videos that already exsists. However we did use intertexual references such as some of theshots we used were originally used in the video 'Alfie’ by Lily Allen. Another convention that we challenged in the music video was the empy white background mise-en-scene. Orignally we wanted a kitchen location video, with simple shots. But in the end the video consisted of using a white background studo with simple props to help make it more intersting and make up for having no background.

Using Conventions From Real Media

Task 1: Each of my media production tasks had a specific set of conventions - whether it was the music magazine, the music video or the ancillary tasks. in each case I researched real media to establish conventions and guidelines to aid me in the production of my own work.

Below I am making note of all the conventions of music magazines, music videos and the print work I created for the ancillary element of the A2 work.

General Conventions of a Magazine include:
- Album reviews
- Tour dates
- Questions
- Whats in the next follow on issue
- Upcoming tours
- Reviews of live gigs
- Music reviews
- Interviews with artists
- Adverts
- Competitions
Front Cover Conventions include:
- Masthead
- Coverlines
- Pictures with captions
- Rule of third
- Pull quotes
- Fonts
- Most black and white with fonts
- Cover stories
- Route of the eye
Contents Page Conventions include:
- Title
- Eye catching colours
- Pictures and captions
- Index of pages
- Rule of third
- Route of the eye
Double Page Spread includes:
- Headline
- Large image
- Big letter at start of article
- Route of the eye
- Rule of thirds
- Captions
- Important question

Conventions of Music Videos include:
- Performance
- Narrative
- Animation
- Crane shots
- Pans and tilts
- Close ups
- Jump cuts
- Split screens
- Props
- Costume
- Location relevant
- Lip syncing
- Male gaze

Conventions of Ancillary Products (Digipak) includes:
- Name of artist
- Name of album
- Track list
- Price
- Bonus products
- Website
- Credits
- Recording info
- Writer of songs
- Pictures of artist
- Logo
- Barcode
- DVD logo
- CD logo
- Website banner
- Colour to fit
- Artists genre
- Unfolds
- Cardboard sleeve
- Ads
- Booklet
- Casing

Conventions of Ancillary Products (Magazine Ad) includes:
- Name of artist
- Name of album
- Webiste
- Reviews
- Picture of artist
- Logo
- Release date

Inception - Post Modernism

In What Ways Can Inglorious Basterds Be Considered Postmodern?

Inglorious Basterds is a war film made and written by Quentin Tarantino in 2009. The film differs in a variety of different ways to what you would consider normal in a standard war film and can therefore be considered as postmodern. The genre of the film includes many different categories despite the fact that the film's actual setting is throughout the period of World War II. These different categories of genre could be, thriller, action/adventure, drama and war. This is due to Quentin Tarantino removing certain parts of a traditional war film for example fear and replacing it with other feelings such as comedy humour and applying intertextual elements such as the shot framing, revealing the set, music and having onscreen text.

Firstly, one way in which Inglorious Basterds can be considered a postmodern film is the choice of music by Tarrantino. There are many examples of postmodern choices of music used ranging from Spaghetti Western music to a David Bowie song, which was produced long after the film was set. Tarrantino used Spaghetti Western music produced by Ennio Marricone on many occasions during Inglorious Basterds; it is unusual for this genre of music to be used in a war film, as the music tends to be much classical and slow traditionally relating back to World War II. Tarrantino used this music and I think that it worked well and effectively, particularly during the infamous ‘Bear Jew’ scene which is also framed in an exceptionally similar way to that of a Spaghetti Western shootout scene. Tarrantino used mainly close up shots, which emphasised each characters facial expression whilst waiting for the emergence of the ‘Bear Jew’. Another example of the music Tarrantino chose for Inglorious Basterds is a David Bowie song; this again is an unusual choice as the song is completely out of the time period in which the film was set. Despite this Tarrantino again manages to use this type of music in an effective way.

Furthermore, the choice of music used in Inglorious Basterds adds a postmodern element to the film, as it is an unusual choice and not many other directors would have chosen such music as Tarrantino has done. Tarrantino uses the music in specific scenes and parts of which suits the genre of the music and explains his decision for using such a random selection of music. The music used also adds an element of intertextuality to the film. The Spaghetti Western music was produced by Ennio Morricone and is reminiscent to the music used in ‘The Good the Bad and the Ugly”. Although the music lightly touched on intertextuality there are many other examples of intertextuality included within Inglorious Basterds and this is both postmodernism and  representing typical Tarrantino. As I have previously mentioned Inglorious Basterds includes intertextual references from 'The Good the Bad and the Ugly' from the Spaghetti Western genre. Despite this there are many other intertextual references in Inglorious Basterds, which give the film a postmodern feeling. Another example of intertextuality is the link to the Sound of Music, during the scene in which Shoshanna escapes capture from Hans Landa the surrounding scenery of the countryside is almost identical to that of the scenery displayed in 'the Sound of Music'. As well as the visual link there is another intertextual link between Inglorious Basterds and 'the Sound of Music, this link is much more subtle and is displayed at the very beginning of the film. Like the 'Sound of Music' Inglorious Basterds is physically split into chapters using on screen text, the chapters also display a fairy-tale like link, with the onscreen text reading “Chapter 1: Once upon a time in Nazis occupied France…” This is unusual for a post modern film to be set up in this fairy-tale like way, particularly as postmodern films do not generally end happily ever after. This is yet another example of Tarrantino using Intertextual links in Inglorious Basterds can be seen around opening scene involving Hans Landa looking for hidden Jews. The intertexual link comes as Landa is leaving the cabin, in which Tarrantino incorporates as shot, which is almost identical to a shot, used in the film The Searchers. The shot shows Landa standing in the doorway facing out into the open. These intertexual links are only an example and Tarrantino uses a huge amount of intertextual links throughout the entire film, the sheer amount of intertextual links incorporated into Inglorious Basterds certainly adds a postmodern element to the film.

Another way in which Tarrantino adds a postmodern aspect to Inglorious Basterds in the way in which he uses on screen text. Tarrantino often uses onscreen texts in his films and perhaps the best example of this is Kill Bill. During Inglorious Basterds there are many occasions in which text appears on screen and in true Tarrantino style he uses his favourite font and yellow colour. The onscreen text is not overly used and is mainly used to introduce characters such as Hugo Stiglitz. one of the most obvious example of on screen text comes during the scene in which Shoshanna cinema is filling up with the important Nazis leaders. During this scene arrows are drawn on screen pointing to specific characters, the arrows are then followed by the names of the characters appearing revealing that they are infamous Nazis leaders. This can be a solid example of postmodern techniques as the text is unusual and is rarely seen in war films. As well as being postmodern the text does serve a purpose which is to introduce specific characters and is also used to split the film into sections with the use of chapters.

Levis-Strauss developed the concept of Bricolage. They’re many examples of this in Inglorious Basterds as Tarrantino is known for including high levels of intertextuality and using bits of clips and taking ideas from other films. Examples of this in Inglorious Basterds include; the modern music used, small films within a film, comedy, on screen text, chapters and Tarrantino’s infamous foot fetish, which he manages to include in all his films. Tarrantino uses addition by adding public information films into Inglorious Basterds, however the most prominent example of addition is the way in which Tarratino adds humour into the film, this is unusual particularly for a war film, which often focus on other emotions such as being sad and upset. There are many examples of deletion throughout Inglorious Basterds, however I believe the most significant of these in the way in which Tarrantino deletes fear from the film. This is extremely significant especially considering the genre of the film, however Tarrantio counter balances this deletion with the addition of humour into the films. This makes the film postmodern as it has completely transformed the typical war film into something completely different.

Considering all these different ways I believe that Inglorious Basterds can be considered as a postmodern film. Tarrantino includes a variety of different techniques which make Inglorious Basterds almost unrecognisable to the traditional war film. These techniques also add a postmodern aspect to the film as techniques such as revealing the set and using deliberately music which is from a completely time period all create a feeling of postmodernism around Inlgorious Basterds. 

Research and Planning

During the research and planning stages we were given a specific schedule list. It was important to make sure we were up to date with the list before we moved on to the next deadline to ensure that we were moving swiftly. We managed to complete every task set onto the schedule and this meant we did not fall behind on any work.

Primary research

- Analysing existing music videos

- Making a twitter feed for our artist to making realistic approach

- Pitching our ideas to the group and teachers to gain feedback

Secondary research:

- Watching existing videos on YouTube that inspired us

- Viewing past students work, seeing what conventions they used through blogger

- 'Dafont' website to gain font ideas for digipaks and advert

- Looking at album covers from artists that used interesting layouts 

Primary research was essential when putting ideas together. Looking at existing music videos helped us to gain ideas and be inspried but it was also slightly unrealistic because we didn't have a large budget and prop list to work with. Pitching our ideas to the class and teachers also made a lot of difference as we received constructive criticism and were able to improve our work. Gaining ideas form old or new album covers