Conventions Essay

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

I do agree with what Branston and Stafford said because when I was constructing my project for both AS and A2 productions I had a limited amount of resources which made constraints for my production. This enabled me to get used to the software and the number of effects but also find new options in the software to add to my product. On the other hand, I disagree with this statement because if I had more freedom in the making of my production I would have been able to use alternate programs with possibly more opportunities in how to improve my production.

In my thriller I pretty much stuck to all of the conventions to make a good thriller film. Consistently in my thriller I made use of a dark, shadowy atmosphere, a conventions used in many thriller productions. Not only did this fit into the idea of the thriller but it played a big part which went well with the music of the thriller. I made eerie music on external music software called Cakewalk; this software has a number of features which let me produce a soundtrack which followed along well with the thriller film. I have developed my understanding for adding a music track into iMovie and adapting it to my shots which were filmed. It is different in my A2 production because I have had to use the technique of lip synching which was not needed in my thriller. The precision clipping tool was what I used to get it as accurate as possible. Once I had all the shots in place, it was a lot easier than I expected to match the music to visuals.

In my music video I matched the lyrics to the visuals, for example: In the chorus of my song one of the lyrics is ‘Is it my imagination or a trick of the light.’ When ‘a trick of the light’ is said it plays the same performance shots but I changed the effect to make it look like the light had changed. This effect worked well on the colourful flashing lights which I used in the making of my music video. It changed the contrast of the picture to make it work better. In my AS production, thriller, it wasn’t possible to match lyrics to visuals, but I did change the brightness and contrast of my shots to make them appear darker than they really were. This was the edge that I needed for the shots in my thriller, it made them just that bit darker and contrast a lot better. Because this was a pretty much a silent film, the dark brightness and high contrast was needed to involve the audience. This is what I wanted to achieve with the effects in my music video, it made the audience feel like it was happening to them as well.

I certainly do think that from my AS production to my A2 production, I have definitely made use of the features of the software and the camera settings to produce a better, more professional product. Throughout the production of my A2 music video production, I definitely made took more risks in ways to improve the product. One of the risks I used most was to not follow all of the conventions as much as I did in the AS thriller production, this was because I understood better how I could improve them and also explain why I changed them in that way.