Conventions Essay.

The last two years have been a huge learning curve for me and the amount of things i see now that relate to media and some of the stuff i have learnt is massive. for my first task, i was required to make a music magazine and we was told to go ahead and make one; a few instructions and then we set of without any idea of what should be done, the layout, the images, it was just for us to go do it. I then set of and it was terrible, well at the time it looked ok but now i know all about magazine conventions, it is poorly made. For the second task we was told to make a music video, but wern't set of straight away to make one but did one as a class so we got a feel of what we need to do in order to produce one. These were both completed on time after a lot of time spent creating them but good memories lie with the production of them.

For my AS project which was the music magazine, i did a lot of research and planning to look at the conventions for my genre which would make it look professional and make it so it could be pictured on a shelf of a store with other magazines. The front cover may look very different to all magazines but they all have th same ideas about them as they all contain a title, sub-heading, a colour theme to make it look pleasing to the eye and much more. I had to look at hip hop magazines, like Complex and XXL to see what they did when they published magazine as it is better to get ideas from a established company which you can almost copy or develop. I did the same for looking at contents and double page spread but looked at many magazines as they mostly have the same layout also. I did follow conventions from hip hop magazines but looking at others gave me a bit more knowledge. I looked at the conventions and adapted them to my work as i wanted that professional feel and conventions from exsisting texts is the best way as they have more experience than me so they know what is best and show it on their magazines. A theorist said, "Media producers can learn nothing from studying the conventions of oldtexts," but i do not agree with this at all as you would have to use conventions to make your work look professional with the right ideas. 

After learning the correct conventions for my magazine with looking at existing texts, it made doing my work a lot more easier. Before when i had no idea what to do, i didn't know where to start. But once i looked at the correct conventions and seen what i had to do, i knew where to start with my magazine and how it should look. This is a massive difference to how i was before doing my research for the correct conventions. When i had to look for things to put onto my magazine, the title for example, i know how i wanted so i made sure i chose the right ones that i needed so learning the conventions did make a huge difference for me and made doing my magazine much easier. When constructing my preliminary i thought it would be easier to work on the preliminary to construct my final magazine but once i learnt the conventions, there was no way i could and decided to start from scratch. Bentley in 1997 said "The making of the new and the re arranging of the old" and i agree with the first part of what he says for my magazine, as i had to make it starting scratch because my old one was nothing like what it would be like if i knew the conventions. 

With my A2 work, i used experience from AS and knew the best thing to do was analyze music videos and again find the right conventions by looking at hip hop videos and one that may be a bit like the one i was making. This would give great sense with costume, shots and conventions like that in the hip hop genre. The same was adapted to my digipak and poster as i went through numerous hip hop digipaks and poster and analysed them. Mis-en-scene in the music video is important in order to bring the genre across well and this includes costume, props and for us, the setting we were in as we did it in the night time to bring the genre across better. In the digipak and poster, branding was important and this was done through colour scheme and for me, the artist chosen to be on my digipak and poster. I learnt doing this look at conventions from hip hop media which made it so much easier.

I mainly followed conventions in my work due to the hip hop genre being quite a strict one and challenging the conventions could take it down a different genre and look strange when you say this is a hip hop media. A lot of hip hop media products follow the same rules and conventions and ones that challenge them do not look right at all. Hip Hop is straight foward and should be one way. This is why i stuck to these conventions and kept them the same because i wanted it to look correct and when seen people would understand the genre it came from. The song also helped me with my decision with the music video and sticking to the conventions as the song is very hip hop so i had to do what the conventions intended. The whole reason why i just used and developed the conventions is because hip hop is very strict and has to be done one way to make sure it looks right.

In conclusion, conventions are very important when looking at media as they pretty much make up a whole genre. The way things are done in a genre are done because of the conventions it has so if you want to follow this genre you have to do as the conventions show so the genre you have shown can be seen. They were very significant whilst making my music video as i used them as a guide line and followed them when doing my work. I have learnt a lot about conventions and their importance with media, i know this because learning them was very helpful with my work and allowed me to aim for that professional feel that i was aiming for. Becuase established magazines, digipaks, posters and music videos use conventions, i knew i had to also and i learnt them and now i can recognise them on many different things.