David Bowie.

A BIT ABOUT HIM.
David Robert Jones (born 8 January 1947), known by his stage name David Bowie. David Jones, but changed his name in the 60s to avoid confusion with DavyJones (not the Pirates of the Caribbean character, but of  The Monkees  who  were  an  american  pop  band). 
Although generally known as a musician and performer, Bowie’s original training, like many British musicians of his generation, was at art school. Throughout his career he has maintained strong connections to the visual arts as an exhibiting painter, printmaker, and art collector. In addition to being a highly visible supporter of the “YBA,” or Young British Artists, he has served as a contributor and member of the editorial board of the British journal, Modern Painters, since 1993.

Postmodern Elements with David Bowie.

• On each one of his new albums he uses different themes and genres of every album he makes. This is unusual for many artists as they would usually stick to one genre and it is risky to go into other areas.
• Influenced by a range of things, such as politics, love,drugs and literature. Bowie brought the unexpected intohis lyrics, such as the decay of society, pairing together different things.
• He  says  with  new  ideas come  from  recombining  of other  peoples  ideas in  an  innovative  way.  

ZIGGY STARDUST.

This is his Ultra Ego that David Bowie created for himself. He says it is an alien who fell to earth and is a rockstar (hence the name SPIDER FROM MARS).

Postmodern Elements for his new album- THE NEXT DAY.

Without even listening to the album we can notice, and this by using the term 'judging a book by its cover', that the album cover is very unusual. The genres David Bowie is known for are Rock, Glam Rock, Art Rock and Pop and this is not what we would usually see on the front cover. Behind the white filled box with the text in it saying THE NEXT DAY we can see a part of an image and that is what you may expect on the front cover on one of these albums. The white box, makes it more weird and this is part of being postmodern, to have weird elements in it. It is quite uneasy to the eye and may give you a sense of what will be in the album as it is quite strange.

The picture we can see behind the white text is of one of his old albums called 'Heroes'.

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.

Digital Technology.

Digital technology is very important when creating the work we need to do. There are many different tools that you can use in order to create your piece to a professional manner. Many softwares available allowed me to do my work easier with a better touch and let me be more creative with my work.

One software i used was Photoshop and this has numerous tools on it which allow youn to do amazing things and get to the littlest detail available. One tool that i used was Image manipulation and this allowed me to make the images for the magazine as professional as I possibly could. For example, as my pictures that i had taken using a camera had a background on there, i did not want this on my magazine so had to crop. It also allowed me to make the pictures how i wanted me to make them by using some of the tools on there, like i was able to change the brightness and contrast of my picture to make it more suitable to the colour scheme of my magazine. This was the same for the double page spread and the contents page as i made it all on photoshop, the tools on this were easy to use once i got used to it and allowed to make my AS work professional.

Cropping was one of the biggest things i had used for my magazines; without these tools it would have been nearly impossible for me to make it how i wanted it and to a professional standard. The two main ones i used and were my favourite were the MAGNETIC LASSO and MARQUEE tool (also known as MAGIC WAND). The magnetic lasso which allowed me to cut around a certain picture and did most of the work for me as i just had to take the cursor around the image. The magic wand highlighted a chunk of an area and let you delete it straight away.

Using the internet was another great type of digital technology as it is the biggest thing going right now. The internet has a lot to offer from doing research  to finding the correct fonts for my work. One main reason i used the internet quite a lot was the fact that i blogged all my work; using blogger also allowed me to get feedback from my target audience and their opinions mattered in the production process of my final work as what I was making was for them so I had to make sure I did things right. The Internet has many different facilities on it and a range of data that can be used for any work. When I think about digital technology, Internet does pop up in my head first as computers are the main thing to do with technology.

 When it comes to hardware for digital technology, there was not a lot i used for my AS work. For the preliminary pictures, we used a professional camera but only kept it in one place in one angle. We had to use photoshop for the first time at this point and i found it to difficult to use so the editing was done very well. A standard wire that connects from the camera to the computer was used to put the images on to a computer and this allowed us to save the images we wanted and use them on our preliminary magazine. This enabled me to figure out how to get things you need on the camera on to a computer and this helped me in all my other work as it is a quick and easy way to do this. 

The use of digital technology in my AS allowed me to work better in my A2 as i had learnt from all mistakes made in my AS. As well as mistakes, the things i did well were brought into my A2 work with the use of digital technolgy; some of the things i used in AS were used in A2 for example the camera to take pictures for my magazine and then pictures for my digipak and poster in A2. 

Funny Games Presentation.

Creativity Essay.

CREATIVITY ESSAY.

Whilst designing my coursework, I needed to be creative but in a way for it to look professional like existing texts that are out there. One key technology I used for my creativity was the internet and a computer; the computer allowed me to use different software as well as the internet as this was also mainly used on the computer. The use of the internet allowed me to research for my genre and the conventions I need to use in order to make it to the best of my ability and use things that professional and established artists/companies used when producing their magazine or music video. Another key technology that I used for my work was software’s like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. Photoshop has numerous tools on it and these enabled me to format my work and I can also experiment with the tools that it has to offer to see if it can be made better or look more professional.  Another software example of software I found to help me with my creativity was Final cut pro as this also allowed me to make it professional with the range of tools it had to offer. In modern society technology is all around us and used for many things, this makes it easier to us it, to be more creative as more experimentation can be done.

Looking at what theorists have said there is not really one that I would challenge as each theorist that talks about creativity I can agree with so rather than challenging I would either agree of develop on what they have to say; for example Jones 1993 says that mistakes can be resolved with the use of creativity and I can remember doing this when I noticed something that didn’t fit with the genre and corrected it using some more ideas I had to make it more appealing to the audience.

As I discussed technology before, that’s was very useful when doing my research and planning as I was able to do a large amount of this using the internet. For the magazine, I looked at magazines such as Complex and XXL as these established companies that make magazines that fit into my genre. I used them conventions on my magazine due to it being professional as these companies would have sold millions of companies so it would have been best for me to use conventions from existing companies. I did the same for my music video as I looked at popular artists that link to my genre to see how what conventions they used in their videos which I could use to make mine similar to theirs.

For the magazine, camera angles and mis-en-scene were very important as I wanted my artist to come across in a particular way and these allowed me to portray this. For instance, the camera angle I used for my front cover was an upwards shot as this gives a sense of an established artists as it seems as if people are looking up at him. Furthermore, I used mis-en-scene to convey ideas of being wealthy. These allowed me to bring across the correct connotations for my artists that I wanted the audience to recognise. The same applies for my music video, as camera angles had to look right to fit what was happening in the song and use a variety so the audience would not get bored and that the video did not look plain. The mis-en-scene is the same as the magazine as we used props to again bring across the right connotations for the genre. Finally, editing was key as we could not allow there not be any errors in order for it to look like a professional music video, especially for the lip sinking to be on time at all points of the song. These were adapted from existing texts as well as our own ideas and we kept bringing up new ideas to make the video to the best of our ability.

The main restriction we had was a small budget to create our texts; unlike existing artists who have a big budget which enables them to use better facilities. As we wanted the music video to look professional we had to use conventions to bring across the genre which the audience would recognise. For example, we only filmed during late hours of the night as this linked to what was happening in the music video as well as the genre. With the music video some of the locations which chose to use were unavailable at certain times which delayed our filming. This was a huge set back as we had organised times and dates for the process of filming to take place. However on many occasions we made decision together on what else we could during this time to aid us during our filming process. For instance, we used creative thinking when one of our locations was blocked and we decided on another place we could film which was not different to the original location.

Although, some ideas had come from existing texts, we wanted to use our own ideas to make it more original. We used creativity by developing conventions in music videos and magazines to make it more personalised rather than copying something that is already out there. During the planning process, we came up with many ideas that were our own to bring across the element of originality. Not much from my texts has been copied as I like to be creative and think of my own ideas or develop ones that I do like.

During the process of making these texts I learnt a lot of new techniques and software’s that I can bring to new texts that I may have to do in the future. Now I have experience in this, I can use my creative mind to make these a lot more professional. One way I have learnt to being creative is to experiment on different software’s and look at many different existing texts to get the correct conventions for the genre to make it look professional. Experimentation allows you to look mess around and see what the software’s have to offer to make it look to the best of my ability. 

Table for creativity.

table for media. by

Theorists.

Theorists and what they are trying to say.

"A process needed for problem solving...not a special gift enjoyed by a few but a common ability possessed by most people" (Jones 1993)
I think this quote is telling us that you learn from your mistakes and once you make a mistake you can improve on your work as you won't make that same mistake again. Use creativity to solve problems.

"The making of the new and the re arranging of the old" (Bentley 1997)

 This pretty much sounds as it has been written, I think this theorist is telling us that the creation of premliminary tasks aids us to make a final version and this is done by mainly making changes to the premliminary and making it better and professional. exsisting texts.  

"Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognise and validatethe innovation." (Csikszentmihalyi 1996)

as a student, the rules made by exam board. me and bal worked together to make new product. our teachers moderators.  

"There is no absolute judgement [on creativity] All judgements arecomparisons of one thing with another." (Donald Larning).

what you think is creative, may not be to others.

"Technology has taken all the creativity out of media production"

Saying technology has come and people may rely so much on technology.

"A project that is too well planned lacks opportunities for spontaneity and creativity."

People will plan out exactly how they want it and may lack inspirations in a future date.

"Media producers can learn nothing from studying the conventions of oldtexts,"

looking at exsisting texts does not help with your own work.


Theories that I can apply to my work.
JONES 1993- as he talks about making mistakes, this is one thing that everyone does and i most definately did but with these i adapted and aimed to make my work better. I experimented with different things and tried to be more creative when i had known i had gone wrong and this allowed me to make my work better.

DONALD LAMING- some people, when giving feedback, pointed out some elements that they thought were wrong with my work but i knew this is what i wanted to create and it was done on purpose to link with the conventions of my work. This links this theory as i was being creative by making it professional but to others it did not look right even though i knew what i was doing it.

Theories that don't apply to my work
'media  producers can leanr nothing from studying the conventions of oldtexts'
I don't believe this is true at all because by looking at these exsisting texts that have already produced and shown to an audience and may have sold a lot (this can be found on the internet) so these will be professional and i can take ideas as well as looking for the correct conventions and adapt this to my work to make it as professional as i can.