Through my expirience in studying media, i feel that my creativity has developed working within the conventions of real media products. At AS level in my foundation portfolio i created a thriller opening and at A2, i produced a music video as my advanced portfolio.

From researching the conventions of the thriller genre, i came across the main conventions which occured on every webpage i visited. One of the main conventions was mise - en - scene. I used this cnvention in my thriller by manipulating the room to make it look dark and gloomy. In addition to this convention i made the room consist of low key lighting to further enhance the convention. Looking at the mise - scene in the opening i think i really used it well created a thriller like setting. Another convention of the thriller genre was the soundtrack. As like the mise - en - scene it had to be gloomy and dark, also to create suspense and tension. Generally, orchestral instruments are used in thrillers, so i looked for a soundtrack accordingly. In my opening the soundtrack started off with a one note synth occurring then as the tension started to build up i.e when the cop starts to enter the building the texture and volume of the track increases in conjunction with the suspense and tension. I thought this soundtrack was good at the part where the tension started to build but i think at the beginning i could have used something more substantial that created a dark atmosphere. One convention that i challeged was the introduction of the antagonist. I did not really indicate an antagonist, the cop was just a minor character who's role was to reveal the protagonist and develop the stroryline. I real media products the real hero or antagonist is clearly shown but in my opening i have not shown the true antagonist. I think this really was effective as it made the audience think and showed my creativity. Another convention was he use of close ups of main characters. In my opening i had plenty of close ups of both the protagonist and cop. I think the use of close ups in my opening was really good.


For my A2 advanced portfolio i produced an indie rock music video. The conventions for this acoording to vernallis and goodwin are, a relationship between lyrics and visuals, a relationship between music and visuals and intertextuality etc. Looking into the indie rock genre, i found out that the main representations were a casual dressed scruffy artist typically with a live band playing live. Although i did not have a band, i incorporated the scruffy casual look onto my artist. Observing goodwins point of relationshop between lyrics and visuals, i had an example of that when the lyric said "head might explode" i had an effect put onto the shot of my artists head called earthquake. This effect shook the shot as if an earthquake was happening and looking like his head was going to explode. I think this is a great example of goodwins point, and i think i used it well. One convention that i challenged was the intertextuality. I did not include any intertextuality reference to movies, programmes etc. This is beause this was the only track that had a video to it so there was nothing the artist could do or say to advertise himself more than he already is. Another convention i heavily used was lip synching,  i successfully used lip synching in my video to show the artist singing in unison with the track. I think i used great editing skills to get the lip sync right.


In comparison over the two years i think that my creativity improved dramatically by using a variety of programme which was expected in my advanced portfolio.