Analysis of real media texts essay

1.      Describe how your analysis of the conventions of real media texts informed your own creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

I feel the analysis of conventions of real life media texts has greatly helped me over the course of the media A-level. In AS the task was to create a magazine front page and double page spread which was based upon dance music in the UK which consisted of all the latest DJ’s which would appeal to a wide audience. My A2 work consisted of a horror trailer as well as a poster and magazine which would be used to promote my film which was about the darkness attacking and killing the teenage victims due to their rebellion against society.

My analysis of real media text conventions in my AS work consisted of looking at real life magazines to see where I could gain ideas to put in my magazine. This involved creating mind maps of the magazines and then annotating them to see where they have or haven’t followed the generic conventions. In addition creating textual analysis’s which I also did at A2 when analysing different horror films. I then furthered my research to look at certain DJ’s websites and the way that they promoted themselves, this allowed me to base my magazine on Photoshop around this. My Photoshop skills were developed through this as I continuously had to change aspects of the magazine to suit the music genre such as image manipulation and text font and placement. This then furthered into A2 when I had to create a film poster for my original idea which meant I had a greater depth of knowledge about how to use Photoshop and how to create a realistic poster. I think that without the use of Photoshop from AS to A2 I would not have been able to create such realistic work especially without doing the original analysis of real media texts.

Secondly, my drafting skills have also developed a lot during the course as in AS the task was to draft magazine ideas to help us create the final product. The drafts that I completed did not really differ and I did not add much detail at all when it came to drawing the images on the drafts. However, in A2 my task was to create a storyboard that consisted of around 30 images of the trailer and they had to be detailed. I have been able to use a lot more shading as well as creating more lifelike images to make it easier for me to shoot the actual trailer based on the storyboard. I did the drawing by focusing completely on the drawing alone and using pencils to add detail rather than colouring pens which I did at AS.