Sian Lynes To what extent were you creative in your AS and A2 coursework tasks?

In both AS and A2 I believe that my creativity was able to thrive through the set tasks given. However during these two pieces I have progressed greatly by improving my skills and awareness of stylistic techniques to achieve production pieces to a professional ability. For the AS production work the outlined brief specified to create a music magazine aimed at a specific genre that included a front cover, contents page and double page spread. I created these pieces using the industry standard program Adobe Photoshop CS5 that allowed me to begin from a blank canvas using the outlined size requirements. By using this technology is enhanced my creativity greatly as I could experiment with editing techniques specific to my preference. For example, I edited my photography using a range of tools such as brightness and contrast, levels, selective colour and increased the saturation. This not only made my artist look more aesthetically pleasing, enhancing her star image to a mass audience, but allowed me to tailor the look of the colours to my own chosen genre and colour palette. In this case, the selective colour allowed me to emphasise the red and blue tones in my photography in line with my red, blue and white colour palette. This not only made the appearance of all images seamless but contributed to the overall house style of the magazine, ensuring my photography did not appear out of place. This supports Banaji, Burn and Buckingham's theory (2006) that technological developments are linked to the advancements of creativity within my own individual preferences. On the other hand from A2 my skills were able to progress with the update version of Adobe Photoshop CS6 during the construction of my ancillary tasks. This enabled my creativity on paper, from my initial illustration proposals, to be imported into the document and edited using tools such as overlaying it onto my background. I was able to further manipulate my image to appear as if it had been drawn with a drawing tablet. This was a technique I believe would not have been achievable during my AS production work as I had gained an in-depth knowledge of the further capabilities in Photoshop. This allowed me as well as to use a variety of mediums by hand and the onto computer rather than relying on secondary mediums such as photography, like my AS product, to turn out correct on the day of shooting. Additionally, I gained new skills in a program I had not used before, Adobe Premiere Elements 8.0 for the post-editing of my music video. Windows Movie Maker was the only video editing software I had used before but Adobe's features allowed me to input complex features, such as specific brightness and contrast, saturation and hue features which WMM could not provide. I could reduplicate these effects on every shot, saving valuable time. It also allowed me to edit more precisely, for example the fast cuts and action matches required on-thesecond timing, which I was able to do to the exact mille-second. I could then be more creative with my shots in parallel to the music, as I had decided to use a shot for every quick beat within the chorus. Therefore my knowledge in technology became more widespread for my A2 production from my AS, giving me freedom to experiment with new techniques that I had not learnt yet from AS. Inspiration from other texts and incorporating intertextuality was a significant feature through both my AS and A2 production pieces. For my AS product I took heavy inspiration from 1950s icons, especially Marilyn Monroe to tie in with my unconventional music magazine genre combining both past and present popular music tastes. I took inspiration from Marilyn Monroe's famous calendar shoot in which she poses with just a sheet over her body. I rearranged this to appeal with my star

Sian Lynes artist and new target audience by using an American flag and modern pin-up look to pay homage. In this sense I am supporting Bentley's theory (1997) that the making of the new and rearranging of the old is what produced my creative item of work. However, I wanted my target audience to place a cognitive association with my past and present music genre which was best achieved by taking something old and rearranging it for the new. For my A2 however I decided to continue using the 1950s inspiration but not as dramatic as I did for AS. I preferred focusing on a time period to take inspiration from but more subtly in the mise-en-scene as my artist in this case was more mainstream pop so my target audience may not be literate in the field to make that cognitive association. Arguably, A2 has allowed me to be more creative as I had more freedom to choose the path my product and artist would go in. Whereas for AS I did have the restrictions of creating a music magazine with a more niche market perhaps resulting in reduced paths to take otherwise I would lose this niche market. Consequently, the differences in restrictions placed on me between AS and A2 varied greatly wich also contributed to the extent of my creativity. For my AS product, I was constrained to the dimensions of international A4 size for my front cover and contents page and double A4 for my double page spread. However, although this may have limited the amount of text and graphic design it allowed me to be as effective as possible within the space. Otherwise I could over clutter my ideas rather than systematically position each element to attract the audience. Whereas the dimensions for A2 were more varied. This was most evident in the music video, were the possibilities for amount of shots, cuts, timing and even cinematic view were an endless option if I preferred. For the ancillary tasks of the digipak and album advert, although I had industry set dimension to work with again, the information I had to provide to my audience from each ensured they weren't over cluttered. TThis supports Grice's Maxim of Quantity, ensuring that I do not provide more information to my audience than what is required. I still the freedom of choice of what featured on my ancillary tasks that allowed my creativity to thrive. In terms of my research and planning this enabled me to analyse the effectiveness of other texts and plan mine in the best way possible. For my AS product, my research had been limited in comparison to my A2. Although their genres were varied, I only studied several magazine front covers, contents pages and double page spreads which enabled me to pick up on key conventions. These conventions were adopted in my final product, such as masthead, coverlines, article columns to name a few. However, for my A2 my research was more varied but also allowed me to develop my own conventions. For example, I chose to repeat an illustration of cartoon lips twice to adhere to my own house style. I also researched into theories such as Laura Gelvey's 'Male Gaze' which I wanted to subject my artist to in order to appeal to a mass market. By being more analytical in my research and planning process this allowed my creativity to be an act of intention rather than perhaps arguably unintentional features within my AS product. Therefore I disagree with the statement that creativity can lack if planned as it lacks spontaneity and randomness, whereas I believe that my ability to carry out thorough research and planning in a more refined manner has helped improve my product and ancillary tasks to perform its end function. Regarding the progression of creativity of my filming and camerawork skills I believe that I have improved to a more professional and mature standard. For my AS product the key shot type I used was a mid-shot to represent my artist on the front cover and double page spread of my magazine with a long shot on featured on the contents page. Whereas for my A2 music video I had freedom to

Sian Lynes use a wide variety of shot types and angles such as extreme long shots to extreme close ups. Although I thought it was more appropriate for feature only mid-shots of my illustrations of my ancillary tasks. Therefore I was allowed to me more creative with the surrounding mise-en-scene and location choice which would not have previously been visible with just a basic mid-shot. I believe that the creative skills I have developed in terms of invention, originality and developing ideas will allow me to be more innovative in the future. I will be able to use Photoshop to create new graphic designs as well as present ideas in a visual way.