what is creativity?

Creativity is a way of turning new and imaginative ideas into real things. It involves someone thinking of an idea then producing the idea into it. From the scientific point of view creativity comes from originality and appropriateness.
The best kind of person for being creative is imaginative, inventive, taking risks and challenging conventions.

Creativity

Creativity is a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight.
Creativity is something that cant always be defined. some people believe it is the freedom to do what you feel will be good in the way you want to do it. It is the separation of yourselves from regular responses to tasks.

What is creativity?

'The ability to modify self composed constraints'
(Buffalo State University)

The term ability suggests that it is something that we all have and all use to different degrees.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJFLV2kAz90

C = fa(K,I,E)
Knowledge
Imagination
Evaluation

Creativity

"Creativity is that which has yet to be done, the universe within you that has to be expressed."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTEeuQePamA


"Creativity is a mental and social process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity

What is creativity?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPLxf2ynmMU&playnext_from=TL&videos=adtORdG3s9M&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh%2Bdiv-1r-14-HM

The power or ability to invent: creativeness, ingeniousness, ingenuity, invention, inventiveness, originality. See ability/inability, make/unmake.

Creativity is the ability to see something in a new way, to see and solve problems no one else may know exists, and to engage in mental and physical experiences that are new, unique, or different. Creativity is a critical aspect of a person's life, starting from inside the womb onward through adulthood.

Q2- To what extent has using conventions from real texts offered you creative opportunities?

Real texts are other people's products which have been successful. For example music videos and films.

The advantages for using other real texts are that in some, we know they have worked and been successful so may be a good influence to give other people ideas for their products. When we were making our thriller we got good ideas from looking at the beginning of other thrillers, its quite a stereotypical genre so wasn't that hard to

Q2- To what extent has using conventions from real texts offered you creative opportunities?

Question 2- To what extent has using conventions from real texts offered you creative opportunities?

Introduction- A explanation of what real texts are and what they offer in relation to helping and giving ideas for our own products.

Paragraph- For using real texts.

Paragraph- Against using real texts.

Conclusion- Overall opinion on how well and much they actually helped.

To what extent has using conventions from real texts offered you creative opportunities?

Plan
Intro- Define the term 'conventions' in relation to real texts and creativity.

Paragraph 1- Example
-Make a point (e.g 'We looked at the music style used in Vertigo...')

-Relate this to a creative example within own work (e.g 'It allowed us to apply the music conventions of a thriller to our own work...')

-Analyse (explain and assess how this convention was effective within own work)

Paragraph 2- Example
(same format as paragraph 1)

Paragraph 3- Example
(same format as paragraph 1 and 2)

Conclusion

Answer
A convention is an aspect of a media product that is common to all products of that genre. We then looked at these and by analysing the videos we found the conventions that we can apply to our own video, this helped us to make a creative decisions but also limited what we could do as we couldn't stray too far from the norm.
When looking at the music style in 'vertigo' we noticed that the convention was music that slowly grew in pace and volume to help create high suspense and tension. We applied this to our own work by creating a sound track that reflected the same feeling. So, as soon as this music was heard by our audience they instantly knew the genre of the video and what to expect from it.
In the research and planning stage of the creation of our music video we looked at various videos of the same genre, by doing this we were able to notice the common conventions used to make a video of that genre. We noticed that the videos of the genre of music that we chose (indie) had a lot of animation incorporated in it and a little bit of performance incorporated. We there

Answer to number 2

Introduction:

Real texts are examples of media products that have been produced by other people in the 'real world'. These can be anything from films to music to posters or artwork and many more. These can be used to gain ideas of how products should be produced or organised which can be helpful or in some peoples eyes, detrimental to the creativity of someone producing their own work.

Paragraph 1:

The advantage of using real texts as a basis for your own work in the research and planning stage of production is that you can receive inspiration and ideas as to how to make the most effective media product possible. This can be things such as looking at conventions of genre for example to find what key aspects need to be in your media product to have maximum effect on the audience.

Paragraph 2:

On the other hand, using real texts to help create your products can stunt your own creativity and promotes copying and plajizm which can mean that the producers own ideas are blocked and stopped from going into the final product. This can mean that they end upo creating a very similar product which limits the audiences pleasure as they have seen the same, or a similar, thing many times before.

Conclusion/ Evaluation/ Summary/ Final Bit:

When creating our own media products as part of our A level course, we have taken the time to look into similar products to that which we are producing to gain ideas and inspiration as we ourselves had little experience to use to build our own ideas. For example, when creating our music poster and digipak as part of our Music Video Project, we researched into other bands' products and also into the conventions of the media products. This helped with discovering the contents of the products such as including tracklistings, record label, artist and many others. This meant that we could create the best product possible for our audience which was the overall aim of the task.
Therefore, we believe that the use of real texts has offered us many diverse creative opportunities throughout our media career and we shall continue to utilize them when producing and creating future products.

question 2

To what extent has using conventions from real texts offered you creative opportunities?
plan-

Introduction: what real text is and an explanation

Paragraph one: for using real texts in research as they can give you ideas and inspiration.

Paragraph two: against using real texts as you could end up copying ideas and not producing your own, creating similar products.

Conclusion: has real texts given you creative opportunities in your products and if so should you continue to use them in your products to help you.

Exam question planning

3) How have you utilized digital technologies through out the media studies course and how have your skills developed when using them?

Digital Technologies

Internet - Primarily used for research and planning by using blogger website, allows to record ideas and feedback to keep a steady track on our progress.

Final Cut - Continuity/Parallel editing, Transitions/Special effect filters, Synchronising lyrics with visuals

Garageband - Soundtrack composition due to on going loops, sound effect alterations such as changing the pitch/reverb, integrated editing with filmed footage which makes editing more convenient with music/footage present.

Photoshop - Non-linear versatile software for editing images, used for making creative art such as posters, leaflets or business cards etc...

Istopmotion - Animation tool, provides abstract film footage by using props. Makes editing convenient because the footage is already pre-recorded.

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Introduction - The projects we worked on required many software's for it be successfully completed, i.e. thriller project requiring Final Cut and Garage Band. Music Video requiring Final Cut/Photoshop and optionally Istopmotion if concept is animation.


Paragraph 1 - Using internet to find images/clips of videos for analysis to give us inspiration then record on the blog. We also update our web-blog about the activities we've been doing. This allows us to minimise which jobs we have left to do.


Paragraph 2 - Special functions of Final Cut, complex layout which allows non-linear editing, multiple timelines to allow visual or sound overlapping.


Conclusion -


Answer to question

The projects we worked on required many software's for it be successfully completed, i.e. thriller project requiring Final Cut and Garage Band. Music Video requiring Final Cut/Photoshop and optionally Istopmotion if concept is animation. 

   For the research and planning stage we primarily used the internet to look at existing products and to keep track of our own work by using the blogger website. This site also lets us gather feedback to improve our work.
  Our use of final cut has changed over the projects because we originally used it to do simple parallel or continuity editing. By the last couple of projects we had developed skills in using the more sophisticated functions of Final cut such as managing multiple time lines to allow visual or sound overlapping. For example, matching the music to the visuals in the music video.
  We used garageband to compose a soundtrack using on going loops, sound effect alterations such as changing the pitch/reverb, integrated editing with filmed footage which makes editing more convenient with music/footage present.
  Our use of photoshop has developed from merging to images together (in the new york task) to creating the ancillary tasks which involved many different layers of text and images. These images have been modified, cut out, imported and blurred.
  Istopmotion is an animation tool which provides abstract film footage by using props. It makes editing convenient because the footage is already pre-recorded. It also allowed us to experiment with different types of editing in final cut as we were working with props, not real life people.

To what extent have digital technologies helped to increase more creative oppertunities?

Plan:

1. Introduction: background of projects and brief description of a few digital technologies.
2. 1st Paragraph: One digital technology and how that has increased your creativity. What is creativity? Explain digi technologies in more details
3. 2nd Paragraph: Another digital technology and how that has increased your creativity. relate to two or more projects
4. Conclusion/ Evaluation/ last paragraph/ summary: say whether or not you believe that digital technologies aids your creativity when producing media products in your experience. State how a digital technology could be improved to improve creativity.

Response by Sian and Laura

Some of the digital technologies we used are photoshop a photo editing software to create our company logo. Final cut to edit and improve our product and garage band to create a soundtrack. We used these in our production of our thriller to help create a more professional product.

One didgital technology that as helped to increase our creative oppourtunities is Final cut. It allowed us to edit our product adding different effects to get a more complex and interesting product. It allowed us to use a more advanced technology to give us a higher quality product and more like an actual opening sequence.

Another digital technology is blogger an online website we used to blog our ideas, planning stages and thoughts. It meant we could research different opening sequences adding them to the blogs to helps us get different ideas. We could plan what we needed to do for our opening sequence in detail so we knew what had to be done and this made it easier when we came to shooting our product.

In conclusion i think digital technologies do help increase creative opportunities as it helps give people more idea's that can often lead to other idea's and a more creative product overall. It also helps to give a more professional product by being able to edit and add different effects.

How have you utilized digital technologies throughout the media studies course and how have your skills when using the developed? - Plan

Introduction - Define digital technologies and briefly list the technologies that have been used through out the course.
Final Cut
iStop Motion
Photoshop

Photoshop - explain the development from making firstly the static image of the earth and the eye, than moving onto the moving logo and finally creating the ancillary products for the music video.
Talk about the various tools (lasso, magnetic lasso), overlay effects, filters and layers

Final cut - continuous editing havng one clip after another in the thriller video and having one straight line for the story, then moving onto for example the music video where there is parallel editing moving from one location to another.
also the development of using the tools of the program moving from just adding titles to changing the colours of the videos and adding various transitions and filters.

iStop Motion - moving from making and editing the video in iStop Motion to creating the video in any order and then moving it to final cut and editing the order.
Comment on the problems with using istop motion and the various ways that we over came that the second time we used it in the creating of our media products.


Answer

There are a variety of digital technologies that we have used throughout our projects. These include Photoshop, Final Cut and I Stop Motion.

Photoshop was the first program we used. It helped us with the development from making firstly a static image of the earth and an eye, then moving onto a moving logo for our ident and finally creating the ancillary products for our music video. Making the initial earth and eye image introduced us to a variety of tools on photoshop, one of these being the 'magnetic lasso'. This assisted us in selecting the specific section of the image we needed to use (in this instance, the eye).

During the editing of our thriller project we used the program Final Cut where we had just one clip followed by another including of just one straight story line. Then moving onto our music video we used parallel editing and developed tool skills in the program such as using colour filters, adding titles and various transition.

I-stop motion

Plan for question

To what extent has using conventions from real texts offered you creative opportunities.

Music Video:

Goodwins theory: Conventions of music videos eg: Have to think about conventions when making own video.

(Relationship between lyrics and visuals

Relationship between music and visuals

Intertexuality

Voyeurism

Demands of the record label

Genre characteristics)

Using youtube to research existing music videos for ideas

Expand on ideas. E.g Voyeurism... Calvin Harris Ready for the weekend

Thriller/Opening sequence:

Strict conventions constrict your opportunity to be creative.

High Audience expectation - Boring

When challenging conventions: high risk for producers.

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Using conventions from real texts has given us many opportunities to develop creative ideas. For our music video we researched a mainstream theory by Goodwin which lists the typical conventions any type music video would feature. As there are different genres, its important to list the specific use of micro-elements. For example, when analysing disco dancing MV, the mise-en-scene would normally be set in a live action dance club. The lighting would be vivid and radiant, this would allow us to create a moodboard to help generate new ideas. While analysing other relevant genre MVs.

We take into account what kind of camera shots they use to film the artist. The essential component is Voyeurism where close ups of the artists are recorded gazing directly at the camera. This feature requires us to plan the shot carefully as the artist would have to be in sync with the music as well as be within frame. This is where storyboarding is vital for planning out our sequence before filming. Planning our shot list enables us to visualise the end product as well as allow us to film test shots before the real filming.

Part of using conventions in a MV is by listening to the song's lyrics. The lyrics allows us to create a visual/lyrical relationship. This component of Goodwin's theory creates satiable feeling to the audience because the matching visual and lyrics can express a narrative in the sequence.

final video

AGAINST

• The use of the pre-determined loops available in garage band may be an easy way to first start to create a simple sound track but, for anyone more advanced, this may be a hindrance. for example when viewing other groups work using the program you notice that they're all pretty much sound the same.
  
• Using Final Cut could limit creativity as it is a very complex software that takes a lot of time and understanding to use appr
  Publish Post
  opriately, therefore even though someone could have an amazing idea, they may not know how to effectively execute it.
  

Digital Technologies / Creativity

For

• Photoshop allows to create appealing digital images for marketing/advertisement.
• Garageband contains pre-determined loops that allows an accessible to audience to be creative.
• Final Cut contains sophisticated functions for proficient styles of editing, including special effect filters, transitions, multiple time lines and plenty of viewer canvas'.
• Istopmotion enables users to create any sort of animation provided with the suitable props.
• Blogger allows people to record events in the past so you can develop your ideas in the future if currently insufficient.

skills development, research and planning

Research and planning became a crucial element of our post-production, especially when creating our thriller, film sequence and music video. This helped us identify some of the key genre charecteristics, which we incorperated in order to appeal to our target audience. We researched a lot of music videos using Youtube, which not only helped us get a better understanding of media conventions and genre charecteristics, but also allowed us to include some intertexuality. For example, we decided during our research and planning stages of our music video to include frequent split screens, as we felt this was a more interesting and effective way to narrate the song's storyline to an audience, which we had seen from a number of other indie/acoustic genre music videos. Other internet sites such as Google images helped us created our ancillary tasks, as examples of others gave us an early indiction as to how we wanted ours to look e.g what style, font, logos and features we wanted to use. Using storyboards, we were able to create a early visualisation of some of our ideas, and in our groups, allowed us also to work out, expand on and discuss which ideas would work and which wouldnt. Time plans were also used during our planning stages which helped us plan shot duration, sound duration,transition durations etc. however i feel we could have made better use of these when planning our music video, as we underestimated how much time we needed in order to shoot certain bits of footage, and therefore spent too much/too little time on different aspects.

Research and Planning

Throughout the media studies course, research and planning has been a significant part of each project and allows the production of our work to run more effectively. It also allows us to produce work to a higher standard. The planning for projects such as the music video, Thriller and opening sequence, involved researching conventions which help us make the final piece more suitable for purpose. It also gives us a clear 'to-do' list of what to include which were written on our blog throughout each project. For example, one of the conventions needed in the thriller project was dark lighting which we wrote on the blog and reminded us to filter the shots when editing. Time management is important in getting everything done, so things such as shot lists are important to the quality of the final work, as if you run out of time towards the deadlines, the editing or filming loses quality. For example, in our music video project, our shot list wasnt long enough, so when it came to filming we didnt have enough footage to shoot and therefore had to improvise on the day. Luckily this worked out for us, but if we had originally planned our time better, the overall video would have been better. Storyboards help prepare everything you need to do, in a similar way to updating your blog. The feedback received on the blog helped us refine our ideas. Research using the internet (sites such as google and youtube) helped us include some intertexuality which helps us connect more with the audience, for example, in our music video we used 'space invaders' from a popular video game.

Research and planning

I think being able to plan and research has had a big impact on are final products. For example our music video i think we did the most research on Indie artists, this meant we could see the type of style they used in their own music videos abd we could get a good idea of what was expected and appeal to our target audience. We also researched Indie dress style whether they had narratives or not and where most of videos were set. I think this really helped our video come together and to give us an idea of what we wanted our music video to be like and to keep within our genre.
Planning our ideas abd thoughts on the blog meant we knew what we had to do on the day we shot our video. This made things easier and quicker and we were able to get extra shots, which really helped when we came to editing our video as we wanted a wide variety of shots in different locations.
I think this is why our opening sequence didn't work as well as we didn't spend as much time planning the different shots we needed and the narrative. We also didn't research as many opening sequences, espicially romantic comedies which is what we were doing. I think if we had this would have effected the outcome of our product.

-ALEX-WINTER-

pre production which is all the research and planning u put into your chosen product/production is a very important part and overall affects post production, In media we have completed many tasks all of which we have used research and planning for example in all our tasks for example music video and thriller we had an online blog which we used to keep all the information we had found about conventions and inter textuality also were we could put our storyboard and pre production ideas also we could use the online blog to track are progress throughout the tasks.

one of the most important things is having a storyboard, as when u are filming you have a shot by shot guide on what you are supposed to be filming, so you are guarantied not to mis any shots out or film to much this will then help when you come to editing your work.

we made good use of the video sharing website youtube, it helped us find the conventions of our production for example in are music video task are genre was indie rock so we looked at as many indie rock videos as we could to see what props they used, costumes and locations which helped us in the ideas stage, youtube helps you find themes and conventions

The blog was also useful as we received feedback on all the planning we had completed this means you get another opinion on your initial ideas