Essay Plan: Conventions of real media texts

Question:
'Explain how far your understanding of the conventions of existing media influenced the way you created your own media products. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how this understanding developed over time'.

Intro
At AS we created a film opening whereas at A2 we created a promotional package for a music artist.

1st para - Film opening
In our preliminary task we did not take a very significant influence from real media texts. In terms of narrative our preliminary task was similar to 'The DUFF' as both storylines were based in high school about a rumour that was being spread around. Our main character in the prelim task did not take influence from any other real media texts as our main character did not display a distinctive character.

I made a significant improvement in the way which we used the conventions of real media texts between the prelim task production and the production of the film opening. In terms of narrative we did not take much inspiration this is because as a group we came up with our own storyline. However real media texts such as 'Girl Interrupted' shows a similar narrative of a girl in a mental health institution. We also took characterisation from the real media text 'Girl Interrupted' as the film shows a girl in a disturbed way which we also wanted to portray in our film opening. We attempted to copy the hair and makeup of the main character for the main character in my film opening.

2nd para - Music Video
Finally we also made a significant progression in our use of real media texts between our film opening and the music video we created as part of our advanced portfolio of coursework. In terms of narrative we took great inspiration from real media texts such as 'The prodigy - smack my b**** up'. The narrative for this music video includes point of view shots of someone getting ready in the morning which we took inspiration from as in our video our artist is seen waking up, washing face and getting ready all from a point of view angle. We also researched other artist such as Rihanna and Selena Gomez to find inspiration for performance and representation. Real media texts were less defined at A2 therefore we had to do our research in a lot more depth.

3rd para - Digipak, Website
We also took inspiration for our music video from other media texts for example the 'Jet2Holidays' television advert. The advert shows an adult following behind a child from a point of view angle whilst they are on holiday. We took inspiration from this as our music video shows the artist following behind her friends from a point of view angle. Creating our promotion package for an artist as well as creating a music video we were also required to create a digipak and website for the artist. We used lots of real media texts to find inspiration for our digipak such as 'Rihanna - Talk that Talk' and 'Rita Ora - Ora'. Both of these real media texts follow  a black and white theme which we wanted for out digipak.Synergy was not required at AS however at A2 it was important to create synergy throughout all of our products so we used the black and white theme in our music video, digipak, website and tour poster.

Overall, real media texts played a helpful role when creating our film opening however at A2 using real media texts became essential and in more depth.

Include specific music videos which we researched.