‘Creativity is an essential process in media coursework’, to what extent would you agree with this statement? Please refer to specific examples from your class notes and in preparation of your advanced portfolio

Through personal and group exploration, I have discovered that there is more involved in the process of coursework than the routine work. In order to have an impact on your examiner you need to think out of the box and produce something inventive whether it is original or not. It’s still the thought and effort you put into making it. I would definitely have to agree with this statement that creativity is essential to any effective piece of work or of course coursework.

When it comes down to producing the initial coursework there are so many inspirations or ideas that can be slotted into the journey of creating your coursework. For example, when looking at artwork and album covers; it’s so easy to find previous artwork, album covers, paintings, designers or other elements to use for your own work but interpret it in your own way. There are thousands of ideas which are stolen everyday and turned on its side to be used for something completely different. For instance, Andy Warhol’s famous Campbell’s Soup Can was of course started off as a simple soup can which he then created into a form of pop art. Not only was this visually stunning but the creative side to it continued to inspire people for years to come purely because it started off as such a pointless, irrelevant everyday necessity. This form of creativity was so shocking to people of his time because nobody had seen anything like it. Only to show that creativity is something which can inspire productive and imaginative people to erect something extraordinary from something so small. Andy Warhol’s creativity inspired people for years onwards, his Marilyn Monroe inspired Madonna (a hugely successful star in her own right) to create her new album cover.

Another example of creativity is the artwork Ceci n’est pas une pipe. This is simply a drawing of a pipe on a piece of paper which most people would look at and say ‘that’s a picture of a pipe’. However, what the artist has done here has pointed out something which most have failed to notice. What he is in fact trying to say is, it isn’t a pipe it’s a drawing of a pipe. This sort of creativity has a huge impact on people everywhere because the artist has forced people to question the necessity of the drawing and what it means. To be able to have an impact on the public is what he set out to do and through something so simple using creativity, flawlessly managed to conquer his audience.

Through these examples I think I have proved that creativity is something which is so important and always will be. Not only does it shadow generations through the ages but the importance of creativity is to be able to have a fulfilling impact on people and give them something to remember, but it allows people to be inventive and imaginative. To produce anything you like and to ignore reality via creating something different whether it’s fictional or non fictional. Creativity gives people possibility and almost an escape. This is all something that I think is useful to convey in our coursework, whether it is written or artistic, the point remains the same that is about production and working with something to generate something new.

Timeline - Draft

00:08	Beats	Handheld camera correlating with the beat of princess running through woods behind her head, hair down
00:03	Beats	cut to bare foot running
00:04	Beats	Cut to hands brushing across trees and touching flowers
00:05	Beats	Mid shot of her behind standing by oak tree
00:05	First line	Her in wide shot standing in princess room moving against the wall – arms spread
00:04	Second line	Close up of hand with ring on
00:06	Third line	Cut to lip syncing on the balcony with pink balloons
00:05	Fourth line	Close up of face lip syncing
00:05	Fifth line	Panning shot of her face to balloons
00:05		Cut to the woods – shot of trees with sunlight showing through
00:03		Close up of ring coming off finger in woods
00:04	Chorus	Camera still – on floor – ring falls into camera shot
00:05	Chorus	Cut to her at viewpoint – floaty/dancey around circles in wide shot
00:06	Chorus	Cut to mid shot – still floating around in circles (see back of head)
00:04	Next verse	Cut to balcony wide shot of her look holding balloons
00:03		Close up of face`
00:04	Second verse	Cross-cut to close up of layla and leah’s bare feet touching each others feet
00:04	Second verse	Cut to her birds eye view on bed with like petals around her lip syncing
00:04	Second verse	Cut to mid shot of her feet panning up to face lip syncing
00:03 Min and half	Second verse	Cut to close up of her face (still on bed) lip syncing with hair spewed and arms stretched up to her head with petals still around
00:05	Chorus	Cut back to the woods and continue running, handheld camera following leah from the side.
00:03	chorus	Cut back to feet touching
00:05	chorus	Cut back to balcony lip syncing, close up of hands on the wall

Kate Moss/Princess

This photograph of Kate Moss gave us the inspiration of a princess theme. But as we are doing a controversial princess storyline of two girls falling in love rather than the princess stereotypically marrying the prince. 

This photograph represents femininity, sexuality, rebellion, flirtatiousness as well as style. All something we want to convey in our video. 

It is completely what we want to mirror in our lip sync in our video and the kind of star image we want to convey.

De-Constructing An Album Cover

Now when we considered doing a female artist we looked at different successful, fashionable, iconic and seductive women. 

The lyrics in our song refer to sex, addiction, drugs, obsession and lust. Looking at artists like Lana Del Rey give us an idea of how to justify a talented woman. Although Lana Del Rey has a different style to the artist we are doing, it doesn't mean that they can't have a similar image. The reason I picked album covers like this and Blondie's is for the reason that not only are they illustrating the artist by having a  mid shot - displaying their star image, but also the use of colours. 

What I like about the colour choice here is the combination of white and blue. It's eye catching and is something that would stop somebody in a shop and encourage them to come and look at the CD. What I also find inspiring is that with the use of colours, the trees and blue sky in the background she has been illustrated as an english rose. Something that has worked very well. The low camera angle gives her a majestic and powerful image which is something we can replicate in our own artwork.

De-constructing An Album Cover

When looking for inspiration and motivation to help construct our own album cover, I first thought of the 70's and 80's and popular iconic women. 

Dance music was very important to 70's and 80's culture. As our song is a dance track I was looking for something vintage as well as modern to combine, something which is very relative to our time. 

Blondie had very successful albums and was a beautiful and well loved lady. This particular art work for her November '80 album makes her look thin, sexy and stylish. If we were to put something like this with our artist I think it would work really well as our song works with this fashionable retro era. 

The elements to this artwork that I find most eye catching is the font, the city back drop, her blond hair, her jewelled crop top and not to mention the fact that its a drawn picture rather than a photograph and her pale slim features. The way she is leaning backwards onto the wall with her hair in the wind symbolises her sexuality. Her short blonde hair, although a very boyish look, represents her style and edgy look as well as her music. The font is particularly visually enticing because of its detached style as well as the fact that it is at the top of the picture highlights her importance. It also represents her femininity as it is in pink which is important to our artist as we wanted to set her up in a girly theme. 

This album cover in particular is inspirational to me and I would like to create something similar. 

Pitch of music video for "I follow rivers (magician remix)" on Prezi

Idea #1

The song choice I am most in favour of using is Lykke Li - I follow Rivers (Magician Remix) as it has a dancy/alternative sound to it it would give us a range of shots and play around with props, coloured smokes, the outside as well as the inside. I liked the idea of dipping in and out to the artist singing in seperate locations to the narrative (so far - a female couple).

Lykke Li's homepage is modern and stylish on the basis that it has no colours apart from black and white which gives it a contemporary and sophisticated feel. This idea of using black and white brings us back to the concept of filming in black and white and mirroring I Fink U Freeky and Lotus Flower. It fits well with the concept of an alternative image which is what we are trying to illustrate.

This is a beautiful image in black and white taken of Lykke Li with lighting effects. This is exactly something which I would like to include in our video when showing our artist to correlate with the dance style music.

This is the album covour to Lykke Li's Get Some. This helps us with our own album covour and although we won't make it the same, the style of it is inspiring to create something new and infinitive.

I'm becoming increasingly more and more interested in the idea of using a lot of black and white to produce a classic yet modern piece. However the idea of naturalistic colours and lighting springs to mind and may or may not work alongside a black and white theme.

Initial Ideas Continued

After our initial song choice of using Lykki Li's I Follow Rivers (Magician Remix) we have further devoloped our ideas on that and researched the lyrics to see what the subtext was. We also watched interviews with her to see what she wanted to convey to her listeners which was the idea of lust and addiction, and how lust is very different to love. This gives us a range of paths to take such as drug addiction but we then came up with the idea of homosexuality and using two lesbians rather than a stereotypical heterosexual romance. We also watched the music video by Rihanna called Found A Love which spurred on the proposal of mixing drugs with romance.

We then looked at Radiohead - Lotus Flower and how the white and black creates a quirky and abstract feel to it which would work well alongside our homosexual basis. The silhouetted figure at the beginning with the lighted background is very effective as well and would look really cool in our video.

Music Video's Inspiration

We have currently been looking at different videos for new ideas and to help us create our own. Some of them encouraged us to work on a certain genre whereas others have helped us to realise that its not the type of music we want to make a video for. So far we've come to conclusion that we like the idea of having an alternative/electro/dance song to use because we can create our own narrative. However we realise that this makes it harder to use a band but the clean cut shots and perfect editing motivate us to do something like it ourselves. We don't like the prospect of having to use an actual band because it can be cheesy and boring.


Videos like this are ones which we have found inspirational and wish to work on something similar. The use of the old American town and the horses combined with the westernised citizens coming together creates a sense of a 'coming of ages' as we see the modernised people take on a role of cowboys.

Expectations of Coursework

This A2 year has much in store for me. I look forward to facing the challenges with my classmates and teacher and know that I was right in taking up media.

For the coursework we have to produce a music video and digipack in order to promotesdfs a new artist. With this music video we have to get into groups of 3/4 and find a song which could either contain a narrative video:
This video for example does not show the band but instead displays a story which relates to the words. This video has proven to be very effective, due to the fact it's so interesting that the audience appreciate the band for their music and creativity rather than an image.

On the other hand you can have a stylised music video which promotes the bands identity. The video below represents a quirky diverse band which although startles the audience also entices them. This is another successful way of promoting an artist as it attracts a certain target audience.
However the kind of music video we will be expected to produce can involve a narrative but specifically the band, as this is their promotion album which means we need to show the audience what sort of music they write (through the narrative) but also what the band image is.

A2 Introducing Yourself

Hi, I'm Georgina Morton and have been an A level Media student for a year now and shall be continuing on to complete my course.

I found the year just passed proven to be very interesting as it has lead me to create many different views on the Media industry, and has influenced my feelings towards film and tv. It further more had an effect on my love for film and how film has an effect on audiences through production.

I found the workload to be a struggle but with the help of Phil, my AS media teacher, I found the work to become less of a chore and more of an enjoyment.

The thriller was an insight to production and only made me more excited about making a music video.

I look forward to working with a new teacher and a new class and creating merchandise as well as a music video.

Keith Negus - Organic and Synthetic

Keith Negus represents two different ideologies to 'pop', and considers the way artists can be developed and moulded into becoming star products. He also puts into perspective which kind of audiences they will attract and how they will attract them. Negus uses an organic and synthetic ideology in which he puts towards his creativity.

Through the idea of organic and synthetic, Negus has a very naturalistic approach to how he nurtures the artists throuh the record company which encourages them to grow. This then means that the final image is a result of both the record company as well as the artist's input. The artist is then given time to progress through into his/her own career.

One of Negus's other creative ideologies through the use of an organic approach is by giving emphasis to the album sales and the contruction of a successful back catalogue. It is often aimed at an older generation which has proven to increase the profit for the record company.

Through the creative side of a synthetic method Negus came to the conclusion that both the merchandise and artist need equal ammounts of attention. Executives attempt to construct successful and creative products out of the artist and the material for their disposal. This then allows the record company to have a large say in how the artist presents themselves. However before anything can happen, the artist is given a chance to see if the have the potential to become successful by trying them out.

Negus used this idea of having a synthetic method towards creating his star product by emphasising the artist's singles and first albums which are aimed at younger, less sophisticated audiences. The profits generated are a short term strategy used by the record company.

To conclude, the success of synthetic acts will fund and help develop the oraganic acts. Most big record labels look to find an equal balance by using a combination of both successful synthetic and organic acts to ensure that there are funds which can run there day to day functioning of the company and make long term profit potential.

There are clear ways in which Negus wishes to promote his synthetic and organic acts. Organic acts are often sold on their 'authenticity' through their music as well as their acceptance. Synthetic acts are on the other hand sold on their personality or 'look'. Negus believes that in order to be promoted you need to have a fresh unconstructed look which can then be constructed by the record company so that they can create your 'look' and 'individuality'.