‘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.