Question on Creativity

How creative have you been in your AS and A2 productions?
Use the marking criteria for G325 to help you:

• Explain what you did and analyse the extent of your creativity.
• Give examples from the texts you created to support your points.
• Use terminology e.g. media terms, creativity terms.

Remember:
Level 1 = limited, descriptive
Level 2 = simple, basic
Level 3 = straightforward, clear
Level 4 = complex, articulate

Throughout all the coursework within AS and A2 I have been creative in all elements leading up to and including the production of my final products. In both sets of coursework I had a brief that I was required to work to, for example, as AS I had to create a music video. Although there were elements of the coursework that required me to make creative decisions, such as the genre of music I based my magazine on, to tailor and change this brief to my own ideas I had to be creative, and in some cases challenge conventional ideas. Picking a genre adds further constraints to the work as it meant I had further conventions to negotiate, these include colour schemes, layouts and featured elements within the magazine. Due to this I had to be creative in my decisions regarding these areas and whether or not to conform or challenge conventions to make the product realistic and convincing as well as different and unique as an overall product. Choosing the pop genre allowed me to take influence  and inspiration from the many existing pop genre texts and re-create elements, recycling these ideas allowed me to take something that is already proven to work well and adjust it using my own creativity and originality to make a new version. I also chose to use a distinctive and strong 3 colour pallet, a common convention within music magazines that is not limited specifically to the pop genre, this helped me to create a convincing product as well as a theme and sense of branding throughout the product. Layout of all three areas of my final product - the cover, contents and double page spread - was very much entirely my own decision, however conventions would suggest the use of certain effective layout patterns such as the rule of thirds. This layout pattern was one I decided to use within my work as it created a strong, clear and easily accessible style for the reader.

Within my A2 coursework project there was similar constraints due to the task itself and the choice of genre. Similarly to my AS coursework my product was based within the pop genre, I was again restricted by certain conventions of the genre, however, in the production of these products I challenged many more conventions and pushed more towards an original and unique style that would further push my creativity. The product overall stood out as product due to the decisions I made and conventions that I challenged, I was also less afraid to think outside the box and take inspiration from other genres, such as with the use of hand drawn images within my digipak and advertisement that were inspired by indie genre style artwork. Although these elements all allowed greater creativity through a lack or restrictions but instead conventions that could be negotiated and manipulated, there were elements that provided rules and restrictions within my coursework. For example, whilst creating the digipak I was restricted to size and other industry requirements such as the regulatory inclusion of legal/copyright information. Within my AS coursework, similar restrictions where in place, however their were fewer, for example, only the inclusion of the barcode, price and date on the cover were deemed compulsory. Many sizing requirements, however, were equally restricting within both coursework projects with the AS magazine restricting me to an A4 cover, A4 contents and 2 A4 pages for an article and the A2 advertisement restricting me to an A4 page. Although these were elements that controlled my work and provide rules, they also helped me to push my originality and creativity in order to produce a layout that worked well within these size restrictions and made the best of the space I had to work with.

Overall, I feel that I was more creative within my second, A2, coursework project as I took more ideas from outside-genre influences and did not rely on conventional ideas as much. For example I chose to use a theme with a strong image, the americanised 1950's era gave me much more to work with from an image and branding perspective. It also provided with ideas for styles of typography and colour schemes that fitted the theme as opposed to the genre. This use of a rememberable era as a theme also provided inspiration regarding the artist's style and branding as well as a whole range of old texts and products that I could draw inspiration from.