For my AS media portfolio I created a music magazine that
was called ‘BASS’ which fell into the R&B and Hip-Hop Genre. The portfolio included
a front cover, contents and a double page spread which consisted of the same
colour scheme, fonts and artists across all three pages. Following this I have
made a psychological/supernatural horror trailer for my A2 media portfolio.
This trailer is called ‘ANGELA’ and it’s about a teenaged spirit - who was
killed by her mother – that possesses and haunts three university students that
live in the house she once lived in.
One research technique that I used in both portfolios was
audience research. In AS I messaged my friends on iMessage and WhatsApp asking
them questions about what type of things they will like to see in a magazine
for instance one question I asked was, ‘Do you have any feedback on a front
cover of a music magazine?’ The other questions were similar and there were
only two more. I did this task in order to see what type of magazines that my
friends would like. In regards to my A2 audience research I asked students in
my college questions on Twitter, iMessage, WhatsApp and I also created vox pops.
The questions were specific as I asked about ten questions each on my magazine,
poster, trailer and synopsis. I did this for the same reason as my AS audience
research but I received more in-depth feedback in A2 as I asked more questions.
I also was able to receive them in a much easier way as the vox pops was just
like having a simple conversation.
Another research technique that I used in both years was mood
board making. In my first project I only made one which was very generalised, I
made it by using pictures off of google images and then posting, cropping and
rotating them on Microsoft Word to create the mood board. I did this mood board
to see how existing R&B magazines look like so I can use those conventions
for mine. However my A2 project mood board was much more advance as I made two
on word which were very specific, one was on existing psychological horrors and
the other was on iconic psychological horror characters. Apart from these two,
I aIso made a mood board on the online application ‘Thiglink’ which meant I could
write about each image and also link a YouTube video to each one. From this I have
noticed that my AS mood board made it easier for me to make the two A2 mood boards
but I have improved as I made a new creative type of mood board.
Besides researching I also used different sorts of planning to
improve my projects. One that I did use in both projects was the Mise-en-ecene preparation.
In my first year I told my R&B models what to wear for the photoshoot and I
took the pictures for my magazine in my college. I told them the outfits in
order for them to look like artists. Similarly in my second year for our
trailer we told our actresses what to wear but we also mentioned what sort of
make-up they had to have for instance, Maria, our slutty character had to have
red lipstick and had to wear a tight mini skirt and a crop top to emphasise her
role. We also used numerous locations which I didn’t in AS, for instance we
recorded at college, a chapel, a tunnel and a mansion. We also created location
recces for these places to make sure that they would be safe to record in. I
approached the mise-en-scene planning in my A2 project very differently and I only
did this because my AS pictures didn’t look as realistic because my artists weren’t
dolled up with make-up and they didn’t look as if they were at an expensive
location.
