1. 1 (a) Describe how you developedresearch and planning skills for media
production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision
making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills
developed over time.
During the two-year media course I had to produce both a foundation
portfolio and an advanced portfolio. For my foundation portfolio in the AS
year, I created a music magazine front cover, contents page and a doublepage spread. Now in my A2 year, I am currently in the research and planning
stages of creating a music video, with ancillary products of a Digipak and a
website home page to advertise the artist and the chosen song.
I feel like my skills in research and planning first developed during
senior school when I had to conduct a dissertation as part of my Extended
Project qualification. My chosen topic for the qualification looked into the
impact the media world had on the fashion industry, particularly picking up on
the impact the music of today’s society has. I chose this sort of a topic, as I
briefly knew that I wanted to study Media Studies during college. With this in
mind, I started work on my research skills, but I never really planned on how I
was going to execute the said information I had found during the research. My
research was also very basic, it simply involved me copying information from
Wikipedia, but I have since learnt that this is one of the more unreliable
sources and I should learn to take what I learn and apply it to my final product.
Research and planning was essential for me during my foundation
portfolio as this was the real basis for me to start creating the actual product,
as I needed to identify a target audience for me to aim my coursework at. I
conducted primary research in the form of a questionnaire and a focus group
in order for me to identify a specific genre of music people preferred before I
could go on to research into the codes and conventions of said genre through
secondary research. The primary research allowed me to identify a demand
and a niche for a music magazine specifically aimed at indie/acoustic music,
whilst I then used secondary research methods such as the Internet,
magazine publication records, existing media packs etc. to identify the
requirements for such a magazine, and also the codes and conventions of
magazines in general. It gave me a good understanding of all aspects of
mise-en-scne in particular, as I found that magazines have to ‘look’ a certain
way in order to have a successful impact on the audience. This really
influenced my creative decision-making, as I understood that there were
certain stereotypical codes of magazines that I had to conform to, but there
were some that I could challenge also. For example, the layout of a front
cover of any given magazine is very particular, as it has to have a strong
impact on the audience’s vision when they come to make a product purchase.
The heading of a magazine is conventionally stretched across the top of the
magazine’s front cover as it means it is clearly visible by audiences, but if the
magazines are stacked vertically on a magazine shelf, it means that the title
will always be seen and therefore it would make that magazine in particular
stand out more, and people will be able to identify it. However, research into
existing music magazine covers suggested that some front covers might have
the title aligned along the left-hand side binding of the cover, with the letters
arranged in a vertical layout. This was useful if the magazines were to be
stacked horizontally as this would mean that the title would still always be

2. visible to audiences, but as this was a very unconventional technique, I chose
to conform to this idea and keep my title positioned at the top as this looked
much more professional.
Also during my foundation year, a lot of the research and planning
skills involved me taking on information from relevant media theorists. By
researching theorists, I was able to begin to understand the basics of WHY
certain things are applied to magazines. Laura Mulvey was a big theorist to
study for my foundation portfolio as it had a strong influence on whether I
used a male or female model for my main article images. The majority of
music magazines will switch between whether they use a male or female
cover star, but it is also dependent on the genre of music. A lot of pop music
thee days are produced by female performers, whilst rock music for example
is heavily dominated by men. The Male Gaze Theory developed by Mulvery
suggests that women are used as cover stars in an attempt to increase
demand from male audiences, as they typically like to see good-looking
women and they objectify them – women become nothing more than
something to stare at. Despite that my music magazine genre was dominated
more by men, I chose to re-create a female cover star as I wanted to appeal
to a larger female dominated audience, and rather than employing a modelesque girl for my images, I used a friend who I considered to have a very
influential, ‘normal’ look, which I hoped would inspire more women to
‘purchase’ my magazine. In a similar sense, I could have easily hired an
attractive male model for my images in an attempt to attract women, but I felt
that having my female model smile and pose with a guitar was much more
innovative and creative and separated my magazine from the majority of
those already on the market.
During the second year, these research and planning skills have
become so vital for me to create an even better piece of coursework
compared to that from my foundation portfolio. So far I have really learnt to
develop my research and planning skills to allow me to understand that it is
also acceptable to challenge conventions, as long as I can apply it to the
genre and the audience. With the music video industry, I have learnt that
there are three different types of music video; performance, conceptual and
narrative – all of which I learnt about during initial research.
paragraph 4 should go on to demonstrate how the skill developed in
later projects, again backed by examples, and reflecting back on how
this represents moves forward for you from your early position.
paragraph 5 short conclusion