A2 Examination - Q1(a) definitions

What are media conventions?
Media conventions are the established ways of creating meaning in media texts.  These can be technical (camera, editing, sound and mise-en-scene) or symbolic (see Barthes' codes).  Some things that you might think of in your own product are:

• Camera - shots, movement and angles, e.g a canted angle in a horror
• Editing - e.g. the fast pace of an action movie or flashbacks in a sci-fi film about past events
• Sound - e.g. creepy piano music in a horror or the sounds of battle in a war film (NB don't forget dialogue)
• Mise-en-scene - e.g. in a horror film you might have an isolated house, low-key lighting and a knife glinting in the moonlight (iconography)
• Characters - e.g. vulnerable, attractive female in horror; tough, maverick in action films
• Narrative - e.g. thrillers will provide lots of enigmas and unexpected twists; sci-fi will often involve some sort of major disruption, such as the outbreak of a virus or an invasion by aliens
• Representation - archetypes, stereotypes, typical locations, social groups, national stereotypes etc.
• Genre - all of the above help to establish genre through film language

Also think about the conventions of form (e.g. film opening, trailer, short film).  All of these forms have their own conventions relating to structure.  A film opening will try to create a setup (see here for further info http://howardschoolmedia.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Narrative), a trailer will try to create enigmas by showing key extracts from the film and using narrative devices (see here http://howardschoolmedia.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Trailers and here http://howardschoolmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/a2-examination-q1b-narrative-devices.html) and a short film will try to put across a key message in a short space of time, often using a small number of influential characters.

What is creativity?
"Creativity is just connecting things." (Steve Jobs)
“There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.” (Edward de Bono)

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” (Mary Lou Cook)

A question on creativity can be related to creative use of research and planning, creative production techniques (e.g. camera, mise-en-scene, sound) and creative post production (e.g. editing and sound effects).  Creativity does not have to be innovative.  As Jobs suggests in the quotation above, it could be simply how you saw a convention in a similar product and used technology to recreate it in your own media product.  A creativity question is often linked to technology.