Research and Planning Skills

My Preliminary task involved creating a college magazine, i then went onto creating a music magazine for my foundation portfolio, then for my advanced portfolio, i created a horror movie trailer. When completing these tasks, it was vital that i carried out research and planning in order for me to develop an understanding of certain conventions and structures etc. Over the two years of carrying out research and planning for these tasks, my skills have developed massively.
The idea of creativity links in significantly when it comes to research and planning. This is because of the special term "intertextuality" as when creating something new we have to recycle elements from the past in order for it to be successful or work.

For my preliminary task, I had to create a college magazine. When creating this magazine i had to include a front cover, contents page and double paged spread. As i hadn't carried out any research or planning prior to my preliminary task, and was just given a set structure/template to follow this had an impact on my creativity. Furthermore, my creativity was limited as i wasn't inspired by previous work.

My research and planning skills started to develop when creating my music magazine. Prior to creating my music magazine, i carried out many planning tasks such as photoshoots where i would look at how music artists in real media texts would pose and try to influence these ideas into my own piece by making my models pose in a similar way. I also carried out moodboards in which i gathered images from my set genre of hip hop. I found images which displayed certain colours, poses, props which i could use in my magazine. Therefore, my creativity skills were flourishing and the idea of intertextuality was progressing, However, when carrying out my secondary research task, i asked people questions from my questionnaire who weren't particularly familiar with the genre of hip hop or who didn't buy or read hip hop magazines therefore, this may have impacted on my work as i didn't obtain the right information i needed in order to improve my understanding of certain conventions and how to apply them to my magazine
However, i have taken into consideration the importance of carrying out secondary research properly as it will develop my understanding which can then be applied. Furthermore, i can use the information which i have obtained to appeal to my target audience as i would be able to fulfil their expectations successfully.

My skills for research and planning developed even further when creating my A2 horror movie trailer. My first research and planning task i carried out was my summer trailer. Carrying out this task was extremely useful as i was able to see what went wrong and what went well and apply this to my final trailer.
The use of textual analysis was advantageous as i was able to link the different theories in with my own work. This was effective as i could understand the conventions and also apply them to my own trailer. For example, i have used a range of different typical conventions of supernatural themes within my own trailer from different existing media texts such as the exorcist and carrie. Therefore, my trailer is a bricolage as i have been influenced by a range of different media texts and applied them to my own my merging them together to create something new.
Furthermore, this shows that my research and planning skills have developed greatly in comparison to how they were when creating my preliminary task: And this is because i have been inspired by real media texts.

In conclusion, i now understand that in order to create a successful piece of work, you first have to influenced by previous media texts. Although, there are set conventions and codes which have to be followed in order for it to fulfil the audiences expectations.