Codes and Conventions Essay

Codes and conventions essay

Codes and conventions are used as a way of constructing a media text, these codes and convention can either be technical or symbolic. The differences between the two are that; technical includes aspects such as how the technology is used to create the text, and also how the use of camera, editing and sound influences the text itself with features such as different camera angles, different shots, the pace and style of editing, and the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound.

Whereas symbolic is focused more upon the meaning past what the video is obviously displaying, this can be portrayed through the use of different facial expressions, symbolic codes and conventions also use the mise-en-scene of the video to send some messages to the audience to discover what the video is attempting to represent.

There are different types of styles of music videos, these styles are: performance, narrative, animation, mixture and cameo. All of these styles are used to show the differences that are meant to be portrayed in the video compared to other videos, for example you may use narrative for one genre and performance for another. Performance style videos are when the video is based around the band or artist, narrative is when the video tells a story, animation is done digitally or stop frame, mixture is both performance and narrative together and cameo is when the band or artist is in the narrative but doesn’t perform in the video.

The use of the camera will depend on the type of music video, for example if the video was a performance video you may see more close ups and extreme close ups to capture the artists/bands faces for promotional purposes and the lips, guitar strings, drums being banged as this shows the performance of the video. There will also be the use of shots such as crane shots, low/high angle shots, long and extreme long shots, establishing shots to show the location of the video, pans/tilts and tracking shots. All of these will sent messages to the audience and may give clues to the genre of the video such as the establishing shot as if the location was in a flashy mansion with lots of girls and cars, this would give the conventions of an R&B/rap genre.

There are many different editing techniques used in music videos but editing is mainly used to make the video look believable and make it flow. Most people will use jump cuts from one shot to another to keep the continuity. The footage will often match the music as this continues with the fluidity of the video. Depending on what style and genre the music video is, it may add in some split screen effects and CGI.

The sound of the video will include choosing diegetic sounds and changes in levels of sound; this can also make the video more believable.

The mise-en-scene can vary depending on the genre and style of the music videos; they would focus on certain costumes/outfits, props such as performance equipment, the location and the different facial expressions that the band/artists use.

Final reconstruction of 'just a girl' by No Doubt

The Hoosiers - Cops and Robbers Lyrics

If we catch a criminal
When we catch a criminal
There's nothing we can do
But play cops and robbers
Cops and robbers

We're at a revolution
And we're baying for your blood
We're laying down the law
And your name's mud

You'd like to be a member of the human race
You want to be a good boy
But you couldn't stand the taste

Blame Simon
Because he said
You've got two lives down
And one life left
Blame Simon
Because he said
You could think better with a hole in your head
You could think better with a hole in your head

If we catch a criminal
When we catch a criminal
There's nothing we can do
But play cops and robbers
Cops and robbers
If we catch a criminal
When we catch a criminal
There's nothing we can do
But play cops and robbers
Cops and robbers

Catch a revolution
Now your waging war again
Marching on the spot when you should have made amends
Cause you say you fight for us
Cross your heart and hope to die
You're the bully in the playground and we'll hang you out to dry

Blame Simon
Because he said
You've got two lives down
And one life left
Blame Simon
Because he said
You could think better with a hole in your head
You could think better with a hole in your head

If we catch a criminal
When we catch a criminal
There's nothing we can do
But play cops and robbers
Cops and robbers
If we catch a criminal
When we catch a criminal
There's nothing we can do
But play cops and robbers
Cops and robbers
If we catch a criminal

Line them up against a wall and shoot them all
Oh oh oh

If we catch a criminal
When we catch a criminal
There's nothing we can do
Play cops and robbers
Cops and robbers
If we catch a criminal
When we catch a criminal
There's nothing we can do
Play cops and robbers

If we catch a criminal
There's nothing you or I can do

Line them up against a wall I'll get a gun and shoot them all

Production schedule

Friday 27th September
11:30 - 12:40         1:00 - 2:50
Ellie Walker, Alex Cheeseman, Danny East, Holly Pepper, Jake Kenington
singer, extra, extra, director, camera operator and extra
Ellie singing in a car and next to it

Monday 1st October
9:00 - 10:10          2:50 - 4:00
close ups of Ellie and toilet signs


Tuesday 2nd October
2:50 - 4:00

Deconstruction and Reconstruction of a Media Text

The roles of our group are as follows:

Director - Holly Pepper
Cast - Ellie Walker, Holly Pepper, Danny East, Jake Kenington and Alex Cheeseman
Camera - Holly Pepper and Jake Kenington
Editor - Ellie Walker, Holly Pepper, Danny East, Jake Kenington and Alex Cheeseman

The song will will be re-creating is:

No Dought - Just A Girl

Skills Development

For my foundation portfolio in AS Media I produced a music magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread. My music and target audience genre was Indie Rock, using bands such as ‘The Kooks’ and ‘The Strokes’ to attract the audience as these are well know bands within the genre. This therefore laid a foundation of which I could build on with aspects such as lighting, costume and colour scheme etc.

Before I started the AS media course I had no previous experience with the digital technology that we had used in the course such as Photoshop, the use of cameras and editing pictures etc. This meant that I had no platform from which to start from, as I had no skills in this area this meant that my ability was relatively poor, which indicated that I had to first, learn the basics of the different pieces of technology such as how to crop photos, use the different tools on Photoshop such as the blur tool etc. secondly, I had to learn basic photography skills in order to take effective pictures. The reason I had no evidence of these skills is because I had never attempted anything like this before either at school or out.

Once I had learned the basics of these pieces of digital technology I had to then apply these to my music magazine, as I started on my foundation portfolio my photography skills such as lighting and positioning was hard to achieve, but once I had the pictures and put them onto Photoshop for editing I used tools such as the blur tool around the edges of the pictures to remove the rough edges of the pictures which made them look really unbelievable, another feature I applied was a red background colour onto the front page of my magazine as this would be part of my colour scheme of red and black which are conventional colours to the Indie Rock genre. One of the major tools that I found most effective was the magic wand tool which allowed me to remove the background of the pictures that I had taken and apply them to my portfolio piece in different layers, this at first was hard for me as I did not fully understand how to organise and layout the layers of my work. All of these basic aspects were present once I had completed a draft of each piece as the layout of my products were very plain and blank for example, in my contents page I had block colours of red, black and white with nothing more than a headline, subheadings, non-chronological page numbers and a few pictures. Within my draft front page I had a blank red background with a small headline which was not very appealing to the audience and would not have caught the attention of many potential customers. My double page spread had a very short article which would not have been good for the magazine as the audience would have not had much value for money, it also had a banner that ran across the mid-section of the main artists image and the image of the artist was too large and was not very adaptable for much of the article to fit on clearly.

Once I had completed the drafts of each piece I then had to try and improve these pieces with new techniques and tools that I had learned about. This involved looking at what aspects of my current work was either too bland or not conventional to the magazine.  For my front cover I used the quick selection tool to cut my main image of its original background and placed it onto the new background which was originally red, but then I decided that just a plain red background made the magazine look ‘tacky’ so I decided to change the background to a white-to-red background. Once I had the image I used the blur tool to make the image have smoother edges so it looked more realistic and more natural within the magazine, I also used the transform scale tool to enlarge my picture to fit into a conventional place on my front cover as she is in the middle, under the masthead. I used the text tool to add all of the writing (except the masthead) onto my front cover, I then changed the main headline on my front cover as I wanted it to be bigger to catch the audience’s attention and so it didn’t cover up as much of the front image as it did on my first draft. For the splash I took a picture of a record and then cropped the picture onto my front page. I also moved the cover lines down a little as a believed this to be more conventional for a magazine cover.

For my contents page I decided to put a border on my original draft as I wanted the page to seem compact with a noticeable resemblance of the colour scheme I have used throughout my magazine, I then decided that my contents page does not need this and is not conventional to a magazine so I got rid of the border and put my features and news sections etc. down the right hand side which is conventional to a magazine and looks far better. The reason I decided to move and make my images smaller is so I could fit more writing on the page, I did this by using the transform scale tool which allowed me to manipulate the images to where I wanted them.

I made the main headline ‘contents’ and the date ‘12/11’ cross my using transform scale and by changing the opacity of the text so they can have a transparent appearance. I used another self-taken image of another record for my splash on this page, I then cropped the picture using the quick selection tool then used transform scale to change the size of the image to fit into the position I wanted it to. The reason I change the number order and position is because in my draft it is not conventional as the numbers are not in order and there were not enough pages which I felt was not good enough for the audience and did not want a poor audience review.

For my double page spread I fist used the wrong type of page layout, I needed to use international A3 paper, so I needed to change that first of all. I then had to adjust my image to the page layout which involved my having to use transform scale and moving the image around to find the correct positioning for my image without going over where the crease of the page is as this is not conventional to a magazine. I used the inner and outer glow tool on the smaller heading on the final piece at the top to give a eye-catching effect to it. I also moved the main headline across the bottom of the page as this is more conventional to a magazine and doesn’t intervene with the crease of the page. I also added drop caps and a pull quote onto my work as this is also more conventional to a music magazine and grabs the audience’s attention, I did all of the text in publisher as this was the simplest way to add drop caps and a pull quote and fit the text into the page.

Overall, I believe that my development in digital technology has vastly increased since the start of my foundation portfolio; one of the main keys to my development is learning from the errors I made and trying to improve on some areas that make the magazine look unconventional.

Key Audience Terms

Qualitative Data -This is data that will provide a more in depth response on the question being asked. This data will also provide psychographic data which will show the values and attributes of the audience.

Quantitative Data - This data is numerical and statistical which is generalised so it does not show and personal details and are usually used for closed questions.

Psychographic Data - This data is retrieved from surveys and statistics based upon the different characteristics that people have, this includes lifestyle, value system, attitude, behaviour and experience.

Demographic Data -  This social data commonly includes, gender, race, age, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, and location.