Panashe Sibanda Blog

Digital technology can be described as a form of device or software that helps us to create a form of media. It allows us as audiences to become the creators and lets us test our creative capabilities. During AS, I was given an preliminary task to create a magazine for a college and I had no further knowledge of digital technology past what I was doing before AS which was taking pictures with my smartphone. During production, I used a canon camera with no proper knowledge on its full capabilities and did research on how to layer a typical magazine. I then used adobe photoshop to edit the photo but all that was done was render the image and remove the background. My skills from my AS preliminary task to my AS music magazine had greatly improved and i had gained a much better understanding of digital technology. Once again, I was still using photoshop and indesign but I was much better with it. I had learnt how to properly render images and make them smooth as well as take full adva...

Conventions as 'rules' have purpose in which they can be either followed or broken. They can be reinvented in ordered to keep from being repetitive and add a sense of originality. My understanding of the use and purpose of semiotics was lacking in AS, but when it came to A2, through my research I have gained a much deeper understanding.  I created a music magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread in AS last year. The magazine was in the rap genre and I had to follow a set of codes and conventions typical of rap magazines by looking at other examples. The layout and structure of my magazine was inspired by The Source. The style and positioning of my masthead was very big, bold and took up a third of the front cover. The semiotics, in relation to color, however were not followed. The Source magazine I took inspiration from used Reds, whites and yellows which were meant to present a sense of boldness whereas my magazine used purples and blacks. I did this to a...

Way before I began my media course, I was already implementing research and planning into my dauily life, as well as digital technology. I did this by taking pictures of other people as well as selfies, so I was then able to understand the use of framing, lighting and angling. My research and planning was done by looking at other celebrities/models images and copying the way they did their photos and putting it into mine. This has led me to gain a deeper understanding of how to use research and planning as well as develop my abilities in digital technology, which will then lead me to create my own product.

In media, technology is a very significant factor in how and what we create as media students and technology was of great importance when creating our summer horror trailers. During the planning of our trailer, our group had already decided to use the camera on my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge to film the trailer. It was also used to edit the trailer and add different filters and effect such as the colour grading which is how the dark blue hue was created. Without digital technology, we would not have been able to film and edit our trailers at all. Before digital technology came into existence, it could be argued that peoples creative prowess could be considered as very limited. In the context of media, intertextuality is taking ideas from one form of text and inserting it into another but reinventing or re-imagining this idea. Bently states that creativity is "the making of the new is rearranging the old". In my media trailer, we had the idea of a final girl character and a kill...

Repetition of these signs become Horror genre conventions, however overuse results in taking away the signified meaning There is a constant repetition of conventions in different types of mediums and in this case, horror trailers, but the more prominent they become, the more typical and eventually audiences start to not realize the valued meaning behind these conventions as over exposure to the same ones becomes tiresome to them.  Saussure's theory of the signifier and the signified is used constantly in horror. The signifier is the physical form of the object and the signified is the concept or idea that it produces. Horrors constantly use this theory to help layer their subtext and infer meaning into their details. Barthes has a theory of denotation and connotation which means to understand the face value, literal meaning and sub text to find the less obvious deeper meaning and sub text behind it. For example, the denotation of a knife is that it's used to ...

Horror is a film genre meant to illicit a form of negative reaction by playing on the audiences primal fears, but this can only work on certain audiences that appeal to the horror genre. In this essay, I will explain and evaluate the different ways my summer horror trailer did or did not affect my target audience. One of the theories known as the effects model is that consumption of media, in this case horror, has an effect or influence upon the audience. This effect is normally a negative one and audiences are passive and powerless to prevent the influence. This influence is caused by the message within the text.  In the context of my horror trailer, I do not feel as though my horror trailer does this effectively as there isn't much of a strong underlying message in the trailer. The central themes are teen punishment and loss of purity however, these are not conveyed properly as rather than show reason for punishment and loss of purity, it just happens and therefore the audien...

Theorist Mulvey researched representation of women in horror movies and discovered what he calls the male gaze in which the females body is on display for pleasure of the viewer who are mainly males. My summer horror trailer does in fact include this "male gaze" at the end of the trailer when the final girl character is seen laying on the floor, almost lifeless with her legs open. The shot is framed as a close up  camera pans across her entire body in close up so the audience gets a clear view of her body. This was done to create a sense of impurity and loss of innocence as that juxtaposes her character and this represents the objectification of women by presenting them as mere glorified objects to be stared at. Theorist Clover came up with what he calls the Final Girl theory which relates to the last female character alive to confront the antagonist in a horror film, typically slashers. The final girls is typically virginal and takes on the innocence of the group. My hor...