Creativity & Genre

    Creativity is an important and valuable characteristic to turn original and new ideas into a reality. Dr. Ron Beghetto says, “creative self-efficacy is developed by taking creative action, making progress, receiving honest and supportive feedback...” etc. Creativity is a skill needed to operate classrooms, work environments, and the world.  

    The Ted talk “The Theory of Creativity” presented by Duncan Wardle talks about how creativity is important to our lives. Duncan says to “express the challenge" to expand an individual's creativity. One experiment done by Duncan Wardle is where he asked a group of individuals to draw a house. This group contained architects and the executive chef of Hong Kong Disneyland. When drawing the house, the architects drew a simple house with a roof, some windows, and a door. On the other hand, the chef drew himself with a dim sum dish. These individuals had a different “river of thinking” of what a house should look like. The chef took a step beyond the constraints of the question and expanded his creativity in his way. We should expand our minds to more creative opportunities and perspectives. 

    In the “Introduction activity” I needed creativity to incorporate some stereotypes in animals into aspects of my personality. I had a creative mindset to compare my characteristics with that of an animal.   

    The Strad magazine is a classical music monthly magazine that originates in the UK. The chief editor of The Strad, Charlotte Smith, was born into a family of musicians where she developed her love for classical music. Charlotte has a degree in violin performance from London’s Royal College of Music and a master's degree in English from Cambridge University. In The Strad magazine, some published articles included a quote on the cover of the article from the mainline, or celebrity, featured on the magazine. The Strad magazine also included the selling line “Since 1890”. I would include the pleasing cover, the instrumental articles, and the articles explaining the technical aspects of playing an instrument in my magazine. I would exclude the high gloss paper and the targeted audience of UK musicians in my magazine.  

    The La Scena magazine is a non-profit magazine that promotes classical music. They are based in Canada and have bi-monthly releases. The chief editor, Wah Keung Chan, has a degree from Concordia University in music, specializing in voice. Wah has a history of leadership and innovational skills and is compelled to integrate classical music into his community.  The magazine, La Scena, has aesthetically pleasing rich, and colorful covers. They usually promote their featured celebrity with large lettering on the cover. I would include colorful covers and big fonts in my magazine. I would exclude the French language and reviews of CDs from my article.   

    Most magazines emphasize their featured celebrity or professional on the cover by using a mid-shot or close-up camera angle to give readers a more personal feeling with the individual presented on the cover. Both The Strad and the La Scena magazines have a masthead, or signature title, which is used in each published magazine to signify their brands. The creativity incorporated into these magazines can attract the reader's attention and persuade more people to subscribe to these magazines.  

    The vision for my portfolio project is to construct a magazine in the genre of classical music. I want to write a featured article to share the story of how classical music can affect your lifestyle when embraced. I will use features from magazines such as The Strad or La Scena to create my own classical music magazine.

To Team or Not to Team

    When my classmates and I were given the decision to either work cooperatively or independently for the AICE Media Studies portfolio, I decided that I would work alone. When you work alone you can set your own pace to accomplish work. Working alone also allows you to make your own decisions and concentrate easier. By working independently, I can have more focus and progress throughout the entirety of my project. 

    The “Lost at Sea” activity showed me how I worked better independently. Compared to the coast guard’s report, my answers were more correct when I worked independently than when I worked in a group with my peers. I found from the “Social Media Peer Account” activity that some people can be very absorbed with themselves and their friends. By having an account so filled with yourself, it can lead one to assume you have a narcissistic personality. If someone is focused more on themselves, working in a group with that person would be difficult. These activities supported my decision to work independently. 

    My personality can be described as introverted. I desire to be alone where I can work without others interfering with my thoughts. I enjoy my time alone because I become more productive when I can truly be myself. Other people distract me from my work causing me to become less productive. In some previous projects from other classes, I would be the one to conduct the project while the people in my group would be careless and distracted. It was a burden to have helped complete someone else's work when you need to finish your own. 

    Many factors affect the difficulty of organizing a successful group project. Working in a group requires a connection and the ability to “trust each other and understand how to have healthy conflict.” To have a platform of collaboration, a team should have aspects of the “five distinct pillars of teamwork: trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, and results." Even in the world of art, collaboration can be seen between collectors and artists. Author Georgina Coburn states “A unique gathering of more than 190 paintings, sculptures, collages, drawings, photographs, original prints, artist books, objects, design, and ephemera from four extraordinary collections, it provides an expanded and intimate view of artists' works, their collaborations with each other and with their collectors.” If a group lacks trust, collaboration, and productivity among themselves, the project might not be completed adequately. 

    My final decision is to work alone. By working alone, I do not have to worry about meeting up with my peers or making sure everyone has finished their work. If one person has not completed their work, it can set the whole group behind. So much work relies on every person in each group. It would be a better decision to work independently then cooperatively. 

Decision Day

    For my portfolio project, it is important that I can share a story with others via the magazine. Author Cherry Wayne states “I believe with all of my heart that when anyone tells a story, that person changes a life.” To better communicate my story, I think I should use the program InDesign to create a magazine. My initial impression of the programs InDesign and Premier Pro, after participating in-class tutorials, is that these programs were complex and contained many detailed features. I had some restrictions when beginning these programs but found interesting aspects of each app.

    In Premiere Pro I was able to add videos to the screen and alter the colors using different tools. Premiere Pro could help me deliver a quality project by allowing me to edit videos and sounds the create a captivating film. Restriction I encountered in Premiere Pro was when I would try to edit the video. I had only figured out how to alter the color of videos, but I had difficulty cutting the video or removing the sound.

    In the program InDesign, I was able to alter text and create tables, I could draw lines or change the color of the sky in a picture. This program can help me deliver a quality project to create a magazine because of its ability to edit pictures and text, although, I thought InDesign was difficult to understand. InDesign contained a complex directory of tools to use. A specific problem I encountered was when I went to upload a picture. Different frames and layers of the picture needed to be exact to collectively move the picture. 

    Based on class lessons, I have decided to express a story through a magazine for my portfolio project. It is important to create a magazine and share a story, author Cherry Wayne stated “Stories have power, and the stories we tell today do just as much to try to explain our world as did the myths of so long ago.” The article Survival of the fittest: four editors on the future of literary magazines discusses how internet access to magazines has made it more difficult to sell magazines in stores. According to the article, “it appears that electronic literature seems to be our future mode. But I hope we'll always do a print edition a year. The printed page, the cover, and the feel of the book in the hands are so important to me and our contributors.” I choose to create a magazine for my portfolio project because of the impact they can have on present-day culture. Magazines are a portable reading form that can help to spread valuable information and advertisements in which readers can derive pleasure.