SEPTEMBER 2010: THE CREATIVITY ISSUE M M MediaMagazine edia agazine Menglish and media centre issue 33 | septemberM 2010 english english and media centre • Creative people – Lynch, Gondry, Audiard, Hitchcock • Creative production work • Creativity and technology • Call of Duty and The Hurt Locker | issue | 33 issue | september 2010 • Stop-motion animation • Come Dine with Me MM • Creativity and genre MM MM MediaMagazine is published by Welcome to MediaMagazine. Whether you’re new to AS level Film or Media, or the English and Media Centre, a returning for A2, we hope you’ll be able to make maximum use of this year’s issues, non-profit making organisation. delve into our archives, and above all enjoy a really good read – not to mention The Centre publishes a wide range getting involved with us by writing articles, giving us feedback, or of classroom materials and runs courses for teachers. If you’re suggesting topics you’d like us to cover. studying English at A Level, look out This issue is on the theme of Creativity – what is it, who’s got for emagazine, also published by it, which technologies promote it, and how does it impact on your the Centre. own studies? We’ve grouped the articles around variations on the The English and Media Centre creative theme, promoted by you yourselves. So there are pieces 18 Compton Terrace on creative people, film-makers both young and old – David London N1 2UN Lynch, Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, Jacques Audiard – but also Telephone: 020 7359 8080 Alfred Hitchcock, still a true original after all these years. Fax: 020 7354 0133 To support your production work, there’s a strong focus on creative processes Email for subscription enquiries: – Mark Ramey’s tips to make your video work original and different; articles from [email protected] Jayson Burns and Brian Mulligan and Simon Ward on how to research, plan and Managing Editor: Michael Simons produce creative print work with Photoshop and Illustrator; where to find the best stop-motion animation; and inside stories from creative film and TV directors. Editor: Jenny Grahame The creative texts featured in this issue are strongly linked with ideas about Sub-editor: Priscilla McClay genre variation: Nick Lacey argues that TV crime drama constantly re-invents itself to reflect the zeitgeist, while Emma-Louise Howard explores the creativity of films Editorial assistant/admin: Rebecca Scambler which play with non-linear approaches to narrative and time. Glee is innovative because of its fusion of soap, musical, high-school teen drama conventions, while Design: Sam Sullivan & Jack Freeman the daytime format of Come Dine With Me has been creatively scheduled and Artwork production: Sparkloop re-worked to become a prime-time blockbuster. Print: S&G Group And on a more exam-related note, Steph Hendry explores creative ways of ISSN: 1478-8616 preparing for the AQA Mest1 multiplatform case study, and AQA examine Tina Dixon Cover image: Jack Freeman, Sparkloop proves that analysis can be creative too. Elaine Homer explains how to get the most out of your Film Studies small-scale research project – and two of her A2 students show you how it’s done. And whichever spec you’re studying, Peter and Elinor How to subscribe Block’s debate about the creative potential and limitations of digital technologies will provide much food for thought. Four issues a year, published So go ahead – get creative. September, December, late February and late April. Centre print-only subscription: £29.95 Online this issue Centre website package: £79.95 The Creative Art of film Reviewing: an interview with Telegraph Arts Commissioning Editor and film includes print magazine, full website critic Mark Monahan, tips for creative reviewing techniques, and a review deconstructed sentence access and an online PDF version of by sentence. the current issue Great expectations: Owen Davey talks to some young graduates in creative arts about their work, following their dreams, and surviving in the real world of the creative industries. A must-read for Additional subscriptions for aspiring artists in all media. students, teachers or the library can Post-modernity, technology and Creativity: David Bell finds post-modernist creativity in mobile be added to either the print-only phone technology. subscription or the website package Fanvids: Creativity vs Counterculture: Fay Jessop shares her passion for vidding, and provides links for £10 a year. to some brilliant examples. Putting Creativity into Critical Perspectives: Some of the questions you’ll need to ask of your own creativity in answering OCR’s A2 exam question 1. Plus Audiard the auteur in context, student magazine artwork deconstructed, and poster analysis. MediaMagazine website MediaMagArchive on the MediaMagazine website (www.mediamagazine.org.uk) gives This magazine is not to be photocopied. Why not subscribe you access to all past articles published in MediaMagazine. There are two ways of getting to our web package which includes a downloadable and access to the MediaMagazine website: printable PDF of the current issue or encourage your 1. Centre plus 10 or more student subs. students to take out their own £10 subscription? 2. Centre website package: £79.95 (For full details, see www.mediamagazine.org.uk) 2 MediaMagazine | September 2010 | english and media centre MM contents Front Page News How to use Illustrator Capture the objective: Recent news, views, reviews Howoe t mak outstandingly 47 postmodernism, 04 and previews. 26 creative print work with creativity and Call of Making the most of Adobe Illustrator Duty Lisa Fortescue-Poole 06 your AQA Mest1 multi- Stop-motion – start explains how playing a controversial videogame platform case study Steph creating! Pete Turner 30 is the route to theoretical Hendry shows you how explores the resilience of understanding at A2 Getting the most out stop-motion animation in the of the small-scale Film age of Pixar and Dreamworks Come Dine With Me From 09 daytime obscurity to prime- Studies research project 50 time hit Elaine Homer and her A2 Film students share their Creativity and genre in experiences and offer advice 52 TV crime drama Nicky Lace on how to successfully tackle explores the creative potential this project of genre television Glee Old as the hills, or 55 a genuinely creative TV Hitchcock – auteur and innovation? Caroline Burgess- 34 creator 50 years after its Allen argues the toss release, Psycho is still hailed Eternal sunshine of the as the creative masterpiece of 57 creative mind Michael one of cinema’s true auteurs. Ewins on the creativity of How does Alfred Hitchcock’s Charlie Kaufman Surrealist cinema: creativity help us understand 12 consciousness and auteur theory? creativity in film For their Jacques the lad John A2 Film Studies small-scale 37 Fitzgerald explains how research study, Rae Baden and Jacques Audiard reinvented Jasmine Ketibuah investigated the crime thriller with A two film directors who at first Prophet glance have little in common: Michel Gondry and David Lynch Backwards and flash- 60 forwards Emma-Louise Howard identifies a range of big and small screen narratives which have exploited chronology with groundbreakingly creative outcomes Technology & creativity: On creativity in web 16 curse or cure? Peter and 40 comics Cartoony b Goom Elinor Block explore the ‘hype Meet the creatives: cycle’ and the reality of new an interview with Lee technolgies 41 Cleary Lee Cleary, the First Creative film-making Assistant Director on Thet Hur 20 for the creatively Locker, on his career, his work challenged Mark Ramey on Thet Hur Locker and the Can analysis be creative? suggests the five key film industry in general 65 AQA Examiner Tina Dixon ingredients for really creative Meet the creatives: an analyses a Specsavers ad, and short film-making concludes the answer is yes 44 interview with Ben Creative covers Jayson Palmer TheV T comedy 23 Burns guides you through director talks to Priscilla the key stages of magazine McClay about the ups and artwork production downs of a career in television english and media centre | September 2010 | MediaMagazine 3 Front Page News under fire on privacy issues this information: friends, friends of friends or everyone. However, in the past, if users did not What does the internet know about us? make a selection on their account, the settings • Search engines such as Google track our were put on ‘everyone’ automatically by the site. queries, building up a picture of interests and In addition, the settings pages have been spending that could, in theory, be traced back frequently updated, with more aspects being to an individual. added – these were also set to ‘everyone’ until • Google has also been under fire for its Street users noticed they were there. View service, which involved taking pictures Now Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has of real people, although their faces were pledged that this will no longer happen. In a blurred before they were put online. Some of Facebook has made further changes to its message on the site, he said: the pictures showed a couple kissing, a man privacy settings, in response to widespread If you decide to share your content with urinating in the street and an apparently naked concern that users do not have enough friends only, then we will set future settings man painting his garden fence. control over how their information is shared. to friends only as well. This means you won’t • Google apologised after its Street View Complaints have focused on the fact that the have to worry about new settings in the camera cars inadvertently picked up data from site’s privacy settings were too complicated, and future. unsecured Wi-Fi networks. were set on the lowest level of protection as a The new privacy controls are also said to • There have been concerns that adopted default.