My skills in the creative use of digital technology has
developed over the two years that I have been studying Media.
Before starting the Media Studies course, my digital
technology skills were poor because I had not had many opportunities to use
cameras or editing software. The only editing software I had used was Windows
Movie Maker and this was only to put shots together. This did not include any
effects at all and was, therefore, not creative. At AS, we started the year by
practicing our editing skills in Adobe Premiere Pro. Our first editing task was
to import some shots of dancing animals and edit them together into a sequence
with basic cuts and some colour effects. This was not supposed to be a creative
task and was only used for us to form a basic knowledge of the software. After
this, we applied our skills to replicating a real film opening in preparation
for making my own film opening later in the year. The film opening that we
recreated in groups was for the film 'Juno'. This was a creative task to an
extent because we had to use some effects to make the footage look like it is a
cartoon, but it was not the most creative task because we were replicating
something that was already made and so did not need to come up with our own
ideas. We then used Adobe Premiere Pro to edit a film opening. We were given a
genre to base our film opening on and then had to come up with a film opening
to create. Our film opening was effective in some ways because the use of
straight cuts were appropriate and moved the narrative along. However, no
interesting transitions were used and, due to our genre being a serious
historical drama, there were not special effects. This meant that the editing
was not very creative and did not push me to my full potential.
In Year 13, we had many opportunities to be more creative
with Adobe Premiere Pro and we were able to develop our skills to a much higher
level. We started by doing a creative editing task where we had the opportunity
to use many different new techniques such as cloning and screen within screen.
This allowed us to become more competent with the use of the software and
develop our skills. After this, we moved on to our preliminary tasks. Our
preliminary task was to replicate approximately 30 seconds of a real life music
video. We decided to use Charlie Puth's 'We Don't Talk Anymore' which involves
a split screen throughout and the two shots cutting out of sync. This was an
editing challenge because we had to ensure that the shots were timed perfectly
and cut at exactly the right time. This meant that we needed to slightly alter
the length of our shots post-production so that they matched the original video
perfectly and cut in time with the music and the other shot on the split
screen. This was an editing challenge because we never had to edit two videos,
simultaneously, to music. This forced us to be much more creative and precise.
This task gave us a great foundation for creating our own music video. In our
music video we used a variety of different techniques, such as adding an
overlay and using a variety of interesting transitions. Another huge difference
between our film opening and our music video was the amount of shots that we
included. In our film opening, we used 15 shots in two minutes; for our music
video we used 66 shots in the same amount of time. The task of creating a music
video allowed us to be much more creative than when we had been to create our
film opening in Year 12. This is because a film opening has many more
restraints and with our music video we were able to do much more that we were
not previously able to do. With our music video, digital technology allowed us
to use many special effects and overlays allowing us to make a much more
professional looking product than if we were not able to use Adobe Premiere and
had to use a program such as Windows Movie Maker instead, which provides many
more limitations.
In Year 12, we used YouTube to research different film
openings in order to get ideas for our own film opening, but also to develop
our textual analysis skills so that we could apply this knowledge to the
construction of our own project (for example, giving extra detail to our camera
angles, editing, Mise en Scene or sound when trying to convey a point). We were
then able to upload our film opening onto YouTube so that we could embed it into
our blog. We therefore only used YouTube for basic tasks and did not need to
learn much, other than how to upload a video. However, at A2, we used YouTube
in a different way. We still used it to research music videos to gain ideas and
to upload our videos, but this year we took our use of the website further. We
used the video embed link to put the video onto our blog, like last year, but
we also then used the link to share our video with the people in our school so
that we were able to gain feedback on our work. We also were able to utilise
the comment feature so that people could leave us feedback. This kind of
digital technology was very important and, without it, we would not have been
able to gain the volume of feedback that we did as easily or efficiently.
At AS, we used digital cameras to film our film opening and
used our mobile phones to take photos for the film posters. We used very basic
shots at this stage with some creativity but very little camera movement.
However, at A2, we used a Canon 700D which provided much higher quality footage
and we not only filmed on it, but also took any photographs that we needed for
the website and digipak on the camera as well, rather than using our phones.
This meant that the shots were much higher quality and we were able to do much
more with them post-production on software such as Adobe Photoshop. Our use of
the camera when filming was also much more proficient and we used a much larger
variety of creative shots, both in angles and movements. The composition and
exposure of our shots, both in the footage and photographs, was also much more
professional. We had also learnt from experience and, instead of just filming
the shots that were needed like we did at AS, we allowed ourselves to be more creative
on location. If we saw something that we thought would work, we tried new
things out to see what effect it would give. We also ensured that we filmed the
same thing several times, even if it looked like it went well the first time.
This was so that if there was a little something wrong that we had not noticed
when we checked the footage or photograph straight away, we had a backup that
we could use.
After taking the photos for the film poster on a mobile
phone, we tried to edit them in Adobe Photoshop. We selected one character in
the image and made the rest black and white. We then added the relevant text
over the top of the image. However, we found that, since our photograph was
taken on a phone, it was not very high quality, meaning that we were not able
to crop it the way that we wanted to because then enlarging it again would
cause a very poor quality photo. We were also not very experienced in using
Photoshop and so were not able to produce a poster that looked very
professional. However, our use greatly improved at A2 when we were able to use
the software at a much higher level, having been practicing throughout the year
in our own time. We were able to create a whole digipak in Photoshop and edit
photos to maximise their quality and increase the synergy between our products.
For example, we enhanced the colour red on our photographs of roses and removed
the background so that we could add them to our website and digipaks. Adobe
Photoshop was extremely important in the production of our digipak and, without
it, we would not have been able to edit the photos the degree that we did. Our
precise photo editing to create synergy between our products was vital and
could not have been done without Photoshop.
Finally, there was a massive improvement in my use of
Blogger and the way that I presented my work on my blog. We had to record all
of our products and give updates on our work on a blog, this included:
research, planning, constructions, feedback, evaluation and inspirations. In
Year 12, my blog had a very simple layout and I used a 'image with text
underneath' format for my blog posts. This was not creative at all and did not
require much skill. However, in Year 13, I used a much larger variety of ways
to present my work and format my blog posts. This included the use of online
presentation software such as Prezzi, Emaze, Visme, Slideshare and then some of
my own ways of presenting like edited videos. This needed more skill and
creativity because I had to learn how to use all of these and then create the
presentations. As well as this, it made my blog look much more interesting as
every post was different. In Year 13, I also took the time to change the color
scheme and the background on my blog to match the products that my group and I
made. This made my blog look more aesthetically pleasing and took the synergy
that I had to create for my products further. Blogger was, in my opinion, one
of the most important forms of digital technology that I used throughout my
Media Studies A Level. This is because it was the backbone of all of the work
that I did and it was the thing that allowed me to bring all of my work
together and present it. Blogger allowed me to include all of the work that I
did no matter what form it was in, a photo, video, online presentation etc.
