Digital Technology Esaay

Throughout the two year course of studying my A levels, my digital technology skills have developed over time and this has contributed to my media outcomes in different ways.

At the start of year 12, at AS, we had the task of editing a short one minute video, using pre filmed video clips of people dancing in animal costumes, so we could experiment with different audio and video effects which can be used to manipulate and emphasise certain features of the clips. To carry out this task we used the programme 'Adobe Premier Pro', a feature I was not familiar with which resulted in the video looking very basic as i used effects such as colour correction, transitions and basic cuts.
In year 12 we also made a preliminary video where we created a short film opening which we had to make up ourself, and we also used 'Adobe Premier Pro' to edit this but stuck to using basic cuts and effects. We also left blank spots in the video where the screen was black to portray how drunk the main character was but looking back they look out of place and unprofessional. We also did not do as much research for this as we did at AS which resulted in us created a film opening which could've been more accurate to the genre and cohesive. We used a Canon camera to film this but we weren't sure how to use all of the settings properly so some of the shots look grainy and out of focus.  We carried out some research by looking at the titles of previous film openings which helped a bit when creating our own but it would have helped to research into it more.
In year 13 for A2, we created a music video, digipak and website as our final project. This year we used more advanced digital technology like when we were editing the music video, we used 'Adobe Premier Pro' but used a lot more effects than in year 12 such as: stabilising, nesting, colour correction, and different types of transitions. We also used a Canon 750D camera and knew how to film the shots so they looked smooth and professional and fit in with the upbeat genre of our video as well as knowing how to use all of the effects on the camera.
We created a short video called 'Banana Phone' where we played wit different effects on 'Premier Pro' too at AS which helped us learn how to use multiple different effects on the programme such as: cloning, reverse, picture motion and use of scale when filming.
We also created a Steal-O-Matic to carry out our research for the genre of our music video which helped us when learning how to convert videos from youtube, play with sound, edit together different clips and making it all look cohesive and fluent.
For the digipak we also used the programme 'Photoshop' which we had never used before which challenged me because I had to get used to a new programme which was a lot more complicated to 'Microsoft Word' which we had used to create the film poster for our year 12 tasks. We also used 'Wix' to create the website and created multiple different pages along with moving images and continuous colours which we used for synergy all through our video, digipak and website. 

Post Production Essay

Explain how your post production skills have developed over time and how this has contributed to your media production outcomes.

 

From year 12 to year 13, I have developed my post production skills dramatically as I have advanced from AS to A2.

In year 12, I only had initial knowledge about editing, only using programmes such as Windows Movie Maker, and iMovie which only require very basic knowledge. Our first task of year 12 to do with post production was the 'Dancing Animals' task, where we had to import video files on to Premier Pro, use basic colour effects and transitions, but this task was simply for learning. Another slightly larger task we had to carry out was the recreation of the opening sequence of the film 'Juno' where, again, we only used very basic effects and transitions along with simple cuts. This also applies for our preliminary task of creating our own opening sequence of a musical genre which only lasted for two minutes where we played with sound by importing music into the clips. Our next task where we dealt with post production was for our film opening called 'Untamed' where there were holes in our editing as it didn't flow very well and could've massively been improved now as our post production skills have advanced massively since then.

In year 13, my post production skills had developed a lot more as we learned to use new techniques using the programme Adobe Premier Pro, such as cloning, using a screen within a screen, motion pictures and sizing and scale which came in handy when editing our 'Banana Phone' video where we got to experiment with these different effects. This helped us in becoming more familiar with Premier as we only had a very basic understanding of it at AS along with the more simple tasks we carried out. This development also increased when we were editing our music video as we had to use specific effects to enhance our genre and help continue the synergy throughout our media products.

For our print products, in year 12 we created a film poster where we just cropped the photo of our character and added text in a word document. These basic techniques we used then became much more advanced when creating the digipak, magazine cover, and tour posters, as we used programmes such as Photoshop to change the hue and saturation of the photo, crop certain parts of the image, layer photos on top of each other and create a collage of photos which link with the rest of the synergy.

Along with the rest of our post production work, our websites in year 12 and year 13 differ a lot as the first website we created at AS was used with Wix and only consisted of a homepage and a few imaged we used behind the scenes of the film. But, at AS, we created a moving background on our home page, used synergy with our font, promoted our brand image and logo, and also presented multiple different tabs and links to our social media. This also made us film more and find more creative ways of editing.

Research and Planning Essay

Explain how your research and planning skills have developed over time and how this has contributed to your media production outcomes.

From year 12 to year 13, my transition from AS to A2 has meant that my research and planning skills have developed a lot as the tasks we have carried out have become much more advanced.

At AS the research we had carried out following a task where we recreated the opening sequence for the film 'Juno' was helpful but also very basic as I was just becoming familiar with the method of creating films and how to clearly represent a genre. We were taught how to make a storyboard in planning our shots so we could recreate the sequence as accurately as we could using our basic knowledge. We were taught how to make titles for the opening scene of a film to create some enigma for the audience. For our film opening we still only carried out basic research into how sequence the titles and how to order the shots and didn't create many blog posts in preparation. We also did some research into what a film opening is where we gained a basic understanding of what makes a film opening. Also when planning our preliminary video of a short film, our group found ourselves making the shots up as we went along rather than planning each location and shot which meant that some parts of the film are in-cohesive which made the whole thing harder to edit as a whole.
In year 13, our research and planning into music videos dramatically progressed which resulted in a successful music video and overall grade for our group. We first researched into the visuals of music videos by looking at the 'No Rest' music video and came up with visual ideas that went with the song in preparation for our own task. We then carried out the 'Banana Phone' task where we used different filming/ editing techniques where we tested out different shots and effects on Adobe Premier such as: cloning, picture motion, size/scale and cropping, to get used to using the software. We researched into music video theories and genres of artists and what types of videos they create and how the synergy of their brand carries on all throughout their platforms. At AS we also carried out a lot of planning for our music video and posted it all on our blog to show our evidence. For example we created a 'Steal-O-Matic' where we collected clips and videos from different music videos which inspired us and displayed them all together in a collective video along with our chosen music in the background. We created a detailed storyboard of all of our shots we wanted to film, we created a shooting schedule to help organise us and also made a risk assessment. Our Halfway Evaluation task also helped us a lot when making adjustments and corrections to our digipak, website and music video as we received lots of feedback which we were able to improve on.