Essay

How did the conventions of real media texts inspire you to use new media technology to create the style of product you achieved?

Over my two years studying at AS and A2, I made a variety of products. My magazine, music video and digipak being the main projects where I used new media technologies. I was faced with new software such as Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and using new hardware such as the Apple Mac computers and Canon video cameras.

At AS, I created a music magazine. I used the pre-production stage to carry out research and planning to gain a better understanding of the conventions for this product. I learnt that generically, the cover had to have a masthead, a strapline and a close up image of the star. Using new hardware such as my FinePix S6500, I was able to take high quality pictures to my magazine and take a clear close up photograph for the cover image. The close up connoted that star image is important to the music genre I was representing. I could then use software such as Photoshop to create my masthead and strap line. Conventionally, the masthead is positioned at the top of the cover so I decided to follow this convention however; I used Dafont to find a striking font to support my cover image and make my magazine stand out.

At A2, I created a music video in the country/pop genre. After carrying out research in pre-production, I found that 90% of shots needed to contain the star with a wide majority being mid-shots and close ups. I took this advice on board and, when filming with the Canon video camera, ensured that I framed the star in a variety of close ups. I learnt also that my genre used zooms in videos therefore, for the mid-shots, I was able to use the zoom tool in Final Cut Pro to add a steady zoom; this allowed me to create the style and look that I was aiming for.

I also created a digipak at A2, which supported my music video. To make this, I primarily used Photoshop. After researching into the conventions, I found that I needed to use a head shot for the cover image. I used my FinePix S6500 camera to take a selection of photos that we could later choose from and even added some effects such as black and white to some of them. I decided to use a black and white image for my digipak cover; this develops conventions in my genre and helps my product to stand out from others that are similar. Photoshop allowed me to use the magnetic lasso tool to cut around my image and achieve a professional-looking product.

For all of my products, I looked at the conventions and planned how I could use them to create a new product. I was inspired by the quote ‘The making of the new and the rearranging of the old’ (Bentley 1997) as this is what I have done across all three projects talked about above. For my music video, it was about taking the idea of the conventional relationship break-up narrative and storyboarding shots and camera angles that would convey my narrative convincingly and make it look completely new. My research taught me that video in our genre tended only to use straight cuts for transition from shot to shot; we chose to follow this convention and ensure we only used straight cuts when editing on Final Cut Pro.

For my narrative, I used Todorov’s theory. The equilibrium was the couple being happy followed by the dis-equilibrium being the fight and break up. Finally, normality is restored with a new equilibrium where the girl is happy being on her own without the boy. All narratives must follow a certain pattern in order for them to make sense to the audience. I used a long shot when filming to show the girl and boy when they are arguing to clearly highlight the dispute so that the audience don’t lose a grasp on understanding my narrative. I used Final Cut Pro to arrange the shots in the narrative into the correct order.

Essay

Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

I have developed my skills massively through my use of digital technology in media production from AS through to A2. The preliminary activity in AS required me to use photoshop; my experience with this software was extremely limited and it became a time-consuming process. I learnt the basics through practise and became familiar with tools such as the magic wand and the magnetic lasso; the more experienced I became, the more confident I was to be more creative with my ideas. Likewise, the preliminary activity at A2 was to create a music video with the class. I had no experience at all with storyboarding or filming therefore this task gave me time to practise and develop these skills. I learnt about the importance of framing and lighting in shots; when I understood the basics, I found my ideas becoming more creative.

Photoshop was the main piece of digital technology that I used during my AS course, I was able to take the skills I gained during this time and carry them over to A2 and use them for creating my ancillary products. With a much broader understanding, I learnt how to use more complex tools such as colour matching and cloning. My creative decision making was enhanced because I knew the importance of layouts after following layout patterns from my cover, contents and double page spread for my AS music magazine, and knew about using the rule of thirds for my digipak cover and photographs.

Photography played a large part in both AS and A2. My limited knowledge and experience at AS meant that not all my photos were to the best quality and it took a lot of trial and error to achieve the desired shot. Mary Lou Cook quotes that “Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun." In a way this shows that trial and error is helpful, and that practise makes perfect. Making mistakes allowed my skills to develop and my creativity improved as I was able to experiment with angles and lighting to learn what worked best. At A2, I had access to a FinePix S6300 camera which gave my high-quality images. The piece of technology contributed to my creative decision making as I could use the effects on the camera settings to take black and white images. Furthering this, I used the Internet to edit my photos on PicMonkey to achieve a professional-looking image to use on my ancillary products. Being able to edit my photos gave me much more variety and allowed me to expand my ideas and be more creative.

Final Cut Pro is the software I used to edit my music video. I had gained a small amount of experience on this after creating an animatic of my storyboard at the start of A2 however putting together my video footage was a slow process. After completing my draft video, I had become more time efficient; this allowed me to be more creative in my second draft as I could use tools on the software, such as adding pans and zooms to shots, which let my creativity expand. For the preliminary video, I used Adobe Premiere Elements. This is a very basic editing program which is quite limiting so, I made the decision to switch to the Mac computers and use Final Cut Pro as an alternative as, in doing this, I could be more inventive and creative with my footage.

I relied heavily on Blogger over both years of my A Level. I used it to record all of my research, planning and progress as I went along. At AS, Blogger was a new experience for me as I had not used it prior to this therefore I used basic presentation programs such as Scribd and Slideshare to display my work. At A2, I had developed an awareness of new programs such as Animoto and Xtranormal which gave me the opportunity to be more creative in showing my work on my Blog. 

The main thing I learnt about digital technology over AS and A2 is that the more I used it, the more experience I gained and consequently, the more creative I could be. My skills in Photoshop are what have developed the most; I can see that my imagination and creativity has grown from the magazine preliminary task back at the start of AS, to my ancillary products at the end of A2.

Creativity Quotes

"An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail"

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep"

“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.” — Edward de Bono

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” — Mary Lou Cook

“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.” — Henry David Thoreau

“Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.” — Albert Einstein

"Creativity is the quality that you bring to the activity that you are doing. It is an attitude, an inner approach – how you look at things . . . Whatsoever you do, if you do it joyfully, if you do it lovingly, if your act of doing is not purely economical, then it is creative.” – Osho

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” — Maya Angelou

"Don't think. Thinking is the enermy of creativity. Its self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You must simply do things." - Ray Bradbury

Creativity

What do you understand about 'creativity' and to what extent have you been creative?
Creativity is about using your imagination and finding ways to present your ideas in your own individual style. It's about being original and being inspired by existing products similar to what you are creating. I have been creative when making my music magazine and music video as it allowed me to put all of my ideas together and present them to an audience.

How have you tried to facilitate and encourage your own creativity?
When  storyboarding our video, we tried to think outside the box and plan to use a variety of camera angles that would display our ability to be versatile. To encourage our creativity, we looked at existing examples of videos in a similar genre to ours that sparked new ideas for our video.

Did you experience limits/blocks on your own creativity?
Working to a brief was a limit in itself however it allowed us to think more directly and stay focused on one thing, without a brief, both the magazine and the video task would have been too broad. When making our video, we had limitations in that the male role had to be changed three times due to them being unavailable and we had to find a girl suitable to play the female role convincingly. Location was a slight issue as we needed to find somewhere simple enough for the bedroom.

How easy/difficult was it to be creative whilst still working to the brief?
I found having a brief very beneficial since it allowed us to be more focused. Having no brief would have possibly made us go off track at points therefore having a specific criteria to follow was useful. The brief gave us a structure to our research and planning work as it allowed us to now what we needed to look in to and find out about.

Did working within conventions stifle your creativity?
Although we had to work within conventions, we could still develop and challenge these conventions if we wished to do so. We took the conventions and storyboarded ideas that made use of them; instead of limiting us, they helped. We found costume conventions particularly difficult when creating our video since we didn't realise how hard it is too find neutral clothes which showed no colours or styles with native connotations.

To what extent did you need to work with others and 'bounce ideas' off other people to be truly clever?
I had to work with my media partner, Charlotte. We kept a joint Blog with all of our research, planning and ideas which allowed us to keep track of each others thoughts and ideas. In class, we combined our ideas together to create a storyboard which became the base which we could build up on to as we continued through the course. W also worked alongside our main female role to develop ideas, she is good at expressing emotion through acting therefore we used this to our advantage and found ways to convey this in our video.

How much of your creativity was about trying to picture things in your mind's eye?
When storyboarding, we could only visualise in our mind's what we would hope the shots looked like when we had filmed them however this was not necessarily how they turned out. We ended up re-filming the majority of our video because things cannot always be conveyed in  reality with how it is in your mind.

How much of your creativity was about trial and error?
About 99% of shots from our draft video have been removed and re-filmed. This was because initially, we were keen on having outdoor shots for quite a bit of the video however, these didn't turn out as well as we hoped so we ended up taking them out. We ended up refilling quite a few times because we anted every shot to be exactly how we visualised, this trial and error method allowed us to learn from our mistakes and, although at the time it was stressful and repetitive, we have come out of the process with a video we are both really pleased with.

To what extent was a lack of confidence an issue in terms of your creativity?
Our draft video perhaps didn't turn out so well because we lacked confidence in our ability to film however, this was resolved in our re-filming sessions. We had no problems with confidence in our lead role since we chose someone with lots of confidence who allowed us to expand our creativity.

To what extent was a lack of technical competence/confidence an obstacle to your creativity?
As mentioned above, we were not confident with using the video cameras at first therefore this was an obstacle. Also, we used final cut pro, an editing program, which neither of us had ever used before. This was easy to understand once we had played around on it and learnt how to use it, however at first we found we were editing at a very slow pace; this worried us as we didn't want to miss the deadline however, the more we used it the easier it became.

Creativity Task