Research and Planning Essay

Conventions Essay

In your experience, how has your understanding of real conventions developed through creating your productions?

Over the 2 years of media, we have been given 2 products to create. In our first year (Year 12) we were created a film opening. In our second year (Year 13), we created a music video.  Both of these products contain different media conventions. My knowledge and use of these conventions have developed significantly over these past two years. Before Year 12, I had a basic understanding of conventions, such as what makes a genre, but not anything substantial enough to use it in my media products.

In Year 12, we produced a film opening. We started this task from scratch and had to choose a genre within our groups. We choose the genre of Teen Drama. The genre had to be clear within our film opening so that it attracted the correct target audience (teenagers and young adults), and that it was an enjoyable and interesting watch. Because of it being a Teen Drama, we had to include some stereotypical conventions of that genre. For example, having relatable young characters and a relatable but interesting plot line. We completed this convention by having members of our group (including me) to act and be the main characters. This allowed the characters to come across as everyday teenagers and this would attract our target audience because they want characters it be relatable and allow them to connect or empathise with the characters on a personal level.  The plot line of our film opening was a missing girl and her friend’s search to try and find her. This plot line is nothing extraordinary but is not an everyday occurrence in most of our target audiences lives. This is what made the film opening appealing. Within our film opening we also used enigma codes which kept the audience engaged and trying to guess what would happen next. These enigma codes were questions such as “Why are they showing photographs of the friends being burnt?”, “Why has the girl gone missing?”, “Did she run away or was she kidnapped?” Enigma codes like this add to the plot line and attract audiences and allow the audience to enjoy the film opening and want to watch more. In Year 12, we did not really challenge the conventions of our genre. We did not challenge them because we wanted our film opening to be a success and I liked the safety of conforming to media conventions to achieve success.

In Year 13, our use of media conventions changed dramatically. We did use some conventions but we also challenged conventions swell. Our music video was of the genre Indie Rock. This music genre is not as popular as genres such as Pop or R&B, which meant we would have to work harder to attract an audience. Some examples of the main conventions of an Indie Rock music video are: psycadelic, slightly aggressive, bright colours. We decided that we wanted to implant all these examples in our music video. We decided to include these convention because not only did it fit in with the theme and band’s image we had created but it also made the video fun to not only film but to also watch. We created these conventions through camera shots – for example we used a lot of close up shots and tracking shots to show the confrontational, chaotic feel to video. The characters we created within the video were very confrontational – singing, looking, screaming directly at the camera. We also had the characters to dress in wacky clothes and dance erratically which added to the pyscadellic atmosphere. We used bright make up and we also created a set made of pink sequin fabric and cut out faces from magazines to achieve the bright colours. On Premier Pro CS6, we also used the colour correcting tool to brighten the shots therefore making the colours more vivid.  Whilst we did conform to the main conventions of the Indie Rock genre, we challenged the main conventions of music videos in general. We did this by having the two members of the ‘band’ both being female and not being sexualised. We decided we did not want to include voyeuristic angles of the characters unlike the ones you see in both videos. We wanted this video to empower women and to highlight that women can be as strong and have a strong, confident presence as men do.

Overall my skills of using and manipulating conventions have improved a lot since the beginning of year 12. I have learnt the basic conventions within different media products and learnt how to use this to my advantage. I have also learnt that I can challenge and manipulate these conventions to create a finished product that I am proud of and get my message across.

Post Production Essay

Describe a range of creative decisions that you made in the post production stage and how these decisions made a difference to the final outcomes. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills have developed over time.

                                                                                               

Over the 2 years of media, we have been given 2 products to create. In our first year (Year 12) we were created a film opening. In our second year (Year 13), we created a music video.  These two tasks are quite similar but included very different post production activities. Before Year 12, I had absolutely no skills in editing, filming or anything to do with the production of a media product. During the 2 years I have studied media my production skills have increased dramatically allowing me to create media products I am proud of.

In Year 12, the post production was very minimal. It included our practise editing task (dancing bears edit), recreating the opening sequence of Juno, a Preliminary task and our final film opening. The tasks we completed before creating our final product were to give us the initial media skills we needed to create a high standard finished product.  The first task we were given was to edit pre made footage of dancing bears. This task was beneficial because it was a nice, easy introduction to editing and using Premier Pro CS6. The second task we were given was to recreate the opening sequence of Juno. This task involved me going out and creating shots of my own, uploading them onto a computer and editing them together. This furthered my skills of editing and also gave me the initial skills of location choosing and camera work. The prelim task involved us being given a genre and having to create a short film relating to that genre. We were given the genre Documentary. By being given a genre it meant that we had to carry out some research into this genre and this research allowed me to learn conventions within media that I hadn’t learnt about before and allowed me to use these in my work. The prelim also allowed me to refine my camera work skills and try out new shots, such as close ups.

Our final piece in Year 12 was our film opening Panaphobia. I used the camera skills I had learnt in the prelim task and created a production with various different shots which benefitted the final product. Before creating our film opening we did not go into as much research as we had with our prelim, because we knew what we wanted to create and knew of some basic conventions we could implement in our film. The editing of our film opening was significantly better compared to our previous tasks, foe example we used reverse effect and colour correcting, but it was still minimal in contract to our work in Year 13.

In Year 13, the post production increased dramatically. I was able to build on the skills I had learnt from Year 12 and input these developed skills into my work. The first task we completed was a task nicknamed ‘Banana Phone’. This task involved us being given a list of shots and effects and we were to film and edit these to fit with the song Banana Phone. This task increased our knowledge of what shots we could create and different effects awe could use on Premier Pro CS6. It was very beneficial because it allowed us to move away from and develop the previous conventions, camera work and effects we had mastered in Year 12. The second task we carried out in Year 13 was another Preliminary task. This task involved us recreating the first 30 seconds of the well known music video Call Me Maybe. This task highlighted to us that music videos required a lot more props, shots, transitions. Locations and editing that our film openings.  The final task we completed before creating our final video was a Steal- O – Matic. This task consisted of us taking clips from YouTube of music videos that inspired us and putting them all together to create a new video with our chosen song. This task allowed us to further develop our editing skills and allowed us to be well prepared to create our own music video.

Overall, my post production skills developed dramatically over the two years of media. It evolved from me not knowing anything about media, to being able to export film and edit footage together to create a high standard piece of work. It also enabled me to try out different soft wares and create products in different ways to what I was used to.

Digital Technology Essay

Explain how your skills in the creative use of digital technology developed over time. Refer to a range of examples from your media productions in your answer

 Over the two year course in media, I have learnt and developed lots of skills within multiple different topics of the course. One of the main areas in which I learnt and developed was the use of digital technology.  

At the start of year 12 , I had absolutely no skills or knowledge of digital technology and how it could be used in creating a product. At the start of year 12, I was introduced to Premier Pro CS6. This software is used to edit and create videos. To begin with we were told to import videos onto the software and play around with adding effects to them. To begin with I found this really difficult.I had never used this software before and it took some time to navigate the site and find out what does what to the videos. I did not really enjoy using Premier, just because I found it difficult learning how each effect would affect the video. We also studied opening sequences. We recreated the opening sequence of the film Juno. During this task we studied and learnt how opening sequences work, how the filming is carried out and how after effects are added on. During this process I, developed my skills with using cameras and I also helped out my other group members with editing. Because my knowledge of Premier was not the best, my group members helped me navigate and build my confidence my editing skills. I took this skills with me when we were given our prelim task. The prelim task was to create a short film in a certain genre. We had the genre of documentary. From my previous experience with creating Juno, I helped a lot with the filming. We used a school camera, Sony Handycam which was not of the highest quality, but worked with the old style documentary feel. We all took a part in the editing of the footage. I helped to sequence the footage. This involved collecting and reviewing all the shots we took and deciding where they would look best in the film, and cut out ones that did not work. My group also played around with colour correction and decided to change half of the footage into black and white. This was fairly straight forward to do. The prelim and the Juno task was straight forward and of minimal skill development.  Compared to the skills that I use now, these tasks are quite basic.  Our main task that we had to complete in Year 12 was the creation of a film opening. We were put into groups of 3 and had to film, edit and blog about our work. The main website we used was Blogger.com. I only created 62 blog posts for this task. The creation of the film opening was significantly harder than the prelim and Juno task. When creating this task, we used two cameras. One camera we used was the school's Sony Handycam and the other one was Sony Cybershot hx300. We used two cameras because they differed in quality and for parts of the film, we wanted low quality to highlight it was a home video. The Cybershot camera was of high quality and was a good difference to the Handycam's low quality. It made the final piece of a high standard. When editing the footage on Premier Pro, we used a  more editing techniques than we  had in previous tasks. We used effects such as Reverse effect -  this reversed the footage we shot - this worked well because it allowed us to burn paper and then reverse it to reveal the photo. We also sped up the footage by 200% and used colour correction to make the footage brighter. The effects we used were minimal but created a higher standard finish and was a skill development compared to our previous task. In year 12, we also used the social media Twitter as a promotional age for our film opening. To create the film poster, we used Microsoft Word. This was a basic software and the finish was not to the highest standard.
In Year 13, the development in the creative use of digital technology increased dramatically. In Year 13, we were given the main task of creating a music video and all other cross media branding that promotes the band and the video. The first thing we did was to recreate the music video Call Me Maybe. We recreated this so we could get used to the filming difference from in year 12. When creating a film opening, there was a maximum of about 20 shots that we had to film. Whereas when filming a music video, there could be at least 100 shots per every 30 seconds. We filmed the prelim mainly on iPhone camera. We filmed it on an iPhone because we found that it was easier to get close up shots of the singer. After we filmed the prelim, we moved straight away onto working on creating our own music video. Before creating our video we did a lot of research into other genres and videos - to present all this research we created we used a online presentation system called Prezi. I had never use this before but it was straightforward and easy to use and the presentations I created were of a high standard and showed clearly the research we did. We also used Screencast, to record what was on the monitor screen - such as a website we were researching. Again I had never used it but would definitely use it again. For the filming of the music video we used the camera Sony Cybershot hx300. We had used this camera because we wanted a high standard of footage and this camera allowed us to use different camera techniques and movements - such as panning - without the footage going out of focus. Similar to our prelim, we also used an iPhone to film parts of the footage- such as the glass smashing scene. We used an iPhone for this part because it allowed us to film in slow motion. On reflection, I wouldn't of used the iPhone to film in slow motion. Instead I would of put an effect on the video on Premier. This year we used Premier Pro again to edit our footage. In contrast to last year we used Premier on a more advanced level. Last year we used basic skills, such as reverse and minimalist colour correcting. This year we used tools such as Ghosting (provides a layered effect), Gaussian blur (which added  a vintage feel to the footage), Roughen Edge and Edge Feather ( to create a textured effect on the footage in the TV scenes). From just these few examples, it is clear to see how our skills working with Premier Pro have developed over the years and how this has enabled us to create a high standard product.  Another piece of software we used last year and this year is Blogger.com. In year 12 we used blogger to post updates of our project and overall I posted about 62 blog posts. This year we used blogger to again post updates of our project, but also blog posts about in depth research and influences we found. This year I posted over 100 blog posts. This increased number of blog posts highlights how my understanding of media has developed and how my skills have improved as well.  This year we also created ancillary texts to promote our music video and our band. These consisted off a website, digipak and posters. We used Photoshop and a website called Canva to create the posters and magazine cover. These two pieces of software allowed us to create a good well finished magazine cover and posters. Compared to Microsoft Word which we used in year 12 to create our film poster, it was a lot better and we were really pleased with these pieces of software. To create the website we used an online software called Wix. I had never created a website before therefore had never used Wix before but the software was straightforward to use. The first draft I created was god but due to feedback I decided to scrap it and start over. The second draft was miles better than the first draft with added sub pages, links and videos all available within the website. When I first started using Wix, I did not know how to add these accessories but after some practice my skills developed and I was able to create a good piece of work. We also used social media to promote our music video and our band. Last year I only used Twitter to promote our film opening but this year we used Twitter and Instagram. We created our Twitter page in a lot more detail this time, giving people the option to contact us directly rather than just view the page. We also decided o use Instagram because we had a greater understanding of what social media our target audience uses and decided that Twitter and Instagram would be the most attractive to our target audience. 

Digital Technology Plan

YEAR 12
Adobe premier pro CS6 -
Reverse effect - on photos
Sped up footage - on photos
Colour correction - to make the fire brighter
Production Logo
Practice edits

Blogger.com-
Regular blog updates

Twitter -
Promotional account for Panaphobia

Word -
Creation of film poster

Camera -
Sony Cybershot hx300


YEAR 13
Adobe Premier Pro CS6 -
Colour balance - added vintage feel + harsh colours
Reverse effect - on phoebe dancing - manic persona
Sped up footage - make a manic atmosphere
Gaussian Blur - vintage effect
Ghosting - layered effect
Cropping - made footage right size/shape to go on TV
Roughen edges - made the edges round the TV a textured effect so it would blend into the scree better
Edge feather - made the textured edges softer to bled seamlessly
Lowered opacity - seamless feel
Additive dissolve - transition
Non - additive dissolve - transition
Layered shots - collection of shots to make it interesting
Film dissolve - Ending - fade out nicely

Camera -
Sony Cybershot hx300

Blogger.com - 
Regular blog updates - more posts this year (Yr12 = 63 posts - Yr13= 100+)

Social media -
Twitter, Instagram - promotional page for the band

Photoshop -
Magazine cover improvements

Wix -
Website creation


Screencast -
Research and voiceover for evaluation

Websites-
Canva - magazine +poster creation

Prezi- 
Research

iPhones -
behind the scenes shots, slow motion effects,social media