Over the course of media, I have widened my skills and knowledge of media a lot. When it comes to using digital technology, I have learned especially much. At the beginning of AS, I had never used Photoshop before and had no idea where to start when it came to editing images. My preliminary task of making a perfume advert was terrible but at the time it was the best I could do. If asked to repeat the task now however, I would be able to produce a much better product in a lot less time. I eventually became so confident using Photoshop that I could help people in my class when they got stuck or didn’t know which icon to click on. I didn’t even know how to take photos properly. Ray gave a brief tutorial on how to take photographs for media purposes with the subjects head at the top of the shot instead of centre shot because it wastes a lot of pixels doing central shots. At the end of AS, during the A2 transition period, Ray gave the class a tutorial on how to shoot videos in preparation for recreating an existing music video. He also helped in teaching everyone how to set up lights and the importance of having lighting when taking photographs or shooting videos.
In terms of creativity, I’ve come a long way over the past year as my preliminary task proves. My preliminary task was a photograph of Leah Haywood photo shopped to look like she was sitting on an apple. This was because the bottle of perfume I was using was DKNY and shaped like an apple so it was the first thing that came to mind to do. Leah was wearing jeans and a t-shirt which I wouldn’t allow if I was to recreate the product because it ruins the mood of the product and is a bad use of mise en Scene. For my magazine, I thought a bit more about conventions and how to use the images to make a professional looking product. The conventional image used for music magazine’s front covers is a close up or medium close up. I tried these types of shot for my front cover but I found that the best image I had for the front cover was a long shot which went against convention but a lot of NME magazines use long shots for their main front cover image so it wasn’t completely unheard of.
My planning wasn’t as good as I would have like it to be. I think that I sorted everything out in time and got all of my models to meet for the photo shoot on the same day and in the same place but I took advice on where to do the shoot from a friend without actually checking the site myself. The location turned out to be a farm and we weren’t allowed in so I had to quickly change the location while I had all of the models. I ended up setting up under a bridge in Goole which although wasn’t ideal or planned, it turned out well. For my preliminary task, I asked Leah to model for me in the green room at college and we just went straight from tutor to the room without any thought of make up or wardrobe which could be the reason that my preliminary task wasn’t as good as I would have hoped. The research for my magazine was good. I looked at a few reader profiles and surveyed my class about what they think should have been in an indie music magazine. I also did a group discussion which I recorded. For the AS/A2 transition period, when I re-created an existing music video, my group and I chose to use students from our media class so that we were sure that they would all be free when we were recording. We also used the classroom because the video we were re-creating was, Busted – What I Go To School For which was set in a classroom setting.
For post-production my skills have developed a lot. Before starting the course I had no idea how to use Photoshop and had never even heard of Final Cut let alone used it. Learning the skills for Photoshop was a lot easier for me than Final Cut because a few of my friends us Photoshop a lot for Graphics or just for editing photos. This gave me a bit of an advantage because I could sit with them during study periods while they did their work and I could get a few tips and pointers to help me with my product. Final Cut had a steep learning curve so it was very confusing to start with but after a few failed attempts to edit our video, I got used to it and now feel confident using it. I think that my original music video over A2 will be good because of my knowledge of final cut but I also think that if I look back at my original video after creating it, I will feel that I could do better because I’ll probably have more knowledge of the software by then.
For Using conventions of existing media texts, I think that I did well to look at a wide variety of existing music magazines and use some of the conventions from most of them. The layout for my contents page and double page spread were made to look like NME’s contents page and double page spread. My front cover was designed to look like a combination of NME and Kerrang! The only part of my magazine that I went against convention was the type of shot I used for the image on my front cover which was a long shot and should have been a medium close up. However, NME use a lot of long shots for front cover shots from time to time so it wasn’t far away from usual conventions. I designed a website for my magazine which I made to look like Kerrang’s website with a lot of dark colours in the background and bright colours for the text. For my college magazine, I used an image of a student putting folders into her locker which followed conventions as all of the college magazines I looked at used images of students around their chosen campus with some learning equipment like books in the shot.
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