In year one of my media A-level i created a film opening which followed the teen drama genre. My film opening focuses on a mentally ill teenager struggling to cope with her every day life. There is conflict shown with her peers and teachers whilst at school. In year two of my A-level, i created a cross-media promotional package which included making a music video for the club song 'Hypnotic'. A website and digi-pak for our artist 'Stellato'. The artist for the video portrayed a psychotic nature, therefore we made our camera work and editing highlight this.
Research and planning were key elements over the two years of my media a-level, they helped me to create professional productions that were well thought out. In year one i researched into genre, i learnt about the key conventions of a teen drama for my film opening. My production group and i were inspired by the film 'Kidulthood' when it came to locations and costumes. In my film opening 'Impact' i used the setting of a school as one of my locations and casual clothes for the characters costumes which is very similar to the locations and costumes used in 'Kidulthood'. I also researched into titles using the 'Art of titles' website, i took inspiration from the titles in 'The last of us' and incorporated the order of the titles in that film opening into my film opening 'Impact'. I researched further when looking at existing products such as 'Girl,interuptted' and 'It's kind of a funny story' to learn more about teen dramas.
My research skills improved immensely when it came to year two of my media a-level when i had to create a cross-media promotional package as i researched into the club genre of a music video in my depth. I did this by looking at conventions of a music video and by learning about what happens in a music video of the genre 'rap' for example. I researched into different types of music videos, these are concept for example 'Running' by Beyonce, narrative for example 'Shake it off' by Taylor Swift, and performance such as 'Mockingbird' by Eminem. I took inspiration from these videos and many more when creating my music video, i had to ensure that i had incorporated the conventions of a club genre as this was much more important in year two. 'Somebody that i used to know' by Gotye was heavily influential for my music video 'Hypnotic'. My research skills developed as i didn't copy from what i had found, i challenged my findings to create a unique, original music video. It was important for there to be synergy across all three of my productions in year two, so i also researched into the ancillary tasks such as the website and digi-pak in greater depth. So, it is clear that in year one i copied conventions and and ideas from my research, but in year two i challenged my findings and was more creative as i had researched in further depth allowing me to understand better.
In year one i briefly researched into my film opening audience of teenagers, whereas in year two my productions were based upon the target audience teenagers and young adults.In year two the audience were considered much more than in year one, as when making decisions about the music video, the website and digi[ak, my production group thought about whether this would appeal to the audience. But in year one when making a film opening, we simply just made the film opening with no thought process into whether it would appeal to the target audience.
Planning was another key element which made a tremendous difference to the outcome of my products over the two years. My production group made a story board to plan for all shots in the film opening in year one, which was about 25 shots. A storyboard was also made in year two for the music video which consisted of around 100 shots, this shows the complexity of the music video in comparison to the film opening. This also highlights how much more my production group planned in year two.
My production group also planned by making a shot list and shooting schedule. These were design briefly in year one as i didn't know how to plan very well. But in year two the shot list and shooting schedule were planned in greater detail as my planning skills had developed. For example, in year two i researched into unique locations such as the mirror maze at Ripley's 'Believe it or not' Museum in London and planned for the complexities of this location.
In year two my production group also made a stealomatic - which is a collection of music videos put together in an order showing how we want our music video to be like. This widened my creativity when it came to producing the music video, i didn't have this level of creativity in year one when planning for my film opening.
My production group also received a lot more feedback in year two which influenced us to remove footage from Hyde Park in London as feedback suggested that this didn't match the song 'Hypnotic'. In year two i created questionnaires and surveys to get feedback, but in year one i didn't pay as much attention to the feedback process.
I planned using presentational tools such as emaze and slideshare in year one. In year two i advanced by researching different presentational tools to be more creative when planning for the productions and posting it on my blog. For example when researching i came across Canva.
To conclude it is clear that my research and planning skills have developed and improved over the two years and were much better in year two than in year one. Due to research and planning being approached to in greater depth.
Monday, 29 May 2017
Sunday, 28 May 2017
Digital technology essay practice
In year one of my media A-level i created a film opening which followed the teen drama genre. My film opening focuses on a mentally ill teenager struggling to cope with her every day life. There is conflict shown with her peers and teachers whilst at school. In year two of my A-level, i created a cross-media promotional package which included making a music video for the club song 'Hypnotic'. A website and digi-pak for our artist 'Stellato'. The artist for the video portrayed a psychotic nature therefore we made our camera work and editing highlight this.
Both productions were improved by the use of digital technology. In terms of camera, in year one for the film opening, my production group used a hand held school camera and learnt the fundamentals. Whereas in year two we used a Nikon D3300- DSLR and explored more into the different functions of this camera to make our camera work more interesting. Also, in the first year we made use of a tripod to get long, steady shots but in the second year we advanced to using the camera in a variety of ways to create a psychotic atmosphere for the music video. It is clear that in year two of my media a-level i was more creative and advanced when it came to filming due to trying other techniques, not just using a tripod.
My digital technology skills were better in year two as well. For both years my production group used the software Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our productions. In year one i learnt the basics of how to crop a shot and incorporate shots into the software, also how to use a small about of editing effects. Whereas in year two i learnt how to use many more effects such a blur, black and white. Also in year two my production group used around 100 shots so the music video was highly edited, but in year one we had about 15 long shots with hardly any editing done to them. My digital technology skills also developed when producing other editing tasks throughout the two years, but the tasks in year two required advanced knowledge as to how to use the software Adobe Premiere Pro. For example at the beginning of year one i was set a task of creating a video that was an exact replica of the Juno music video. Which simply required copying the video with the resources i had. But throughout year two of media i was given more independence as to how i wanted to use digital technology to produce my products. For example, my production group created a Stealo-matic which is a combination of videos all put together, which is like a frame work as to how we wanted our music video to be like. My production group had more creativity in the Stealo-matic than in the Juno, as we were not copying something else we were developing the ideas on our own through the use of other music videos.
Photoshop was another form of digital technology which i used to create my productions over the two years. In year one Photoshop was only used to make a basic film poster, similar to many others we had seen. In comparison in year two, Photoshop was used numerous times to edit photos for the website and also edit images on the digi-pak. For example my production group managed to create an overlaying shot using the editing techniques on Photoshop, we also managed to create multi images within one image which expressed the psychotic nature of the music video. Therefore creating synergy between all three products; the music video, the website, and the digi-pak as they all used the same image and colour schemes i.e. red.
My production group used the software Wix to create the website in year two. In year one of my media a-level i had no idea what Wix was, so i developed in terms of knowledge and understood the software to a good level in year two. This shows that my digital technology skills improved as i was able to use more complicated software's to create the website, to which these skills i didn't have in year one.
Blogger is an online technology which enabled me to publish all my research and product onto one place. In year one, i learnt the fundamentals such as how to post on blogger and create labels with help of my teachers and other peers. Whereas in year two i was much more experiences and learnt how to do functions on blogger by myself. In year two i also had double the posts than i had in year one.
Another online technology i used in year one was Slide share, this enabled me to embed productions onto blogger. In year two i learnt how to use other presentational tools like slideshare in more depth.Such as Powtoon and Canva which helped me to be more creative in year two and develop my digital technology skills.
Digital technology was helpful as it ensured i could create products to a great, professional standard, although each digital technology did take time to learn how to use. My digital technology skills developed over the two years due to the effort i put in to find new interesting technologies and understand the softwares. Digital technology had a major influence on my final productions.
Both productions were improved by the use of digital technology. In terms of camera, in year one for the film opening, my production group used a hand held school camera and learnt the fundamentals. Whereas in year two we used a Nikon D3300- DSLR and explored more into the different functions of this camera to make our camera work more interesting. Also, in the first year we made use of a tripod to get long, steady shots but in the second year we advanced to using the camera in a variety of ways to create a psychotic atmosphere for the music video. It is clear that in year two of my media a-level i was more creative and advanced when it came to filming due to trying other techniques, not just using a tripod.
My digital technology skills were better in year two as well. For both years my production group used the software Adobe Premiere Pro to edit our productions. In year one i learnt the basics of how to crop a shot and incorporate shots into the software, also how to use a small about of editing effects. Whereas in year two i learnt how to use many more effects such a blur, black and white. Also in year two my production group used around 100 shots so the music video was highly edited, but in year one we had about 15 long shots with hardly any editing done to them. My digital technology skills also developed when producing other editing tasks throughout the two years, but the tasks in year two required advanced knowledge as to how to use the software Adobe Premiere Pro. For example at the beginning of year one i was set a task of creating a video that was an exact replica of the Juno music video. Which simply required copying the video with the resources i had. But throughout year two of media i was given more independence as to how i wanted to use digital technology to produce my products. For example, my production group created a Stealo-matic which is a combination of videos all put together, which is like a frame work as to how we wanted our music video to be like. My production group had more creativity in the Stealo-matic than in the Juno, as we were not copying something else we were developing the ideas on our own through the use of other music videos.
Photoshop was another form of digital technology which i used to create my productions over the two years. In year one Photoshop was only used to make a basic film poster, similar to many others we had seen. In comparison in year two, Photoshop was used numerous times to edit photos for the website and also edit images on the digi-pak. For example my production group managed to create an overlaying shot using the editing techniques on Photoshop, we also managed to create multi images within one image which expressed the psychotic nature of the music video. Therefore creating synergy between all three products; the music video, the website, and the digi-pak as they all used the same image and colour schemes i.e. red.
My production group used the software Wix to create the website in year two. In year one of my media a-level i had no idea what Wix was, so i developed in terms of knowledge and understood the software to a good level in year two. This shows that my digital technology skills improved as i was able to use more complicated software's to create the website, to which these skills i didn't have in year one.
Blogger is an online technology which enabled me to publish all my research and product onto one place. In year one, i learnt the fundamentals such as how to post on blogger and create labels with help of my teachers and other peers. Whereas in year two i was much more experiences and learnt how to do functions on blogger by myself. In year two i also had double the posts than i had in year one.
Another online technology i used in year one was Slide share, this enabled me to embed productions onto blogger. In year two i learnt how to use other presentational tools like slideshare in more depth.Such as Powtoon and Canva which helped me to be more creative in year two and develop my digital technology skills.
Digital technology was helpful as it ensured i could create products to a great, professional standard, although each digital technology did take time to learn how to use. My digital technology skills developed over the two years due to the effort i put in to find new interesting technologies and understand the softwares. Digital technology had a major influence on my final productions.
Saturday, 27 May 2017
Forms and conventions essay - practice
Explain the most significant ways in which your media productions were informed by your understanding of the conventions of real media texts. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to demonstrate how this understanding developed over time (25 marks)
In year one of my media A-level i created a film opening which followed the teen drama genre. My film opening focuses on a mentally ill teenager struggling to cope with her every day life. There is conflict shown with her peers and teachers whilst at school. In year two of my A-level, i created a cross-media promotional package which included making a music video for the club song 'Hypnotic'. The artist for the video portrayed a psychotic nature therefore we made our camera work and editing highlight this.
For my first year it was very important for me to understand the forms and conventions of my genre drama, when creating a teen drama film opening. The genre needed to be easily recognised, my production group used many real life media texts as inspiration when making our film opening. Typical conventions of a drama film are that they exhibit real-life situations, filled with climaxes to engage the audience. We took inspiration from the film 'The notebook' which has an emotional voice over. We incorporated a voice over into our film opening to portray the emotion of mental illness. In this first year we stuck to all the conventions where as in the second year my group challenged some conventions to make our productions more interesting, but ensured that some were included so the genre was easily recognised.
Whereas in my second year my production group researched further into the conventions of music videos, websites and digi-paks. We looked at real life examples of websites, for example Ariana Grande's website - from this we found that websites tend to have various different pages. These pages were a home page, a gallery, a tour dates page, a news page and a page were customers can buy products from the website. When designing our website for our artist 'Stellato' we incorporated these conventions by using the same page titles. My production group also researched into music videos, we found that there are three different types of music videos. One being narrative - for example 'Shake it off' by Taylor Swift, another being performance based - for example 'Beautiful now' by Zedd. We took alot of inspiration from the music video 'Beautiful now' as it followed face pace editing which is what we wanted to happen in our video. In our video we had around 100 shots which were heavily edited - this was typical of club music videos.
My understanding of conventions developed over the two years due to the amount of more research i did in my second year. This meant that i understood more about conventions and what was needed of my production group for the conventions to make the genre clear. So i could then subvert some of the stereotypes of a typical dance/club music video, to make it more interesting. For example my production group used a location of a mirror maze, at Ripley's 'Believe it or not' museum, but typically these kind of videos are set in a club environment. In year one my production group only used two locations such as a bedroom and a school. The location of a school is classic for a teen drama, as we found from researching locations and watching 'Kidulthood'. Where as in year two we researched into quirky, unique locations and ended up filming in 8 locations. We derived footage from these locations and created a unique dance/club music video, very different from many other real media texts.
My research skills developed as i put more time and effort into researching what needed to be incorporated into the music video, but in year one i just copied the typical conventions with a different story line. This shows that i have become independent and creative in my media productions over the two years.
My media productions were informed by my production groups understanding of the conventions of real media texts due to research into real-life texts and research into conventions. One significant way in which they were informed was when my production group took inspiration from 'It's kind of a funny story' in year one. My production group used simple costumes and natural make up just like the actors did in 'It's kind of a funny story', this helped to portray the idea that mental illness is normal. Drama films aim to enable the audience to relate with the characters and be able to identify with their struggles. So using normal clothing and make-up creates a sense of normality within what is happening in the characters life.
In comparison, for my music video my production group subverted many stereotypes, for example in terms of costumes. In dance/club music videos the typical outfit of a performer would be bright costumes, where as the artist 'Stellato' who performed in my music video wore dark clothing - a black dress. My production group did this to make our music video original and challenge the stereotypes.
In conclusion it is clear that real media texts and conventions were a huge part of my understanding over the two years. Also its clear that in year one i conformed to the stereotypes of conventions and took a lot of inspiration from real media texts. But in year two i subverted many stereotypes of conventions this shows i have developed in my understanding of conventions and am creative enough to create media texts that are original and not conforming.
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