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.