Over the course of my production work my skills have
noticeably developed and improved in a number of areas.
At the start of AS coursework my skills were extremely
limited and I only knew the very basics of the course. It was the first time
that I had been introduced to most of the digital technology that we would be
using such as Photoshop. As a result of this my first piece, the college front
cover, was very unprofessional and it did not follow any of the usual
conventions that you must use. I had to learn everything about Photoshop from
the very start; from opening a new page properly to the correct sizes, selecting
and using the tools correctly in order to improve my product and I also had to
learn how to overlap items. The significant difference between my first piece
of work and my original magazine piece of coursework demonstrates the
improvement of my skills throughout the year in digital technology. In addition
to this, I only had to develop my skills with other pieces of technology such
as the cameras in order to make my piece look professional. I had to adapt the
focus of the camera and make sure they were on the correct edit setting. My
first album of photos that I got for the college piece was of very low quality
and I only took one of two instead of a large amount. Whereas for my final
piece I had a wide variety of images with different lighting, costumes and
angles. And lastly I also learnt to use the variety of different websites in
order to produce varied research and planning materials that would benefit me
when making my final product.
At the beginning of the AS Media course my creativity was
quite low and I didn’t have many ideas for what I was going to do. Due to this
my college magazine was very basic and unoriginal; with limited headings, basic
layout, no title and very little images were taken to be used. The lack of
creativity had to change and I began to research existing magazines as I
realised I could not allow my final piece to turn out the same. I quickly
recognised and learnt the key conventions that magazines follow that I would
have to include in my own work. Every
magazine uses varied camera angles and positions when it comes to the front
cover image of say an artist which is something I really needed to improve. I
used one of the professional cameras instead of using my IPhone like I did for
my college magazine and took it to location other than the college for a shoot.
Here I had a variety of shot in mind, lots of costumes lines up and I did hair
and makeup throughout in a variety of styles. The photos on my blog show the
difference in photos taken, showing how my creativity developed drastically.
When it comes to my research and planning for my final piece
last year, I did a variety of surveys and polls to help me out with things such
as the genre that my magazine should have, the names, what artist I should have
starting etc. This really helped me as I took this information and it had an
impact of my final piece. I planned the magazine cover out on Photoshop
beforehand and created a draft of what I wanted it to look like, the colour scheme
that I was going to have and where I wanted things to be placed. This gave me a
clear vision and helped me when I came to doing my photo shoot. However it was a completely differently story
when it came to the first piece I did in the course and I did not research into
magazine at all and just decided to go straight into it from what I already
knew about magazine front covers – which turned out to be very little. The idea
was to do a plan, which would of helped me out, but because I didn’t do any
research I had no idea how to plan it out and I had to just go straight in with
the final piece. As a result of this things didn’t turn out to plan, as you can
see when you compare the two different pieces together. From the way the final
piece turned out you can see that my skills in this area have developed.
When it came to post-production and evaluating my product I
had learnt lot of key skills in media that I did not know before the course. My
evaluation included things such as videos that I took asking a variety of
audiences what they thought of my finished product and if they like the layout,
style and if it matched the conventions of a real magazine front cover. Before
the course and certainly in my first piece of work I would not have known to
have done this sort of thing or have thought that this would be a good idea. My
ideas that I got were more creative and I used different pieces of technology
to show how my skills in differently areas had developed- such as Prezzi and
Slide Share. I also knew why I was doing
certain things thought the main production, thanks to my research process,
which meant it was easier to then explain why I made the choice I did in order
for them to follow the usual convention you would see in existing products.
In order to understand fully about conventions
of the media I had to look at existing product like I have already mentioned.
My look at various magazines of different genre I was able to establish what
type of things I had to include in order to make my piece look like a
profession R&B/pop magazine should do.
My college magazine did not have the conventions of a real media text
which is where my skills then developed and I began to follow these conventions
and made my magazine look professional and realistic.
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