Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making

In year 12, for my AS Media production, I was given the task of complete pre-production work and create a two minute opening to a film. The genre of film which my group chose to produce was a Thriller film. In year 13, for my A2 Media production,the task was to create a music video, website and digipak.The genre of the song which we chose to create a video for was a Rock Song. Before beginning work on these productions it was vital that I researched similar pre-existing products of the same genre so that I could identify all of the typical codes and conventions, making it easy for the audience to identify that genre and allow them to know what to expect when before they view it. However it also allowed my group to be able to differentiate our products from other products in some ways making it unique while still fit the genre which is meant to fit.

For the research of my AS Film Opening, I used websites such as www.IMDB.com in order to identify movie titles within the same genre as the film which i was creating as well as identify the synopsis of these movies so that I could tell how these movie openings lead to the rest of the film. I then used Youtube to view the openings of many of these thriller movies taking the positive aspects which I liked from each one and interpreting them in my own way to fit my film, for example the opening sequence to the film 'SEVEN'. This also enabled me to see what these films all had in common and be able to identify the key codes and conventions of this genre. From this research I found that Thriller movies never reveal much at the beginning creating a sense of mystery and creating alot of questions for the audience which will then be answered later, often involving a twist which was set up right from the beginning to fool the audience. Thriller generally also include a murder. This is the same for the film SEVEN and The Di Vinci Code, which is another film which had a synopsis similar to that of the film we were going to create.

For my A2 Media production of the music video, digipak and website I again used Youtube to research existing products. However this time I did not only look at videos from the Rock genre as a whole but it was also important to look at existing music videos from the band who's song we were going to use. When researching the Rock genre I found that the editing was fast and there were alot of cut aways. They also included a lot of  different shots and shot types in order to grab the audiences attention and keep them interested.. I also used the Google search engine to find other rock bands official websites and see what they generally include on their websites so that when it came to producing my own I would know what to include to make it seem professional. I also used Google Images to search digipaks and find out what type of information is included on them and where that information is placed. I feel that I have developed my skills further since my AS Production as the codes and conventions as well as the research required for a Rock music video is different to those of a Thriller movie. They both also use very different shot types and angles. The editing between them were very different and, many more effects were used in the music video than in the thriller movie opening. With the music video I was able to experiment a lot more and produce shots with colour tints, three shots in one frame with sliding transitions as well as slow motion to slow down shots. This was all done on Sony Vegas Pro. For the website i also edited many photos of the band which I took using a professional camera. In order to edit these pictures I used Adobe Photoshop, a programme which was not used too widely across the production of the Thriller film opening.

Throughout both productions I also became aware and learned how to use many different online software's for different parts of the production such as Pixton, Bubbl.us, Prezi, Xtranormal and many, many more. 

In progression from my AS Production to my A2 Production, I feel that my editing skills as well as my ability to utilise digital technologies such as Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Illustrator and Sony Vegas Pro to get the effects and finish which I want. The efficiency of the AS Production was not of a high level, however this year everything was better planned and things were done efficiently. The use of the internet and the various websites was very important as it gave me a a basic structure to work from and also influenced my ideas, adding to the creativity of both finished products.