creativity journey of media

When we started our first real media task (the childrens film) we used our own creative inputs throughout the time given to us, for example we decided what costumes and clothes the actors should wear and encooperate a narrative through it. Although the narrative was creative we followed a tv programme the queens nose in order to gain knowledge and ideas for our product.

The second media task we had to do was to produce a opening thriller sequence. we used our own creative minds together to make a thriller sequence which copied all the typical conventions through the costume and setting. we used creative camera work to show a narritive.

the final peice of media that i had helped produce was that of a music video. we had specific guidlines and genres to follow. whether we followed or ultured the typical conventions of that genre was up to us. we created our own characters and dressed them in costumes we felt suited the genre and that would follow the narrative.

post production decisions

The style we were trying to go for in our music video was a comic book style/action hero. We adopted this as in our video we included a superhero who was in his down days as he was no longer needed in his community because the police have taken over his job to well, how we achieved this was the use of editing. We made sure to include a lot of fast cuts and used push slides which is very often used in action hero videos, we also used photoshop to create captions at the bottom and top of the shot, saying something like "and our hero takes his last sips" this was in a comic book style, we have used these quite frequently aswell. Another thing we done on photoshop was other captions such as bang and wallop, which are always being used in comics. These were made with a series of layers, we also did humorous ones saying "sip" "gulp" and "sluuurp". Another way which has helped us achieve the comic book style was using colour corrector, as this helped bring out the reds and blues to make them brighter, it also helped make it look like a comic book aswel as the characters stood out more from the back drop.

Theoretical evaluation of production: skills development

What post production decisions did you make?

After filming for each product we went through post production processes. This included adding in title sequences into the children's film, the karaoke music video and the 'real' music video that we produced.  Final cut was used in basically everything to edit and order the footage into a sequence that we wanted. Garage band was used to incorporate tracks that we produced into the films.


The process of post production (no matter whether its Garage Band music or Final Cut editing) has the function of only using the footage that we needed and as well as adding in music and title sequences.

 

I feel that my post production skills have developed well. When I first started going through the process whilst doing the 2 preliminary tasks I didnt have a chance to practise and develop my own technique simply because the tasks were guided to us by the teacher and we didnt have much room to add our own input. When the tasks needed our own creativity I feel that my skills began to improve.

The first prelim task involved us using photoshop to merge a picture of The Earth into a picture of an eye. This involved no post production because the task was complete. The second prelim task involved us using final cut to edit a filmed task.

I feel that my post production skills developed more when undertaking the bigger tasks. The post production process for the thriller is one example. The post production involved us using final cut to edit the footage and add in title sequences.

Overall I feel that my post production has improved dramatically over the last 2 years. The preliminary tasks were dictated but my ability in final cut , garage band and  photoshop.

I feel that my abilities peaked in the post production of  our music video.  I was able to use final cut to edit and establish the setting.  We also had to synchronise the filmed music with the film which boosted me well. 

 To what extent have digital technologies helped develop your research + planning skills during your 2 year course. 

The use of digital technologies when researching and planning for the different project has greatly developed my skills over the last 2 years. The thriller project had to be planned very succinctly because we needed a plot to follow and to know what editing types and shot types to include. We used final cut for editing, garage band to incorporate different music types and we also used final cut to add in title sequences.

Overall I feel that my research and planning skills have been greatly aided by the fantastic digital technologies. Without final cut and the easiness that goes along with using it  I would be a lot less skilled at editing and adding in title sequences.

Post Production.

• What post-production decisions did you make?
• After watching many children's film openings we found a lot of them had used the idea of moving toys or man made models like Wallace and Gromit. So when it came to the children's opening we decided to use the one stop motion method which worked extremely well and applied to out target audience.
• When studying thrillers and the main key features that make a good thriller we went for the stereotypical "member of the public stumbles across a dead body" idea which was very common in a lot of thrillers. We wanted that "eerie creepy" feeling so we made it look like the killer was watching the main characters and moving towards them in a running motion. This idea worked well because its rare in films to find the killer so close so this created a lot of tension.
• Whilst reviewing hip-hop and rap music video's we noticed the same thing popping up in almost all of them: We wanted a music video that was unique and would stand out so after a lot of thinking, practicing and learning we decided to rotoscope the whole music video which took a long time but yes it worked and of course it stands out, we are the only group to rotoscope a music video in whole of Longroad. We tried to use as many of the following as possible but we needed to stick to the stereotypical hip-hop/rap genre. 
• Dancing
• Cars
• Singing
• Girls 
• Sports
• What is the function of post-production?
• Without the post-production it wouldn't give us the time to add any additional editing, special effects, music, transitions ect.. It would make things a lot less interesting and unique and would restrict us to show off our skills and allow us to express our idea's.
• How our post-production skills have developed:-
• Looking back at what we first started with, I would say our skills have developed a lot. It seems that we chose the hardest root when it came to the children's opening but it did pay off. We decided to use one stop motion and clay models as our idea and when working with one stop motion we had to edit as we went a long instead of leaving it all to the last minute, that was hard to do and seeing our lessons were only an hour and  half long each we had to work fast and keep the consistency of the models. Moving onto the thriller we didn't really try anything out of the ordinary, we just used strong camera angles and the use of overlapping music. As for the music video we went a little out of our comfort zone to make an impact, we wanted to achieve a fully rotoscoped music video purely because we knew it hadn't been done before. We succeeded, we used many sequences of skateboarding, dancing, cars, singing and we found out how to use slow motion effects and reversing clips which worked wonders. When it came to the rotoscoping and editing it was literally left right till the last lesson and we had only a few hours to import the rotoscoped clips into final cut which took a very long time, we then had to apply to music video over the top and then for the last few moments we had left we used that time to do some last minute editing and alterations to give it an extra kick.
• To what extent have digital technologies helped develop your research and planning skills during your two year media A-Level course?
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How have our post-production skills developed?

Over the past 2 years our our post production skills have developed in the following ways:
- we have become more confident with using final cut express, as at the beginning of the course we had never used the software. The first time we used it was for our preliminary task, in which we did not use any effects or transitions, we just put the clips next to each other.
- This has developed over the years as in our childrens film we became more creative with our use of final cut as we used the effect of playing a clip backwards.
- Also in our children's film we also used garage band for the first time to add sound effects and music into our children's film.
- The first time I used iStop Motion was for the production of the childrens film opening. As it was the first time using this software we found it difficult because all the objects had to be placed in the same positon and ony moved slightly. As we were using plastcine, iStop Motion was the best way to film the characters as it allowed us to add movement to the scene.
- Also, our use of photoshop has also developed, as at the beginning of our course we used photoshop for the 'earth and the eye' induction task, for which we were told exactly what to do by the teacher and shown examples of how to do it. However in the A2 year we had to use photoshop to create a digipak and magazine advert for our music video. This time we were more confident in using the programme and we had more freedom in which effects we could use. However, it was quite difficult as we had not used photoshop software that many times during the course so we did not have much knowledge about how to use it.

How My Post-Production Skills Have Developed

Starting with my groups first preliminary task our post-production skills were, poor, to say the least. Our use of final cut wasn’t to its full extent as the editing was rather jumpy and didn’t quite flow as we wanted, despite thinking it was good at the time. During our children’s film opening our skills enhanced as we learnt how to add credits into our final cut editing, though we tried showing off our newfound skills by making the credits move and interact with the clip. Later in our Thriller opening we learnt that keeping credits simple and static was often a better technique, as it was more effective. During our Thriller we also learnt how to correct our mistakes, we were forced to dub over one of our main speeches, as the sound quality was too poor, with too much background sound. In our initial Lip-Sync task, we learnt how to line up our scenes more effectively. This project helped our scene changes become more fluid, because if we had the timing slightly off then the lip-syncing would become too noticeable. During the Post-Production period of our actual music video we used all of the techniques we had previously learnt, refining on them to make our project as good as possible. However, we also managed to learn some new post-production skills, such as using colour correction, which we used to enhance the contrast amongst scenes and hide some natural mis-haps (whilst shooting it got dark where as it was light before). We also learnt how to combine Photoshop with Final Cut, which is a rather simple technique, and was surprised on not knowing how to do so before. From all these experiences and skills learnt, we have managed to enhance our creative aspects, as knowing how to do these skills gave us a wider possibility of what we could do, rather than the set way of doing things such as what we made at the beginning of College.

The function of post-production.

The function of post-production is to refine and enhance the video qualities. Without post-production the whole video would have to be shot in one take, with man-made effects being present and the filter being manually changed, for example, Ok Go's 'Here it Goes Again' is a one take music video, though it is very basic and has only one scene and not much need for any extensive editing. If you compare this to a heavily edited and major use of post-production, like Velvet Revolver's 'Come on Come in' you will see the drastic change in quality however some people may argue that the editing and the effects are perhaps too much, depending on whether that was the style you were going for in the first place.  

Post-prduction decisions.

Throughout the course we have experimented with different post-production techniques. Within the first few weeks of the course we had used final cut editing software and various sound effects using garage band. At first we were unsure about our ability to use final cut, (especially in our first preliminary task and our childrens film), however when we were using final cut in our music video we had used the skills we had acquired from experience with post-production during our thriller. Another skill that we had acquired was combining photoshop with final cut which we used in our music video, for example the comic book style captions etc. Not only this but we had also managed to understand how to use filters effectively so that the contrast and colour would be appropriate for our scene.

conventions from real texts

Thriller Project

In our thriller project last year we used typical conventions of that genre in our product, we looked at the conventions of a typical thriller movie and tried to in cooperate the ideas into ours. the conventions we used were typical of the thriller genre for example the mise-en-scene, for example we dressed the characters up in dark clothes to represent a sense of the unknown. we filmed in a forest as we thought that a forest was very typical of a thriller as many successful thrillers have a forest setting in there film. another typical convention we used was the whole theory of the unknown, making the audiences question whats actually happening in the film to what the producers (us) chose as our narrative. we tried to give as little as we could of our film in the trailer without telling the storyline or narrative. we enticed our audiences into watching the trailer and giving us feedback on what they thought were the positives and negatives of our film and how we can change it for the good.

Childrens Film

In our childrens film we used typical conventions of this genre throughout the project. for example we used a plain but effective narrative and gave it an easy and understanding monologue to it. we understood that the films audience was children of a specific age and tried to make the narrative suit that age group. the mise-en-scene we used in our project was that of a typical childrens film. we dressed the characters in no confrontational clothes and with props that suited our narrative. we followed the narratives of a childrens program called the queens nose ( commonly played on CBBC channel). fair enough it wasn't a childrens film but the narrative suited the genre of a typical childrens film. the setting was very light and happy to follow the narrative we used easy camera shots to show its simplicity throughout the project. 

Music Video

our music video was that of a typical rap/comedy genre. we used typical conventions of that genre throughout our product. the mise-en-scene was a