Q) How did digital technologies enable you to develop and create more realistic media products in your Foundation and Advanced Portfolio.
I developed my digital technology skills over the last two years by learning, adapting and refining techniques from my Foundation to Advanced Portfolio. For my Foundation production I created the front cover, contents and double page spread for an original music magazine "FML". For my Advanced portfolio I produced the trailer for a soap opera called "North Grove" with two pieces of ancillary print advertising which were a billboard and a front cover of a TV magazine. I will discuss how my camera and desk top editing skills improved and enabled me to create realistic media products and how my use of the internet and social media for research and audience feedback became more sophisticated over time on my media studies A-Level course.
I started to develop my digital photography skills during the pre-production and preliminary tasks for my music magazine for my foundation production. I created a pop/fashion hybrid magazine called "FML" that was aimed at an audience of British teenagers although it was aimed more at females aged aged between 14 and 20. i experimented with different types of lighting using a digital compact camera when developing my college magazine preliminary task I found the use of the digital compact camera helped me to create realistic materials by zooming to get close ups of my star's face. I also found that different types of lighting, combined with costume and the performance of my star created a realistic representation of a real music artist. For my college magazine I used a MCU of a female star in naturalistic lighting. The media language created a positive representation to the to the audience that my star was a 'real'person and that she could be successfully broadcasted to a mainstream audience.
I developed my music magazine by using a forced flash against a blue background to make my star look as though she was holding her singer up to her mouth indicating to the audience that she had a secret. My star also had direct eye contact with the audience and it looked as though she was talking directly to the audience and making the audience curious to know more. Digital technologies helped me to create this representation through the use of the compact camera and forced flash. i also used Photoshop to brighten and alter the contrast so my star looked more vibrant and inciting. I also used Photoshop to add the text to my FC and I selected a realistic looking font not a font such as comic sans.
I used and developed these skills in my Advanced Portfolio while shooting the ancillaries for my soap opera "North Grove". I created the front cover of a TV magazine and a billboard advertisement. With these shots I wanted to create positive representations and easy to understand that would appeal to the mainstream audience as this product was aimed at an E4 audience so I used a green screen with his key lighting and a DSLR camera to obtain my shots. This was developed from my coursework. I had become confident with using digital technologies and understood that by using more sophisticated technologies I could create a more realistic product for my Advanced portfolio coursework.
For my Advanced portfolio I used digital photography, Publisher and Photoshop to construct my ancillaries and developed from using still images to moving images by using Garageband . I also developed my understanding of framing and mise en scene and added knowledge of recording appropriate sound using digital HD cameras. Moreover, I was able to transfer my desk top editing skills from my foundation to advanced level while constructing my ancillaries. With my foundation production I was inexperienced with using desktop programmes such as Publisher, so even though I created a realistic product I am aware that there are areas I could have developed further through the use of programmes like Photoshop such as adding text and removing blemishes from my star.
When making my advanced ancillaries, I was able to use the green screen to take photos of my stars, using the green screen allowed me to then manipulate the background on Photoshop with ease thus making my product more realistic. My soap was based around a group of young adults who all lived on the same road, North Grove, so the background for my billboard was my main 3 characters from the main storyline my trailer was focused on. I added a brickwall to the background to make my characters look like they were in a realistic setting like Coronation Street. I then added E4 branding by using the magnetic lasso tool to pull it from the E4 style guide and then the mask and clone tool to hide the original text which was a tagline in the E4"American typewriter" font as well as information about the show such as scheduling information as well as a hashtag and a website. Adding these institutional details made my work more realistic.
When making my Advanced portfolio soap trailer, I used a digital HD handheld camera to film my trailer and then used iMovie to edit my work. I used the clip trimmer to create sharper edits to make dialogue and action faster and created the impression that the soap is packed withe exciting events. Also, I changed the sound levels because I filmed in a noisy location so we couldn't hear the dialogue properly until I changed the sound levels. Clear sound is a key feature of TV products as muffled or quite sound reduces the quality of the trailer. Cropping footage to create a more effective shot type for example cropping a medium shot to and ECU conveyed emotion to the audience in a way that met the conventions of the genre and made the trailer more realistic. I also added transitions to make the trailer run along more smoothly with black screen transitions to show when one scene had ended and another had begun. The background music I added was and instrumental version of 'Love the way you lie' the pace, tone and key of the music all added extra meaning ti the events in the trailer. I also added a voice over "This week on North Grove..." to make my trailer seem more reaistic as voice overs happen on shows such as Hollyoaks trailers. I also used KeyNote to create my title card and by adding institutional branding to my title card and making the E4 logo roll onto the screen lie it does with real E4 trailers, it made the product look more realistic. I also made the trailer look realistic by seeing where the information text and logo was and to do this I looked at existing E4 trailers such as Skins and The Inbetweeners and by copying the original E4 shows, it made my product more professional. The background image I used on my title card was a skyline view of Manchester, as this is where my show was set this allowed the audience to become familiar with the location of the soap and so that they could then enjoy watching the events unfold. After I had finished creating my trailer, I uploaded it to Youtube.
The use of online technologies and social media in my foundation and especially in my advanced portfolio was important in creating realistic products. For my Foundation production I used the internet mainly as a consumer by researching my audience content such as looking at the UK Tribes website and existing similar products using online content from magazines like NME and Q. These then helped me to develop my products and then make them more realistic by combining these codes and conventions with my music magazines own ones. I also used the website "DaFont" to look at appropriate fonts for my music magazine.
For my Advanced production I still used institutional online content to research similar texts and what was successful with audiences but I developed my skills from using online technologies as a consumer in my Foundation work to using them as a producer. I used Twitter to gain audience feedback for my draft trailer and ancillaries. I also published my trailer to Youtube and any PowerPoints to Slideshare. By uploading my trailer to Youtube, I gained feedback from the public, to see of my products were realistic enough to work in a real-life environment.
