Skills Development Essay

A2 Media Studies

Skills development evaluation essay

Last year doing AS media studies I developed and improved a lot within the areas of digital technology, creativity, research and planning and post production.

At the beginning of the media course I produced a perfume advert named ‘Elegance’. I had limited skills of knowing how to use Photoshop and had limited skills of knowing how to take a photograph whilst considering angles, the type of shots used etc. Looking back on this project has shown me how much my creativity and knowledge of digital technology has improved. One positive on my perfume advert was that I had put a lot of effort into makeup and hair to make the product seem more realistic. The negatives are that there wasn’t much research and planning to the product, but from my research and planning that was put in to my music magazine showed how much better the quality of the product was.

My college magazine project has also shown me how much my skills in media have improved. Whilst doing this project, I took more time with the planning and research and tried to widen my creativity. My Photoshop skills were improved but they were still only limited. One positive skill that came out of this project was that I took into consideration the angles and what type of shot should be taken for the front page. I had experimented with more than 10 photographs of my own, and I had researched and looked at other college magazines online and compared what similarities they all shared and tried to include them similarities on my college magazine, for example, competitions.  The negative of this project was that it wasn’t creative enough and looking back on it now makes me realise how bland and unappealing it looks. Although the college magazine was not of my best standard, it helped me learn skills that I then took on and improved whilst making my music magazine, for example, the skills I picked up on Photoshop, and what work had to be put into research and planning.

On to my music magazine, this was the project that I put most of my effort and skills in to. With previous experience in making a magazine on Photoshop, I already had a rough idea of what I was going to be doing. I put a lot of effort in to my music magazine project and was doing more research and planning. I felt like the LIIAR analysis’s helped me a lot because they helped me pick out magazine conventions and it gave me a chance to look at the rock genre that I had chosen for my music magazine. I also thought that doing all the drafts of the music magazine helped me gain more of an understanding about the layout of magazines and it gave my teacher the chance to give constructive criticism which helped a lot and gave me the chance to keep improving. I also felt like I had improved a lot on my creativity because I had started to experiment more with my photographs I was taking. I had my model pose differently for every shot but I kept the rock genre in mind. I used newspaper as a backdrop to convey the main article of my magazine which was that all the newspapers were talking about my main star on my front page. On my blog, I showed that I had done research and planning in every area including mise en scene, lighting, costume, hair and make-up etc. and this showed all of the steps that I had taken in to making my final magazine front cover. What also helped me a lot was looking at real media texts and what type of articles were featured in Indie and Rock magazines such as NME and Kerrang. This gave me an idea of what type of article I was going to produce, and the type of character I had to create with my model. This helped me decide of what poses I should use for the front cover, and also what cover lines I should include to convey the genre of my magazine.

When it came to doing my final evaluation for my music magazine, I tried to use a wide variety of media to show my creativity and to show the examiner that I am able to use different types of media confidently. I used Prezi which is a website that allows you to produce virtual power points. Secondly I used PowerPoint instead of Word, and lastly I used GoAnimate, which is a website that allows you to create an animated video.  By using these different types of media, I now can take them onto my next year on A2 media and use them again hopefully better and with more experience. I produced a small survey on my blog that included questions such as ‘what magazines do you prefer to listen to?’, ‘which of the following artists or bands do you prefer’ and ‘what genre of music do you prefer’. There were also questions included about the age range that the audience were and etc. From this survey, I gathered information from what people had answered and used this information to start basing my magazine.

As I look back on my AS blog from the beginning, I can see how much I improved throughout the year, and I could see how much more detail I was including in my research, especially from the perfume advert. My LIIAR analyses have improved throughout the assignment as well as my note taking and this has helped me a lot when producing my final music magazine. From using different types of media such as Photoshop etc. and producing research to back up my final product, I found that this made it all a lot easier for me and it got me my grade that I wanted.



CONVETIONS OF POP ROCK MUSIC VIDEOS

                                                         

                                                             Genre Moodboard

This moodboard represents my chosen genre which is pop punk. Some of these artists have many varities of their genre of music, but they all usually tend to be placed in the pop punk category.