Describe how you developed your post-production skills for media production and evaluate how these skills informed your creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

In the last two years of media studies I have been given two briefs. One was to create the opening sequence to a Film Noir or Horror film, lasting 2 minutes including titles and the other was to create a music promotional package including music video, digipak and advert. We created ours based on the song Save The World by Swedish House Mafia. I will look at these two years and evaluate my development between the two.

In the AS Year we used the programme Final Cut. This is because it allowed us to do non-linear editing, and this helped as it meant that we could start editing, even though we may not of had all of our footage together at that point. Another reason that we used it was that we were able to use the razor tool to split clips, and this helped as it meant we were able to show a development in time. We used this because we saw that this was used a lot in real media tests of a similar genre and we were able to take something old and create something new. This is how we fuelled our creativity with this programme. We used LiveType to create our titles, mainly because of the fact that it was able to have the effects, sizes and colours that we wanted. This was good because it meant that it was reasonably easy to create the titles that we wanted, the way that we wanted to. Also, there was a rendering tool, which meant that we could export them almost directly to Final Cut, and this meant we could keep all of our footage in one place. We used the programme Photoshop to create our company logo. This programme allowed us to take an older picture and create something new, meaning that there was the opportunity to be more creative. As well as this we were able to create new things on a separate tab and then add these to the original picture. Using the lasso tool we were able to grab the parts we wanted from said tabs and this meant we could construct a professional logo to add to our film.

In the A2 Year we used Final Cut to create our Final Product (Video) and this was because of the tools that were readily available for use. We had developed in our use of the programme and were then more confident of using the more complex tools. Because we had seen the sorts of ways that real videos were set out we knew that the way we could edit using this programme would be good enough to make it look professional. By taking these conventions of real media products and using them to create something original we were able to use our creativity more freely. Similarly, because of the lesser constraints on the brief this year we were able to be more creative as we were allowed to choose our song, artist, style and interpretation. We also used Photoshop, using it to create both the digipak and the advert. This was a good programme to use, as it was a good quality when it came to editing and the effects that were available were very suited to the genre we were aiming to represent. We used the filter effects to add a new dimension to the photographs that we had taken, making them seem more like what they were meant to be. We used the ‘Film Grain’ tool as this gave a cartoon effect, which is what we were looking for, due to our video portraying a superhero. We used Photoshop and Final Cut in unison when editing the video as well, dividing the frames up and adding the ‘Film Grain’ effects to create a comic theme, and this tied in with the digipak and advert, giving continuity throughout all of the products. Using these effects allowed us to create something original, as people wouldn’t of used this before and this is how we were able to be creative in this part of the postproduction phase.

When evaluating the work for AS, the Film Noir, we used Web 2.0 site Blogger to gather feedback from our peers. It was a good tool to use as we were able to post what we had and get people’s opinions and then if they felt that there were changes to be made then we could do this and post the new products later. There is also a comments part of the site, where they could leave their thoughts and it was easy to collect it all from one place. Doing this was something new and reasonably original, so in that that way it was helping our creativity. We also used the site Prezi to display our evaluations, as we felt that it would be a rather unique way of doing so. It is like a modern take on Microsoft’s PowerPoint application, but instead of moving through slides, it zooms around the page at different angles, speeds and sizes. By using this website to do something new, based on something old we were able to be much more creative when evaluating.

When it came to evaluating the A2 work, the Music Promotional Package, we again used the site Prezi, but because we had used it the year before we knew how it worked and how to get the best out of it. We also knew that we needed to add more information this year as we had to display three pieces of work and our evaluations of it, whereas in the AS Year it was only the one piece, the film that we produced. By having more parts to the presentation we were able to do a much deeper evaluation, finding out exactly what you felt about each individual part. Again, like in the AS Year, we used Blogger to display our work, and leave it open to feedback from our peers. Again it was a good way to do because of the way that we could post something and then re-post an improved version later, to see what they thought of the improvements. We were able to post a lot more this year, as we had a lot more things to evaluate within the products that we created, the video, digipak and advert. We also left our work open to feedback by posting it on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. This was better than just using Blogger last year as only a few people that we knew had our Blogger links and by using these social networks we were able to aim it at a larger audience and get a broader level of feedback. This was more creative than just Blogger because we were able to use a broader range of skills when trying to attract people to give us their feedback.