‘Digital technology turns media consumers into media producers’. In your own experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?
At the start of my AS media course there was not a lot about media products that I had any real understanding off. I obviously always saw real media products but only as a consumer. When undertaking the AS work this soon changed as I now have a good level of knowledge about a range of things such as typical conventions, software, production issues and much more.
The first production task that I had to carry out was to make a magazine front cover and contents page for use within a school magazine. As this was the preliminary task I found this quite difficult at first as I had not done this before. Not only this, there was much more to it than just making the products. For example I had to carry out my own initial research such as creating and conducting a questionnaire to give out to my target audience as well as learning all about typical conventions of a magazine, in order for me to produce an effective product. The research part of the production was very time consuming. However when completing the preliminary task I then had to put everything that I had learnt from it into real use as I had to start my proper media coursework which was again making a magazine, only this time it was a music magazine, that not only had to include both a front cover and contents page but also a double page spread. This therefore meant that some extra research had to be carried out into looking at existing products (double page spreads). However because the preliminary task had helped my knowledge and understanding to develop I found that my skills had improved as I knew exactly what I was looking for and therefore the process was quicker than during the initial task. This was also the case with most of the aspects which contributed to the production of my music magazine.
For example after completing the preliminary task, although it was of a good standard I knew that it could have been greatly improved. This was clearly the case as my music magazine was of a much higher standard, due to my better understanding of media products. By this I mean that I had obviously being doing media for a longer time and so had learnt more over this period. For example I understood more about typical conventions of a magazine such as house style, rule of thirds, layout etc which all helped to contribute to a better second attempt at making a magazine.
As well as knowing more about media products and the terminology etc I found it easier to make the music magazine as I was able to learn from mistakes that I made when carrying out the preliminary task. For example when producing my school magazine I began to create it using Microsoft Word. However after a few problems arising such as positioning of images and editing issues I soon discovered that it would be much better to use a different type of software to produce my magazine. Obviously this slowed the production of my magazine down, but it was a good learning curve as I did not make the same mistake again when making my music magazine as I knew to just use the same software that I had changed to, which was Microsoft Publisher. This was much more effective as it is a publishing programme and so it therefore has many more features than Microsoft Word did as it was better suited to what I was using it for. Some other examples of issues that I learnt from was to save all images as Jpegs as they have a smaller file size and also to have my work backed up elsewhere. Although these were all production issues it was good that I came across them as it enabled me to develop when making my music magazine.
In conclusion my creativity developed greatly from the production of my school magazine and the production of my music magazine. There were many factors that contributed to this as already explained; however I feel that the main reason was due to an increased understanding of real media products. By having a better understanding obviously development is going to be shown as by having this it enabled me to have more ideas, not only about the product itself but also how to carry out more effective research etc. By having a stronger base to start from enables a stronger product to be made. For example at the start of the preliminary task I had very little understanding of typical conventions of a magazine or the process involved in making one whereas at the start of the music magazine my understanding of these things was a lot better. This alone shows a level of development.
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