Thursday 31st January

   How did the conventions of real media texts inspire you to use new media technology to create the style of product you achieved?

Tuesday 29th January work

Post the real media conventions of the conventions you used on your magazine, how you used them, and how you have been creative.


convention                                                 how used                                             creative?

masthead                                                  central and top                                      used _____font to
                                                                 blue and red                                         give 'pop' feel and
                                                                                                                             to link in with connotation of burst

CREATIVITY AND DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY NOTES FOR YOU

Digital Technology – how your skills have progressed and how they helped you in your productions

Throughout your essay you should try and give several examples of real occasions you used these technologies.  For example “At AS we started to use Blogger to keep a record of all our coursework.  We had no real experience of blogging prior to this etc  ……  then at A2 we developed our skills with blogger so instead of having a group blog, we were able to have an individual one.  This gave us more autonomy over our own work and helped us take more responsibility for all the research and planning”

Intro:  Digital technologies have a had a massive influence on media production over the last few years and since you started in Year 12 you have learned a massive amount about how to use them and what the benefits are of using them.  They in turn have had a massive impact on the quality of your finished products.

Final Cut Pro / Express in comparison to I Movie etc – Had zero experience at the beginning and have now moved from basic editing to more complex editing, effects, transitions, sound manipulation.  Quick to upload so something can be filmed, uploaded and edited in a matter of minutes. – Be specific – What specific techniques did your group use and where?

Social Networking Sites – Allows you to communicate with a far wider network of people than other websites.  You could have used this to gather audience research, upload your video and ask for feedback etc..  Be specific – Give an example of something you did using facbook etc

You Tube – Allows you to communicate with a far wider network of people than other websites. Allowed you to research existing opening sequences and music videos.. you uploaded your opening sequences and used the feedback / comments that people posted to help you improve when it came to your A2 productions etc.. Enabled you to post your own video to a massive audience.  Be specific – Give example of real video you looked at, real comment you got etc..

Digital Cameras – Never used before.  Struggled initially with holding steady shots, framing etc..  But they allow instant playback, LCD screen, small, portable (in comparison to larger older bulkier cameras) etc.  Allowed you to film in small spaces, to easily travel all over London to film, to film something and view it straight away to check if was ok.  Now can easily film a variety of shot types.

Photoshop  (you used to use Word and Powerpoint etc) – Photoshop allows manipulation of images, effects, colours, cropping, layering images and words.  Be specific – What did YOUR GROUP do on Photoshop?

Other technologies you could mention include : Live Type, Blogging, Prezzi, Internet

Conclusion: Digital Technology has enabled you (a consumer of media) to become a producer that can not only make a higher quality media product, but edit it and distribute it to a wide audience..

To get A & B grades

To get the higher grades on this question, you need to ensure you are not just DESCRIBING how your skills developed.  Instead you need to focus on the EVALUATE part.  To EVALUATE you could comment on any of the following throughout your work

• HOW important digital technology was
• WHY was digital technology important
• WHAT EFFECT did digital technology have on your final work
• WHAT would you NOT have been able to do without digital technology?
• HOW did digital technology benefit you?

Creativity -  how your skills have progressed and how they helped you in your productions

Intro - What IS Creativity – DEFINE IT - It is “the making of new things and the re-arranging of the old.” –eg the ability to have your OWN ideas and not just copy other peoples.  The ability to do things that are unusual and different etc..

Where did your original ideas come from? – How did you increase your ability to come up with your own ideas?  Did you mind map? Did you share ideas?  Did you do creative types of research eg not just questionnaires with people you knew, but using You Tube to get comments from people around the world, etc.  Give real, specific examples.

Locations / Sets / Costumes – At first you chose locations that were near by and easy to access (give example)  Then at A2 you were more creative in your choices (give example)  Did you choose unusual ones?  Did it take creative planning to adapt them?  Be specific – What creative locations did you use?  Why did using creative locations help your production?

Camera – At first your shots and filming were practical.  You filmed a medium shot because you hadn’t considered doing anything else.  In your prelim task at AS you had a set of specific camera shots to include.  For AS, your camera skills were quite basic.  Now you have developed so you started filming in a more creative way eg high / low angles, putting the camera on the floor, in the fridge, using stop motion, green screening etc.. Be specific giving real examples of creative camera shots you used and explain how they made your production better

Editing – At first you weren’t very creative.  Editing was functional putting shots next to shots to create some meaning for your AS opening sequence.. However you couldn’t do that at A2 as just having a narrative wasn’t enough.. you needed to create energy and engage the audience and edit to the flow of the music using effects etc ...  be specific, give real examples of creative editing you tried and explain what impact they had on your production

Genre / Conventions – How have you developed your use of genre / conventions from just copying conventions, to instead, being able to challenge and subvert conventions of genres.  Were you creative by combining genres? 

Casting – At AS you weren’t very creative in your casting..  Chose people who were friends etc.. Then you became more creative at casting including sending out facebook messages, holding auditions etc..  How were you creative in your casting?  Be specific.  What impact did this have?

Photoshop  - Never used before.  When using Word / Publisher your creativity was stifled because you are limited in how much you can edit the images.  Photoshop allowed you to manipulate images etc..  Be specific, give real examples of creative Photoshop work you did

Conclusion

Certain Restraints on your creativity in place from exam board  - you HAD to make a music video, digipak, poster etc.. These rules do limit your ability to be creative to a certain extent

Not easy to just be creative.  You actually needed to do practical things like research, paperwork, storyboards etc to ALLOW you to develop our creativity.  Without solid research and planning, being creative was impossible.  You needed a balance of organised AND creative people in a group to be successful.

You can’t just BE creative.  Often it is a learning process where you start by being told what to do, then you try doing things on your own and then you end up being confident and skilled enough to experiment which leads to creativity.  You have to make mistakes at first to be creative.

 

To get A & B grades

To get the higher grades on this question, you need to ensure you are not just DESCRIBING how your creativity developed.  Instead you need to focus on the EVALUATE part.  To EVALUATE you could comment on any of the following throughout your work

• HOW important creativity was
• WHY was creativity important
• WHAT EFFECT did creativity have on your final work
• What PROBLEMS are there with being creative?
• WHAT would you NOT have been able to do without creativity?
• HOW did creativity benefit you?

Candidates will need to refer to their work for the Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio units.

Explanation/ analysis/argument (10 marks)

 Use of examples (10 marks)

Use of terminology (5 marks)

Today's Question

Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

Essay for Tuesday 22nd January.

“Digital Technology turns media consumers into media producers”. In your own experience, how has your creativity developed using developed using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?

• do you agree, disagree or both?
• aim to cover 3 products
• look at which hardware and software products allowed you to be creative
• use DIKY triangle by Tim O'Reilly to show how you have used digital technology to become wise about the conventions needed
• use a creativity quote to support your thoughts about how you were creativity
• conclude with an answer to the question

Digital Technology

Digital Technology

For this topic, you need to consider the impact of the new technologies you have used on your consumption and production of media texts.

Below is a short film made by Andrea Joyce which outlines her own experiences:

Creativity Question and Guidance

A2 Critical Evaluation Section 1 a) Creativity by Rebecca Abrahamson

work for Tuesday 15th's lesson

1. upload your CD cover ( made randomly) to your blog
2. complete the questions on creativity ( on my blog post below)
3. scan/upload today's mini creative task - making a coffee machine- to your blog and write a summary of the processes used and how creative you felt you were
4. find and post 10 quotes about creativity which inspire you

Exam Information

OCR Conference Notes on Evaluation Questions

Creativity Task - my result!

What I got:

Valle de Tabladillo band name

People are either charming or tedious album name

Create something now!

pete's media blog

Creativity

Your exam preparation begins!

Section A Total [50]

Candidates answer two compulsory questions. The first (1a)requires them to describe and evaluate their skills development over the course of their production work, from Foundation Portfolio to Advanced Portfolio. The second (ib)asks them to identify one production and evaluate it in relation to one theoretical concept.

You will need to look at why you created your coursework rather than what you created. You will also need to consider the AS and A2 Media products you made.




An Essay Plan
My AS brief was to…………
Creativity is ……………..
I was able to demonstrate my creativity in a number of ways…….
Ways in which I supported my own creativity included….
Obstacles to my creativity included
…..working within conventions
…..taking risks when marks were at stake
…..working in isolation (getting lost in my own ideas)
…. lack of technical competence
…..lack of confidence
I think my ability to be creative really progressed in Year 13. I found that with the second brief…..I was able to….. and…… I found ways of avoiding the obstacles that had undermined my creativity in Year 12 by…..





Our focus this week is CREATIVITY.


What does it mean to be creative? Are we all inherently creative or is it restricted to a minority of 'lucky' people? Is it a good, progressive thing to be creative or does it disrupt and challenge things?

How do we 'learn' to be creative? 

 “There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.” — Edward de Bono

“A truly creative person rids him or herself of all self-imposed limitations.” — Gerald G. Jampolsky

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” Albert Einstein.

Thinking points to respond to on your blog:

What do you understand by ‘creativity’ and to what extent have you been creative?

- How have you tried to facilitate and encourage your own creativity?
- Did you experience limits/blocks on your own creativity?
- How easy/difficult was it to be creative while still working to the brief?
- Did working within conventions stifle your creativity?
- To what extent did you need to work with others and ‘bounce ideas’ off other people to be truly creative?
How much of your creativity was about trying to picture things in your mind’s eye?
- How much of your creativity was about trial and error?
- To what extent was a lack of confidence an issue in terms of your creativity?
- To what extent was a lack of technical competence/confidence an obstacle to your creativity?

-         

Creativity