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)