Transition from AS to A2 Media Studies

An image from the Shell exhibition!

Before I started the AS media course, I was already heavily interested in the subject. From about the age of 9, when I first received a digital camera as a present, I was taking pictures of my environment inspired by the beautiful images shown off at the Shell Wildlife Photography Exhibition held in London. Thanks to my brothers, I had always been a big film fan collecting DVD's whenever we went to HMV, whether they would be age suitable or not and an avid gamer from a very young age. Recently I have taken a particular interest in computing and game design which has influenced the genre of music I like to listen to and the style and design of projects that I have undertaken recently- I hope you like the retro feel of this blog!
The AS Media Studies course was a very good starting point where I could develop my previous interests into professional looking products along with high quality written essays analysing them. I felt the year went quite well despite many causes for concern along the way. I achieved a grade B overall and I believe the coursework found on the blog reflects this well. (Please click here to view this!) I was very proud of the design and structure of the blog and I hope to carry this feature over to this A2 blog. Features on the blog such as labels and links to other sites will definitely appear again as they were quick and easy to use when filtering through posts. This is a method of enhancing the users experience as they do not have to trawl through endless posts to find what they are looking for. I strongly believe functionality of the blog is just as important as the content and aesthetics of the page. From feedback given to me by my teachers, the quality and quantity of the posts from last year were good and I want to improve this further. I found that the other member of the group was more skilled in the practical area of the course than the theory and analysis side and vice versa for me. As there are now four of us in the group, the practical side of the course should be much easier to execute especially in terms of camerawork and editing.

A screenshot of the time-lapse used in the
AS Thriller opening.

I have set myself personal targets for the A2 course to ensure my work is of the highest quality. For example, I am looking to improve my skills with the camera and get to understand the technology behind them. To do this, as personal homework I shall be researching about the history of cameras and how the digital era has effected their usage. I want to be able to use the camera artistically in order to enhance specific features on screen whether it be a point of interest in frame, an actor's costume or to emphasise the sound. I especially liked the time-lapse we created last year in our thriller video (shown above) and I aim to play around with the aperture and exposure of the lens to see what sort of effects I could put into the music video this time round. In addition to this, I am going to learn how to use software such as Final Cut Pro and After Effects. These are professional editing software that I can exploit to make my product look realistic. During the AS course I used my own editing software, Serif MoviePlus v6, as I had used it previously. However, this program lacked the tools to make my product look very good and the idea of learning how to use new software and getting used to the new computer interface (Mac OS X) was very daunting. I plan to overcome my naivety and with the help of my teachers and peers who are experienced with these products.
One thing in particular I would like to vastly improve upon is the planning for the video. In terms of story boarding and screen writing, I feel we were prepared when it came to shooting. When it came to actually deciding what time to get together and film, it was chaotic. Not only was it stressful trying to film and edit before the deadline, it also meant we were rushed when actually filming which ultimately affected the quality of the shots. We were specifically trying to film during sunset and at that time of the year, the sun goes down very quickly. To some degree, it was beyond our control but nevertheless, time-management needs to dramatically improve this year as we have to film for roughly 3 minutes with on average about 200-500 shots. It was a lesson well learnt and it showed us how vital preparation was.
In conclusion, I am looking forward to creating our own music video as it will be a great accomplishment due to the scale of the project. Each member of the group has individual music tastes and it will be interesting to see how this influences our final product. Please keep up to date with this blog as well as our twitter to see our progress throughout the year.