Media End Of Course Evaluation

As a media production student I have developed a wide range of new skills in the first year of my course, including research and production skills. My practical skills have improved vastly since the first production I created at the start of the course in Unit 2.

My camera and editing skills were very basic and I had only just learnt how to use iMovie. My skills in iMovie were also very basic, as I only knew how to cut footage that I wasn’t using and add basic text and music. My camera skills were also basic in that the framing and use of lighting wasn’t very good; this can be seen in my first production when I filmed the vox pops and the lighting was too dark or bright and the angles had different amounts of headroom but never the right amount. I also learnt about the use of mise en scene, which I tried to capture in the back of the vox pops and in cutaways. However, the mise en scene was very basic, partly as I only had spaces in school to film, but as the production was about a student and teacher, I managed to make the mise en scene work well. 

In my re-branding project later on in Unit 2, there is a lot of progress that can be seen, such as my use of lighting in shots and my use of different camera angles. For example, in my first video of a news report, the lighting was poor as I had little understanding oflighting. In unit 3, my lighting in the main interviews had progressed through my use reed head lighting to emphasise certain features and create a more natural lighting, that made my characters look better than the actual natural lighting. Camera movement and good use of different angles allows a shot to become more realistic as if the viewer is there. In Unit 2, I used basic camera movements and framing, for example in my first video, a news report, as I had only just begun learning and practicing how to film. However, in Unit 3, I used more complex movement, such as panning and zooming at the same time to follow the character in the shot. This can be seen in my final YP Employment video during the interview when I follow Carmen, the actress who played the interviewee, walking from Balham to the interview. 

I also improved in my editing skills in Unit 2 as I had learnt how to use Final Cut Pro. This is when I filmed using the gym for the advert and used fast paced editing to capture the theme of the advert. The use of the gym was also good for my mise en scene as my production was about everyone being a gold medalist, since the product of Ferrero Rocher, that we re branded became renamed ‘Gold Medal’. It was named this to create a target audience that was the opposite of Forrero Rocher's target audience. Instead of having middle aged women who enjoy luxury as a target audience, our target audience became sporty teenagers, thus the name 'Gold Medal'. However, the use of lighting was still quite basic as I only used the natural lighting provided from the ceiling in the gym. I could have used 3 point lighting or fill and key lighting. However, I found that as I was unable to control the natural lighting, the use of artificial lighting would clash with the lighting already there. Also, as there were mirrors in the gym, the lighting would have reflected and therefore been too hard to control.

Lighting can be used to affect the mood and reflect the theme of a production. In Unit 2, we had a lighting workshop where we used red head lights to experiment with different lighting setups, such as high key lighting, to see how different lighting can portray different moods or accentuate certain aspects of a shot. However, as this workshop was in the classroom, the natural lighting was still able to come inside the shots, which meant that we weren't in total control of the lighting in each shot. In Unit 3, we created a recce to see if we could control lighting before filming. This meant that in my Unit 3 production I used two lights and had control of the natural lighting that came into the room. 

Along with my use of fast paced editing, in my rebranding advert, I also learnt how to use better transitions to make the advert look professional and have a smoother flow. Also, I improved my editing when I used music that was relevant to the target audience and edited on screen text using Final Cut Pro. In my rebrand production, my use of camera angles had also improved as I used a shot at the end that featured Aaron, one actor in the production, blurred in the background with the product clear in the front of the shot. This was also a good use of a pack shot, which was emphasised through shallow focus. 

In Unit 3, I used my prior knowledge of pre and post-production to better my final video for this unit. This unit’s brief was to create an informative video on interviews for young people to better understand what they need to do in an interview and how they should conduct themselves. For my video I included what makes a good and bad interview. I used cutaways, establishing shots and dissolving transitions in my final edit to make the production come across as professional as possible. I still used Final Cut Pro for this production, yet I had learnt a lot more about how to use it which meant that I was able to add motion tracking and transitions in the background music for when people were speaking. I used a wide range of shots and this time I used key and fill lighting for the main interview so that the best lighting could be used. I was able to do this as the location I filmed in had blinds, which enabled me to control the natural lighting so I could control the different lighting as effectively as possible. However, when filming the shots that were outside, I was able to use natural lighting, and it helped that it was a sunny day and so set a natural light. For this video we had to make a logo as well, which meant that I had to learn how to use Photoshop in order to use different fonts and edit a final logo to add to Final Cut. However, as I had previously not needed to edit a logo into my videos, therefore, my editing skills of Photoshop increased greatly as it was my first time using it, but I needed to make sure it looked as professional as possible to go in line with the rest of my production. I also learnt how to add a voiceover to my video through the use of an external microphone on the camera, and then editing it on Final Cut Pro as I only needed to use the audio and could cut the visuals. My sound editing skills had improved massively as I learnt how to cross dissolve different audios together and add voiceovers into my production. However, before my use of audio only included cutting away the audio that I wasn’t going to use. As I previously used a built in microphone when filming my footage, this aspect of my audio had also improved through the use of an external microphone creating a louder and clearer sound. I also used more than one track of music in my video, which that meant my audio became more complex, rather than just exporting one track into it. Due to my production in unit 3 being an informative video, it would be better to have music playing in the background throughout. This meant that I learnt how to edit parameters in order to decrease and increase volume at certain points to fade my music in the background of speech or putting it in sections of video footage where there was no audio. 

At the start of the course we had to create a Wix page in order to have a source to upload work onto. I had to create a homepage and add pages so that I could get used to the way the website works as my skills of using the website were very basic, for example, uploading and embedding sound clips and videos from YouTube. These skills continued to get better towards unit 3 when I had learnt how to add images, and files such as powerpoints or word files.  At the beginning of the course, my uploading and embedding skills were particularly basic. Throughout the course, I learnt to embed YouTube videos onto my Wix, whether they were my own videos that I had previously uploaded or videos of adverts in Unit 1 when we looked into artists that showed uses of synergy in adverts. At the beginning of the course, I had never uploaded to YouTube before. However, I got better at this throughout the course, as every video we created, we had to upload to YouTube in order to put it on our Wix pages. I also got better at uploading pictures onto my Wix and making sure that they were published for public access. At first I wasn’t sure with how to use this tool. However, throughout the course, I learnt to publish my work straight after I had finished any pieces. I also became more confident at remembering to upload images from the tool on the left hand side rather than dragging it from my files or the desktop.

Other skills I have improved on are my research and planning skills. When I started the course at the beginning of the year my researching and planning skills were very basic. However, as I progressed through the course, my skills became better and my research and planning becoming more thorough.

My skills of secondary research of a media text have improved from the first research tasks we carried out in unit 2 to the in depth research we carried out in unit 1. In unit 2 we carried out a research task where we looked at researching a film's data. As my skills were very basic at this point I tended to use the first article I saw on Google, which led to my work not being in depth. I also could only find out some of the data due to not being good at carrying out secondary research at this stage in the course. However, in unit 1, the research I carried out was more thorough. For example, my website analysis goes into a lot of detail and uses lots of comparison and examples to illustrate points that I researched. By the time I researched a marketing case study of Drake, my research and analysis of explaining the research I have found had got a lot better and I was able to go into a lot more detail and explain why things might be the way they are, for example, why Drake's clothing range would appeal to his target audience. 

My primary research skills have also improved from the beginning of the course to now. In unit 2 my skills were basic when I carried out research such as a questionnaire when researching the film's target audience. However, in unit 3, we created a survey questionnaire to gain information on the type of video to create for the YP Employment task and what content to include. As my skills had improved, my questions were better and I thus gained better information from them. This then allowed me to gain a better understanding as to what content to include in my informational video on interviews. 

When carrying out planning for Unit 3 we created a pitch and presented to the class so we could gain feedback from our initial ideas and know how to progress and create our final ideas. We gained SWOTS so that we knew our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that our classmates were able to suggest to us. The quality of my pitch and the details I included were a lot better than the pitch that my group created in unit 2 when we had to create a pitch to showcase our ideas for re branding our product. This was because in unit 3 our pitches were individual and in unit 2 our pitches were created in groups, this meant that when the group delegated things to do, I didn't have much input on the pitch. 

In Unit 2, I carried out textual analysis when I researched film data for the film Fast And Furious.  It was an example of secondary research as we were finding out information on the film we had chosen. I also conducted secondary research in Unit 3 when researching articles on what the do's and don'ts of an interview were. In unit 3 I carried out textual analysis when researching different articles of tips on interviews. It was an example of primary research as I carried out the research myself by looking through different articles and videos to research articles related to the topic I would later create a video on. It allowed me to research what information was already out there, and tips or information that people generally found useful, especially those in my target audience.  My textual analysis skills improved when it came to unit 3, as I later knew how to gain more detailed research and analyse different texts to gain this information. As I had also completed more research in Unit 2 when I carried out research on different videos and articles that were relevant to both the product I re branded and the JonoKnife. This allowed me to become better at researching relevant information to my projects.

Even though we rebranded a product in Unit 2 and created an advert for it, we did not carry out a focus group. This was because we created a pitch to explain to our class what the initial ideas were and how we could progress further. However, in Unit 3, I carried out focus groups as well as ann individual pitch to gain audience feedback from more people than just our class. This then meant that we had audience feedback from our target audience too. These focus groups are an example of primary research, as we had to research ourselves the views of our audience on our target audience. As I hadn’t previously carried out a focus group, this allowed me to progress greatly, in terms of primary research. I showed my focus group a mood board with my logo and ideas of what I would be including in my video to gain feedback from then on what they thought I should film. This meant that I had more audience feedback than just a pitch to know what would be most helpful in my video and what information would be better to include.

In Unit 1 we typed an essay on our understanding of the macro organisation of a media institution. As this was the only unit we carried this out in, my skills of doing this improved greatly as I had little previous knowledge. I was able to use my secondary research skills through analysing information that I had seen on the internet and research relevant information on what would be included in the essay.

We also carried out an essay to compare independent and major record labels. We had previous lessons where we learned about major and independent labels and carried out research on both of these, for example, our research on SONY’s artists and their use of synergy and horizontal integration.

At the start of the course, my evaluations on my projects were more basic in that I had little knowledge of key techinal terms and my skills were very basic which made evaluating them easier. However, as the course progressed, so did my evaluations. This was because I was able to include more skills that I had used or gained and be more critical over what I had included in my final product.

In year 13, I would like to develop my skills through developing my pre-production and post-production skills. For example, I could develop my editing skills through using Premiere Pro, editing software, to better my productions as this software has more advanced tools and more options to enable me to develop my work. Another way I could develop my production skills in year 13 would be through my use of lighting in my shots and creating better storyboards to have a better idea of how I will create a meaning through shot type and angles.

I could improve my pre-production skills, for example my research skills, through looking more thoroughly for relevant information rather than just looking into the first article I find on Google. I could also develop better information to give to my focus groups to gain better and more detailed audience feedback. Another way to gain better audience feedback would be to create more detailed pitches to collect better feedback on initial ideas.