Question 3: How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
Here is my response to CCR3:
Transcript
Dear Future A-Level Media Student,
Hi, I’m Lana, an A-Level media student, and I want to inform you of the wide range of opportunities A-level media has to offer. This letter will take you through the variety of skills you will gain from doing this course; some of these skills include technical production skills like using different software, creative production skills, and transferable skills that can be replicated through everyday life.
When taking the subject, it provides you with the chance to dive straight into the technical production side of media. There are many opportunities for you to learn and expand your knowledge of technical skills, giving you a better understanding of how different softwares operate. Media enables you to encode, create and design your own multi-media blog that helps with the organization of various posts which include embedding and linking documents relating to useful background research and planning for upcoming projects. Your blog helps you reflect on the decision-making process. Other exciting software that allows you to construct your media are Adobe Indesign and Photoshop, these teach you how to make text boxes which can lead you to manipulate text and images, add different types of effects to your designs such as an outer glow or drop shadow and put in backgrounds like a gradient. You also gain other skills like being able to operate studio lighting, editing, masking, airbrushing, aligning, and using precision tools. All of these decisions you make when designing will help communicate meaning and create a narrative for the genre.
Technical skills have an impact on the star image you would like to represent for a particular genre or target audience. For example, with my main cover star image featured on the front cover of my magazine, I used different tools on photoshop to successfully enhance the colour of the glasses to make them more vibrant and brighten the eyeshadow in the inner corner of her eyes so that my main cover star would represent a young, idiosyncratic individual which created the star image of indie pop. Indesign had also come in useful when creating a layout for the text and images so that they integrated together excellently.
Within creative production skills, you will learn a lot about Mise-En-Scene and CLAMPS. This includes costume, lighting, acting (body language, poses, and facial expressions), makeup and hair, props, and setting. Mise-En-Scene is very useful when producing images to fit a certain genre as it really helps with the development of the character and communicating a story to a desired audience. Similarly, when using photography, composition, framing with the use of depth of field, lead space, rule of thirds, different angles, and distances, these all work collectively to convey mise-en-scene in an image. Along with this, media allows you to get creative with the design elements of a product. Branding is really important to successfully captivate your target audience. You learn how to identify what colour schemes and typefaces are significant to your chosen genre. Plus, manipulating the text, like the masthead, can be really effective as it adds an element of uniqueness and fun to your product. There are also various software’s that allow you to get artistically creative; you can explore the different features and tools that can assist you in creating graphic design patterns and arranging a suitable layout that integrates the text and images together with the use of wrap text.
When organizing my photoshoot for my magazine, I made sure to incorporate props such as bright purple glasses. By doing this, my model achieved different poses and positions involving the glasses that fit the genre and I could potentially photograph, providing me with a variety of photos to choose from when shortlisting. This successfully conveyed a suitable narrative of a young, fun, and lively female. I also included a graphic design, which I created on adobe illustrator, in my page of contents. The buoyant and quirky patterned design signified the quirkiness of the indie pop genre brilliantly.
You will also come across distinct transferable skills which then can be applied to everyday life. Examples of these include; critical thinking, time management, software skills, organization skills, and collaboration skills. You will also develop effective communication skills by listening and responding back to feedback. You will also gain efficient researching skills that will expand when you undertake background research on certain target audiences, gathering information to create detailed moodboards. These will help impact your final products and make them of high quality.
I personally broadened my organization skills through creating a ‘Production Meeting Agenda’ which helped the process of a photoshoot run smoothly. It enabled me to understand what was necessary to bring, like costume, hair & makeup, and props, and identify the things in which I had to plan prior to it. As well, booking a time slot for a photography studio requires a lot of organization as it means you have to find an appropriate time when both you and your model are available to shoot. Planning and organizing a photoshoot also further developed my communication skills as I expressed the plan to my model so that she was fully aware of what was going to happen in advance, this allowed for no time to be wasted in our allocated time slot. I also directed my model throughout the shoot, asking for a variety of poses, which made me gain confidence in communicating. Since we both had a clear understanding of what we needed to happen, it resulted in us having a successful stress free photo shoot.
Media Studies is a fantastic subject to consider if you are a creative individual who is willing to develop and expand their current knowledge of different skills. I would highly recommend taking the subject if any of the previous things mentioned above come of interest to you.
Best Wishes,
Lana De Garis