Digital Technology

“Digital technology turns media consumers into producers”. In your experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions? [25]


"Digital technology turns media consumers into producers" is a relevant quote to focus on when examining my own productions, starting with my thriller opening at AS through to my music video and ancillary tasks at A2. The range of digital technology on offer allowed me to express my creativity how I wanted and develop my production skills throughout the process, because without it I would not have been able to carry out my initial ideas.


Having previous experience using a digital camera and editing software on iMovie, I was able to have very clear ideas for what I wanted to produce and how I would use the technology to do so. However, when creating my Foundation Portfolio the option of being able to use software such as iMovie was still exciting and allowed me to be even more creative if I wanted to experiment with something I was not familiar with. For example, including titles in my thriller opening was a new challenge due to having to follow typical conventions used in that particular genre. The titles had to flow with the pace of the edited footage and therefore not fragment it, in order to achieve a convincing outcome. Exploring different font styles, colours and transitions led me to choose the correct ones to also match the pace and genre of the soundtrack, for which iTunes was used to legally download. Flashbacks are another typical thriller film convention, and the option to make footage black and white helped me to achieve this flashback effect. Limitations with the digital technology when producing my thriller opening would have been having to book out cameras and only being allowed them for 24 hours at a time, this gave me little time to actually film the footage needed . The same applied to having to share Apple Macs with other students for editing. Instead we chose to use our spare time outside of lessons to complete the work.


A way that I overcame this problem in my Advanced Portfolio creating a music video was by using my own camera so that nobody else had access to it, and I could have all the time I needed. With my music video also being predominately stop frame animation, I needed much more time than I did for my thriller opening in order to take the vast amount of photos. The particular Panasonic digital camera that I used to take the images allowed me to film the footage for my music video as well, which allowed me to not need great amounts of equipment and be more efficient with my time management. Before uploading my footage onto iMovie, I knew that I wanted to include some colourisation effects on the stairs sequence, and having previous experience with doing this I had no problems making this idea come to life. I was introduced to the software on iPhoto to upload my photos, which meant I could then transfer them onto iMovie and create a video. The ability to change the length of time an image actually appears on screen for gave me the opportunity to produce fast-paced video from a continuous set of images. By setting the time to 0.5 seconds for each image, this created the illusion that the toy camper van, which is the main concept, is really travelling on its own. Because of the need to use an unsigned artist due to issues with copyright, I resorted to MySpace to look for my particular band. Social Networking Sites are an integral part of music distribution and file sharing in this age of the Online Revolution, so MySpace allowed me to find an artist almost instantly. However, music cannot be downloaded directly from MySpace, which meant having to contact the band themselves and asking them to send me an MP3 of their song.


Again, when creating my ancillary tasks ( a magazine advert and album digi-pack) I had previous experience with using the software on Serif PagePlus having made a magazine before. However, this was two or three years ago, so I had to become familiar with the software again before planning out my initial ideas. In this case, the technology allowed me to be more creative instead of the other way around. I also had to use Serif PhotoPlus which I had not used before, so I experimented here. I used this software to erase the background on an original image I had taken of the camper van, in order to place it on top of the background layer on my magazine advert. To do this I simply selected the 'background eraser' and moved the cursor over the parts I wanted to erase. Layers needed to be built up using Serif PagePlus and I achieved this by moving certain parts of the magazine advert behind and in front of others, for example bringing the text in front of the background so it could be seen clearly.


Without having had all of this digital technology on offer to me, I would not have produced convincing and effective Foundation and Advanced Portfolios. "What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds" (Steve Jobs). In other words, digital technology allows us to be creative in our own ways and without it our ideas would not be as exciting and yes, it does turn media consumers into producers when they choose to use it.