Mock - Sophie Gordon

Explain how your skills in the creative use of digital technology developed over time in a range of examples from your media productions?

My use of creatively using the forms of digital technology has developed, gaining me skills between AS and A2. I feel this has allow me to produce more creative work that would now sell to an audience, as i've now become more aware of post modernism. This has allowed me to become more original with my ideas, and even through exampling intertexual references, having a more clearer idea of my own.

I feel that from AS my presentations skills have developed, this gained me an advantage when having to show my work to a range of audiences. For example during AS my skills were very limited, along using YouTube and Blogger as digital formats when presenting and in some ways producing my work, this lead to disadvantage as it would make my work appear to be less informative and lack in skill. This developed within A2 as I then was able to use more digital formats, using the small amount of skills I had gained the year before. I felt this made my work look more professional and when asking for feedback for audiences it would possibly sell more as their was more of a style and understanding there. Using a range of digital technologies that we had used before, we always experimented more and had the ability to use medias that we wouldn't of had the skills to use. For example using photoshop within our website and digipak, we knew it was important to make sure we had a strong image for our band, as we found that style is more important than the substance and that how image creates more money.

During our research and planning we found during A2 we used a lot more of digital technology to form our ideas. This came from being able to look at popular music videos online, via YouTube and then being able to see the popularity from the comments based below the artists work. We could also see feedback on other media formats, Twitter being the main source of this. To gain intertexual reference when creating the video, we also looked at films and television programmes to gain inspiration, this would be classed a modern structure as film and television were produced in the 1950's, this isn't post modern. We gained skill due to creating our thrillers, as we worked with more structure as we had less freedom, due to working closely with a brief and enigma code. This also helped when creating our Website and digipak as we knew we would have to base it strongly on media forms, to create the relationship with the audience that we needed, also making sure we expressed skill with a slightly technical website and digipak that looked well structured.

When gaining feedback from our audience it was important to use a variety of social media forms. During AS we only used YouTube, during A2 we knew it was important to use a range. For example Twitter, Instagram. We understood this was were our audience more than likely was going to form, as music is now being illegally downloaded instead of being bought in shops. By posting images and videos of our band, this created a stronger audience than we once had. We found it important to form a relationship with 'fans' as these were the people that would support the band and would the band the biggest profit (as they would being buying into a brand) this would be done by sales of merchandise, cd's, including digital downloads. 

This leads to how we then used digital technology with our main product, the music video. Our editing was basic within AS, as apart from the main thriller footage  we only used a slight grey scale, foley and soundtrack. The skills used within the task mentioned were rather basic, using sound clips from websites, when instead we should of created our own and used GarageBand to produce something that sounded more realistic and better. Within AS we decided to use more digital technologies, as this time around we wasn't so conformed to a structure and more power to create a less traditional format. Within our music video we decided to use green screen, to display our character falling onto a rail track, this idea formed from the idea of emptiness and how the traditional life there once was (married parents and two kids) didn't exist and this would create issues of some people.

From looking at my use of digital technology other the past two years, I found to be more creative with my ideas that it is key to be aware of postmodernism. As working with structure and not breaking boundaries, can show a lack of skill, which is something I developed after being exposed to postmodernism, and decided to look outside of the box.