Homework

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

Creativity is what starts any new idea, without creativity people would not have the ability to create anything new in our world and everything would stand still. It is through digital technology that we are able to explore the deepest levels of our creativity as now more than ever we can create literally anything that we want to achieve. When I first began creating my media texts I looked at what I could achieve, when making my thriller opening I looked at what I could achieve using the cameras available to me, unfortunately I was only able to have use of a 3 megapixel camera throughout shooting. This meant that the amount of light being taken in by the camera was reduced due to the camera quality and overall reducing the entire quality of the thriller opening. This was overcome by using more natural light such as through outdoor shots or shooting parts in areas on our set that were better illuminated. Unfortunately this was not the case for all the shots and for one in particular when the person goes down the stairs, the lighting here was particularly bad due to the fact that little lighting was able to get in, we tried to counter this by using the night mode on the camera which helped a little as it took more light in. We also used creativity in our choice of shots by trying to vary what we did in each shot, whether that was setting the camera up in a plant pot or using a point of view shot, we also made sure that we didn’t include the face of any of the characters in order to follow the conventions of a thriller as it makes the audience begin to question who these characters are and whether the main character is good or not.

When filming my music video I was a lot more adventurous as I knew more of what I could achieve using varied camera work. I chose to once again use a mix of fixed and point of view shots to build from what I had already done in my thriller opening but this time I used a lot of the notion of looking, a theory put down by Goodwin, this can be seen through direct address of the girl in the point of view shots or reflections in the fixed shots. I also improved my camera from a Canon 3mpx DV Camera to an Olympus 5mpx HDDV Camera and the improvement of quality can easily be seen. Once again we faced lighting problems such as filming in the darkened bowling alley however the night mode on this camera was vastly better than the one of the original camera so made a clear difference. I also explored the number of shots that I used in my music video, when filming I wasn’t afraid to steer away from what I had written in my storyboard if it wasn’t completely working and move it into a different more creative direction. It is important to improvise, we shot many different angles and shots to get the final cut of the music video it we ended the filming with an hour worth of footage on the camera for a three minute music video. This however was because of a lesson that I learnt when creating the opening to my thriller, when shooting for the thriller there were a few storyboarded scenes that we couldn’t use and due to the fact that there were very few takes of each scene we had to cut some parts out and replace it with what we had.

During making my ancillary task I made sure to establish a link between the images on the website and digipak with the music video. This is why I took actual images from the music video and for the banner at the top of the website I took a photo of the trainers that appeared on the music video to establish a link between the two. The camera that I used was the Olympus FE-160 6mpx camera; this allowed me to take good quality photos to use in my ancillary tasks. If I were to do this again however I would choose to take photos whilst shooting my music video as we go along, this would allow us to have higher quality images to use in our other tasks to achieve a higher quality standard although there is still a high level of professionalism in my work.

Creativity

Rule breaking/boundary testing
Creativity involves doing something new and against what is already out there to change how people see things. In my preliminary task we experimented with ways to hold or position the camera that keep our viewers interested in what they are watching, this was then reflected in the thriller opening where we used a mixture of handheld and fixed shots at different levels, a technique that I thought worked well so used it once again in my music video. In the ancilliary task I used actual images from the music video when creating the digipak, this is something that I haven't seen before in other digipaks when researching and I thought it had a good effect, following this I then also decided to use images not from the music video but that draw from it on my website. This is why I took a photo of the shoes from the actual video, this way I can show the star image motif that we created for our artist of shoes and feet but also to create a link between them through something that the audience can recognise.

"Novel [new] associations which are useful” (Isaksen and Treffinger, 1993)
When creating my three texts (music video and ancilliary tasks) I kept in mind the whole time that I had to create a link between them, this is why I used images from the music video in the digipak, so that fans can instantly look at the digipak and make the association between that and the music video. I also used the photo of the shoes from the video to establish a link between the music video and the website. When I was creating my thriller I didn't think of a link that needed to be made between it or anything else however following the conventions of a thriller we didn't want to give too much away in the opening scenes, this is why we made the viewers ask questions such as what is going to happen next? Certain key parts such as where the files are handed over make the audience want to know what is going to happen with them and what the person reads on them, this sets up associations within the film that link throughout.

Using existing concepts and conventions whilst building from and adapting them.
This is my own interpretation of what creativity means, in my view creativity is creating something new through necessity or adaptation. This is particuarly reflected in my music video and thriller opening where we used a mixture of shots including fixed and handheld, this keeps the viewers interested. The digipak that I made also adapted conventions, I established a link between this and the music video which is a convention of a digipak in the music industry. However I used actual images from the music video, this is something that as far as I know hasn't been done before, although using images or themes that reflect throughout is something that has been done before. Similarly in my thriller colourisation is sometimes used during particular scenes, however I went one step further by draining most of the colour other than the strongest colours such as purple or red, this enhanced the viewing experience and showed a great deal of creativity.