How my creativity has developed through use of digital technologies to complete my coursework productions

Throughout the process of our AS Media Studies coursework, from pre-production; during the earlier paper work stages of our preliminary and main films, which I kept a record of in a journal and scanned onto the computer at the end of the tasks, to the production; putting our fully realised thoughts and ideas into physical action using film production equipment such as Digital Video cameras and microphones, until the final stages of productions such as editing; for which we used Windows Movie Maker, and evaluating; which we displayed interactively on YouTube under our final main film. Throughout all of these stages digital technology featured frequently, even when we thought it would not be necessary or needed, for instance the initial, planning stages of the productions. It is often thought, by myself included, then when the use of digital technology is mentioned in film making, it is referring to the actual, physical act of film making rather than any other stage, or at least that is what first comes to mind. However digital technologies are used through the entire process of film making. Obviously digital technology is a vital part of film making, and when it came to physically shooting the films and putting our plans into action, something that we could not have managed to make the films without.

During the initial stages of the tasks, the planning and pre-production stages, the work we did was very much paper based. We had been told to keep a folder with all of this work in, I, however, had the idea to keep a journal, compiling all the work into one book. Every single idea or thought, no matter how unimportant it may turn out to be, all in one book. At the end of the project I would scan the pages of the book into the computer and then print them out to go into a folder, so that they were better formatted and easier to read. This idea turned out very useful and I did the same for the following final task. The only other use of digital technology at this stage involved using the internet. I used Moodle to print off sheets that our lecturer had put onto the Weymouth College site and would help us with the coursework and other sites to research and help me. I used the search engine Google when researching the film genre and style we had chosen, or if we were representing certain characters or stereotypes. For example in the preliminary task we represented cops and criminals, and in the main task the upper social class and burglars. Burglars in particular was a very useful character to research as the results came up with the stereotype of what is widely though a burglar looks like: dress in dark clothes from head to toe, wearing a beanie hat and gloves to avoid leaving finger prints, face partly or entirely covered so as to avoid being recognised, accompanied by the trademark burglars tools; the crow bar and a flash light (as well as the optional £/$ sign sack slung over the shoulder). Apart from the use of digital technology in these initial stages however, we drew upon our own knowledge to be creative with our coursework.

The physical making of the film however, was where the majority of my creativity involving digital technology was developed. I was allowed to use film making equipment and technology properly for the very first time and applying them in a focused and professional way. During this time we used Digital Video cameras to film the various scenes of our films and microphones to make use we picked up the dialogue. After filming the footage for our films we then had to go and edit down what we had filmed using Windows Movie Maker, a basic editing programme used for editing down film footage. We used Movie Maker to edit down our scenes until we were happy and then needed to work and decide on the sounds that would be appropriate to go with it. We therefore went to the College library (as we were not allowed to use music by existing artist for reasons of copyright) and went through various CD’s listening for the right sound we were looking for and then added it to our film in the appropriate place so that the continuity made sense. We also added a drone to the beginning of the film with we recorded from a low key on a keyboard and which we faded in, so that the haunting sound got louder and louder as the action progressed. Once the editing was complete, sound and all, we formatted it and exported it to use later on.

When the end of our coursework started drawing nearer, we needed to write our evaluations about how we’d done, the good the bad and the ugly of the entire experience. We wrote these evaluations up digitally because that’s how they were to be presented to the examiner. The final digital technology we used was video uploading site YouTube on the Internet, where we uploaded our final main films as well as our evaluation along side for the examiners viewing.

The whole process was a huge learning experience, right from the initial ideas to the final evaluation. A chance not only to develop my creativity but also to put it into action through film making as I had never done before. The task of creating a ‘film’ seemed very daunting, and still does slightly, however having had the chance to experience the basics of what really goes into film making, I soon learnt that it wasn’t as difficult as it seems to make a film, and if I don’t say myself, a pretty good one at that.

Here is the main film for our AS Media Studies coursework