1(a) For my Foundation Portfolio coursework, I originally found research and planning
skills difficult as I unaware as to how much I required these skills. Intially, I felt for my
coursework in Foundation Portfolio which was producing a Music Magazine that I
would be better off producing the product straight away.
However, after setting about planning to do this, I realised that I struggled meeting the
specifications of the coursework and that my initial product was not of the quality that
I and my Media Studies tutor hoped it would be. Which is why, he told me to redo my
product but now paying more attention to the planing and research stage of the
production.
Doing this enabled me to, too see a number of factors in regards to my production
that I had not seen before. For instance, I was enlightened to find my production
would be more effective with the use of new media technology such as the internet,
and a website called www.blogger.com which enables users to set up a blog online. I
used this, to set up my own blog regarding my production. This would be helpful, in
outlining my plans and progress with my production and the fact that I’m sharing this
with the rest of the world enables me to receive feedback from other users which can
be implemented on to improve the quality of my product as well as building my
creativity.
This can be attributed to David Gauntlett’s theory that the introduction of new
interactive media (such as online blogs) in the form of web 2.0 can help media users
and consumers become more creative.
This in turn, helped my creative decision making as I was able to make more
informed creative decisions based on the feedback I received from other users such
as mu Media Studies who felt that my front cover lacked enough of the conventional
features which you might see on a music magazine such as the strap-lines and a
barcode.
Moreover both my productions gave me the understanding that overall that as a
publication software, Adobe Photoshop was much better than Microsoft Publisher.
This was a creative decision. I had made after using both pieces of software for both
my productions. Prior to my productions, I had only previously used Microsoft
Published, but after using Adobe Photoshop and learning about the features and
about how to use the product effectively, I was able to add functions such as
extensive image manipulation and the use of the transform tools and implement these
skills to take and more creative decisions which I otherwise would not have been able
to had I not used this program instead of Publisher, or had not developed the skills or
understanding of Photoshop to the extent where I could implement when making
creative decisions about my product. For instance, my original image on my front
cover for my Foundation Portfolio, had a window frame to the side of the model’s
head but I was able to through Photoshop remove this through the use of the
colouring tools.
Examiners Feedback and Grade
Candidate A
1a) EAA = 5 EG = 5 TERM = 2 Total =12
A narrow range of examples are described and digital technology is privileged over creative
outcomes. Research and planning in the broader sense is discussed in a limited manner.
1(a) When I first started my AS project I had little to no skills when it came to research and
planning skills, so these for me were built up over time.
In my AS we were set an activity ancillary tasks, these were to create a school
magazine and record a short scene of a film, my group decided to undertake both these
tasks, the reason being we believed that one would have a better outcome that the
other would highlight our skills. This was the first stage in our planning. Compared to
our A2 this is a very different approach, in A2 we sat down and discussed our strong
points and came to a decision based on our skills, this is a much better way to do things
as it saved us time so would allow us to focus more on the task at hand,
In out AS we used powerpoint in order to write ideas and keep track of different parts of
our project it was like a portfolio that we used for research and we could go back to it
when we wanted to use information or add to it. Powerpoint is a much better method
than trying to keep track of everything on paper as it keeps it much neater and is more
easily acceptable. In our A2 we moved away from powerpoint and started putting all of
our research in a blog instead. The blog was a major benefit. The reason the blog was
so useful was because it was interactive and we could also access it from home. Being
able to access it from home was very useful, it meat we could add to our project
whenever we wanted and wherever we wanted, not having to use a specific computer
etc. It made working on the project a lot easier. The interactivity side was also very
good, it meant people could leave comments and/or feedback on our blogs and we
could use this constructively. So using the blog for research and planning was definitely
the better thing to do.
The main resource we used for researching was the internet. Initially in our AS we used
the internet for browsing purposes only, collecting images and information that we could
use constructively for research. Once we got to A2 we were more aware of other values
of the internet, again the interactivity side of things. We began using sites like youtube
because they would let us view videos, leave content and get feedback. This was a
much more focused response rather that just looking for information. So this helped this
helped with research a lot more. In terms of creative decision making sitting and
discussing what our plans were was defiantly a better idea than just trial and error like
we tried the first time. It gave us more time to work on what we knew was best. Using
the blog instead of Powerpoint was a good decision as It allowed freedom of work and
the interactivity was much better. Also deciding to use interactive sites such as youtube
was a good idea as it allowed us more focused feedback which is better than just
browsing for things.
Examiners Feedback and Grade
Candidate D
1a) EAA = 6 EG = 5 TERM = 2 Total =13
1a – convincing but restricted to discussion around using a blog and little else – narrow range.
