Jan 2011 Example

Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

At both AS (Horror opening) and at A2 (Crime trailer), digital technology was fundamental in allowing us to research, produce and exhibit our film-media products. One piece of technology which was pivotal, was the Panasonic Handy cam, this was used to film all of our audience feedback so we had  a log and of course to film our final film-media products. However, one issue which occurred at AS was it's incapabilities of filming in low-light conditions, as we were creating a Slasher opening we wanted to film all of our opening in low- key lighting  as low-key lighting is used in pre-existing products such as 'Halloween' and 'Scream', however due to the camera struggling to film in low-light conditions when filming the extreme close-up of the masked killer for example, we discovered that you couldn't actually see that the Killer was wearing a mask which therefore meant that the intimidation which we wanted to create was lost, as a result we had to film all of our opening in natural light, resulting in us having to rely on filters in post-production to create the effect of low-key lighting. In contrast, at A2 we discovered that you could enable HD mode on the camera, this coupled with our developed knowledge of using lighting for example, three point lighting to light a shot meant that we felt more confident in making creative decisions as a result we decided to film the mob scene for example, in low-key lighting as this is a code and convention of crime films,as seen in 'The GodFather' and 'The Drop' and could connotate the idea of crime being the 'Underbelly of society'. Furthermore, in order to give our film a USP we decided to create silhouettes, for example, a medium shot of a gun being held to someone's head as this created a sense of mystery and would allow our film to compete against recent crime films such as: 'Legend'. Therefore at A2, theHandycam's were key in allowing us to create a realistic crime trailer, whereas at AS due to our lack of knowledge our opening didn't have the desired effect.  Moreover at AS, when zooming in on the handycam, the camera quickly lost focus meaning that the close-up of the killer's  axe for example, was an out of focus shot which resulted in the fear which we wanted to create for our target audience being lost. Whereas at A2 as we were now aware of how far the camera could zoom in, when filming…