Afii's Media Blog: June 2011

Skills:

Print: For this unit I have done many different things that include editing magazines such as brushing up our Photoshop skills to be able to alter our understanding of the programme more than we already knew to make us more skilled in the programme and we also used a programme called In Design to help us to do more developed things with our magazine work like for example making the text go around a picture etc.

Audio: We also had to edit audio clips for this unit. This included making a voice clip of a radio show and adding effects and altering the sounds so that it would suit our tastes in what made it sound more professional. We had to cut our errors and then add backing music along with it. When we were done we uploaded it to our blogs after changing it to an audio clip on sound cloud.

Video: We finally had to edit video clips to help us to understand how it is done in real movies. We were given a range of different clips and we had to make it seem as though the clip wasn’t put together by us but was originally given to us that way in the space of 10, 20 or 30 seconds.

The skills that I have learnt from doing all this is fixing my editing skills because I wasn’t as advanced when we first started out and now I have a better understanding of how to use editing programmes for my own benefit and for school work as well. Because of doing all these skills I was able to help others when they didn’t understand how to do a part or someone was able to help me when I didn’t understand the work. Learning these skills I have been able to work on my independent learning skills as well because now I am more confident about working by myself when doing work about editing various pictures/audio/video.

Before we started doing these I wasn’t very skilled in my work because I had very little understanding of the programme or I had never used them at all before. When we first started out it was a bit confusing because I was new to all sorts of things but as time went it got easier by each lesson. My skills have made a rapid development because I now can use these programmes with more confidence than I could to before.

Research:

When I was asked to research my product and the audience that would be using/ reading it I found it very easy because we had to choose a genre of magazine that we would have wanted to do and then off our basic understandings of these genres, we stereotyped what our audience would be. We then had to research more to see exactly what we needed to put in so it would approve to the audience. We also created mood boards around a picture of a person and again, stereotyping what they may like. This was an alright task because we had to imagine making a magazine from our perspective and what we would have done to make our magazine more successful.

We used different methods of research like for example when we had to make a survey on Survey monkey so that the people in the class would pretend to be our audience and we could get a better idea of what people would want in their magazines. We also interviewed each other so we could get an idea of what that certain person may enjoy in their magazines. When doing all this we collected all our information together so we had an idea of what people would actually want to read about and what they like and do not like.

Individual work:

When I was working on my own I found it a bit easier to work on my own because when working on my own I already had an idea of what I wanted to do and this way I could start easily and later on receive feedback for my work. Working independently is easier than working in a group/pair because when working in a group/pair you have to share ideas and change things so that it suits everybody’s taste but when working independently you can choose what you want to do and continue doing so.

Group work:

When working as a group it was fun because sir let us choose who we wanted to work with and even though most teachers don’t encourage friends to work together, we still got all the work done. When working as a group we got to share ideas about what we wanted to be in our work so all of us didn’t have to think too much or too little. It was good working in a group because we all had good ideas about what we wanted to do for the work and we would get a piece of paper to write down all our ideas and choose the best ones to use in our work as a final result.

As a member of a group I think I worked very well because we all got along with each other and came to a conclusion if we had a disagreement about anything. An evidence of this is the survey’s that we had to make when researching our audience. I was working with Cayley and we both put up the same survey with the same questions. This was a good idea so in future we can share our results with each other or put them together if needed to.

I think other group members may say that I worked pretty well with them since we didn’t have many misunderstandings or arguments about what to do in our work. It was enjoyable working with them and I’m sure they would say positive things about me because we had a few laughs when working together but were still in work mode because we finished all tasks set out for us.

Maybe when for example when a member of the group was ill or had a reason that meant they could not come into school and the work was in their user, we could not get much done because all the work done in the last lesson was saved in their file and we had to make do with what sir told us to do and be behind when she did come in.

Creativity:

In terms of creativity I would grade myself to being an 8. I would do this because, in my opinion, I have a very active imagination and I tend to use it in my work a lot when we have to think of ideas and stuff. My imagination is good because I tend to daydream a lot and then it’s easier to make things up in class like for example when we had to imagine what our magazines would look like or when we had to do our mood boards for our audience.

When we came up with the ideas and then used it in my work I think it went pretty well because we all mainly had a similar idea, but just laid it out differently. It was pretty much accurate because we had to make sure that the ideas were from us and not copied and if sir says the certain idea we choose isn’t very accurate he would tell us that we needed to change the work but I hardly get told to.

Using Equipment and Applications:

Photoshop: I’m pretty good at using Photoshop because it is an easy programme to use and I used to do a lot of editing for myself before we were using it in media. I find Photoshop a fun programme to use and it’s very interactive and imaginative and helps when you want to make a certain picture look a certain way.

In Design: In Design was a programme that I was very confused with using when I first saw it. It looked very confusing and pretty hard to use. At first I thought it was a bit too professional for me and I should stick to Photoshop. But then sir explained to how to use the programme step by step so now I understand it more

Premiere: When using Premiere I thought it looked very easy and cool to use because it was laid out in a very simple way. In my mind I thought to myself that it was an upgraded version of windows movie maker. This made it easier to use because I was familiar with that programme and this one wasn’t very hard to adjust to.

Audacity: Audacity was a very easy looking, straight forward programme to use. It was simple because all we had to do was import all the clips that we wanted, edit it in our own way and then save and upload to our blogs. It was pretty simple and the second easiest after Photoshop.

Strengths and Weaknesses:

I think editing picture and video’s are my strength’s because they both involve using programmes that I am already familiar with and their more interactive and we get to work in groups when doing so. This makes it easier because we all worked together to get the work done. Picture editing is fun and simple and Photoshop is an easy programme to use without worrying too much and also the video editing, even if it loads slowly its fun to use and after a quick lesson on the basics its fun to use.

My weaknesses, I would say is still the In Design programme. It’s still a bit advanced for me and even if I know more than I did before, I still find it a very hard programme to use and wouldn’t mind learning more about it to help me in my future work. I found it hard because it’s a very advanced programme and the steps when using it are hard to remember because there are so many. If I had a few more lessons on the topic then maybe I would have been more confident in using it.

16.

My skills that I need to improve are my interviewing skills because I need to be able to ask my audience more detailed questions that will be able to help me in my work and make my work look more effective and to the point because I asked different people who had a different perspective about things. By improving them I can make my work more detailed and more reliable rather than asking irrelevant questions. Another one is the one I mentioned before like the In Design because it’s a bit hard to understand.

I would say video editing because I found it very fun to do and it was a very interesting topic because we could edit it however we wanted to that would look like a real, original horror sequence using all different types of shots to help us to get an idea of what it’s like to do video editing like a professional. I find it really fun because I can edit it however I want and use as many clips as I want to which is good because I get loads of decisions on what to use.

Group names and contact details:

Afsana Uddin
Elif Yaman.

Project title:

A Day as... (Insert celeb name here)

Type of Video/Television programme

A weekly television show that helps the public get an idea of what their favourite celebrity life is like. Global show where celebrities all over the world will get to be on the show and people can get an insight on what other celebrities are like.

Purpose of Product:
A show where fans get a chance to see what their favourite celebrities do in their daily lives. The celebrities will be wearing a head camera and will walk around doing their daily routine and talking to the camera explaining what is going on around them, for entertainment purpose only. Will be showing all different types of celebrities to attract different people e.g. Nicki Minaj, Chris Brown etc.

Content:

Each week we will have on the show:

- A disco in the studio with the host Bow Wow talking about who’s going to be on the show for the week.

- Then talking to a few fans in the studio about what they like about them and why they enjoy their music/acting etc with a still of the celebrities behind them.

- News in brief is shown about the certain celebrities and talking briefly about their history etc with a voiceover explaining all.

- Then the camera goes to the celebrities and they continue with their daily lives doing their schedules and informing fans about what their life is like.

- After the cam with the celebs is shown its back to the studio for another disco with Bow Wow and the fans and him asking what they liked.

- Then a vox pops is put in where they ask random members of the public what they like about the celeb and the show itself.

- Finally, the celebs themselves will do a short interview thanking the fans for watching etc.

- Preview of next week’s show

- Credits

Target Audience:

Our show is aimed for teens from the age of 15 – 25 who are updated on the music that they listen to and enjoy watching their favourite celebrities on television and read daily about celebrity gossip.

Our main aim is for girls of mixed backgrounds, who listen to music a lot and enjoy surfing the web to find out more about their favourite celebrity. They think the more they know the better. They enjoy spreading gossip about celebrities and having discussions about them.