Technology Essay

Explain how your digital technology skills have developed over time and how this has contributed to your outcome.

Throughout both years of our coursework, my use within the area of digital technology have improved throughout the various tasks we have produced, such as prelims and practise videos. Within these products, I have improved by practising different techniques.

In the first year (AS), I created a multitude of different productions: an initial practise of pre-existing clips, a prelim named Girls Can't Play, a practise video replicating the opening titles from Juno, and the final film opening. For the first three practise edits/ prelims, the editing standard was extremely basic - with the only post productional editing being transitions, colour correcting and basic cuts. For the final film opening, the editing again was very basic with slight improvements from the prelim. There were more camera shots used with more creativity, but still limited as they were just plainly following the protagonist.
 This year, the filming was practised in the two practise videos - the prelim and the "banana phone" short practise. These practises allowed more confidence in our camera work as a group. We learned to re film the same shot multiple times from multiple angles in order to make the video seem more diverse and professional. Another filming improvement was that we had properly learned the colour modes and brightness/ contrast for the camera, which allowed the footage to ultimately be at a much higher standard.
In year 13, we used premiere to edit again, yet there was a rather vast improvement. From our music video prelim, we were accustomed to the attributes for a successful music video and how to edit the shots in a correct manner in order for them to fit with the conventions of a music video. Our editing was further improved during the practise edit stage, where the task was to film a short video along to the song "banana phone". We were encouraged to use a selection of editing techniques, such as split screen, mirroring, reverse, sky blend, and others. Due to these practises of editing, the editing standard for the final music video was at an almost professional level. The pace of the music was fast, which made it compulsory to use many shots, such as in the first minute of the music video, there are 55 shots, compared to 20 in year 12's film opening. The actual editing effects that we used were not only more vast, but better applied to the shots along to the music. Our top used effect was warp stabiliser, which was used in order to smoothen out footage, which we had to nest the stabilised clip in order to later to change the speed. We also used effects including: speed, reverse, mirror, split screen, overlay.
Also, in year 12, we used Blogger to post all of our work. In year twelve, we blogged to a very basic standard, with only completing with 50 blog posts - half of what we did this year. The skills in year 12 for blogger were only to write blog posts without any other external sites used.
We did use
This year on Blogger, there has been a prevalent improvement in the standard. We completed the coursework stage at 100 posts, which were all written with much detail and using other techniques rather than just writing onto the blogger document provided. We made sure to embed YouTube videos (our own and other people's), Emaze and Prezis, Mind maps, Powerpoint/ other slide shows, and plenty of images, gifs and short video clips. These aspects all together allowed us to present our information much more clearly, making our blogs overall at a professional standard.