Describe how you have developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contrivuted to your creatibe decision making.

In year 12 for my AS production, I was given the task to create a music magazine with a front cover, contents page and a double page spread. In year 13 for A2 production I was given the task to create a music video and a digipak and poster. To start working on these products I needed to do some pre- production research on similar products that I could reference in my work so that I could be creative when creating my own.

Digital technologies have had a huge influence on media production over the last few years since I've started studying I have learnt a lot about the benefits of using all these different media technologies. They in turn have had a massive impact on the quality of my finished products

For my As work I had to produce the magazine, it was my first time in using programs such as Photoshop but by creating a preliminary magazine this let me explore Photoshop further and I was then able to maximise my skills to be able to complete my actual coursework magazine. I also used websites such as NME, Google and clash to be able to see how my music magazine should have turned out. Whilst trying to find a magazine convention to follow I was able to deconstruct them in terms of their key conventions and add them to my magazine. When we started the course at AS we created something called Blogger, I have had no previous experience of blogger prior to this. I relied heavily on Blogger over both years of my A Level. I used it to record all of my research, planning and progress as I went along. At A2, I had developed an awareness of blogger and new technologies such as prezi, animoto and final cut pro which gave me the opportunity to be more creative in showing my work on my Blog.

 One of the key areas I developed my skills in was Photoshop. at the beginning of AS I had never used it before and so found it very challenging when it came to creating my pre-liminary magazine. You can see I had hardly any skills of Photoshop. However now my abilities in Photoshop are far more advanced and the creation of my A2 ancillary products appear drastically more professional. You can see this because I gained 20/20 from both my digipak and poster.

Final Cut Pro is the software I used to edit my music video. I had gained a small amount of experience on this after creating an animatic of my storyboard at the start of A2 however putting together my video footage was a slow process. After completing my draft video, I had become more time efficient; this allowed me to be more creative in my second draft as I could use tools on the software, such as adding overlaps of different shots, which let my creativity expand.

In conclusion, technological skills contribute greatly to the extent and variation in creative ideas, as they broaden your mind to the possibilities. However skills themselves do not instantly make you a creative person, but can be applied to allow creative vision.