Foundation Portfolio

  • Research into chose assignment. (Print)
    The first lesson of Media I looked into my chosen assignment brief, we looked at very basic print guidelines and looked at the layout of magazines to use in the future. This is a significant piece of the course as in future print creations I will know the basics of a magazine layout, therefore cutting out the process of basic research.
  • Learning to Blogg and creating a production-log.
    Along side the research into print, we also learnt how to blogg, which is new to me as in the past I have never blogged. This is a significant skill that I learnt as it would be used throughout the rest of my course.
  • Presentation of Ideas.
    Although this was not part of the primary task, it is relevant to the main task were we now had total freedom to what we created. Showing our peers the ideas helped me know which idea would be more popular. I chose to do the music magazine as it was a basic concept and all my peers agreed it was a good idea. This is a significant process as it shows which ideas were more suited to my chosen audience, teenagers.
  • SMART Targets.
    This skill was hugely significant to my course, learning to make guidelines to follow and make sure I sticked to the time barriers that I made for myself helped me hugely in developing my time keeping and planning throughout the course.
  • Development into usage of software and software techniques.
    Being completely new to the Macs and Photoshop, I learned from the very beginning, embarrassingly I didn’t know where the on switch was. But from the first day onwards I learnt new skills about the Macs and Photoshop that would have perviously not been available to me. By the end of my foundation portfolio I was a lot more comfortable with Macs and Photoshop although i was still a beginner.
  • Extended research into existing products.
    Being restricted to just research into magazines because of the nature of the foundation portfolio, I could only develop my knowledge on the magazine and print side of media. This was increasingly useful throughout the course. I learnt many real media conventions and began to follow these conventions to increase the realism and verisimilitude of my media pieces.
  • Questionnaire into Magazine content and Audience.
    The questionnaires that I used also helped me develop skills into increasing my magazines verisimilitude and realism. By asking questions such as ‘Is £3 a realistic/good price for a magazine?’ or ‘Where do you think this magazine would be sold?’. Asking questions like this I became more aware of the prices, face, location of selling etc that I would not of know before hand. I learnt in more depth what an audience wants rather than my assumptions.
  • Mock Up magazines.
    Mock up magazine helped hugely as it developed skills in 2 areas;Creativity-I learnt new techniques and methods that I began experimenting with and gave me the freedom to do certain techniques and conventions that I liked. For Example The Devil Wears Parda mock magazine where I used the glow around the header and information on the front cover.Preparations The process of making mock magazines helped me learn magazine placements E.g. where and what size to have my Header or sub-title. I also used them as a guideline to what I wanted my final magazine to look like. Practice makes perfect so I felt this prepared me to make magazines at a much faster rate.
  • Templates for final Piece.
    Much like the mock magazines the templates helped me prepare the layout and organisation of my magazine. Giving me a clear image of what exactly my magazine will look like. Without this process the original image taking and the final piecing together of my piece would have taking up a lot more time and may have resulted in having to retake original images. The Templates were a significant skill as it is the foundation of any piece of media.
  • Original Images.
    I had never experimented with photo taking in an education level, so the original image taking was new to me. This step was probably the most significant thing I done in my foundation year of media because it was the basis of my print pieces throughout the year. This experience helped hugely with improving the quality and style of my later productions.
  • Editing together final piece.
    Again this helped develop my skills with both the Macs and Photoshop. The practice with the mock magazines and the templates I had created made this process simpler but with Photoshop there is always something to experiment with and improve practice with. Cutting, correct placement, colour balancing etc were all developed and improved during this process.
  • Focus Group for feedback of final piece.
    This was a key part of the post-production as it helped me get a board opinion on my final piece. I focused on asking my target audience of teenagers but I also tried to gain opinions from different social groups. The use of this techniques was used throughout my course as it’s a way of finding problems with my piece and correcting them. It was also helpful as although some problems could not be resolved in my foundation part of the course, it helped my advanced part of the course as I would try to prevent these problems.
  • Evaluation.
    Evaluating my final piece made me come to my own conclusion of my final piece and make me reflect on the good points and bad. This is a major significance as it helped me learn what was in need of improvement and what I know how to do well. The evaluation made me consider my second year and helped me choose exactly where to focus on when it came to creating my second set of products.
Advanced Portfolio
  • Initial Ideas Following Assignment Brief.
    The ideas that I came up with this year were more realistic and in-depth compared to the foundation year. By familiarising myself with the equipment and software of the production process I had become more aware about what can be done in the time that I had to complete my coursework. It had become clear what exactly could be done and how to do it, as before in the foundation year I would simply dismiss an idea If I felt it was going to be difficult. The foundation year had made me aware of numerous techniques and new software that I would have never been able to use before, so my choice of techniques and software to use were a lot more vast then the beginning of the foundation year. This experience and awareness of time etc made my creativity increase as before I wouldn’t experiment with unfamiliar techniques etc.
  • Presentation of Ideas to Peers for Feedback.
    The presentation of my ideas was a huge deal easier thanks to my experience with the software and the experience of the foundation year. This is because before I was in a initially new surrounding, I had not studied media before and did not know exactly what were possible, but because of the first year I felt the presentation of ideas were easier. Mainly because before I felt like i was presenting my ideas to strangers, but with the year studying with the peers I felt more comfortable around them. This helped significantly as the pressure of presenting had gone, the embarrassment had gone. It would have been difficult for present ideas in-front of a group before I had developed the technique of public speaking.
  • SMART Targets.
    At the beginning of writing my SMART targets in the first year, I felt the they were just a waste of time and had no real relevance at all. I was wrong. The use of SMART targets made the timing and planning of my second year easier and increased my production levels dramatically. Without the technique of the SMART targets, the pre-production of my coursework could have taken a significant amount more time than it did. This developed organisation skill has helped my levels of production hugely as they gave me the time to update and change my coursework were needed.
  • Extended Research into Existing Cross-media Conventions and Texts.
    The extensive research was simpler to do this time round, the knowledge I had earned from the foundation year gain me a key technique into finding evidence. Before I would have simply googled ‘Magazine template’ but now I know that is being to simplistic. I now knew where to get example magazine templates and could create my own from looking at sample magazines. In a sense I had cut out the middle man, as the knowledge I had of the last year could be used in my second year. Trial and Error, to a certain degree, was my way of researching. For example, I would know not to simply google ‘Rotoscoping’ because it is not a very well known technique. Instead I found examples of where rotoscoping was used and looked up the creators/directors to find in-depth information into their various of the technique.
  • Mock Ups.
    Again, compared to the first year, this part of my coursework was done faster and to a higher standard. This was because of the experience in creating them as part of my first year, the process in the second year was simpler and easier because of the knowledge I had gained from the pervious mocks up I had created. In a sense I could have used them as my templates in my second year, because they were very basic and board, meaning that they could have been applied into any field of my production with slight changes. They also helped in the second year as the media conventions, that were needed to be research in the first year to make sure I was making a realistic media piece, were already part of my knowledge. I didn’t really need to research into conventions that I needed to follow as I had familiarised myself with them.
  • Research into Post-production.
    Research into post-porduction was a new aspect into research I had not perviously covered in all areas of my second year production. I were familiar with the effects and techniques that could be done on the print side of my brief, but the audio and video editing was a new set of rules and techniques to me. My pervious knowledge of research on the other hand, did help in the process. As stated in the section about Extended Research into Existing Cross-media Conventions and Texts, I had developed advanced research techniques. So finding relevant information about the post-production techniques I wanted to use was easier to find in at a more advance level. I did not needed to learn the basics of video editing, but to learn the specifics of the techniques I hoped to use.
  • Correspondence and Pre-production Documentation.
    Again, this is a new part of the research and pre-production that I had no experience in as a result of the first year, but the first year can be used an example to how this was made easier. The research I had done in the first year, although not relevant to the documentation, helped me in finding out exactly the documentation that I needed.
  • Taking Original Images and Filming Video.
    The experienced I earned from the first year heavily influenced and effected the quality of my images. I took my first year images as an example of the standard I needed to surpass. This helped me increase my quality of work instantly as I used my first year as the lowest standard that needed to be achieved. As well as using the first year pieces as an example, I also took the techniques I had learn’t from the first year and used them in the second year. So from the original pieces, I had increased my creativity and standard of my work by just wanted to be better then them.
  • Editing Final Piece.
    This part of my coursework was a mixed process. The experience I had gained from the first year helped heavily with my editing of the print side of my brief, but I had very little experience with the film/audio editing because of the nature of the assignment brief for the first year. I did have some experience from a short tutorial done at the beginning of the the first year before we chose either the print or Video guidelines. This was insignificant experience though.The only aspect of the first year that could be used as an example to helping the editing would be the confidence of the software I had earn’t and the increased creativity I felt I had and that I was more open to experimentation.
  • Focus Group of Final Piece and Multi-media Package.
    The focus group was very similar to the first year, I asked my peers to watch and analyses my final pieces, but it was slightly different as I covered both briefs from the first year. Before they were just looking at the print, but this year it covered both print and video.
  • Evaluation.
    My evaluating skills had increased across the two years, so my evaluation was more in-depth and detailed compared to the evaluation of my first year. The evaluating technique I had learnt increased my quality of work across the two years but the key part that improved my evaluating techniques was the knowledge into the media industries and conventions I had gained. Relating my media pieces to conventions of a real media product was becoming increasingly easier for every piece of media I looked at. I learn’t to pick out key conventions within a media piece and to evaluate the levels of that convention. This was hugely significant to evaluating my own piece as I aimed to achieve those conventions to make my final pieces have verisimilitude.