1A - Post Production

Post production is a vital aspect when creating ancillary texts such as a film opening or a music video. During this two year course I have been tasked with the editing of various productions starting in year 12 where we were given short clips and an unfamiliar software called Premiere Pro. Over time I have gained skills through experimenting with this new software and therefore have been able to edit more challenging and time consuming texts.

In year 12, I used Premiere for the first time when completing the 'Dancing Animals' task. This involved piecing together various pieces of footage and adding visual effects to enhance the overall product. This task was given to us in order to gain an understanding of the layout and the features of Premiere Pro. My first experience with Premiere was challenging because I had not used software similar to Premiere Pro so it took me some time to figure out how to use it. For example, I found it difficult to trim pieces of footage however after researching how to perform these basic tasks I soon overcame this obstacle.

Also in year 12, I replicated a short 1-2 minute clip from a film called Juno. This task was very daunting at first because it required various effects and split second timing in order to complete it to a good standard. After getting the footage I uploaded it all onto Premiere so it was at my disposal. In comparison to 'Dancing Animals', this task helped my development in post production techniques because I was able to keep persevering until I could make the footage almost identical to the film. This meant that I spent more time cutting and moving the footage around the sequence. Additionally, I used new transitions between clips such as the 'film dissolve' option which created a more professional look rather than straight cuts which I was using before I discovered this tool. 

Adobe Premiere was a very important part of the film opening we had to create as part of our coursework. I was grouped with two other people and we had to create a film opening therefore our product had to contain some sort of story line. This meant that this task was instantly more challenging when it came down to post production however it also gave me more freedom so we could make it suit the genre of film. In actual fact, I did not use many effects because our film was a drama so it did not require too many visual effects. On the other hand, this suggests that actually my post production skills had improved because I had acknowledged the type of film and audience we were targeting. 

In year 13, I created a stealomatic, this is a collection of short clips from other music videos which are played while another song is in the background. It was clear my editing skills had improved because it did not take me long to complete this task. The stealomatic really helped in the post production stage because my group was able to see what visuals matched the song we chose and from this I added cool effects such as the glitch (distortion) effect to our final piece.

Post production also includes the use of websites. In year 12 I created a very basic website for our film opening where viewers could watch the film opening and view some images. My Wix skills certainly improved in year 13 because the website included many new features where users could purchase merchandise and listen to the song. Although the same software was used I was definitely more experimental when creating the website for the music video. This resulted in a better overall website with more content which enhanced our overall media product.

One post production task which we done in year 13 but not in year 12 was the digipack. This was a significant part of the overall product because it needed to include synergy and had to have attention to detail in order to gain good reviews from teachers and students. My skills have clearly developed to this point because I used a more complex software to edit images which is Adobe Photoshop. This software was not familiar to me a year before however I was very comfortable using it to create a professional digipack in year 13. 

The music video in year 13 was very much more complex compared to the editing of a film opening. This is down to the pace and the nature of both types of texts. They can both be a similar length of time yet a music video includes a many more shots. Premiere was used to edit the video and we included a number of effects and transitions to enhance it. Furthermore, we even needed to alter the speed of the footage so it played in time with the music. This was very time consuming however it shows how important these fine margins are when attempting to create a professional looking music video.

In summary, my post production skills have improved over the course of two years. This is down to the experience I gained with software however it is also due to the better understanding I have of the importance of genre and audience when forming a media product that will appeal to this specific audience.