Representation is the way in which people, events and ideas are presented to the audience. These representations are created by the producers of media texts and what they choose to present to us is controlled by gatekeepers, whom have the power to choose what information is read, heard and seen by the audience and this can be very influential. In relation to the representations shown throughout my media texts, I will discuss them throughout this essay with relevant examples, analysis and the use of accurate terminology. In AS, within our coursework we produced a film opening called ‘Outlaw’ and it is what I will be analyzing throughout this essay. We chose the genre of mystery/action and it focused on the mission of one man, for which the objective is unknown and unclear. The film opening begins with the main protagonist walking through the wilderness in search for an anonymous antagonist, and its mystery remains intact because of the apprehension as to why and where this particular man is heading.

1B- Representation Essay Question First Draft

Apply the concept of representation to one of your media productions.

Representation is the description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular manner. In AS within our coursework we produced a film opening called ‘Outlaw’ and it is what I will be analyzing throughout this essay. This was the genre of mystery/action and focused on the unknown objectives of an anonymous hunter, for which the hunted is also unclear. The film opening begins with the main protagonist walking through the wilderness, but the audience is able to perceive that he is searching for something, and it is this something that creates the entire mystery of our film opening; until the answer is revealed.

In relation to Todorov's narrative theory it states that most story's or plot lines follow the same pattern or path, and there are 5 steps to this. The first is the equilibrium in which the story is displayed as being happy at the very beginning, where the majority of the characters are content in their lives. Although, in Outlaw we contradict this norm and instead chose to introduce our main character in a state of considerable despair with no real reason as to why this is the case, as a result the audience is left with enigma and it allows them to comprehend this reason. The second part of the story will supposedly feature a problem to disrupt this happiness, so in this instance our film opening correlated with this but just in a different order then Todorov proposed, because we deliberately started with a problem and this instantaneously created the mystery that we so desired. Next comes the realization of the problem and the potential consequences it creates. Once again the protagonist in Outlaw seems to be already accustomed to this reality and the audience can see this also compliments to the mystery of this film opening. Restored order is the next part and it is literally the characters attempt to realign their life with the previous contentment and to solve the issue. Thus, near the end of the film opening the main character defeats the mysterious villain. Finally Todorov states that every story line should end with an equilibrium again, however, with our film opening this final equilibrium is not actually seen, only the demise of the enemy.

1A- Digital Technologies Second Draft

Explain how your skills in the creative use of digital technologies developed over time. Refer to a range of examples from your media productions in your answer.
Digital technology when applied to media is the digitized content that can be transmitted over the internet or computer networks. The use of digital technology has had a massive influence on my media productions over the last two years since I started the subject in year 12. I have learnt how to utilise them in the most effective way, and from this have perceived the various benefits they create. This has proved very valuable to me and its worthiness can be seen in my finished products.
 In year 12 for our AS media studies, the editing tasks that were assigned to us were generally small and easy to produce, for example, we had to create a dancing animals video which comprised of putting together various clips in the most suitable order and then possibly adding a few simple effects; this was all done using the Premiere Pro software as to which I had never used before and thus had to learn the basics as an introduction to editing as a whole.

1A- Conventions First Draft

In your experience, how has your understanding of conventions developed through creating your productions.

A convention can simply be defined as the way in which something is done. The use of conventions has had a massive influence on my media productions over the last two years since I started the subject in year 12. I have learnt how to utilise them in the most effective way, and from this have perceived the various benefits they create. This has proved very valuable to me and its worthiness can be seen in my finished products.

In year 12, we were set the task of producing a film opening, ours was named Outlaw. The chosen genre was that of an action movie. Straight away our group decided that the routes of this genre, with all of its stereotypical conventions that were asserted with it, and this made a clear narrative appear that was suitable to the task. For example, we sustained the idea of having a very hidden storyline that didn't reveal its purpose until the final scenes, also a secretive character was introduced so that the audience could question this persons objectives in our film opening. We knew these conventions were stereotypical to the genre because of our research and planning that was carried out revolving around this. A very big influence to this defining research was the James Bond film Skyfall, which had similar ideas to the ones I have illustrated in this paragraph. However, we decided to challenge conventions too by never revealing the main enemies identity, this sustained our image of a mysterious character.

Firstly, we found it important to include enigma codes in our work so that it kept the audience guessing and interested in the film opening production. These enticed the audience to ask interesting questions about the concepts in the video, such as, why was the main protagonist searching for something or someone?. Where would this end result take place? and why has he gone down this particular route?. All of these were utilised so that our target audience found our film opening intriguing and it gave them an interesting film opening to watch, also we attempted to create some mystery to the characters and the plot line of our chosen film opening. Although, we were enforced to include the regular conventions like the titles and exponential shots, we also chose to challenge conventions of a action movie by never revealing our enemies identity, but still the typical good vs bad was the chosen storyline, so in this way it was coherent with the convention. This worked well when filming the shots, this idea didn’t come across very well and it meant that it was we had a great comprehension of what the general shots would involve, this was an essential part of our planning process.

In year 13, we had to create a music video and my group chose the genre of alternative rock and adapted it to fit our vision of a hallucinogenic and trippy video, so that it created a unique element for our target audience. We did this by utilising a bunch of effects that created a certain trippyness to our video, similarly we chose to shoot our video in locations that were always surrounded by nature; and we did this because we thought that hallucination and nature could correlate and coincide in a way that was appropriate to the lyrics of our chosen song drugs. Whilst researching into the this unique element we stumbled upon the music video 'Lamborghini high' by Asap Mob, which turned out to be one of our biggest influences when producing Paleme. This helped us massively as it showed a general outline of what we should include, and it also demonstrated the importance of transferring the words of the song visually in the music video, this is so that the audience can perceive a link between the two when watching it.

In addition to the music video we also produced a digipak and a website. We took influenced from Kendrick Lamars album cover for Damn as we liked the shot of him on the bench plainly on a half and half color split which was black and green, it was simple but suited us perfectly, thus we decided to replicate this in our own image. We also made all of the titles with a black and green color scheme to incorporate our ideals of a nature related synergy . These ideas were also used in the website where we used them as our text colours and the back-ground colours. We included more photos from our photo shoot of the natural background locations as well so that it brought all of our products together. 

Concludingly, my overall improvements have been considerable in the transition from year 12 to year 13, particularly my ability to understand conventions and change them at will, and this has played an important role in my productions.

1A- Digital Technologies First Draft

1A- Research and Planning First Draft

Explain how your research and planning skills have developed over time, and how they have contributed to your media production outcome.
Research is a systematic investigation to establish facts or principles or to collect information on a subject and planning identifies the goals or objectives to be achieved and formulates strategies to reach them. The use of research and planning has had a massive influence on my media productions over the last two years since I started the subject in year 12. I have learnt how to utilize them in the most effective way, and from this have perceived the various benefits they create. This has proved very valuable to me and its merits can be seen in my finish products, which are, my film opening 'Outlaw' and music video 'Drugs'

 In year 12 for our AS media studies, we were required to find inspiration from texts and in this paragraph I will explain how we used this research to create our final products. Firstly, the chosen genre for our film opening Outlaw was action/mystery and both of these were fairly easy to research as they are the common foundations for many big budget blockbusters of Hollywood and it was just as easy to apply these action and mystery components to our scenes. However in year 13 when we were assigned to producing a music video, our group decided to choose a mixture of two genres, psychedelic music and alternative rock, which is basically a style of rock music popular in the late 1960s that was largely inspired by hallucinogens, or so-called “mind-expanding” drugs such as marijuana and LSD, and that reflected drug-induced states through the use of feedback, electronics, and intense volume. From this our group was able to establish various ideas surrounding the genre, such as, a need to include bright and trippy colors that match the conformity of psychedelic music, thus we edited some shots into being multicolored and reversed so as to implement this. 

 Furthermore, for our film opening 'Outlaw' we decided to create a lot of enigma, which can be summarized to Barthes Hermeneutic Code, referring to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence becomes a mystery to the reader. In correlation with our research of this, the group collectively decided that we would leave the audience questioning every single shot and scene as to the purpose of our main character, for example, the first half of the video consists of the protagonist walking through the wilderness without a clear explanation as to where he is heading and what will be there to greet him. Ultimately, this leaves the audience on edge and allows the enigma to leave them with questions that are unable to be answered until the very end of the film opening. Alternatively, with our year 13 music video it was harder to include the same level of enigma as the lyrics of the song 'Drugs' made it evident as to the direction of the music video and therefore the audience wouldn't need to question what would be happening next.

 In year 12, the only other thing our group needed to research was for the film poster, and we took inspiration from the likes of The Matrix and the first Star Trek movie. We decided to copy and adapt our own version of their film posters, and the influence we gained from them was to have the main villain staring into the camera for the photograph and then this was edited on Photoshop, in which we gave him red devilish eyes. It was as if the villain was staring at the audience, and he was wearing a mask to keep his identity unknown and to keep the element of mystery intact throughout the film opening. Although, because of the tasks of a digipak and website, the need for further research was exceedingly more essential in year 13 for our music video, and this level of research wasn't necessary when creating the film opening. For the digipak we were enticed and inspired in particular by Coldplays digipak for their most recent album because it revolved around brightness and happiness which was exactly our aim and therefore this research was very useful to our group. Next, for the website, Post Malone and Travis Scott were crucial to the creation of our own website, as we drew various ideas from each of their websites in combination to form the image and structure that we so desired, such as, Travis Scotts color scheming of black and green for his homepage, and from this we halved our main photograph into two colors and this worked extraordinarily well in highlighting/focusing the audience on the main artist Paleme.
 Finally, we were required to plan ahead for all of our tasks in year 12, in preparation for the film opening, that way we were able to conduct ourselves in an organised manor and at the same time avoiding mistakes that could have been made if our group didn't plan at all. For our film opening 'Outlaw' we created a very simple storyboard that was practically a simple sketch of what we aimed to shoot on our chosen date, and it was so basic that most of the shots were changed on the day. In a similar fashion we created a shooting schedule which comprised of the date we were going to film on and the equipment that was required for this. On the other hand, with our year 13 music video the shooting schedule was more intricate because of the busy lifestyles each group member had, for example, it had to align with our planners, work schedules and all the other clubs and activities we were involved with. This was very helpful for us in allowing the opportunity for shooting days, otherwise without this schedule the amount we were filming would have been minimized greatly. Similarly, with the music video storyboard it was necessary to include extra detail and information, and as a result we decided to create a video storyboard as well as a physical copy.
 In conclusion, my overall improvements have been considerable in the transition from year 12 to year 13, particularly my research and planning skills for which have played an important part in my products as a whole.  

1A- Post Productions Second Draft

Explain how your use of post production skills have developed over time, and how this has contributed to your media production outcomes.

In digital video, photography, television and film, post-production refers to the tasks that must be completed or executed after the filming or shooting ends. Post production is the third and final step in film creation, and it follows the pre-production and production phases. The use of post production has had a massive influence on my media productions over the last two years since I started the subject in year 12. I have learnt how to utilize it in the most effective way, and from this have perceived the various benefits it creates. This has proved very valuable to me and its merits can be seen in my finished products, such as, my film opening 'Outlaw' and music video 'Drugs'.

 In year 12 for our AS media studies, the editing tasks that were assigned to us were generally small and easy to produce, for example, we had to create a dancing animals video which comprised of putting together various clips in the most suitable order and then possibly adding a few simple effects, like a swirling transition; this was all done using the Premiere Pro software as to which I had zero experience using and thus had to learn the basics as an introduction to editing as a whole.