Research Skills!!

My research skills have improved vastly over the previouse 2 years. When I first began to research things in depth during the AS year of the course I used to just use websites such as wikipedia or the actual website for what I was researching. After a few weeks it became increasingly harder for me to find the exact things that I needed to research, because of this I broadened my search area. Due to me doing this my work improved greatly and I was able to conduct stronger research which then improved my work greatly.

Moving into the A2 section of the course I felt much more comfortable when it came to doing my research for my music video. I was able to do deeper research and look into things much more than I had done at AS. This enabled me to create work that was a much higher standard, that was easy to understand and read through, and that importantly set me up well for the actual creation of my piece.

Overall Confidence!!

Overall over the recent months, my confidence as a media student has improved, I now feel that my coursework is good enough to rival my written work and it will truly be done to the same standard. It took some time for me to believe in myself, but I now know that I shouldn't feel like I can't do things. It's paramount for me to have faith in myself and believe in the abilities that I have. 

Editing Skills!!

As well as gaining more camera skills, my editing has come on leaps and bounds. At the beginning of the A2 section of the course I had next to no confidence surrounding the editing side, I had not done enough to feel confident, however when I was told I was going to edit my own version of my video I had to take on the challenge and throw myself at it with everything I had. I even watched tutorials on how to edit, after my first few hours of editing, I felt 100 times better than I would have done had I not made the effort to research how to edit.

The software that I have had to get to grips with in order for me to complete my editing is Adobe Premier Pro CS6. I managed to edit my own version of the Jessie J track we did as a preliminary task using this software rather well. However when it came to me actually editing my coursework video, my Dad downloaded a 30 day free trial of Adobe's new system, Creative Cloud. This contained an updated version of CS6, it was simpler to use, but it did have some different tools. After I had gotten my head around the new aspects of the software I was comfortable enough in my ability to edit.

Camera Skills!

I have picked up many more camera skills during my second year on the course. I feel infinitely more confident when handling the camera's, especially when it comes to moving with the camera when filming. I feel as though that because I have improved my quality of filming has improved. 

Over the two years I have been studying media I have had the oppurtunity to use several kinds of cameras when filming. I have used a Sony HD Camcorder, which is a traditional video camera, we used this one for the entirity of our first years coursework. I found that it was easy to use, yet it lacked footage quality, meaning my work didn't look as professional as i'd hoped. Despite this I felt comfortable when using this kind of camera. As well as this I also used a few kinds of Canon DSLR camera. I used a 1100D and a 5D. These are both powerful cameras and film well, and produce a high quality video quality. I found that these camera's were much easier to use than the Sony, they enabled me to mover well with the camera and have more control over everything I filmed.