Describe how you developed your skills in the use of digital technology for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to your creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

Steve Jobs believed "Creativity is just connecting things, when you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they really didn't do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after while". For me creativity lies between the boundaries of creating something "new" and re-arranging the old (existing conventions of products) to make something to be perceived as "creative". Through my own experiences I've used digital technology to create, produce and exemplify my own products building my skills to create a higher quality of product.

At foundation level and through to my additional level I have developed my skills through the creation of media products. This is most obvious when looking at the similarities and deference's of my foundation "Music Magazine (MM)" and my Digipak created at additional level (DP). To create my MM I used a programme called Photoshop in which I was scarcely familiar with. It allowed me to become competent with the use of tools such as the "magic wand" and "magnetic lasso" which subsequently allowed me to create a product design I had mocked up. The "magic wand" was an important tool I learnt to use when developing my draft version of my MM and this allowed me to use the convention of text repetition across my front cover on my final version. Being able to re-create the look I was going for was really important for my product to be aesthetically effective and being able to use the technology to do so was a really important attribute to have learnt. I took this new competence with the programme into my additional level when creating my DP, I decided that the most appropriate convention for my band image would be again text repetition but this time I was allowed to experiment. For example this time I decided to try and make the text repetition much more interesting and detailed, instead of being all horizontal and within invisible guide lines I used rotation and variance in font size to portray a much more "scruffy" and "gravity" like image and my growing experience allowed with the programme was one of the main factors allowing me to decide on that main convention.

Another example of this progression through my two levels was through photography. At the foundation level I learnt about the different types of shots, and was introduced to the golden spiral and three triangles rules which allowed me to correctly position a photo with an artist and props within. I practised taking images with my artist for my MM through a draft shoot and final shoot. Being able to do a draft made me realise the organisation skills I needed to gain, through costume, location and timing to gain the image I wanted to create. This helped me organise my final photo shoot creating the artist and setting around them, also with experience of using the camera and knowing the many shot types I could take a larger variety of shots in which would be suitable. This gain in experience and technical ability was influential in my creative decision making at advanced level. When developing my DP I needed to use a convention along my inside panels which I could design to a high quality. My target audience were very interested in the "behind the scenes" picture collections found in album booklets, therefore one obvious convention would be a series of images of the band. My previous experience from foundation with using a camera and the different shot types and there effects gave me the confidence that I could successfully create an image montage. I took these images whilst filming my music video using my iPhone 4, this was successful at taking the shots I wanted and I could use it withe grid tool which I became aware of at foundation level.

Digital technology has been extremely important when creating my products, without it I would have struggled to create my products and maybe without its use in real life products struggle to plan and design my own development of existing conventions. A growing experience in these technologies has allowed me to become confident that I can create existing conventions to a high quality and therefore has allowed me to expand my range of possible (realistic) ideas for my products and therefore the development of my skills has been crucial to create my final products at additional level.