Compared to the beginning of my college year, studying Media as an A Level, you can tell there is a significant difference in my skills of planning and researching.  Referring back to my blog from AS, you will notice my lack of creativity and skill in making a magazine whilst looking at the preliminary task (college magazine). Due to me studying GCSE Media, I had some experience with cameras, editing and photo shop when it came to producing a piece of work, in this case a magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread.

My preliminary task did not have any planning put into it as well as it being very rushed. However, my final music magazine consisted of a lot of planning and research which meant that it would succeed more than the pre-lim magazine. My music magazine’s research and planning consisted of producing a questionnaire, researching magazines of my chosen genre, producing hand-drawn drafts and digital drafts as well which gave me an idea of how the final product would look like, this is where I was able to alter it to the way I wanted.

 Studying Media in A2 consisted of producing a horror film trailer in groups alongside producing a magazine and poster to promote the film. We started by choosing which sub-genre we would like to work with which shows a development in my research and planning skills as we did film crits and reviewed horror films that were of our chosen genre, making it easier for us to plan our trailer. To further prepare ourselves for making the actual trailer, we were set a task which was to create a horror trailer using only our smartphones to film and edit the work. This took perseverance as we had to see which apps would be best suited for us, etc... 

Now comparing our summer trailer to where we currently are now with our real trailer, there is already a noticeable difference in the products due to our developed planning skills. We had not planned what to film for our summer trailer, however, we have spent weeks doing research and planning for our trailer now which will show once we produce, edit and finalise it. 

To conclude,my planning and research skills have developed tremendously when you compare my work now back to my first piece of work from AS.  I have noticed myself in my work for example, as evidence, that planning a small amount or not at all will definitely affect the final product, showing that it is not produced the best it can be. This can be seen in my AS work, however, by taking time to plan and research will result to better versions of the final product, in my case, it is our horror trailer, magazine and poster.