Production

Evaluation Question 1:

This is a new technology called xtranormal it uses a cartoon film to portray my evaluation question number 1. I hope you enjoy. Some computers do not support the software and it may just be blank however there is still sound.

Evaluation question 2:

Presentation using Slideshare conveying my answer:

How effective is the combination of your main

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Evaluation question 3:

What have you learned from your audience feedback?
From my audience feedback I have learnt a lot. I have firstly learnt that the feedback from an audience is imperative to a production like this to because a production cannot be considered a success without the opinion of the audience and is dependent on audience responses. With this in mind it became clear to me after audience responses that I would take their opinions on board and try and make alteration to the product in order for the production to be better.
For instance in response to Paula who early on who said:
"The use of the writing in the diary is a good idea but I reckon the use of Phone technology to show thoughts would be more effective."
We took this into account and thought it through and it made sense so as a result we changed it and it is something that has become a common theme throughout therefore it was a good idea and allowed us to use digital technology within the production.
We took different forms of feedback: video and verbal feedback. The most important feedback we received was things such as ' using different types of shots' without this feedback the product would not be how it is today and as a result it would not have made as much progress. A piece of feedback which we received was ‘make the story line more dramatic’. Although these comments would suggest the product wasn’t good and can be seen as to be negative comments. We felt we needed to turn a positive into a negative to make the product better. To overcome the problem of using different shot types and angles, we used different angles such as long angles, Close Ups and Mid Shots to show differentiation between shots. Also to make our product more dramatic we added in scenes (picture from production) to create more drama so the product doesn’t become boring. Taking these comments into account we have learnt that the best way to meet the needs of the audience is to ask them what they think and then satisfy any needs or wishes they have in order to get a better response to the product whether it be ancillary or main production work. We did improve our product and this was conveyed when we received comments like "I like that", "oh that’s a really good idea”
Here is a voice note of myself further talking about what we learnt from audience feedback to our production:

Evaluation Question 4:

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I have answered this question uing Prezi which is a more advanced way to convey answers:

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? on Prezi

Audience response to production

Here are the audience responses to my main production 'Pariah' using Prezi:

Audience response to main production on Prezi

From As to A2

This is a voice note expressing the progression I have made from my As Magazine to A2 Film production and the difference between the two.

Word board

This is a word board simply summarising what my production: Pariah is about.

Time management

Reflecting on this it has been very hard to time manage from the beginning this is because of the drastic weather changes which we have had to endure. This has affected us negatively due to the fact during production it would make no sense and make the film look amateur like when there is evidence of weather changes within the production.
Also, the main actress schedule has been hard to work around making it difficult for us to allocate time and places to meet. As well, as the actress changing her clothes so it was hard to make the actress show continuity in her costume.
Furthermore, absenteeism has been an issue and because of this has slowed down production progress because it is hard to operate without the actress being there when needed.
Moreover, the lack of and availability of equipment also affected time management negatively because the technological equipment was in high demand therefore it was hard to get hold of a camera in order to film. Also, at the earlier stages of production there was no camera available at all. As a result, we were often unable to film simply because of a lack of equipment.

How I could of done better and what to change?

If I could do this again I would of acted myself within the production this is because during the time we had to film it was hard to get started due to the fact we were working around out main actresses time table. Therefore it was hard to allocate times when we could all be in the same place to film. Furthermore, it was difficult to direct the actress to what I wanted her to do because the vision I had in my head was hard to portray to the actor. The only way for us myself to overcome this I feel would have been for me to do it myself.
I would have also managed time more appropriately to make sure all deadlines were met. I would have done this by making a scheduling table to try and allocate times etc of when to film and when to get ancillary times done. As a result of this we wouldn’t have been struggling for time toward the end. Reflecting back on it I would have been more decisive when making decisions as this made progress much slower as we were always changing ideas. If we had stuck to one it would have been easier and less hassle in the long run/

Shot types

Within our production we have tried to add in a different variety of shots to cause drama or intensify actions. The use of these alternated shots would allow us to reach higher boundaries in the mark scheme. Here are the types of shots that we have used during our production:

This is a over the shoulder shot of our protagonist character walking into the room in this scene it is a walking pan showing her entrance into the room. The effects of an over shoulder shot is: Filming over an actor's shoulder focuses the audience's attention on one actor at a time in a conversation, rather than on both. in this case we have used the over the shoulder shot in order to gain protagonist characters view point.

Here we have used a long shot of our protagonist character this is used to show a long shot is used to stress the environment or setting of a scene but is not an establishing shot. This is the reverse shot of the protagonist character walking through a door we used this in order to show a variation in shot types in our production.
This is an establish shot normally taken from a great distance that establishes where the action is about to occur. We have used this to show versimilitude as an element of realism within our production of everyday life in crystal palace.

Audience response to radio trailer

Here are the responses of the audience to my Radio Trailer using Prezi:

Radio Trailer on Prezi

Radio Trailer

This is the offical radio trailer for our Film Production which we produced using final cut pro (Ignore the images as they aren't meant to be there)

Preliminary Task 2 reasearch into Radio Trailers

The radio trailer script is our second pre-production task. Which we are using to advertise the production. We used this as it is realistic way in which to advertise a new film and a way in which real film companies market there products.

Before we could compose ours I decided to conduct some research into radio trailers
Here is an example:



On top of this I feel it would be good to add in audience responses to make the trailer more advertising as people want to hear positive reviews on a film. Therefore they are more likely to want to and see the film.

Here is a video on 'Avatar' reviews:

Symbolism and Motifs

For the entirety of the media course, our teachers have built up a compilation of films, genres and directors across the ages. We have watched films such as:
'This Is England', 'Rebel without a cause' and more . Me and my partner have paid special attention to the english films like 'This is england','Quadrophenia' and 'Fish Tank'. When watching all of these films, I noticed that each and every film had hidden connotations and symbols to represent different things.
My partner and I decided to use a Swan in our film to symbolise: hope and freedom. We have chosen this as we feel it fits in well with the genre and also has great connection with the the theame of our film 'identity'.

Audio Track

This is the audio track which we have decided to use for our production:

Fonts

We wanted our whole production portray effective continuity so we decided t it would be good idea to have one strong font in the title sequence of the film and in the magazine article.

We chose the American Typewriter Font as we thought that it was quite edgy and related to the theme of identity.
Other fonts we tried weren't as effective and were harder to read and we felt didn't really suite our genre.

Permission for audio track

We didn't originally have a audio track to play as background music in our product. Therfore, after trying to make one; We have already conducted research into Grime genre and have decided to send a message to 'Flukes' the creator of the music instrumental: "Crying Under Water". We asked for permission to include it in my film. He agreed and said that they would love to see the finished product.

Audience responses on Magazine Article

Here are some responses to our magazine, using Prezi:

Audience Feedback on Prezi

Finished product of Preliminary Task 1: Magazine Article

Preliminary task 2: Radio Trailer (Planning)

Pariah

(Starts with music from the film)

Voice: Sometimes saying nothing is the best thing to do.

Starring Best Newcomer: Debbie Adedeji
From the makers of ‘The Highlife’ comes ‘Pariah’

Reviewer 1: It was a very moving film.

Fade into music and fade out

Reviewer 2: The twist at the end was really unexpected and made the film a must see.

Fade into music and fade out

Reviewer 3: The characters were so realistic and really showed the issue well.

(With music in the background)
-‘Groundbreaking short film of the year’ says The Sun
-‘Manages to portray serious issues in a way that entices the viewer’ says The Independent
-‘A fascinating and captivating tale that compliments the British Film Industry’ says Time Out

Preliminary Task 1: Magazine

To create the magazine article we used Adobe In Design. I didn't have much problems with this task as I have used it previously to create a magazine last year so it acted as a synopsis between the two years and complemented this task well.
The image used is of our main character, Debbie. I thought it was effective that it only shows part of her face as it plays with the idea of the struggle for identity. Aswell as a closeup to add to the itensity of the picture and as a result to the film.
We chose the colour scheme black and white with red because we felt that black and white represented the simplicity of our film as well as the dull colours reflecting the feel of the film.

Research into film magazine articles

Due to the fact I do not know much about film magazines I have decided to conduct some research into film magazine to gain a greater insight into what they are about and how to conduct mine
I have put together a presentation on Empire magazine which is a British film magazine:

Empire magazine

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Meeting 2

At our second offical meeting, we planned dates for filming and arranged to meet up with the cast to tell them what their parts consisted of and how we wanted them to act through leadership and good directing. We also looked at the storyboard and separated it over a course of 3 weeks so we had sufficient time to film each scene. Also we talked about how we could make the story better and what types of shots could possibly get us more marks.

Research into drama audio

In relation to the genre of the film being Drama. I have conducted some research into the music types we should have playing as non-diagetic sound in our film. As kidulthood is one our main inspirations being an english film also. I have decided to take a look at their soundtrack:
Taking this into account and looking at other sources for instance Shank 2009 Film.

Here is the research I did:

Grime genre

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Equipment List

We will need various pieces of equipment to film at our chosen locations.
We will need:
-HD Camera
-Tripod
-Cast
-Props (Blackberry Smartphone)
-Apple Mac computer with Final Cut Pro installed

Story Board

"Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity." wikipedia



We created this story board in order to keep organised and have a guideline as to what we should record next due to the fact we had certain designated times to record so we needed to keep track of what we were doing via the story board.

Final Cut Pro for beginners

I have used Final Cut Pro before but I need to improve my skills to ensure that the finished product has a cutting edge and therefore is a success.

As a result I have decided to refresh my mind with some basic skills:
And then proceeded to search for specific things I wanted to learn such as fading out and adding a title sequence.

Practise Run

At the beginning of filming we began with writing in a diary for our main actor to convey her thoughts.
After carful consideration and talking to teachers and other member of our class such as Paula who said: "The use of the writing in the diary is a good idea but I reckon the use of Phone technology to show thoughts would be more effective." We have decided to take this in board and see how it goes as we believe Paula's opinion to be a valid one in this case

Changes to film treatment

We tested out the idea of writing in a journal as a way to convey thoughts rather than having a voice over and we do feel that this idea looks quite amateurish and we are looking into other ways as to how we can convey thoughts.


We decided that we would also change the theme to bullying instead of self-harming as it could be very effective without looking un-realistic.
We also changed the idea of the thoughts coming to life as we didn't think it was within our ability to do this with the equipment we have at hand.

Shooting Script

PREMISE:
This will feature a character with a troubled life which results in her self harming. It will also include many of the events that lead up to her death. It will be shot in normal film using a HD camera. The production will involve detailed costume and prop choices to illustrate class and position in society. As it is an abstract film, it will not be centred on a typical genre such as horror or romance. This is important at reaching the target audience because the younger generation are always attracted to something new and different. The production will involve various forms of modern technology such as a Blackberry Smart phone and an iPod. The function of this film is to show how lives change due to class and identity and social issues.

Scene 1
SHOTS USED: Close up, Tilt, Zoom and Panning shot
Part 1: The scene will start with a tilt from the character’s feet up (face is not shown). This will show costume and props. It will then lead up to the first subject. This will be shown through a close up on the main character's hands with a blade in the right hand. The next shot will show a pool of blood (close up). The title sequence will appear whilst this is happening (E.G. A screenplay by: Asher Boyd and Vanessa Blankson ... A&V productions present...)Part 2: There will be a panning shot towards the desk where the cover of a diary is opened. A drop of blood will fall on the page; the first character (still not shown) will be filmed writing in the book. The writing will reflect her thoughts, which will then be brought to life, by a zoom in to the book and a fade into the thought/memory.

Scene 2
SHOTS USED: Mid Shot, Wide Shot, Panning Shot, POV Shot
There will be a Mid Shot of the character standing at the bus stop. There will be a Panning Shot to show the people on the opposite side of the road. They will be looking at her and whispering and giggling, this will be shot with a Wide Shot. There will be a POV Shot to show her reaction of the people talking about her. This scene will identify her place in society, showing her as an outcast who is oppressed by her peers. This scene is where the voice over starts.


Scene 3
SHOTS USED: Long Shot, Tilt, Shaky Camera, Panning Shot
There is a Long Shot of the main character as she walks home. She waits for the bus but it hasn’t arrived. She decides to take a shortcut through the woods. A tilt will be used here to emphasise the height of the trees and how small she is. (Show vulnerability). The main character is walking frantically because it is late and getting dark, this will be done using shaky camera. She hears something and turns around but there is nothing there. She continues to walk and again hears a noise, and sees nothing. (These will be shown through Panning Shots). She eventually reaches the exit and catches the bus from another bus stop.


Scene 4
SHOTS USED: Close up, Tilt, Zoom and Panning shot, Cut Away
There is a cut away to the character a blade dropping to the ground into a pool of blood (Close up). Scene 1 part 1 is repeated.


Scene 5
SHOTS USED: Close up, Tilt, Zoom and Panning shot, Cut Away
The final scene will end at a graveyard and the audience discover that she’s dead and that she is visiting her own funeral. Slow motion will be used here to show the change in time and the build up. There will be a long shot used here to show the character's last moments.

Film Treatment

A screenplay by:Vanessa Blankson and Asher Boyd
Production Company: A&V present a film in the genre of a Drama/Thriller/Abstract

Premise
This will feature a character with a troubled life which results in her self harming. It will also include many of the events that led up to her death. It will be shot using normal film using a HD camera. The production will involve detailed costume and prop choices to illustrate class and position in society.

As it is an abstract film, it will not be centred around a typical genre such as horror or romance. This is important at reaching the target audience because the younger generation are always attracted to something new and different. The production will involve various forms of modern technology such as a Blackberry Smart phone and an iPod. The function of this film is to show how lives change due to class, identity and social issues.

Scene 1

The scene will start with a close up on the main character's wrists with blood dripping. The title sequence will appear whilst this is happening (E.G. A screenplay by: Vanessa Blankson and Asher Boyd.. A&V productions present..)The cover of a diary is opened. A drop of blood will fall on the page, the first character (not shown) will be filmed writing in the book. The writing will reflect her thoughts, which will then be brought to life, by a zoom in to the book and a fade into the thought/memory.

Scene 2

The character is standing at the bus stop and the people on the opposite side of the road are looking at her and whispering and giggling. When edited, this will have a hazy effect or black and white effect to show that it is a flash back. This scene will identify her place in society, showing her as an outcast who is oppressed by her peers. There will be clips of an argument shown in sequence (movement photography/stop motion). This scene is where the voice over starts.

Scene 3

Following on from the stop motion, the main character is shown on her way home. She waits for the bus but it hasn't arrived. She decides to take a shortcut through the woods. Again this will be shown using a hazy/black and white effect to illustrate the concept of flash backs,along with the voice over. The main character is walking frantically because it is late and getting dark. She hears something and turns around but there is nothing there. She continues to walk and again hears a noise, and sees nothing. She eventually reaches the exit and catches the bus from another bus stop.

Scene 4
The character writes in her diary and then the thought comes to life. This scene shows a knife dropping to the ground into a pool of blood. It then moves to the girl's wrists with blood pouring out of them. (hazy/black and white effect).Scene 5 The final scene will end at a graveyard and the audience discover that she's dead and that it is the anniversary of her death.

Digital Moodboard

Here is a digital moodboard we created to convey the types of things I wished to have in my film. It will incorporate issues of the struggle for identity, the deterioration of relationships along with modern technology and social networking devices. We believe this will give us direction and ideas as to where we are going within our film.

Inspirations for the film & Artistic Influences

We were inspired by the film 'The Lovely Bones' as we liked the storyline and the plot: A girl was murdered and the film follows her as she watches over her family and her killer from heaven.
We are going to try and implement this use of fantasy element in our production but instead use it to create enigma, so the audience do not realise the death until the end of the film.

<<<<<

We are going to use the idea of beginning the film with a close up of a book. When it opens the story begins. As our character writes in the book about events that have happened, the book zooms in to a scene and they
come to life.

Another piece in which we took inspiration from was, 'Citizen Kane', a 1941 drama film starring Orson Welles. This uses the same concept of flashbacks we plan to use in our production.

Meeting number 1

During our meeting, me and my partner Vanessa evaluated all of our research and feedback and considered trying to think deeper on what our production should consist of.

We already had some concrete ideas such as our main character (Debbie) and the name of our film (Pariah). The next thing we had to decide was how the storyline will pan out and the ways in which we could adapt it to make it more entertaining and more dramatic.
Synopsis of film: The synopsis of the film is that the main character, Debbie, is having trouble fitting in at school and later on is bullied, which makes her a social outcast. She later cracks and commits suicide.

Character Planning & Location Search

In order to incorporate a sense of verisimilitude, we decided to film in and around school grounds. This is because school is where teenage lives are created and identites are made or broken. Therefore, we felt it would be suitable to film in and around school.
Here are some location shots:












Characterization:
This is a picture of a teenaged girl our main actor. We decided to chose her as we felt the use of a black teenaged girl going through hard times people could relate to in the diverse culture which we live. Therefore, we felt she would fit the role due to the fact within Kidulthood the main actress who played the upset teen we wanted to sort of mimic this so we felt with Debbies acting skills we could use her to portray a character like 'Alcia' in Kidulthood.



We used 'Alcia' as inspiration for our production for a female character as she portrays the stereotypical emotional teen.

Ratings and Maslow's Heirachy of Needs

Maslow's heirachy of needs is important when creating a production piece as each member of our target audience has needs. With this in mind Maslow says that
We have chosen to cater for the older teenager demographic as we believe our
theme (the struggle for identity) is something that young people can relate to as we are also representations of youth culture ourselves and this is something that we should be able to portray effectively.

Maslow’s Hierarchy demonstrates the different aspects that people need to have satisfied and accomplished in order to move on to the next step. Eventually, when all the steps have been completed, ‘Self Actualisation’ is made in which you are genuinely happy in yourself.

Excluding nutritional needs and requirements, in my opinion, our film could help its audience achieve Self Actualisation.

I say this because the film focuses on a teenager who is a social outcast and is feelin secluded and has not one to turn to. Therefore, demonstrates a character whose life is going to fall apart due to being an outcast. Because everyone at that age wants to be apart of something . Viewers of the film would hopefully not be experiencing exactly the same hardships as the characters and so would feel good about their own lives and begin to appreciate that they do in fact have very fulfilled lives.


Our target audience ranged from 15-21 as we believed this was the average range that our piece would appeal to.



We have chosen to rate our film as a 15 as it doesn't involve any violence, vulgar language or sex, however, it does involve suicidal references.

Marxism Cybernetic Capitalism and feministic mystique & male gaze

In our Media Studies lesson, we learnt about the Marxist theory, Cybernetic Capitalism and touched on The Hypodermic Needle Theory. Marxists see the media as brainwashing so that we don't rebel - it is a method of control. It is sometimes described as 'Humankind's history fundamentally is a struggle between social classes.' This statement is what the theory of Marxism is centred on. It focuses on the struggle of classes and illustrates how it puts people in a mould.
Marxism with my production
A Marxist would argue that my product illustrates how education puts people into a mould and is a means of control.

Cybernetic Capitalism
This theory argues that technology, particularly the internet, manipulates and controls people. This theory hits at the fact that digital media has a great hold over young peoples' lives and culture, and could also shape their identities. This has influenced my production to include various forms of media within the film.
The Hypodermic Needle Theory
This goes with the idea that media injects messages to a passive audience.

Feminine Mystique
Betty Friedan, 1963
Her hypothesis was that women live their lives trying to find meaning through their husbands and children.

The Male Gaze
Laura Mulvey,
She argues that the 'Male Gaze' has more significance over 'The Female Gaze.' This theory enforces the fact that men objectify women.
Laura Mulvey says: "the male figure cannot bear the burden of sexual objectification. Man is reluctant to gaze…" Meaning the female gaze is different as men are not used to being objectified in such a manner.

Updates and Further Research

After careful consideration we have decided to go with 'Pariah' as our film title. Due to the fact we conducted a questionnaire
and responses suggested 'Pariah' was the best name to chose.

Here is an example of an existing product:

Shades of Grey


This is an example of a low budget film which gives us insight on what we may be able to achieve with a very low budget.
"neo-noir films include identity crises, memory issues and subjectivity, and most importantly technological problems and their social ramifications." By incorporating technology into our production, it will appeal to our target audience and add a new twist to our film.

Misfits
Misfits is an example of a high budget drama series that embodies the themes we want to express within our piece (the idea of a social outcast.

Audience profile

Michelle is a 16 year old who goes to Kingston College. She lives with her family in Norbury. He lives the normal teen life; which entails her going out with friends, social networking, boyfriend troubles, shopping and raving. She has a passionate love for movies and enjoys listening to music. She is specifically into the Hip-Hop and Grime genre of music and enjoys drama and action films.

This gave me an indication that the right target audience for our film was the 15-18 range due to the fact they are into drama films.

In relation to my chosen person Michelle.

Audience Research & Feedback

In order for our short film to be successful it needs to be appealing to our target audience as they are who we are aiming at and in return make the film a success by its responses. Therefore, we need to conduct some research into our audience. This will enable us to distinguish who we are aiming our product at and what we need to include for it to be an effective film. As a result, with this in mind we have decided to conduct a survey which will tell us which film genre to pick when addressing a target audience of 15-18 years (older teens).

With this infomation we then found that action, thriller and drama were most popular amongst our target audience via the questionaire we produced:

With this infomation from the results we then decided to look at a film which uses Drama that we feel may be an inspiration to our film.
This being:

We chose this film to use as a research tool due to the fact its about struggle for identity of troubles youths and uses a sence of versmilitude. With this in mind we felt this would be good to draw inspiration from as we wish to use similar conventions from the film and incorporate it into our film. Furthermore, due to the fact this film is aimed at the older teenager it gives us further reasoning to use this film as inspiration for our drama.

Here is a presentation I used for further research into the film Kidulthood in order to gain a greater insight into the film after watching it and how it could help our film by gaining ideas from it.

The above presentation demonstrates my research into Drama films, it is a presentation I created on the Drama film: Kidulthood 2006. This research influenced my production due to the fact I not only researched into Kidulthhood, but also watched films such as Adulthood, Bullit boy and This is England. This was extremely helpful in my pre production planning because I was able to analyse the way they created meaning. Through the use of sound, mise en scene, camera work and representation of characters. I noticed that the films conventionally use exaggerated story lines in order to keep viewers entertained and capivated by the film with the use of exaggereated drama and also keep a sence of versimiltude to maintain realism.

Initial ideas and planning

We considered many ideas such as Horror or comedy but felt that if executed wrong could turn out to be very unrealistic and would be unsuccessful.

We finalised our ideas and decided to do a drama film with elements of the action due to the responses to our surveys.
We decided to conduct some research into the genre of drama and I have produced a presentation which conveys what we need and what the genre of Drama is about:

Genre

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After this we have now decided the story will involve a teenage girl, having problems at school and at home the audience see the effects of her being a social outcast

Originally, the whole film was going to be done in movement photography and would have aspects of film noir incorporated into it. After some research we thought that it would be a good idea to incorporate Neo-Noir instead.
Due to the fact Neo-Noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s. we felt this would be better for our film as it is closely associated with films of its time of nowadays and because of this is why we chose to use Neo-Noir.


After conducting some market research into film title lengths and which would be suitable for our film. We decided on short film titles because after looking a the short 'Top Rated "Short" Titles'
It became apparent to have a short title so we decided on a one word title to keep and short and simple. Here are the different names we are considering for our film:

Codes and Conventions of a short film

Short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. A short film. A successful short film uses a range of shots that will enable the audience to feel involved in the narrative. They are usually centered around a protagonist and involve a surprising twist at the end.

With this research conducted we have found out what it takes to make a short film and are now relishing the task.

Here is an example of a short film:

Introduction to film making and response to brief

During our Media Studies lesson we had an introduction into the film making section of the course. We were able to read up on the film criteria which we could chose from. As a result from this me and my partner Vanessa decided to choose:

10. A short film in its entirety approximately 5 minutes, which may be live action or a combination of both together with the following three options: A poster for the film A radio trailer for the film A film magazine review page featuring the film.

We chose to do a magazine review and a radio trailer. This is because we thought it would be a good idea to see the finished product and also to improve our Photoshop and Indesign skills which would then act as a synopsis of the course in its entirety with the use of these programmes. As we used these programmes during AS Media.