Richard Parker completed a personal skills audit to assess his skills for his A2 project. In his AS project, he used various digital software like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, as well as equipment like cameras and a green screen. He plans to continue developing these skills during his A2 project. In post-production of his AS project, he used software like Final Cut and Photoshop to edit elements and present a finished product. He will continue practicing with this software. For research and planning of his AS project, Richard conducted research on genre conventions which helped him understand tasks and represent the genre accurately. He will apply similar research strategies to his A2 project. Richard analyzed films like LA Confidential to learn genre conventions

1. Personal Skills Audit Name: Richard Parker ______________________________________
Skills acquired How did these skills
contribute to the creation of
your product?
How will you develop these
skills during the A2 project?
Digital technology
- What
equipment/software
packages did you use to
produce your
production?
For our AS project we used the
following programs and
equipment to create our final
product: Adobe Photoshop,
Adobe Illustrator, Final Cut,
IMovie, Blogger, green screen,
and cameras.
The skills helped towards the
production of our project as it
allowed us to present our ideas
through a physical form, so the
audience could experience our
ideas, thoughts and creativity.
To develop the skills I have
previously learnt in my AS
project I will continue to use and
explore the programs and
software I used and continue to
learn new techniques etc with
the equipment so I can build on
what I already know.
Post production
- What software did you
use to create your
production?
- Discuss specific features
of the software.
In post production we mainly
used Final Cut and Photoshop.
We used them to edit our ruff
shooting and elements of the
project, so that they where at a
presentable standard. Final Cut
was a very useful piece of
software as it allowed us to do
more than we could have done
using inferior software such as
IMovie.
The software I used in post-
production really did make the
project as it took it from a few
ruff clips to a finished product.
The software (especially
Finalcut) allowed me to add all
of the conventions of the genre
in to my film, by adding effects,
music etc.
Once again I will just continue
to use the software and become
more confident using them and
explore there features so that I
can get the maximum from
them.

2. Research and Planning
- What tasks did you
complete when
preparing to film your
sequence?
- How did your planning
help the smooth
progression of your film?
Tasks we did to help prepare us
for the filming of our project
where mainly research tasks on
the genre and conventions of
the genre of our film. Which
helped is understand what
really needed to be featured in
our film and the way we needed
to film it etc.
Research was essential to the
success of our project as it
allowed us to give a much
better representation to the
genre and allow us to
understand the task in much
more detail than we could have
done without research being
done before hand.
To use the research tasks I
learnt in AS I will consider the
types of tasks I did and the
recourses I used to gather
information when trying to
research my A2 project.
Using conventions of real
media texts
- Which texts did you
analyse?
- Did you take any
inspiration from the
conventions found from
your research?
The real media texts that I
looked at and analysed where:
LA Confidential, Kiss Kiss Bang
Bang, Sin City, Big Combo.
From these films we learnt the
conventions that are included in
the genre and how they are
effectively used in the films.
Watching these existing films
helped me to understand how
the conventions of the genre
are worked in to the films in a
creative and effective manner. I
also got a better understanding
of how the camera moved and
the way it captures the actors
on screen.
From watching existing films of
the same genre I have
developed my observational
and analysis skills which will
should come in useful in my A2
work.
Creativity
- were our ideas for your
portfolio imaginative and unique
or did you adhere to
conventions?
I believe that my portfolio was
pretty imaginative, as I used
several different ways to
present my work, which I felt
put the specific pieces of work
over to the audience the best.
Ultimately the portfolio is what
get marked and what is seen by
other people. So being creative
really helped the portfolio to be
more appealing and present the
work better to whoever is
looking at it.
When trying to be creative in
my as project I used a number
of different ways to present my
work, so in A2 I will hopefully
take on board some of these
methods to present my work.