UNIT 03 Awareness of Converging Digital Technology in the Creative Media Sector.

UNIT 03 Awareness of Converging Digital Technology in the Creative Media Sector.

03.1 Understand the use of digital technology within the Creative Media sector.

03.2 Understand the implications of converging technology on the workforce in a particular Creative Media industry.

03.3 Know how converging technology has been exploited to reach new audiences and generate revenue.

03.4 Be able to plan a research exercise to test an idea for exploiting converging technology during the production process.

Describe the uses of digital technology within the Creative Media sector and the relationships this has created between industries in the sector.

Technology is used in near enough all areas across the creative media sector today. Over the years technology has progressed massively. It used to be that you could only listen to the radio on a radio or view pictures once they had been printed, now you can listen to the radio not only on the radio but stream it on the internet using a computer or phone and as for photos they are digitally displayed on the device you choose to take them on, they can be transfered to a computer and even shared straight from a phone to social media or privately to others. Also look at what else a phone does today, originally invented just to call people. Phones do pretty much anything you could want to do on it for example call, text, browse the internet, check social media, watch TV, use cameras and even work as satalite navigation devices.

With the developments in technology came more relationships between industries within the sector. Digital technology today is used to record, capture, create, edit, enhance, test, display, present and distribute pretty much anything.

At T2 Design Soluitions we have software which allows us as a company to be able to complete these tasks however specialising in Visualisation we mainly focus on using software such as Photoshop, 3DS MAX, Auto CAD, InDesign and illustrator for design purposes. When it comes to sharing work with the Clients it is mainly done via Drop box or E-mail, all the Jobs are saved onto our internal server making it easy for other people to access within our studio. They then can open any files off the server to do anything that needs to be done to them.

Describe key Intellectual Property and copyright issues, related to digital technology and content creation.
Intellectual Property (IP) is a work or invention that is the result of creativity, such as a manuscript or a design, to which one has rights and for which one may apply for a patent, copyright, trademark, etc.

Copyright can protect:

literary works, including novels, instruction manuals, computer programs, song lyrics, newspaper articles and some types of database
dramatic works, including dance or mime
musical works

artistic works, including paintings, engravings, photographs, sculptures, collages, architecture, technical drawings, diagrams, maps and logos
layouts or typographical arrangements used to publish a work, for a book for instance
recordings of a work, including sound and film
broadcasts of a work
You should only copy or use a work protected by copyright with the copyright owner’s permission.

Copyright applies to any medium. This means that you must not reproduce copyright protected work in another medium without permission. This includes, publishing photographs on the internet, making a sound recording of a book, a painting of a photograph and so on.

Copyright does not protect ideas for a work.  It is only when the work itself is fixed, for example in writing, that copyright automatically protects it. This means that you do not have to apply for copyright.

A copyright protected work can have more than one copyright, or another intellectual property (IP) right, connected to it. For example, an album of music can have separate copyrights for individual songs, sound recordings, artwork, and so on.  Whilst copyright can protect the artwork of your logo, you could also register the logo as a trade mark.

Understand the implications of converging technology on the workforce in a particular Creative Media industry.

what is meant by “converging technology”.
Technological convergence means to merge technologies into new forms that bring together different types of media and applications. New devices and technology usually handle one medium or accomplish some basic tasks; through technological convergence, devices can interact with a wider array of media types. Arguably the best example of technological convergence is a mobile phone. the mobile phone originally had only two purposes, to call and text people, now even the basic mobile phone does much more than that. The mobile phones we have today combine virtual technologies such as social media, apps, games, video and photography.
It also combines physical technologies for example all phones are now designed to plug into a computer or laptop, phones also have a built in camera/ video player and they have a built in MP3 player for music which also requires earphones. All of these are examples of converging technologies.

What are the implications of converging technology on the workforce in a particular Creative Media industry.
I work in the graphic design and Design visualisation industry as an apprentice project support assistant and it’s fair to say converging technologies have radically changed how things work. For example a few years ago a Graphic Designer would have to meet with a client and try and scribble down notes on a piece of paper and try to scribble drawings down where as now you can take possibly a laptop or tablet with you and be able to voice record the conversation to be played back later or even type our the clients request, you will also be able to flick to images to say is it this sort of thing you are thinking of and save them for reference rather than attempting to create terrible scribbles that actually look relevent. you can skype presentations of ideas to clients rather that having to travel for hours, and the same applies to meetings of any type. You can easily send files weather its a powerpoint with a recording of you explaining what it shows as part of it or if its just a flat PDF image between people and they can easily reply with feedback in any form.
When it comes to websites not just ourselves but other people in creative media industries are taking advantage of converging technology to produce better products and getting more viewers. Many people in the creative media sector are developing websites for PC and adapting them to perform usefully for the smaller screens of mobile phones and tablets as many people are preferring to use them instead of a PC to browse the internet.

Know how converging technology has been exploited to reach new audiences and generate revenue.

Describe the changing expectations of audiences and consumers within a chosen Creative Media industry.
If you are just browsing the web or walking down the street you will notice a lot of Digitally created images today look very realistic and clean, Think back to what was being used 10 years ago and the difference that you see when you look at something that has been created today. This has had a huge impact on client’s expectations of what they can get for their money. In actual fact yes you can Create a very nice branded up draft housing sales leaflet in a few days and get it perfectly laid out up to the clients standard in a couple more but it all comes down to the amount of time it’s going to take to create and amend the images or how many times things need to be moved as to what you will actually

get for your money. This is why it’s key to work as accurately to client’s requests and expectations when it comes to this as the more changes they make the more it will cost.

Describe examples of how multi-platform content has been used to reach new audiences and generate revenue.
Multi platform content is a form of displaying entertainment over a range of media platforms, what ever it is you want to show is shown over a range of media platforms, for example if we created an animation we can use multi platforms such as television broadcast, online video (Youtube), mobile phones, DVD and Tablets so that people can view it.
The content of the multi-platform series can either be different over each type of media, or the content can be the same in each delivery stream, created intentionally to be seen on any screen ir device the viewer wishes.

Describe examples of commissioning processes and funding opportunities in relation to converging technology
When commissioning a client there are a few different ways this can occur. For gaining smaller clients with smaller budgets we are usually recommended or they find us through word of mouth, they have then approached us stating their budget and then we have told them what that will get them. For bigger clients there is more of a defined process. A job will be posted with a specification and brief. From this we will be invited to tender where we will outline our process, what we will do, give some examples in the form of case studies and then get down to the bottom line of the budget and how much it will cost in total. We will then send this off and see if we win the job. If we win the job then contracts are discussed and agreed then work can commence.

In relation to converging technologies the commissioning process hasn’t really changed but just developed in a way to support it and make clients aware. Converging technology means that today there are often many different ways to complete the same task whether it is right/wrong or just doesn’t matter. This is often all about making the client aware of the methods that you use to complete certain tasks and then budgeting appropriately if it needs to done differently.

Be able to plan a research exercise to test an idea for exploiting converging technology.

Explain opportunities for exploiting converging technology.
One of the main exploits of converging technology is the rising amount of peer to peer sharing. In some cases this system is very useful, as important pieces of information or files can be transferred, for example, between two separate offices of the same company. However recently the advances in peer to peers file sharing has become a method of sharing copyrighted material such as films, music, video games etc.

Research and plan a test for an identified opportunity
A good way to research converging technology would be to set up a web page or blog that logs how each user came to access the site. For example i have a google blog and when i log in i can see how many people have viewed it, what the most popular page is, where in the world it has been viewed from, the search engine used to find it and the device it has been viewed from.

Carry out planned test and evaluate and present the findings

Some of this information was sourced from different websites and brought together in this document.