Timelines, Timeframes and Special Effects: software and creative media production

Abstract

Considerable attention has been paid to discussion about the creative possibilities of digital media production, the broader techno‐cultural environment and the pedagogy involved in learning with information and communication technologies. Yet there has been very little detailed discussion about how software actually functions within the learner–computer–product cycle. I argue that software frequently used in the production of digital media by young people (including ‘professional’ standard software like Photoshop or Flash), structures the way young authors conceptualise the medium. I analyse the fusion of analogue and digital ‘metaphors’ within the software interface and explore how common processes (cut ’n’ paste, filters, etc.) build up a repertoire of production ‘skills’, showing how the software influences the making process itself. The article mainly consists of discussion of software as ‘text’. It analyses the use of filters and layers in Photoshop, timelines in video and music editing programs and programming meta‐language in Flash. It aims to advance discussion about how digital production advances practical work in the media, suggesting that working in digital media encourages learners to find: (1) multiple ways of representing the same thing; (2) of representing the representation process; (3) a discourse which combines traditional and non‐traditional specialisms moving the producer away from guild knowledge towards a new language for defining multimedia; (4) reference to meta‐linguistic explanations, especially in the use of programming languages (Action Script, HTML) and how elements are constructed in units between programmes. The article concludes that digital media production creates three kinds of ‘learning effects’: (1) synaesthetic effect—representing one medium through another; (2) translation effect—moving between different ways doing same thing; (3) comparative effect—similar processes applied to different media; and that the particular kinds of learning ‘affordances’ offered by production software need to be integrated into any discussion about curriculum and pedagogy.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Helen Nixon and Stephen O’Hear for their reading of draft versions of this article.