Introduction to Digital Media..
https://www.paramountplus.com.au/training/digital-media-training/
I’ll set the record straight right now. I’m a gamer. It’s what I do, and it’s what my life revolves around for most of the time. I use social media a lot too, of course; may as well use roughly the same media to access stuff like press releases and news. I love everything about gaming; from community, to storytelling, to the sense of fulfilment they can give you no matter how bad you have it in real life.
Naturally then when I was looking for work I decided to find a job that had a lot to do with gaming. So I signed up with a media conglomerate releasing news and tidbits from indie developers and giving them their due spotlight. I think I may have bitten off more than I could chew, because while I was alright at acting as a forum moderator for a while, when the promotion came in and I’d be transferred to social media PR I was basically stuffed; I’ve dabbled in mixed media and content creation a few times in the past just for fun but before I agreed with the promotion and transfer I needed help.
I looked around online if there were any good articles I could read and study so I’d serve well as a social media operator, and apparently there was an entire course built around the use of computer media and interacting with others online through the digital space; the program was called Digital Media Courses. It seemed kind of costly but when I brought it up with my bosses they seemed confident that it’d serve me well in my new forthcoming job; so long as my studies then would not interfere with my work I’d have their blessing to take the course and hopefully get acquainted with everything and finish before the end of the few months they could hold out a replacement.
The first thing I found out when I started the course was that it was a total package course that would tackle near every facet of digital media; from facilitating social interactions using mixed media materials, to creating content using various interesting tools, to dabbling with some concepts related to things like business communication in written form because as they said, I’d be serving that role a lot.
We started off with familiarising ourselves with the many different media formats we’d end up using. To list a few and what they were for, here are some examples:
- Visual Media: These would usually take the form of personalized and usually intricately designed materials such as posters, banners, digital art, mixed media pieces, and so much more.
- Audio Media: These would be live or pre-recorded audio material such as radio adverts, jingles, or just background noises and folly for other media to use.
- Audio-Visual Media: This took the most work to do as you’d have to balance both the visual and audio together into something usable. These usually took the form of a bunch of video formats.
As you’d expect a vast amount of time in the course is dedicated to gaining competency with all three of these. First off was visual media. Had to learn how to use photo editing software like the Adobe suite in almost its entirety; so that meant the creative process of designing posters in the first place (yes that’s a thing we have to do as well) and the production and distribution. Having a background in the visual arts wasn’t entirely necessary, but boy did it help you perform if you did have that.
Audio media is taxing to produce. Recording hardware and software can burn a hole through your finances and it takes a fair bit of competency to even begin to make good on the money spent. Lots of audio mixing, background noises, and a lot of pre and post production that you need to do.
Video media is fun but tedious. It’s also really taxing on the hardware as well; rendering that nonsense would tank the machines; and this was around the mid-2010s so hardware had come a long way from what I thought we’d be using. Video production was as much of an art as it was a process, as you’d have to find a balance of timing, content, and presentation that would comfortably fit into a set timeframe.
Lastly we had to learn a bit about communication as well. It’s a concept that at the time I hadn’t fully wrapped my head around yet, but the basic idea is how you communicate using different forms of media depends on the limitations and advantages offered by said media. Writing could allow you to be as verbose or concise as possible, but you’d have to watch your wording because sometimes what is left unsaid means the most. Audio media meant getting it right the first time 90% of the time, and watching your voice and intonation as this would often change the meaning of your statements. Balancing the two would be important in the video productions you’d make and supplementing the visual elements with the auditory ones.
They also gave us some important strategies on how to properly communicate with others over these different forms of media, and other similar methodologies that help facilitate a conversation between myself to a customer or possible new employee.
The course overall was more tedium than pain and I did get through it in a reasonable time. Went back to work and finally got that promotion and subsequent transfer to the social media position. Thanks to the lessons I learned, keeping things running smoothly hasn’t been much of a hassle, at least as much as I thought it would be. Furthermore I’ve been granted a degree of flexibility that I would have never thought I’d have since I can make my own videos for the company on the fly and keep the content coming in a steady stream. I’m praised for speed, independence, and efficiency, which I can all attribute to my time with that course.