Progress

As I did Media Studies at GCSE Level and got an A in my results, I felt confident, at the beginning, with my knowledge and felt that I could contribute well to the group - as 2 of my group members hadn't taken Media at a GCSE level. From previous knowledge, I feel I understand the codes and conventions of the films well and know the effective ways in which to engage the audience. What's more, I felt I had some good ideas to contribute to the group and found my group easy to communicate with. However, what I didn't feel confident with was the practical side of the task and I also didn't really know the people in my group well, thus I lacked in confidence. Nevertheless, having done the animatic tasks, my confidence began to rise with using the software and I now feel I can help with the practical side a lot more. As a result of this, I enjoy working with my group and helping out with the practical side - as well as the written side of the task. I am not as confident as other members of the group with the software, but I do feel I can help out effectively with it.

On the other hand, I do feel that there are certain individuals in the group who don't pull their weight - and others take too much responsibility. For example, I would like to be involved and given more opportunity in the practical side of the task, as this is one of the main processes in this piece of coursework. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed working with my group and I think that we communicate well, which makes it easy for me to be confident enough to contribute ideas etc. to the group.

Additionally, my progress with the blog has gone well. I do feel that I should update my blog on a regular basis more often and be more detailed and analytical in what I blog, but I am happy with the amount of effort I've put into keeping the blog up to date. I have found it difficult to remember to blog, as it's quite easy to forget to do so, but I am now starting to do this regularly.

Rough Cut

Our teacher discussed ways in which we could improve our rough cut, these included:

- Put some titles over the shot, to enable more time for footage
- Editing to be adjusted on shot 2
- Alter the shot of the female to an over the shoulder shot
- Include more footage of the male character. For example, where is he going? Where does he end up? Change rooms and show his environment
- Classic shot of character falling over
- Put the last three titles over black
- Male character to clear up after himself


Our teacher said our footage was good, with effective shots. We had previously changed a few of our shots and this improved our rough cut effectively. What's more, it was our titles that really let us down on our footage; it was felt that they were unorganised and took up too much time - thus meaning that we had less footage, so the effect of our opening wasn't felt as it should be. We had arranged our titles to be at the start and end. Our teacher gave us some ideas on how we could alter our titles and create a more effective opening. Therefore, we changed our designs, and decided that putting titles over footage would create a better effect to the audience, while enabling us to give more footage to the audience. Having the titles over the footage means that the audience have less to focus on - rather than spending time looking at titles, they can get a sense of the atmosphere and keep with the narrative - keeping the suspense. Overall, our comments on the rought cut have highlighted what we need to change and how we can improve our opening. The most significant being the titles, we as a group feel that having the titles over the footage will have a much better impact on the audience.