AS Media is finishing...

So AS Media is coming to an end. I have thoroughly enjoyed doing Media for AS as I have gained skills in terms of analysing TV dramas, note taking and gaining knowelege on film institutions and the distribution of films. Everyone said that Media is hard and a very challenging subject which they were right about however, the subject has persuaded me to work hard for the grade I want to carry on with it at A2. I am now more confident with the exam as I actually enjoy doing the practice papers as I feel that they are quite easy if you know your stuff and know how to phrase a particular question. Doing the film opening was the biggest challenge as it was very stressful and it took up a lot of time however, I found it fun going out filming; especially when we got the shots that we wanted and put it all together when we edited. I found working in my group very rewarding as we all got on well and worked as a team. Overall, I am very happy with what we created at the end of it as it was such a relief. If I get into A2 Media, I can guarantee that I will work as hard as I feel I did for AS Media.

Media Essays

So over Easter, we were given 5 essays to do. 1 for Section A and 4 for Section B. At first I was very hesitant about doing the 4 essays for section B. Even though I tend to do better on that section, I am less confident with it but I gave them a go and this week I got the results back. I am proud to say that I got a level 4 on all of them which I was very pleasantly surprised with. I feel that by gaining those results, I have now gained more confidence in giving relevant information on distribution of films and institutions. I am now waiting for my results back from my Section A essay which I hope I have done just as well on.

Finished Evaluation

So me and Sophie finished our evaluation. We filmed ourselves on the Mac and we did each question individually rather than filming it in one big chunk. For introducing the questions, we had a black screen with the question in white writing before we answered it to break everything up. We then included pictures and video clips of our film wherever necessary to back up a statement that we made. Lastly, we added a backing song while we were talking. We chose When I Was A Youngster by Rizzle Kicks because we felt that it contrasted with the concept of our film opening. Overall, I quite enjoyed doing our evaluations because it allowed us to sum up everything that we had learnt and explain why we did certain things for our film. By doing this evaluation, I have also gained some editing techniques that I may use in the future for extra media purposes.

Outtakes

This is a video we made of our outtakes from all of the times that we went out filming.

Representation of Disability.

Rep of Disability on Prezi

Netflix

The other day, a leaflet about Netflix came through my door in the post. The leaflet was explaining the deals they have and why it is so good to have; clearly trying to persuade the public to sign up to Netflix. In my opinion, I don't think that this is an affective way to gain someone's attention because normally, I would just look at it and throw it away which is what my parents did. I think a more effective way is television ad's and internet ad's because lots of people use the internet and TV nearly every day and I believe that it would distract people a lot more allowing them to stop what they are doing and look at the ad. On the other hand, even though I don't think the post is the most affective way, the colours that were used on the leaflet were eye-catching. The colours used were, Red, Yellow and Black.

Class and Status Presentation.

Representation of Class and Status on Prezi

Vlog on the planning of our evaluation.

Labels

All my labels have now been added to my blog so it is easier to access my posts. It is also easier for me so that if I want to edit a post, I can just go straight to it by clicking on the link on the left hand side rather than scrolling down.

Film Evaluation Ideas

I was contemplating whether to work with someone else in my group or to work on my own and I have decided that I will now be working with Sophie from my group. I feel that I work best in a team and that we can both contribute ideas towards the evaluation task.
A few ideas that me and Sophie have came up with are:

To have the question appear at the bottom of the screen as we are answering a question.

To maybe have a split screen for when we mention my film with a clip of it to make sure the moderator knows what we are talking about and so that it is not just us asking a question all the time because that may get boring after a while.

To either take it turn answering the questions or to answer the questions together with both of us giving our input.

We still have loads of ideas coming up which will be blogged about in the near future.

DONE!

Our film opening is finally finished. Enjoy!

Section A - Disability

This extract portrays Disability in a negative way. In the wide shot of the woman in the wheelchair after she gets hit by the frisbee, she is shown as weak and fragile which not all disabled people are. Also, the fact that she has a minder with her lives up to the theory of disabled people needing someone there at all times and being incapable of looking after themselves causing them to lose independence and freedom.



This clip however shows Disability in a positive way. Due to Craig Moon having down syndrome, he still comes across as confident when meeting his siblings for the first time in the mid shot as appose to people with disabilities having low self esteem. He seems happy in his own skin evidently by the constant smile on his face throughout the clip.

Evaluation Questions

We have started taking into consideration our Evaluations of our film openings that we are going to be doing soon. As a class, we spoke about all the ways that we could do it for example, having someone there to ask you the questions while you answer them, doing it by yourself and embedding clips of your film into it etc. We also spoke about doing it in pairs or by ourselves. In my opinion, I think doing it as a pair is a bit risky due to one person not saying as much as the other however I like to work with others so I may work with someone. On the other hand, working independently would be a challenge for me so this may be an option for me as well.

The questions for the Evaluation are:


1. In what ways does your film opening use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. How does your film opening represent particular social groups?

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your film opening and why?

4. Who would be the audience for your film opening?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this film opening?

7. Looking back at your prelim task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final film opening?

Our Title

This is our newest draft of our film opening and we have now added our title which is 'The Herione'. We chose this because of the Herione that drops out of the girl's pocket at the end but also because it is the female word for 'Hero' which shows the contrast between good and bad.

Nearly finished!

So we have nearly finished our film opening! We just need to fix our titles and one of our film openings and then we're done. Also, we have decided to scrap the idea of someone's feet being in a close up shot approaching Elisha on the bike. Instead, we just have a low angle shot of Elisha on the bike realising something has dropped out of her pocket (drugs). Due to me and my group deciding that the certificate should be a 12A, we changed it to a 15 because of the new ending we have chosen.

Vlog 6 - Me and Eisha

What we did on our 'last' day of filming :)

Rich Mix Trip - Tuesday 6th March

On the 6th of March, we went to the the Rich Mix Centre to help us out with our exam that we will be taking in May. In the first part of the conference, we were given tips by Pete Fraser, the chief examiner of OCR A Level Media Studies about methods on how to take notes, how to structure our answers and useful things to include to gain full marks. We also were given the chance to do a few activities in terms of analysing screen shots and practicing taking down notes from a clip. In the second part of the conference, Charlie phillips, the lead editor of the popular TV Drama 'Sherlock' came in and spoke to us about the way he edits the episodes and how challenging it is but fulfilling at the same time. After this, we watched an episode of Sherlock which I thoroughly enjoyed. The framing and editing techniques were amazing and so abstract which was pleasing to the eye. After we had watched the episode of Sherlock, we were then able to ask Charlie any questions that we had about his career, about editing etc.

Overall, I found this trip very useful because even though I know what to do for section A and B, it was good to have it made clearer by the chief examiner himself as I am less worried for the exam now due to picking up a new method of note taking and having figured out new ways to structure my answers in Section A and B.

Vlog 5 - Me and Sophie; Second film company

Vlog 4

Vlog 3 and first production company.

First production company below.