Reflection part 2- what we could have done to improve the opening

One Major thing we could have improved was our planning skills.We sometimes left our planning till the last minute meaning it was rushed and not detailed. However overall our planning skills were quite good. Communication was a problem sometimes for example on halfterms we could only chat on social media websites meaning we could not get a detailed feedback of what the other team members where up to.

Another thing we could have done was not spend too much time on the little tasks. For example to ensure that all my team members had an equal say I often organised meetings and one of them was to choose the right cast for the project. It took us a few days and a long debate before we selected the cast members. This could have been avoided by appointing one person to take control over the casting and providing the rest of the team feedback.

Sometimes it was not clear who's job it was to do certain things, which meant we left it till the last minute. For example after the group collectively appointed the actors, it was not clear who was suppose to help them with rehearsals. We resolved this issue by taking turns. Further more our other courses got in the way of our project. For example on some days one of us would have a course trip or be absent from school, ergo the work load on the members present that day increased.

Reflection on the project.- Part one- Teamwork and vision

My media opening sequence is about a troubled working class detective who becomes obsessed with investigating the illuminati, he starts to lose his sanity which resulted to him getting fired at work. And now his main aim is to reveal the secrets of this cult and prove to everyone he was right. However he faces the danger of being kidnapped and assassinated. I originally came up with the idea of basing our opening sequence around the life of a troubled working class detective. I was inspired after seeing the film seven but wanted to add my own twist to is. I wanted to create a character that most people could relate to and empathise with.
Overall as a team we worked well together even though we were often slowed down by arguments which meant we had to organise meetings, sit down, discuss and then vote on every major issue. As the director of the team I adopted the role of a democratic leader. I ensured that everyone's views were equally taken into consideration. The filming process was enjoyable and we were all very passionate about the project.

However I must say the outcome was a little disappointing compared to the grand opening sequence I envisioned. We were unable to do most of the things we planned due to limited budget and time. For example we were unable to buy a full detective kit for the two main characters. And also the time frame we were given was not long enough, we only had two minutes ergo we had to cut out many of the scenes we filmed which we believed added to the story line. furthermore we had to closely trim the footage we chose because after we edited the opening we noticed that we were over the time limit.
My team members were very hard working however we often had a clash of creative ideas which meant we had to compromise.

List of keyterms I came across during the making of the opening sequence.

Key terms I learnt during the making of the project.

Patriarchy:

A system of society in which the father or the oldest male is the head.

Matriarchal:

A system of society where by the mother is seen as the head or dominate figure.

Narrative:

A spoken or written account of connected events.

eg, A gripping narrative

Realism:

The attitude or practice of accepting situations as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly.

eg, The summit was marked by a new mood of realism

IMDB:

International movies Data-base

Binary:

1, Relating to, compose of or involving two things.

Commercial:

Making or intended to make profit.

Audience:

The assembled listeners at a public event such a play, film, concert or meeting.

Audience can also mean the group of people which a media product is targeted at.

Ensemble cast:

A group musicians actors or dancers who perform together.

Exposition:

You see the main character(s) in their daily life, gaining a sense of their ‘big dream’.

Rising Action:

The steps they take to achieve their goal.

Climax:

The part where the story either has a good or bad ending.

Falling Action:

Everything between the Climax and Resolution.

Resolution:

How they solve the ‘big problem.

Media:

A way to communicate with others. Usually associated with it being received to a mass audience.

Sub-Genre:

A subdivision of genre; Slapstick Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Zombie Horror.

Hybrid Genre:

The combination of two or more genres; Comedy/Horror, Western/Science-Fiction.

Iconography:

A familiar stock of images or motifs associated with a particular genre, the connotations of which have become fixed.

Media Institutions:

The corporate side of the media; like Sky.

Semiotics:

The study of signs and symbols and their representation. Also, how they are used.

Arbitrary Relation:

When the symbol does not look like the index.

Hyper real:

Exaggerated in comparison to reality

eg, 'His characters are hyper-real rather than naturalistic.

Pedigree:

The record of descent of a person or thing.

Hegemonic: 

Ruling or dominant in a political or social context.

Bond Franchise:

A bond that insures a government, state or organisation against loss due to a franchise holders failure to complete work specified in the franchise grant.

Conventions:

The widely recognised way of doing something - this has to do with content, style and form

eg the conventions of music video.

Convergence:

The way in which technologies and institutions come together in order to create something new. Cinema is the result of the convergence of photography, moving pictures and sound. The iPad represents the convergence of books, TV, maps, the internet and the mobile phone.

Research- Inspiration- Petesmediablog

Another blog that inspired me Petesmediablog

(www.petesmediablog.blogspot.co.uk)

I learnt a lot from this blog because it provided me with examples of other students work and what could be done to improve it. This gave me and insight of what is expected of me thus making it easier for me to work hard to achieve the best results. More recently there was an article about re-makes on petesmediablog that I found very interesting. It showed me that every team member is important no matter how small their role is. For example one the projects he talked about was the re-making of a painting set, Where students visit a gallery study paintings by some well-known artists, then they comeback to school and then build a replica on a specific painting they have studied whilst at the gallery.

Further more another good article was the article about team work. I read out the article to my team, which helped pick up their motivation for the final leg of the project. One thing that the article stated was that ''you could agree that if one person is alone editing, they stick to an agreed plan and if they do anything 'individual' that they agree to accept the view of the rest of the group when they come back to see it''. This is exactly what we did and we were happy to see that someone else agreed with this. However we often interfered in each others roles, which was probably not the most efficient thing to do.

Media Evaluation questions

Here is the link to the website I made for my media evaluation questions.

http://reggiekensah.wix.com/media-evaluation