Entry 6 – Monsters 26/09/2011

Monsters, Gareth Edwards (2010)-Uk.

After watching this film a second time I found that I picked up on a lot of the social critique that I simply hadn’t noticed before. The first time I went into this movie with literally no clue what the plot was or what to expect really and I remember being let down that there were no actual monsters in the film. But now I knew what to expect and I found the plot to be very well developed with multiple layers of meaning. The Americans themselves are in fact made out to be the “monsters” of this movie. Throughout the film our chief characters interact with many different Mexicans (the people in direct contact with the alien life forms) and are shown hospitality and humility. However when they arrive on American soil the only person they meet is a deranged lady wheeling a shopping kart around, who seems to take enjoyment from the anxious state of the weary heroes.

To be continued…

Entry 5 – Work on Info Graphics and Useful Publications 21/09/2011

Discussed own Ideas and How I want to implement them.

Listed 5 things to include on the infographic

Clarified what is needed for the end product – written document and infographic

I have listed below several Media Publications that I would like to use throughout the course:

Creative Media Production Level 3 (2010 Pearson Company), Paul Baylis, David Brockbank, Andy Freedman, Ken Hall, Phillip Holmes, Dan Morgan, Natalie Procter, Pete Wardle.

AS Media Studies (2001 Hodder Arnold), Jacqueline Bennett, Tanya Jones

Media Studies Texts, Production and Context (2009 Pearson Company), Paul Long and Tim Wall

Introduction to Media Production (2005 Elsevier), Gorham Kindem, Robert B. Musburger

The Media Student’s Book 4^th Edition (2006 Routledge), Gill Branston and Roy Stafford

AS Film Studies (2006 Nelson Thornes), Jo Harland & Nick Timmons

Entry 4 – Info Graphics for Genre 20/09/2011

I have watched the Sky Movies Premiere Ident, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65j0cMoaEco and I really want my infographic to have a similar appearance because I love the look of all the different themed worlds blending together. This will look very effective and I may even include animations to make it look like a camera is panning across the different worlds.

In the image below I have edited together all the images in the advert to prove that it is possible for me to make my infographic in much the same way:

Responding to feedback

After asking my lecturer to look over my ideas I have chosen to focus solely on the sci-fi genre and have adjusted my ideas accordingly. I then researched more into infographics.

Entry 3 – Genre Studies “Ultimate Film List” 19/09/2011

How Hollywood uses genre to market their films to an audience.

Codes and Conventions

Iconography

Intertextuality

Parodies and Spoofs

My favourite Films:

Compiling a list of my favourite films is quite a difficult task for me as my favourite films are subject to change over time. I’m not much of a film buff because I don’t really watch that many films in my spare time and tend to watch Television shows instead. For this reason, I have included 2 of my favourite TV programs that I would rate VERY Highly. This list will be quite short therefore, as these are the movies that have made a long lasting impression on me. Don’t expect anything too fancy here either!

# Happy Feet, George Miller (2006) – US                                                                               Family/Adventure

# Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Peter Jackson (2001-2003) – US, New Zealand              Adventure/Fantasy

# Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Gore Verbinski (2006) – US                                                               Adventure/Fantasy

# The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan (2008) - US                                                              Action/Superhero

# Happy Feet, George Miller (2006) – US                                                                               Family/Adventure

# Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright (2007) – UK                                                                                      Action/Comedy

# Star Trek, J. J. Abrams (2009) – US                                                                                        Sci-Fi/Adventure

# The Incredibles, Brad Bird (2004) – US                                                                                 Action/Comedy

# Back to the Future, Robert Zemeckis (1985) – US                                                           Sci-Fi/Comedy

# Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki (2001) – Japan                                                                                Fantasy

# Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones (1974) – UK            Comedy

# Police Story, Jackie Chan (1985) – China                                                                             Action/Comedy

Entry 2 – “Win Learn Change” An Improvement plan 14/09/2011

Try and brainstorm 5 points that I can use to help me achieve this year.

1) Balance with work - Thinking back to last year, although I’m very confident and proud of my graphical abilities,  I seemed to prioritise the visual side of the course over my written work. This resulted in poor time management and I neglected several important pieces of work. However this year I am determined to take a balanced approach towards the second year of the course and have already started to blog my progress regularly, something that I failed to do last year.

2) Organisation and Presentation - This is something that I really want to improve upon. I have made a start on this and have bought several file folders to separate the different units of the course so I can easily find each piece of work. This also improves the presentation and standard of my work because everything is collected neatly in folders.

3) Attitude – I feel my attitude has been completely wrong throughout the course up until the summer holidays. Meeting with my tutor and lecturers has really made me appreciate the opportunity I have been given by coming to college. Last year I was slightly arrogant and took things for granted. Luckily I have realised that this is not the way to approach my studies and I feel I’m already on a good start to improving my grades this year.

4) Homework and Research – I honestly don’t like working outside school hours but I’m not going to kid myself here, I really need to do at least 10 hours of work at home in order to stay on top of things at college. Research used to bug me a lot as well, but I’m beginning to understand how important it is to undertake appropriate research. After all, what good is it to create an amazing media product, if no one is interested in it?

5) Attendance and punctuality – Last year I goofed around and missed a lot of lessons, this was mainly due to my attitude towards the course so I don’t want to slack off like that again. I can’t really control public transport but I will definitely try to make sure I’m on time because I want to prove that I want to be here at college.

Worksheet – “Where does time go?”

We had to fill in a pie chart and plot how we currently prioritise our time and then subsequently we had to make another chart showing how we would want to spend our time. At the moment I feel I spend far too much time on myself (whether that’s a good or bad thing is up to you) but I’d really like to improve the amount of time I spend on college assignments. I Think I’ve made a good start so far by keeping up to date with my blogging. Whether or not this will carry on into my college work remains to be seen…

Learning Outcome: I’ve learnt a useful technique for motivation, Gantt Charts and how they are implemented to help students achieve and manage their time effectively.

Entry 1 – Production Stages and Skills Audit 13/09/2011

(Needs work)

In my first lesson back I have learnt the four production stages and what methods need to be undertaken for success in each stage.

Stage 1: Research

Primary :

·         Can undertake Specific research that directly relates to your product.

·         Focal Groups

·         Demographics

Secondary:

·         Books/Articles

·         Surveys

Stage 2: Pre Production

·         Generate Ideas – 1 week

·         Create a Treatment and Proposal

·         Planning, Storyboarding Scheduling, Production Documentation

Stage 3: Production

·         Organisation:  Cast Crew, team roles, equipment, call sheets

·         Team Work: Communication, Initiative

Stage 4: Post Production

·         Critical Feedback and response to product

·         Evaluation

Useful Media Terms

I have listed here some useful terms that we reviewed this lesson:

Polysemic – Convey different meanings

Anchorage – Confirm meanings

Idents

Focal Groups –

Demographic

“Pick Up” – Reshoot

EDL – Edit Decision List

Multi-Strand Narrative – Soap operas employ this.

Cross Cut and Cut Away