09/12/08

REFLECTION

In our group, we reflected back on our presentation and what went wrong and how to move forward. We felt that we hadn't done enough detail on the backstory of the characters and thier storylines. After we then added to our presentation,we felt much better about how the soap opera was coming along and that we all had a better understanding of the characters and the storylines.
We also think that maybe we were thinking too far ahead with thinking about where to film and we hadn't thought about the actual soap.
Overall i think that the storylines used are good and the audience research confirms this.

The next thing we feel we need to do is discuss our title sequence, what it should include and who should do what. We will use our research into soap title sequences to help us.

08/12/08

Today we gave our pitch, which i don't think went very well as there wasn't enough detail about the characters and the storylines and they needed to have a backstory which we didn't really include.

However, after another meeting we came up with a detailed backstory to each character, and added this to our presentation.

The final presentation is below:
PITCH!

04/12/08

We finished our presentation and decided on the best way forward to giving the pitch and making it sucessful, however i don't think enough effort was put into this process, and i think as a group we could have worked better to pull the whole pitch together and make sure it included everything and that we all knew what the soap opera included.

03/12/08

Today we fine-tuned all of our idea's on a soap opera, including: Characters, Storylines, Setting and the final name of the soap which we decided was Kingsfield.
We then had to use these to create a presentation to pitch our soap idea, however i don't think our ideas were detailed enough.

1/12/08

Today my group went through all the audience research (questionnaires) and put together a review of answers questionnaire. I was away for this but i made sure that i did a summary of my results to bring in for the next meeting.

We then had a basic idea of what our audience wanted and expected to see, therefore we could use this is our next step in fine-tuning our final ideas.

Keep it Updated

Your blogs are really focused Michelle which is excellent but you need to make sure you keep them updated - especially reflecting on the presentations you did. I will check these again on Friday 12 December so get it up to dat by then. 

27/11/09

Today we handed out a few questionnaire's and as Sally was away, we discussed the results we had so far. As there wasn't many results, as today we had originally planned to write up the questionnaire's, the results were a bit vague but we decided that over the weekend we would gather the rest. We will then make a graph of the results as an easy way to record the information needed.

26/11/08

Today, we had meeting no.2 and discussed our research on soap opera's in detail. We analysed the first 2 minutes of a soap each and as a group we came together to discuss what we had found.

Once this was complete, we put all our research together onto a mindmap.

After this, it became apparent that we were ahead of schedule so we moved on to the next step of creating a questionnaire. We thought up questions that would be deemed neccessary in order to find out the right information from our audience.

Once this was complete, we moved on to thinking up basic ideas to do with the soap and what it should include, however as we haven't completed our audience research yet, this information is subject to change.

Overall, I am happy with where my group is at the moment and i think we overestimated the time for certain tasks, which is why we are ahead of schedule.

24/11/08

In the two hour periods we had, we decided to first have a meeting and from that, we came to a conclusion as a group, that the best way forward in starting the soap opera project was to create a detailed plan of what to do and when to do it.
We planned each process in detail, and wrote in our planners the exact dates for each process.
We are also keeping a record of all our meetings through the project in order to keep track of what were all doing.
So far, I think the pre-production process is going well, however i think the hardest part will be to stick to the schedule and make sure everything is completed within the short space of time.

Work done so far...

Introduction to Capture

At the beginning of the course we were given the task of creating a 1 minute movie that captured some sort of message. We had 1 hour to go out and film as much as we could, this was after we had planned what we was going to do, and then we had to edit the footage. My footage tried to capture homelessness as a subject whereas other groups captured things like: the environment, Birmingham and loneliness. This task was a great start to the course and gave everybody an insight into what the next two years will be like.

After this, we were given other people's work to recapture their footage in order to understand what it was like to work with other people's work as this is what it would be like in the industry.

Below is my 1 minute movie capturing homelessness:

Introduction to Moving Image Language

Once  understanding all concepts of moving image language such as: camera movements/shots, editing, Mise en Scene etc, we were given an extract from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and we had to wipe out the sound and re-do it all. I like this as we got to interpret the visual clip in our own way and apply sound to what we thought would suit it best.

We also had to test out our editing skills with an extract from Psycho (1960), in which we had to transform the famous shower scene into an advert, advertising shampoo/shower gel.

This task was obviously difficult due to the fact that the clip was a montage, therefore each individual shot cuts continuously to the next. Although it was difficult, it was also interesting as it helped me to get stuck in to editing with such a tough scene. 

Psycho Shampoo advert:

Working in TV

Another project we was given was to be able to show job roles within television. The brief was to create a voxpop style video showing what the 2 jobs do and it needed to be aimed at Year 9's who were thinking about working within the television industry. My team was given Directors and producers and this is what we came up with:

Soap Opera

Towards the end of the unit we have to create the beginning of a soap opera, so to prepare for this we did lots of different research into soap opera. The first thing i did was to create a timeline of the History of British Soap in order to understand how soap opera came about.

After watching different extracts from british soap and analyzing them to find the different codes and conventions,we had another brief to create a section from a television show defining british soap. It had to include the history of soap, social realism, codes & conventions and whether  Hollyoaks is a soap or not.

Below is the final product:

About The Diploma

The Creative and Media Diploma is worth 3.5 A-levels and the course lasts 2 years.

It's different from other subjects because it involves being more practical and a lot more experience is gained. 

Over two years you do 6 units, and for each you will keep a portfolio. It's a new course but will be highly regarded by employers in the media industry, as they will be looking for people who have well-developed knowledge and skills with what it's like to work.

Therefore if you wish to work within the media industry, then i strongly recommend the diploma as you will gain more experience and insight into  the media industry.

For more information, click the link below:

Skillset-The Diploma

Welcome

Hi Michelle

Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging. This is now going to be an essential part of the diploma and where some of your assessment will be done. It is really important that you use this blog to keep a record of work and of evaluation during the course. I will be using it to keep an eye on you.

Miss L