Amelia Jones 1088

Tuesday, 20 April 2010

Copyright Information for the use of Music in Productions

Monday, 19 April 2010

Evaluation of Overall Coursework Process

The coursework has been an enjoyable process that has tested our group ability as well as our knowledge of media codes and conventions relating to specific genre and also common practises of filming and editing. Considering the outcome of our preliminary exercise, I feel that our main task, entitled: 'Ranelagh Road', has come along way and allowed us as a group to express ourselves a lot more and also take a more professional approach to the project. Our main task production: ‘Ranelagh Road’ is the opening sequence to a social realist drama, aimed at teenagers and young adults, tackling the issues and stereotypes surrounding 'chav's' and knife crime which has had a very negative representation in the current media. Here is a compressed version of our finished opening sequence to the film we have entitled 'Ranelagh Road'. It has been uploaded onto the weymouth college youtube account and overall, as a group we are very happy with the finished product even though we did encounter a few problems along the way during the coursework process.

Any use of music in the films embedded on this blog complies with 'Fair Dealing' under the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act (UK), Sections 6(i) and 6(ii); Fair dealing is a term used to describe some limited activities that are allowed without infringing copyright. Briefly these are as follows:
Section 6i).
Research and private study
Copying parts of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or of a typographical arrangement of a published edition for the purpose of research or private study is allowed under the following conditions:
· The copy is made for the purposes of research or private study.
· The copy is made for non-commercial purposes.
· The source of the material is acknowledged.
· The person making the copy does not make copies of the material available for a number of people.

ii) Instruction or examination
Copying parts of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or a sound recording, film or broadcast for the purpose of instruction or examination is allowed under the following conditions:
· The copying is done by the student or the person giving instruction.
· The copying is not done via a reprographic process.
· The source of the material is acknowledged.
· The instruction is for a non-commercial purpose.

Our main influence for the opening sequence for our production was from the film 'Kidulthood'. We also looked at TV series on Channel 4 such as 'Skins' and 'Shameless' when considering characters and an appropriate content for the plot and storyline. Kidutlhood is also from the genre of social realist drama, and looks at youth culture and crime in a British society, making it relatable to by a UK audience as they understand and are aware of similar stereotypes and things happening in there own areas. We chose to use this as a starting point for our own production as it also tackled the stereotypes surrounding 'chavs', gangs and youth culture as well as also being centred predominantly around knife crime and the negative impacts of gang culture. For the similarities with the issues we wanted to look at in our own film, we thought this was the perfect film to look at for research to study codes and conventions of social realist drama and also the way stereotypes and character profiles are built.

We tried to convey the idea that the male who is stereotyped feels the need to carry a knife with him as either a safety blanket or because he has been socialized through labelling theory through the media to believe that this is what is necessary for him to survive on a day to day basis. The knife has become an object of security and power and like the girl, who is meant to represent the opposite character to ‘chav’, they both cherish different objects for security. For the female the most important objects in her life are her make up and phone and for the male, the knife is vital in his every day life as he feels safe with it.

We created his stereotype through dress codes as a 'Chav' wearing a hoody, the location of his house and the urbanised area surrounding it and effectively the fact he is male also plays a part in this stereotype as the media generally tends to look at gang crime amongst young males rather than females. The fact he is a male also shows his dominance as hegomonic masculinity is the dominant ideology within our British society and therefore he seems to have more power than if he had been a girl, which is also excerted through the knife. For this reason i feel that we have used appropriate stereotypes, following the codes and conventions of the social realist drama genre, to allow the audience to make assumptions about the characters, so that they were relatable and instantly recognisable to a wide audience, but are trying to challenge the stereotype of ‘Chav’ to show that maybe people in a similar situation to this character turn to knifes simply as a way of feeling safe due to the media’s construction and negative image of lower class, urbanised areas, creating a self fulfilling prophecy as people from these deprived areas then feel that everyone else is carry knifes and therefore it would be unsafe for them not to.

For this reason I think that our production could be aimed at a wide audience as the stereotype of ‘chav’ is understood and is a firmly established ideology within both the lower and middle classes due to the media’s mass focus on youth and knife crime, specifically from council estates and urbanised deprived areas of cities and large towns.

For this reason the location that we chose for where the male lived, was the urbanised, terraced housed area of Weymouth near the Train station called the Park District. This is a fairly run down area of the town and is over crowded and the male's house we chose to film in was also fairly worn and un-looked after which added to the character and the stereotype. I think that the age group that our product would attract most is people aged 16-25 as this very much is an issue that may be affecting their lives and therefore are the age group most likely to be able to relate to the characters, plot, story line and to understand the characters feelings and priorities. This has been previously done before in programs such as skins and shameless, showing real life problems and every day encounters that teenagers and young adults experience and trying to make them more understood by both other teenagers and adults. For example in ‘Skins’ the party culture and drug culture are massively represented in an exaggerated way, that allows teenagers to relate to the characters and feel included in the drama production.

I therefore think that our production would be aired on channel 4, past the watershed of 9pm so that a more accurate stereotype and representation of youth’s could be shown, surrounding the issues of knife crime. I also think that there is a gap in the market as other drama productions aimed at a similar age group and audience focus on mainly issues surrounding drugs and alcohol consumption, such as 'Skins' and 'Shameless' which are also aimed at a similar age group and aired at 10pm on different nights, and therefore I think that ‘Ranelagh Road’ would fit in well with helping society understand more about knife crime and the reasons why people may turn to it.

From the production of this product I have become a lot more confident in my own abilities at creating a well constructed product that follows the codes and conventions of the genre its from. I feel that I have learnt a lot more about camera work and filming as well as the importance of tight and relevant editing as when we first put some of our shots together they didn’t quite fit or make sense and as a group we were able to acknowledge this and were not worried about changing the shots and really cutting them down. For this reason I am also more confident using the editing software Movie Maker which I have previously used before for GCSE productions as well as the preliminary exercise. I feel I have also learnt the basics of the more complex editor, Premier, as we used this to add in the title over our film and also to make the fade ins flow better and more smoothly.

The one issue that I think was most negatively effecting was the decision before filming that we were going to play music over the film to enhance the 'Chav' stereotype as this meant when filming we didn't take into consideration sound as much as we should have in all shots. This has been edited and now i feel it works fairly well as the music helps to introduce the characters as we didn't plan on having any dialogue in the first place. We then also decided the best place to cut the music was where they left the houses, as a way of indicating the film is properly starting and the opening credits are over. We therefore faded from music into diagetic ambient sounds. There was a small problem that we found which was that as we filmed the last scene of Jamie walking across the road, there was a lot of people near and around us and therefore you can here people talking on the film so we used Premier to take reduce the volume in the sound at the parts where the speech is heard. We also replicated the sound in Adobe Audition 1.5, of the door slamming and then made it echo and fade out to create a sound bridge between the two final shots as this helps the film flow better.

I also feel that I understand the codes and conventions and the importance of stereotypes in more depth as we have had to use them to make our product instantly relatable, as the task was to create an opening sequence to a film and therefore establishing firmly the characters through ideologies and stereotypes is vital in the first few minutes and I feel we have also done this very well as a group. The stereotypes we chose of 'Chav' and 'Girly Girl', which firstly are very opposite in both appearance and attitude are also very easily recognised within our British culture which meant it was also very easy to form the dress codes for these characters and deciding on the objects and setting that they would interact with. If we had gotten our characters to simply wear 'normal' clothes and be in average houses the same effect would not have been made and assumptions about the characters would have been hard to make from the audiences point of view and therefore i think we have been successful in our stereotyping as it immediately gives the film a starting point and gives the audience an idea about the direction the sequence of events may take.

I have found the main task filming and editing in general was lengthier and more detailed than the preliminary exercise and therefore I feel that we have also put more effort into it, sticking more strictly to the script and storyboard and changing things where necessary to gain a better and more professional effect and to make the shot sequences more complex to show off our ability as well as helping to emphasise the characters and their stereotypes. We also took more care in ensuring we took as many takes as possible of each shot and also repeated the same action from different angles so that they could either be edited together like as shown in the scene where the knife is taken from the drawer, or so that we were able to see which looked better once put into the whole sequence of shots. As a group we were more organised and confident with the equipment and overall have worked well as a group. We were also more flexible with the shots we took, adding more complex shots and sequence of shots into our storyboard as we felt more able to achieve them after completing the preliminary exercise.

The use of music was a major part of our production as we wanted the music to be fitting for both characters, even though they are from different social classes and backgrounds. However recently the music scene has vastly grown and widened and therefore it is not unusual for a middle class girl to be listening to rap, grime or bass music as many genres have merged and become much more main stream in recent years. We used a CD from the library collection as it enabled us to have all the copyright information necessary to be able to include the track in our production. We chose to bring the music in firstly diegetically, to show that the character of the girl, who may be more unlikely to listen to this style of music, has chosen to play this song through her iPod.

When the next shot of the ‘chav’ then appears the music becomes non-diegetic and therefore merges into the introduction of both characters and is the only similarity that links the characters in a firmly established way that is visible to the audience from the start. We felt that this also helps to indicate that at some point in the storyline these characters are going to meet and that there is going to be a clash, but it leaves it a mystery as to what happens and whether the clash is good or not, although the inclusion of a knife indicates a more negative storyline, due to the stereotypes constructed by the media. If we were to challenge this ideology through our production, the film may go on to show the guy helping her out, using his knife, which has very negative hype in a positive way, for example cutting her free from being trapped in a situation. But the important thing is that the ‘chav’ stereotype is established so that later on we are then able to support it or challenge it depending on the storyline.

Overall I have found the coursework an enjoyable process and I feel that through creating the opening to a social realist drama practically I have been able to gain a deeper understanding of the genre and the necessary codes and conventions required to make a production work and accessible by its target audience. Ideologies and stereotyping is also vital to ensure the audience can relate to the subject matter and the characters and this has been a key component in the construction of our characters. If we were to do this coursework project again, I think that the thing we need to most work on is the planning and ensuring that this is all completed as fast as possible to leave as much time free as possible for editing and final tweaking and also to film the sound into the shots anyway, even if we don't plan on using it. Having said that though we have been able to finish before deadline and are happy with the coursework results.

I feel more confident with both the new and older softwares that we have had to use and overall am more able and confident with the production processes required to make a film and also feel that we have created a fairly professional response to the main task. The paperwork has also helped me gain a deeper understanding of the subject in general and also helped me understand the time and amount of detail required to be in the film production industry.I think that our production ‘Ranelagh Road fills a gap in the market as it is the first drama of its kind aimed at 16- 25’s that really tackles directly knife crime without focus on drug and alcohol culture as a main focal point and therefore I think it would be a success as the only other prodcution with a similar main focal theme has been 'Kidulthood which has been massively successful, allowing the procudtion of the sequal 'Adulthood' which tried to show how youths should reject this crime and gang culture, therefore trying to break the stereotypes and change the ideolgies held within our society about urban areas and gang culture amongst youths.

Links to Google Documents & Paperwork for Main Task Exercise: 'Ranelagh Road'

Sunday, 7 March 2010

'The First Reflective Main Exercise Blog Entry Thing!'

There is a large difference between the planning for the preliminary exercise and the main task. Firstly as a group we have had to do a lot more research into codes and conventions of particular genre's, specifically targeting social realist drama and playing on the stereotypical ideas of "Chavs", whereas in the preliminary exercise it did not need to be as clear what genre the scene was from as it was simply to demonstrate our knowledge of camera work, looking at the 180 rule, reverse shots and continuity, as well as getting used to the equipment. The story boards also have to be a lot more detailed mainly due to the fact the shots are more complicated and change and alternate more frequently between shots and viewpoints to emphasise the difference between the two main settings we have chosen to include in our film, to emphasise the difference between the characters backgrounds and social upbringing as well as stereotypes. We also need to think more about the background noises when filming and therefore if music is necessary, we will need to find it from a un-copyrighted source. I am also noticing that we are being more prepared and moving faster with the planning work to ensure we have enough time to film and create a professional final edit as the programs we intend to use for the editing are more complex and therefore give a better finish, such as Premier and Adobe Audition for editing the sound and creating echo's etc and therefore we will need to spend more time on the finalisation of the opening sequence.

After looking at the SWOT analysis as a group, we feel that our main stumbling points are mainly surrounding the filming itself, rather than the pre-production work and evaluation. I think this may be because we all have different timetables, and all live in different area's therefore meaning we will have to arrange a date for filming that is not only easy for us all to make but also the actors and locations we have arranged for the filming. We also thought that time keeping could be a problem, as in the preliminary task, due to another member of the groups illness, we left it fairly late for filming, but that has taught us to prepare and arrange it sooner rather than later to ensure completion. I think that our strongest points are; that we work well as a group and have come up with a range of ideas and opinions all influencing the planning stages; we now have some experience with the camera and the editing process and software and we have a range of friends to choose from to participate in the acting, that will be able to represent and portray different stereotypes.

I think that to improve from the preliminary exercise we need to; set a target date for the filming earlier on to create a deadline for ourselves for the paper work to be done by, practise with the camera and editing software before hand so that our main task is more professional looking, discuss ideas more within the group so that we can combine and decide upon the best ideas for the film, stick to our own responsibilities and jobs so that all work is done to the correct standard. I also think that a lot more research into similar films and genre's is essential in making sure our production follows the right codes and conventions as we have chose to crete a soical realist drama, looking at issues of knife crime in a British society, which therefore creates a niche audience of being relatable to by British people, who understand and live amongst this culture and society.

There are many films with similar themes such as 'Kidulthood', 'Adulthood' and 'Green Street' and so as a group we need to review and watch as many opening sequences from the genre of social realist drama as we can to ensure ours follows a similar pattern and that the stereotypes of the characters; 'Girly Girl' and 'Chav' are constructed in the appropriate way. If all these things are done then our production will be completed easily and on time and will be hopefully be to a high, professional standard.

We have now filmed in both locations, spreading the filming over 2 days, one day for each location. We worked efficiently as a team and made sure that we took a number of takes of each shot to ensure during editing we have enough footage to work with to create a tighter and more professional edit. We also tried taking the same sequence from different angles and viewpoints so that during editing we are able to cut them together to create a more realistic view and also so that the film flows better and therefore is easier to relate to by the audience. As our film contains elements of elipsis as we cut between the locations and the characters and the actions that they are doing; we had to consider this when editing the film together as we needed to make sure that the length of time where one character was in shot was long enough to make up for the actions that have taken place in the other location with the other character when they come back into the shot, for example Harriet's change of clothes while Jamie was being filmed looking in the mirror and putting up his hood. We also decided to use a still shot at the end of the opening sequence and used a fade transition to allow it to blend with the actual film as we needed to lighten and increase the contrast on the image to allow the title of our film "Ranelagh Road" to show through more clearly and be more visible for the audience to read.

We also used a fade in from black at the beginning as we felt that the shot of the camera bringing itself into Harriet's room and also her life was slightly too long and therefore wanted to shorten it and also emphasise the fact that the audience are being brought specifically into her life and her room which is a very private space for a girl, allowing the audience to feel as though they know her. We also used a fade between two shots of her doing her make up, to her standing up and getting ready to leave the room to show an elipsis as we found that Harriet had already put her make up away in the next shot and therefore needed to make them blend and show that some time of her applying make up had passed, as the audience did not need to see all of this as it would become boring and they may lose interest.

For a few weeks we were told we were unable to use music from the library as due to copyrights which faced our group with a fairly large problem as we had filmed around the basis that there would be music taking up most of the sound section of the opening sequence. We had planned in our story boards and final scripts to have diagetic music within the opening sequence, when she presses play on her iPod, which then becomes non-diagetic throughout the rest of the opening sequence as it cuts between the two locations until the point where the boy slams the door, where the music cuts and fades out to show the film is beginning. However now we have been told that we are allowed to use Library CD's as long as we provide full copyright information and acknowledge the source which we have done.

We chose a CD called "Pirate Broadcast: Sounds from the Underground" and picked a track with a male MC rapper and a heavy bass line to add to the mise en scene and build up the ideologies and ideas surrounding youth crime and its association with rap music and 'Gangster' culture.We have kept some of the diagetic ambience from the original filming so that there is not complete silence before the music comes in, as otherwise it would seem unrealistic and would not be representative of real life, social realism. We also used a fade out where the music stops as the 'Chav' slams the door to emphasise that a change in scenery and story is about to happen as well as an making it clear that the story has actually now begun as the characters have been introduced and their stereotypes firmly established.

To add the title in to our production we used Premier, which was a software i was new to. This gave us a few difficulties as we had to get used to the controls and tools but once we had got the hang of it we were able to tighten our edits and fade in and outs between scenes and also chose the best locations for our titles and tried to put them in the most imaginative and appropriate places. For example we wrote Kyle's name as editor in the shots where the most complex edit's took place. We also had a slight problem with the sound we had recorded while filming as there was some talking from passers by recorded. We decided that we should leave it in and not take the diagetic sound out all together as in the last scene the diagetic sound becomes heard and is very important in keeping the realistic idea that the audience can easily relate to. We also thought that this could become a happy accident, as this helps to add to the mise en scene and idea of an inner city urbanised area.

Overall i am happy with the filming and editing process as it has gone pretty smoothly and i feel that after some small problems involving mainly music and sound, we have now over come the issues and turned negative factors into positive traits. I also feel that we as a group have become more confident to tell each other our view and opinion on the editing and the way we think the scenes should look, which has benefited the film itself as we are therefore discussing more the best options and choosing the most professional outcomes that enhance the production and help emphasise more the codes and conventions of the social realist drama genre.

Thursday, 11 February 2010

Links to Google Documents & Paperwork for Preliminary Exercise

Tuesday, 2 February 2010

Filming and Editing the Preliminary Exercise

We filmed our production on Wednesday the 3rd of February, meeting at 1pm with the group and the actors and headed off to the media block to set up in room M002. We chose to use this room as it is a recording studio, and therefore sound proof meaning that the audience would understand that no one else would have heard the fight due to the sound proofing. we also chose this room as it represents a subject that is only available at college level and therefore also helps to set the scene and location. There was a slight problem in the morning as we found out one of our actors was sick so Kyle called a friend and arranged for him to take his place and meet us at 1pm.

We filmed the inside shots first as lunch time was still calming down and we wanted the outside shots to be quiet and the focus to be on the actor only and this would not have been possible during the lunch break. We took around 3 takes of each shot, sometimes more where dialogue from the actors part was concerned. When we first got into the room we set up the camera in each individual place where it would need to be for the shots to see if there was anything on screen we didnt want. we had to move some of the items off of the desk and move a chair out of the room to make enough room for the camera and its operator, kyle to fit in. The filming was fairly easy and took around an hour which I thought was good as we had a firm set out plan to work to from both the story board and the script. This meant that as soon as we got into the room Kyle the camera operator, knew exactly where to go and what angle to film at so my job as director was fairly easy as things ran fairly smoothly. The boys acting were fairly chatty and therefore there were quite a few 'gag reel' takes as they liked to call it, but i managed to keep the situation under control and get the shots i wanted. The filming process was enjoyable, fun and overall a great success although Lily could not be there to help with it.

There were a few problems that we encountered when filming. The main problem was that we had not realised that the place we had chose to shoot our first shot in had a large extractor fan nearby for the college kitchens and therefore made filming slightly difficult as the actors voice in a few of the takes was muffled or undetected by the microphone on the camera. This was a mistake made during our recee and therefore when we proceed with the main task we will make sure that our recee is completely correct before hand to ensure nothing like this happens again. This also meant that we had to slightly alter the dialogue of the script so that when the actor answered the phone he had to explain that he couldn’t hear the other person but would be there soon as the sound was obviously diegetic and therefore we could not ignore it in the actual production. Another problem that we encountered was that when we filmed the last shot of Lee unconscious through the window we found to begin with that Kyle’s reflection was visible on the footage and therefore we had to cover as much of his skin as possible to help him blend into the dark walls, but luckily he had a black hoody and dark jeans on. We also were unable to alter the lights in the media room as they were set bulb strip lights and therefore the only control we had was allowing natural light in through the window which we chose to keep the curtains closed.

I think that we stuck to the script and storyboard almost exactly apart from the minor change we had to make in the first shot in terms of dialogue due to the fan. And seeing the finished and edited product it has turned out how I imagined it in my head when we first started planning it and drawing out the storyboards and I think that we also stuck to the rule of thirds when we were in the room and the actors were having their conversation very well, making sure we never crossed the line. Next time however I think that we should use the tripod, for the shots where the 180 degree rule applies, such as conversation as we did get a few takes that were shaky that we had to cut a few seconds out of, but this was due to the fact that the room we chose to shoot in was small and there was not much space to move around in, but we captured the shots we wanted through not using the tripod, however next time we will defiantly use it to create a more professional looking piece of film.

We originally planned to edit our filming the next lesson, but unfortunately Lee was ill during that lesson and so we were unable to get the equipment required and had to wait until the next lesson when Lily had also come back from being ill. The editing process was fairly easy and only took around 40 minutes once we had captured and transferred the footage onto the computer. We worked together as a group while editing, to include all of our opinions in the process so that we were all going to be happy with the final outcome. We used the editing program Windows Movie Maker to put our final piece together and I found the software easy to use, as I had previously used this software at GCSE Media to edit together a stop motion advert. I also find this software good to use as it is simple and easy to work your way around, but still giving a professional finished product and I am happy with the final piece for the preliminary exercise but feel I have learnt a lot ready for the main task which will help improve the quality of the main task even more. I think that watching the edited version of the film back, it is overall good, keeps continuity and would be easy to follow and understand by our target audience of 16-24, due to the visual cues we have included and the way we have created college students who are relatable. The ideology that youth's are also involved in crime is also shown through this film and therefore the audience will not be shocked or confused by what's happening. We used a fade in from black at the beginning to give a sense of oreintation for the audience so that it didnt launch straight into the film and we tried to cut on action as much as possible to keep the flow between cuts smooth and as least noticeable as possible.

This is a final edit of our preliminary exercise that has been compressed and uploaded onto the Weymouth college Youtube channel. Overall I am happy with our finished sequence of shots and am pleased with the way the filming went as we didn’t encounter many problems at all as we decided to keep our storyline simple but keeping orginiality while sticking to the codes and conventions of social realist drama. Anything that did happen that went wrong during both filming and editing, we were able to resolve as a group quickly and efficiently and in many ways it made out producion skills stronger .

Sunday, 31 January 2010

First skills audit for the G321 Foundation Production

I think that so far the preliminary exercise has been fairly successful although with the absence of a member of the group for many lessons its left more for me and the other member of the group, Kyle to write and organise putting us slightly behind production schedule. This has also had a positive effect in some ways as it has created less conflict within the group as there are less opinions that clash. We have decided to create a short sequence of shots in the theme of social realist drama, much like in the style of channel 4 programs like "Skins" and "Shameless" who have a young target audience and whose characters tackle story lines containing issues surrounding drugs, alcoholism, violence, racism and other aspects of youth culture and so we decided to have the storyline for our production as a student, as the target audience will therefore be able to relate to his experiences of college and the ideologies surrounding college life including the idea of hegemonic masculinity being dominant amongst young males as well as drugs and alcoholism. The character will be answering the phone, then going to a room at college to meet his friend who has knocked out his lecturer during an argument. I feel that our idea is original and fulfils the brief while taking a different approach to it as we have also included a phone conversation to emphasise our skills of the 180 degree rule and to show our understanding of continuity. It also is appropriate content for the target audeince of 16- 25.

Although we have had slight issues with timing and preparation for filming we have managed to produce all of the necessary paperwork to allow us to film, sharing the load equally between the group. It was fairly hard to come up with an idea due to the tightness of the brief and we also had many ideas that seemed to be similar which may have made it harder to choose. The risk assessments were fairly easy as we were filming on college grounds and therefore theft and other risks were not needed to be addressed as closely as we were on college property. The recee was also easy to do, as we had easy access to the rooms we had chosen to film in and therefore could easily run back and forth during lesson time to check things out if a new worry or concern came about, for example the restricted lighting and the small diameters of the room and the worry that we may not fit the whole shot onto the camera.

As I have produced an advert before for GCSE Media Studies I know the lengths of time it takes to edit and film and therefore for this reason I feel we have a slight advantage as I am familiar with editing film through the use of Windows Moviemaker and have also been through the process of the write ups and evaluations before. I think that it’s good we have now set a date for the filming as it gives us a target that we have to for fill to meet the deadline and means that although Lily is ill and has been away for the whole task, we will still have accomplished the brief on time and hopefully to a good standard. The paperwork is also a little confusing at times but I feel that we have now got on top of it and are ready to make the final piece. I feel that it has been slightly difficult to discuss ideas within the group as we don’t know each other very well which in some other ways has helped as it’s caused less arguments but it can also hinder by making you afraid to confront certain ideas you might not agree with.

I am looking forward to the filming process and the editing of the film and I am especially looking forward to the second part of the coursework as I feel we will be able to put more of ourselves into the media text as the boundaries are not so tight and specific and will therefore allow more extravagant ideas to be successful. I'd like to become more familiar with the filming equipment and look at more advanced editing to improve the quality of my production skills and to create more professional looking products and hopefully during the next part of the coursework illness won’t affect the dynamics of our group and therefore we will have more man power to create a better response to the brief. I hope to also find it easier to come up with an idea for the main exercise as I feel that due to the restrictions put on us by the preliminary exercise, it is fairly difficult to create productions that differ from each other a lot.