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.