Development of skills from AS to A2 - Maisie

Skill area	Your evaluation of your own skills in this area – strengths, weaknesses, and things to work on. Be precise, giving examples or evidence  (e.g. on camera, discuss particular techniques such as focus pull)	Your teachers’ evaluation
Your use of Digital Technologies: how skilled are you in these areas? This includes your use of camera techniques, your use of Blogger, your use of Prezi (if you used it), the internet (used for research for example) Final Cut editing techniques, GarageBand, Photoshop (if you used it), social networking (if you used it)	I was given responsibility of the camera during the course of filming, so I developed my skill for filming in different ways that would be appropriate for our thriller; the framing was poor, because the subject wasn’t in the middle which left us with a lot of unwanted and unused space. I had to focus on that to get it right, which helped me develop my skills as a filmmaker and helped the opening look more professional. I also used Blogger at lot because I had to document our planning, showing what we were doing for costumes, setting, camerawork. One post that I feel is very strong is my evaluation because I used a lot of screenshots to help illustrate it and give it more structure. I also used a lot of media terms and language to try and help me get more marks. The internet helped with the research because we had to get inspiration for our opening, so I researched Pearl & Dean to get some demographics of real thriller films, such as Inception, that were relevant and would be accurate for our audience. I had already had a lot of experience with editing before this course, so I had a few skills and I was quite quick at it. Using Final Cut helped me understand to importance of continuity and how it shaped the film. I also held responsibility for the captions and credits which were at the beginning of the film. My attention to detail has helped with developing my skills for the A2 year. The sound editing also aided this. The main type of sound we used was non-diegetic (mainly music) and we had very little dialogue. I knew that music would be very effective so we used quite high tension music that was parallel to the image. The diegetic dialogue was kept as minimal as possible and we only used it where it was necessary and to help the audience understand what was going on (the main character explaining what she was doing). The cross cutting came out well and we felt the audience understood it after I put it on Facebook to get some critical and positive feedback.	You made excellent use of the blog and achieved high marks for this. Your work with other dig technologies was conscientious and showed good progression.  You did make real improvements in your film making skills, and the end result showed proficient work. You were careful and diligent with all the editing of the final product, including the use of garageband. ·         Continue to pay attention to framing and adopt a more experimental approach to the short film. Aim for variety, interest and engagement of the spectator ·         Widen your range of knowledge about sound types and design. Improve sound recording ·         Aim to be experimental where appropriate with editing. Seek new ways of creating narrative and meaning using different types of transition. ·         Make better use of social media to gain audience feedback, and integrate this more effectively into your developing products
Creativity: In what ways did you try to be original? How successfully did you balance the use of standard conventions of thrillers with the aim to be different or original? E.g. consider  techniques used, narrative, character, mood, sound, themes, titles etc Research and Planning: How thorough and effective was your research into real media texts? How actively did you use your findings to create your own ideas? How well did you record your findings? How individual was your research? What was your role in planning and what was effective or not so effective?	Creativity We wanted to create a connection between characters through cross cutting, which we had seen in other thrillers such as Hunted. The cross cutting added to the narrative which tells the story of how the characters are connected and how they eventually meet. We also used music that was parallel to the image; high tension music when the protagonist finds something interesting. Our title was supposed to mimic the flashes of ‘insanity’, reflecting our main antagonist, however it didn’t prove to be very effective. In most thrillers, the main character is portrayed by a strong male. I wanted ours to be different and switch the stereotype around, so we’d have a strong female lead. I wanted this because females have never properly been given full roles in films or in TV, so I wanted to do something different that would have a positive representation of the female gender. I really hope I can include this in my A2 film, because I think it’s very important that we address this in today’s media either male or female. Research and Planning For the research and planning, we had to watch several thriller openings so we could get some inspiration; examples include Inception, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Usual Suspects etc. We looked at how the characters were introduced through camerawork and there was a lot of cross cutting and close ups. We also found that some characters were kept hidden by restricted narration (the camera doesn’t show the villain’s face in The Usual Suspects). I wanted to incorporate this into our opening, so we used restricted narration on our antagonist to create an enigma for our audience, which worked. I recorded my individual research and findings in posts on Blogger; I created posts which included break-downs and studies on actual thriller openings. I studied Inception and noted aspects such as focus pulls and shot/reverse shots, which we included in our opening. I used screenshots from the clips to illustrate what I was explaining, and different colours in the text to show the camerawork, sound, MES and editing. This helped me look at our opening in more detail, which then led to paying more attention to the finer things that made up our thriller. This skill is also something I want to include in the making of my A2 film. My main role in the planning stages was writing out the synopsis, script and character profiles. These weren’t too difficult to do, because I’m very used to and skilled in creating stories and fictional characters. In the synopsis, I thought about all the thriller openings we’d watched and researched. The main one I’d had in mind was Misery, because I felt it had a very twisted and interesting story and one that I really liked. I used that and also elements from the popular television show Sherlock in the script, as our thriller was based around a top detective. These are skills I’m aiming to use a lot during the A2 course, because it will evidently make the film better and using them more will help me develop them further. We also put a lot of effort into making our two animatics and storyboard. We spent a lot of time recording our voiceovers and making sure we were including everything. The voiceover animatic helped us sculpt and structure our opening better and I had more of an image of what we were going to do. I will be applying this depth of detail to my A2 film so it can be the best it can.	·         Use mise en scene appropriately and creatively throughout – you did this before, but short films demand different skills and range of mise en scene. Decide early what style you favour for the short film (eg genre), and try add something original to this, as short films often do. ·         You made very good efforts as a group to be original in your thriller, in terms of character. Continue to do this if you can, and be bold with ideas as this format really suits experimentation of all kinds, as long as your spectator can understand! ·         Your analysis of this stage is excellent, and already shows that you are able to critically examine your own work to make improvements. This is a great basis for A2. Start researching short films now , because although they are short, you’ll find that it takes a long time to seek out films that are useful or inspiring. Try to improve this aspect of research – always consider what you have learnt by watching and analysing the film. ·         Continue to use media language terms to analyse, as that will also give you material for qn 1b in the exam. ·         Planning was good, but you did fall behind as a group on this at times. Try to make sure that you are fully aware of the tasks you have to complete and by when. Aim to start the storyboarding early, as you may have to plan 60+ shots!
Post production: This refers to the entire editing process (sound and vision). What specific skills have you individually developed in this area? What do you need to work on? How successfully did you work on sound and vision together?	The title of our film was quite poor because it was quite short and at first, didn’t really look like the title. However, once the opening got going, it would then become apparent that it is the title. This lesson will help me with my A2 project and help me with making the title look better and relate to the appropriate genre. The filter over the top of the image helped give the opening that thriller look; it was very bleak and dull, which really fitted what we intended for our film. The use of post-production filters will help me get a better understanding of different genres, and ultimately aid me in making my A2 film more realistic in whichever genre is chosen. The main problem that came across to us was some sound editing; we’d used a sound from GarageBand to put over a pencil towards the beginning of the opening. The Foley didn’t quite fit so we had to lengthen it and make it quieter in places to make it sound more authentic. I didn’t want to use any font that would be too clichéd because we wanted our opening to be as accurate as possible, so I used a normal clean font in capitals and it looked really good after I’d added some fade effects. Also, another sound we used was a dull thud that either signalled something significant or a change in location. In some places, it worked very well and added to the tension, but other times it sounded very weak. We could have either used a better artificial sound or created our own Foley that probably would have been louder and more effective. I will be looking out for this and avoiding this problem in my A2 film.	As before, this is an area where you can really improve. Your work was very diligent and conscientious at AS, and good results achieved, but you can develop new techniques in vision and sound editing and be bold and experimental.
Using conventions from real media texts: Which specific conventions of the thriller genre did you choose to use in your product? How successfully did you use them? What were the reasons for not being able to use them?	I wanted to keep it realistic as possible, so I wanted it to have all the necessary conventions in it like low-key lighting, restricted narration etc. However, we didn’t use any sort of weapon such as a knife or a gun, which is very iconographic for a thriller. I decided not to I wanted our thriller to have a lot of tension without violence (I didn’t feel it was necessary). The tension would evidently build up to some sort of climax which we showed in our opening. I feel my judgement on this and my decisions will help me with my A2 work. The lack of weapons and violence turned out to be quite successful and gave our opening an edginess. I hope to recreate this in my short film. Another reason why we didn’t use any form of weapon, was that we didn’t want to stir up any unwanted attention; teenagers with guns and knives would not have helped with our filming.	You did well with conventions in our view. With the short film, you need to pay attention to the narrative shape of these films, and decide early on how you want the film to work in relation to time. This is the difference between plot and story. Visual conventions will be affected by your choice of style or genre, so be clear about this in research stages, and then use conventions and adapt to be original as far as possible. WELL DONE!