Weekly Journaling
This is my journal entry page for the whole of Year One. Scroll below to what I got up to in every week this year.
Week One
In the first week of the course we focused on learning the different shots and angles in the industry, this was something that I personally was really looking forward to, as it gave me an easy opportunity window to jump into the headspace of a professional. The first week was very hands on, we learnt how to set up and use the cameras and tripods, and getting to use the new knowledge of the different shots and ways of moving, for example a mcu pan-tilt. The first time I got to have hands on the equipment, I was very nervous that I was going to break the camera or tripod, or change the settings or alter it in some way and there would be discipline, but it was great, this course is very new to almost everyone here so making a few mistakes is good and vital to getting to know and learn about the equipment. We took some examples of all of the different shots and got feedback from the rest of the class and the lecturers, which was helpful to get constructive criticism, that was more than needed. At some points of the week like learning about deconstruction and denotation, I found a little boring as it was something I already knew quite alot about and I just wanted to get on a computer and learn how to edit properly, and run all of the systems softwares.
Week Two
At the start of week two we started to learn about the history of cinema and 'The father of film editing' Mr George Melies and his creation of the jump cut. After watching one of his first films, we had a go and recreating one of them. This was one of my highlights of my week as we actually got hands on with the cameras to make our first short film.
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My favourite thing we did this week was our first mini projects called "The Journey" this was our first project where we got put into groups and produce an actual short film. This taught me a lot as we had to do all of the pre and post production steps like creating the risk assessment and the production schedule.
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Week Three
This week has got to be my favourite week so far, we have now finished out induction weeks which now means we have started our own projects. I found this the best week so far as I finally get to use my creative mind to come up with my own short film all about me, which I think is such a good topic because it is so broad, the creativity is endless. I finished doing my mind map and mood-board this week to have an idea of what pre-production I can do next week. This I will be thankful for.
We also started looking at the Canon DSLR's we have, and started learning about the different aspects and how to properly work one, I found this really helpful as I have never got to be hands on with a camera like those, although I don't think that I will be using one again.
My favourite part about this week was getting the use the recording equipment and record out own soundscapes, me and Jayden decided to go for a haunted house soundscape and we got to go out and record different sounds around college.
Week Four
This week was crammed with things from recording a short mini project called 'THE WORD' and furthering our ideas and pre-production for out self portrait project. I wasn't a fan of making the mini project as I really just wanted to knuckle down on my self portrait project and seemed a bit like a waste of time. That being said, I managed to complete all of my ideas development and pre-production on time. I do wish I had more time to complete more of my storyboard but other than that I'm pretty happy with the point I am at with my project.
Week Five
This week was heavily based on progressing our self portrait projects, I managed to shoot everything and make a rough cut of my final project, although mid week I realised that I would need to rethink my initial idea, as the weather would not stop raining and all my shooting is outside based. I managed to efficiently alter my original idea, although now I must alter/add my new location's pre-production paperwork, eg. risk assessment. I did some admin on my WIX page to make it flow a little easier and I think its a lot easier to manage and use now. Our lecture this week was on sound and audio and the history of it, as a class we focused on D.W Griffith and Lee De Forest and their input to audio on film. I really enjoyed learning about this because I genuinely found this topic interesting rather than some of the other topics that we've covered in our lectures.
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Week Six
This week I realised that overall my self portrait project was harder to work on than I initially thought it was going to be. Going into September, I had never used any type of editing software other than iMovie so it was quite a step up. I found it really hard to get used Adobe Premiere, not knowing how to navigate it and usually getting things wrong. I ended up completing my final cut on Tuesday so for the last portion of the week I've been working on my WIX page making sure it all makes sense and that the video / links are all working. I'm quite happy with how everything turned out I just wished that my overall idea was more creative and less boring.
Week Seven
This week I got paired with Piers and Xaran to work on our music video project together. I'm excited to work with them as I've never worked to piers before and only briefly spoke to Xaran. The first thing we did was research what songs all three of us knew and didn't mind doing. We decided to go for Starboy by the Weeknd - which personally I don't really like but for the sake of them, I went with it.
We started thinking and we decided to go for a sci-fi / futuristic style with the neon lights and the flashy visuals like the film bladerunner.
Later this week we had our theory lesson on the different roles in the sound department, and what each role does to get us to the final soundscape. I really liked the thought of the foley artist and coming up with loads of random different noises that could be used for so many different things.
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Week Eight
This week me and my group furthered our research for our music video concept and made some research pages on a power point (which can be found on the pre production and research page on my music video project) including details on the popularity of that genre of music video as well as what we would need to film it. I made two pages of the research as I felt that if I did not do it myself it wouldn't of been done or it would've got done lazily and with no detail. Later that week, when we would usually have our interactive media lesson, we had a talk from the BBC's Senior adviser of editorial policy. She explained to us her role, and told us some of the sort of things that she's had to deal with. I personally thought that the talk was going to be boring and I wouldn't really care, but as I found out what she did in her role I was really intrigued and actually thoroughly enjoyed hearing her talk about her job and I found it really interesting.
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Week Nine
This week we had loads of different demos taught to us by the lecturers and Ash. We started out with demonstrations on lighting and grip kit. We looked at how lighting is used and how to use it effectively, using key lights, background lights etc. Then we looked at the grip kit, we looked at the ride on dolly, the crane and the jib. I personally thought that ride on dolly looked unsafe and hard to use, you had to look out that you weren't rolling off the end of the piping as well as staying on the seat and making sure the subject is in shot. The jib and the crane looked fairly similar to use, yet the jib being my favourite as it seems to be easier to set up, use and transport. On the Tuesday we had a go at an animation form where it looks like a person is moving, I thought this was one of my favourite things that I have done on this course so far, as I am a big fan of animation. CLICK HERE to watch how mine, Jayden and Henry's went. On the Wednesday we had a mess around with the greenscreen and learnt how to edit a greenscreen in premiere pro effectively, you can CLICK HERE to watch mine.
This week my music video group had a small argument about our song choice, I felt the idea we had was unreachable and quite frankly quite boring having the same neon lights over and over, so after discussion I added another idea to the powerpoint using the song Don't stop believin' by Journey. On the friday we held out focus group presentations where we showed our different ideas to a section of the class and they gave us feedback on our ideas and help us come to a decision. The focus group ended up picking my idea, which I personally think is much more reasonable and easier to shoot, whilst also being interesting.
Week Ten
On Tuesday we started a stop motion animation, in my group (Jayden and Henry) we decided to make a little plastic polar bear walk through different terrains using our monitors. After looking at the photo's I think it would've been a decent animation but I just don't have the time to edit it together. In our interactive media lesson on the Thursday we learnt about how we could make our own websites easier to navigate and look more put together using design theories. I found this particular lesson so helpful as my website at the minute needs a little work. I plan on fixing my website and hoping to make it a little easier to navigate over the christmas holidays.
Week Eleven
We started off this week by doing a small lip syncing demo where we got given a section of Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley and we had to try out our lip syncing skills for the first time. It was really fun watching everyone's first attempt and getting some feedback from what we could improve. Later on in the week we furthered our Interactive Media project by looking and comparing two websites and why I think they're good examples. I chose Steve Wolf Designs and Darren Hughes Art. You can see my full analysis on them in the Interactive Media option in my Projects menu. In the free time this week I focused on finishing my Skills Audit and my Job roles research, which I found kind of hard to do as I would've rather been thinking about my music video.
Week Twelve
This week I focused on doing my pre-production paperwork, this time round I found this process really draining compared to doing it for self portrait, I think this is because it was my first time getting to do it but now it just feels repetitive. This week went really slow but I didn't get much done so I only ended up getting a couple of the pre production bits finished. Later that week be learnt about the evolution of the big production studios and companies and what they were like in early Hollywood compared to modern Hollywood, to me this kind of theory is boring and all I want to do is practical work so this week was one of the worsts for me.
Week Thirteen
This week I finished off my pre-production work as much as I could without going insane. I didn't manage to finished it in time for next week to record but I'm sure I'll find time to finish off my location assessments and the one risk assessment I have left to do. As well as getting prepared for filming next week, on the theory lessons on Thursday I thought about the films I was going to focus on for the critical perspectives essay. This week I really felt the pressure of having three projects active at once, it was really hard for me to focus this week and I just keep getting distracted.
Week Fourteen
This week I did all my filming, and we had to change so many things. Bristol became too unachievable to get to with train ticket prices and the popularity of it being nearly Christmas. I had to resort to switching locations and changing my idea's slightly to fit the new set. I chose Bath at the tickets were cheaper and it was less busy around some of the back streets. Filming went okay for the most part but I couldn't get all the shots I wanted and they're all kind of the same, which I hope doesn't make the video boring. In the week though I focused on doing my Interactive media project ideas research powerpoint and some further research into the critical perspectives essay.
Week Fifteen
After filming last week I focused on making a rough cut of my section of the music video this week, it came out okay but like I thought, I think it gets a little boring and repetitive near the end when all it is is walking shots of the two characters. Alongside this I worked on some more research for Interactive media and made a mood board of some elements I want my website to include. In the middle of this week was the Christmas holidays where I watched all three of the critical perspective films and started the first draft which was due in the first day back to college. The essay went okay but I seemed to ramble about the plot of the films at the start and didn't end up getting much actual analysis done. The last two days of this week were the first couple days back at college after Christmas where we were set pre-production work for Interactive Media and did some final changes to my critical perspectives essay.
Week Sixteen
This week I really knuckled down into evolving the rough cut into a better sort of idea of what I wanted, as the week progressed it got to Wednesday and pretty much the edit was done. I now have to upload everything to my website and complete some of the supporting journal entry requirements as well as finishing the location assessments I didn't manage to do in previous weeks. I was off on Wednesday and Thursday due to covid reasons where I did some pre-production work for Interactive media - I made a start on the writing proposal and the navigation flow chart, which I don't really understand at all. On the Friday I managed to hand it my final edit of the music video on time as well as completing everything I needed. I'm very relieved that Music video is over as it felt like we've been working on it for so long and I feel a change is Projects - especially one that is heavily decided by me, like the options project, is exactly what I need at the moment.