Reflection Page

Candidate Number
9564

Preliminary Task

From the preliminary task I have learnt various things. The first thing that I have learnt from the duration of creating the preliminary task is how to use the camera equipment such as the camera and the tripod. This knowledge became very clear to my group and I from the start as we had to know how to use this equipment in honor to record the footage to the best of the cameras ability. My group and I will use this knowledge in our main opening sequence task as we will need to record footage for the product. The next thing my group and I learnt from the preliminary task was how to edit a selection of various clips together. This knowledge took us a long time to get used to as the software was very new and we did not know how to edit anything before taking AS Media. We will use this knowledge in our opening sequence task as we will record and then edit the clips together by inputting things such as sound and transitions to make our opening sequence look very professional and well presented. 

Opening Sequence Analyses

From the opening sequence analyses I have learnt various things but the most important thing that I have learnt is how to analyse and identify certain things in an opening sequence. I have learnt things such as how to identify camera angles and what these camera angles are trying to represent about things such as locations and characters that are playing a part within the opening sequences. Having the knowledge of how to identify key aspects of a certain genre is going to help my group and I create a very good opening sequence for the final task as we now know that we need to use things such as props as they play an important part in telling a story to the audience. 

Titles Analyses

From the titles analyses that I had written about I have learnt various things. One of the most important things that I have learnt in the duration of learning about the titles analyses is how important titles are to the overall film company. I have learnt that the titles that are on the beginning are important to show the main actors names in the film as the audience will be attracted to this factor about the film.  I have also learnt that the titles may take up the entire opening sequence as the production company may use titles as a way to build up suspense and attract the audience into wanting to watch the rest of the film as the opening sequence was very good and attractive. Having this knowledge will help with our opening sequence as we know that we need to use a lot of titles to show our audience about the actors and the production company that have created the opening sequence for the audiences entertainment. 

Research into potential target audience

When researching into potential target audiences I have learnt a lot of things about the different groups of people that we are targeting. The first thing that I have learnt is targeting teenage groups from 15-20 is the most ideal target audience as teenagers are more likely to watch Psychological Thrillers as teenagers are classified as energy junkies meaning they like the thriller effect from the disturbing scenes in the opening sequence. We can put this knowledge to use when creating our opening sequence as we know the kinds of conventions we need to use to attract our targeted audience. If we did not have this knowledge we would not be targeting our audience to the best of our ability and we would not be attracting our targeted audiences attention due to the lack of conventions we would have been using.                                                                                           

Questionnaire on Storyboard

When creating the questionnaire, we was not aware that this questionnaire was going to help with the making of our opening sequence. The overall questionnaire extremely helped us have the knowledge about what audience we should be targeting. The questionnaire clearly showed that teenagers would be the best age range to target as the large majority of the people that answered our questionnaire and in their opinions thought that having the age range of teenagers (15-20 year old) would be the most beneficial as the film genre being Psychological Thriller would be the most appealing to this age range due to the energy that these teenagers have. The questionnaire also helped us know what things we need to develop in honor to story line further. The questionnaire feedback strongly suggested we changed certain parts of our story so that the flow of the opening sequence would be very strong and that everybody who watched our opening sequence would be able to understand the importance of the story line that we wanted to project to our target audience. Both these things are going to help with our opening sequence as it gives us the knowledge that we have to target our audience to a certain age range and gives us an idea that we have to use conventions and clear shots to represent the story line we are trying to share to the audience. 

Risk Assessment

When creating the risk assessment, I learnt a lot of things. One of the most important things that I learnt throughout the duration of the risk assessment was that a lot of risks were in place for the things that we were planning on doing. For example, everything that we was going to film such as breaking glass had a risk and that we needed to plan how we were going to prevent bad things from happening and what we would do if these things were going to happen. This is going to help us record our opening sequence as we now know the things that we need to stop from happening and we now know how to fill in a risk assessment for the future.

Conventional Locations

Before discovering conventional locations I did not know that this subject existed. Conventional locations has given me the knowledge not only on the subject but it has given me the knowledge to be able to identify these conventional locations and show which location would represent which stereotype. Being aware of conventional locations ensures that for our opening sequence we are going to chose a location that has conventions of our chosen target audience and genre. Using the correct conventional location for our opening sequence is very important to make sure the audience understand the concept of the story line. If we do not use a conventional location for our opening sequence, this will leave the audience questioning the genre of the film and the audience may loose interest if the conventional location is not consistent throughout the duration of the film. 

Conventional Props

Before entering the Media AS course, I did not know anything about conventional props. Conventional props has given me the knowledge of what conventional props is and how I can use conventional props in a way that would be of interest to a certain targeted audience. Being aware of what conventional props is ensures that for our opening sequence, we are going to use a variety of props to make sure that our audience understand the purpose of these props, how they link to the story line and how these props link to our chosen genre of the opening sequence. If we use props that are not conventional, this may confuse the targeting audience or may leave the audience lacking interest in the opening sequence due to the irrelevant props that may appear. 

Conventional Actors

Before entering the Media AS course, I did not know anything about conventional actors. Conventional actors has given me the knowledge of what conventional actors are and how I can use conventional actors in a way that would be of interest to a certain targeted audience. Being aware of how we could use conventional actors is a very good thing to put into our opening sequence. We are going to use conventional actors such as teenagers that have conventions of stereotypical teenager which would link with our chosen genre and targeted audience being teenagers. If we use actors that are not conventional, this may confuse the targeting audience or may leave the audience lacking interest in the opening sequence due to the irrelevant actors to the story line. 

Conventional Costumes

My knowledge of conventional costumes has gone from nothing before entering the Media AS course to knowing everything to do with conventional costumes. Conventional costumes has given me the knowledge of what the topic is about and how I can use conventional costumes in a way that would be of interest to a certain targeted audience. Being aware of how we could use conventional costumes is a very good thing to put into our opening sequence. We are going to use conventional costumes such as ripped and dark clothing to show the audience that a certain character is going to be the protagonist.  If we use costumes that are not conventional, this may confuse the targeting audience or may leave the audience lacking interest in the opening sequence.

Shot List
My knowledge of shot lists has drastically increased rapidly. I have learnt about what a shot list is firstly as before as I did not know what a shot list was nor did I know what a shot list was used for. From using the shot list, I have learnt that we have to plan out every single shot that we are going to do, giving details of every single thing that is going to be taking place in that shot such as what sound is going to be in the shot, if the sound is going to be diagetic or non-diagetic etc. This is going to help with the making of our opening sequence as a shot list will help us remember every single thing that we originally planned to do will be recorded and put into our opening sequence as the shot list will guide us into everything that we are going to be doing in our opening sequence. 

Storyboard

My knowledge of storyboards has drastically increased. I have learnt about what a storyboard is and the importance of the storyboard to the overall planning of a final product. I have learnt about the amount of time and detail that needs to go into the creation of the storyboard to ensure that our final product would be very good to help us film the topic we are planning the storyboard about. The storyboard being detailed is going to help us a lot when coming to film the opening sequence and editing the opening sequence as we know what to record and which transitions to put in the opening sequence as we have already thought ahead and planned this out. 

Animatic
My knowledge of animatic has drastically improved as I did not know anything about animatic before taking Media at AS level. I have learnt that animatic is a very important way to show things such as storyboards and it is a good way to show the audience or people who are viewing the depth and detail that has gone into the storyboard to help explain everything. I will be using animatic to help with the creation of our opening sequence as using animatic to show our storyboards is going to help us remember what we are going to be filming and the different locations etc. we need in honor to film our shots to the best of our ability. 

Scripting
My knowledge of scripting has drastically improved as I was not aware of the amount of effort and time that was put into scripting in the real world. I have learnt all about the different scripting words that are needed to be used such as underlining and putting spaces in between certain things. I will use this knowledge in the creation of my opening sequence as I will make sure I script every single shot that we are going to be filming and everything that is going to be in that shot so if we need to film anything again we know exactly what we were planning to do and in which order that we were going to be filming it in.