Critical Analysis - Contextual Studies

Portfolio

Strengths
-Had a minimalistic layout - didn't look too complicated
- Was organised into sections and neat looking
-Shows a variety of photography types, letting viewers know my range of skills

Areas for Improvement
-Content limit - more photos could have been added
-Not much information, add text for details
-No contact information or details about me

3 Things I've learnt by completing these tasks
-Important to get yourself out there online
-It can prove quite challenging to make your own website
-Constantly keep creating content

Presentation

Strengths
-It was to the point and concise
-Arranged in an easy to understand manner
-Good choice of goals

Areas for Improvement
-Too simplistic - add photos maybe?
-Short length, add more information/goals? Go into more depth
-Present it better - use gestures, face the audience etc

3 Things I've learnt by completing these tasks
-Work hard to get into uni - the sooner the better
-Do independent research/work outside of college
-Contribute/go the extra mile in lessons

12 Month Personal Development Action Plan

For my 12 month development action plan I've split the plan into three main goals and gone into detail of each goal, listing details of the goal and how I can achieve it in a specific timeframe. My first goal and most important goal to me is to get into University to do a course in either film or photography.

To do this I'll need to work on a personal statement and have this complete, ready to send off before the 15th January (which is the deadline for applications). I'd like to have my personal statement complete on the 15th November so that I can apply to Universities sooner rather than later. This seems like quite a daunting task so to get this done I'll need to set out a plan for each paragraph of the personal statement, brainstorm ideas of what to say & do research online by watching videos and reading articles and other personal statements. I'll also need to ask for feedback from my lecturers and adults so I can keep adapting and improving the personal statement.

Next I'll need to find some University courses that apply to me so I can apply to them and have good options (if I get a place). I have some universities in mind already but I'd like to find a couple more and ideally I'd like to have this done by the end of the month, so to make a sound decision of courses I need to read their prospectuses and look at their websites which will state what they look for in a student.  

Lastly I'll need to take action on what the university websites say about ideal students and make myself appealing to the university by acting on this. This will mean working to my best ability in this college course to try and get a distinction, and working on personal projects outside of college. I'd like to make at least one product a month up until University so I gain lots of experience and knowledge whilst also having some work to show for myself. This product could be something moving image based, audio based, or photography and design based. I'd also like to try and watch at least 3 films a week to get more familiar with analysing and understanding them, and again to gain experience.

My second goal is to improve in my college course so I can achieve the best grade possible, which will help to lead me on into higher education. I've split this section up into the three lessons we're taking this year: Contextual Studies, Moving Image and Audio. To begin with, for Contextual Studies I'd like to learn how to pitch better, which means delivering my ideas and presenting more effectively. This is because pitching is an important skill to have in the media industry and can help massively towards getting your ideas heard. To do this I'll need to research effective techniques online and practice pitching in these lessons.
 

Something I'd like to improve on in Moving Image lessons is knowledge on real life aspects of film and tv such as budgeting a production, lighting techniques, scriptwriting and storyboarding. I know how to do all of these things but I'd like to research them in more detail and learn how to do them better so I can improve my work. I'll be able to research all of these things online so I aim to be more skilled in all of these things by the end of the year.

For audio I want to become more familiar with sound in premiere so that I can apply this knowledge to my video productions. To do this I need to pay full attention and contribute in my audio lessons with Tom, as well as doing research and experimentation outside of college by watching videos on it and googling it.

My last main goal is for personal things outside of college. For these I'd like to make myself more attractive to future clients and employers which means making a portfolio and personal website. Which I aim to have completed by the start of 2018. I also need to work on independent projects outside of college with other creative individuals which I will do on my free days and in the holidays. Lastly I need to keep myself organised so I can work to my best ability. I can do this by setting deadlines and achievable tasks for myself.

I hope to check back on this blog monthly so I can see what I'm doing and what needs to be done, leading to my personal development.

Differential Focusing Techniques - Experimentation

In this lesson we experimented with different lenses and apertures to see how they affected the depth of field. As the aperture increases numerically the depth of field gets deeper. This video shows the different apertures + lenses I tested:
I concluded from this that a small aperture like f1.8 makes the background very blurred and soft, bringing focus to the foreground. (Professional look also) This looks better for portraits in my opinion. With a large aperture like f22 the background and foreground are both in focus so this should be better for location photography or trying to get a shot where everything is focuses on. Additionally, with the zoom lens fully zoomed in you need to bring the camera quite far back to get the subject in frame, which can be an issue. Another thing I noticed was that the perspective changes with lenses.

Enter the Pitch - Research

For the research of Enter the Pitch we needed to come up with a film idea which is based off the Bible. I'm not a Christian so I didn't have a lot of knowledge on Bible stories, however I have seen a few Biblical themed films such as 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and 'Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat' so I had some knowledge.

To begin with, I brainstormed about what kind of film I wanted to make and thought of some of my favourite films, which let me to 'Goodfellas'. From this I decided I wanted to make a Gangster film. This is because in Gangster films I find the stories are gripping and I like the style and tension in these films. I looked at some clips from gangster films for inspiration and found a clip from 'Goodfellas II' where somebody is given the Kiss of Death:

I then remembered the part in the Bible where Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss as this is shown in the film 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and thought that these 2 things can be linked. This is because the kiss of death is a kiss of betrayal in the mafia, similar to how Judas' kiss betrays Jesus. For further research I looked at wikipedia pages of both of these subjects:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_of_Judas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_of_death_(mafia)
After this research I was able to come up with some good ideas for me to start planning out my film. To help me with this I made a moodboard to get some ideas and themes down such as similar films, styles, and time periods.

Enter the Pitch - Pitch Reflection

For this module we had to work on our own film ideas for the competition "Enter the Pitch". To do this we had to come up with a film idea based off a Bible story and create a treatment and pitch for it. Once we had completed a treatment we had to pitch our film ideas. Below is my pitch which I will reflect on in order to improve my pitching skills for next time.

Overall I think I pitched my idea fairly effectively as I got the idea across in time and went through everything I wanted to. When watching my pitch back on video one main thing that stood out to me was my use of "uh's and like". This makes my pitch seem more unprofessional and not as concise which I'd like to try and improve on next time to clean up my pitch technique. Another thing I noticed I could improve on is my speed as I speak quite quickly. This can partly be justified as we had a 2 minute time limit but I think this is also something I can try to work on.

I also thought that to improve my pitching technique I could try and maintain better eye contact when pitching as this shows I'm more confident and that I have memorised my ideas (because I'm not looking at the notes as much).  Furthermore, I thought that the use of hand gestures would make my pitching more effective. By using gestures I can get the idea across better and won't look as static.

In Conclusion, I think that I need to try and act more confidently when pitching and try to be more logical in my thinking and slow down when speaking. This will make my pitching a lot more professional looking and effective.