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Hey,This is my AS Media blog! I am going to be posting all my work we do on here, and I'm really enjoying the course so far! Thanks for reading! Alex x

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Preliminary Exercise


The preliminary exercise we were set was to shoot and edit a short video using conversation dialogue. There were some certain shots that we must include which were:


Match-on-action- This is where two shots cut together where a character finish an action in the second shot begun in the first shot. For example, if a character lights a match in the first shot, the character will draw it up to a cigarette in the second.
180˚ ruleThe 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_degree_rule)
Shot/Reverse shot- Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_reverse_shot)




Pre-Production Process
As you have read from the previous post, i joined the Media studies Course late which means i missed the majority of the pre-production process. When i joined, my group had already written the storyboard and written the script. The original plot was that the main character (Male) receives a message from a girl  named 'Sammy'asking to meet him for the first time. He is happy to receive this message and walks off to find her. a few people point him in the right direction, then when he finds the right room, 'Sammy' is facing away from the window. Then there is a shot of the main characters face being shocked, then we see that 'Sammy' is in fact a boy! The main character was going to be played by Dan, and Sammy was going to be played by Alex B. This  was the story board that was made:








Production Process
Lights, Camera, Action!! The first lesson i had with media studies, we were starting to shoot the video. We were all assigned jobs to do before we started. I was assigned to be the sound manager, which included making sure the sound was the very best quality it could be by getting the microphone as close to the action as possible without making the microphone visible in the shot. I Also helped with the continuity managing which involved making sure that  We had our first successful filming lesson and we were confident it was going well.


We then ran into a bit of trouble when our main character (Dan) didn't turn up to the lesson where we were going to continue shooting the video. We were running on a very tight schedule and we really needed to get on with the filming and we needed change the plan because we really needed to film. We had a short group meeting and we decided to change the plot.


The new plot was that instead of the main character being a boy, we decided that Alex B would be the main Character. He receives a text message from Alice (the new character). The text says that she wants to talk to him, so he goes to find her. He finds her in a room looking away from the camera and when Alex walks in, she turns around. The suspense is built up by wondering what Alice wants to say to Alex, and when he walks in and asks whats wrong, we decided to use an anti-climax by her only wanting to know what film he wants to see at the cinema!!! 


We were happy with this new plot, but it is a shame because our first plot was really funny, but this one was made up really quickly using a lot of improvising!


This was the script that we wrote as a group:

Alex walks to locker, opens it, then receiving a text message, he takes the phone out of his pocket, read the message and puts it back into his pocket. He then walks through a door and down a corridor to meet Alice.
Arrives at door, looks through then opens it and walks into the room, where Alice is waiting.
Alex: …you wanted to talk?
Alice: Well…It’s just that
Alex: Well…
Alice: Shall we see 'Back to the Future' or 'Buried' tonight?
Alex: I don’t care… 'Back to the Future'?
Alice: 'Buried' it is!

This was the new storyboard:





The actual filming went well, but we ran into some more problems. One of the main problems is that because we were filming around the school, we had a lot of other students walking around and infront of the camera to get past which was a bit annoying, but we had to get on with it, and film as much as we could when we could! We also couldn't find the right settings for ages because all the class rooms were taken! once we'd found an empty class room, we could begin to film the conversation scenes.


The equipment we used was a microphone and headphones (Which is what i was in charge of), A Video camera and a tripod. We used a tripod to make sure there was no shakey hand movements when filming to make the whole video look more professional. The microphone was really useful by getting much more better sound quality than if we had used the built in one to the video camera.


Overall, i think we did an excellent job of improvising at the last minute and finishing everything to deadline when we were working to such a tight deadline. Because we did everything in one go, we had no clothing continuity problems, but a couple of times we had shadows moving which ment that we had to shoot that bit again. We worked well as a team, and we worked well under pressure to finish our tasks set. We made surre we returned to the story board to make sure we were going it well.


Post-Production Process
Once we had finished with all our filming, we captured all the footage onto the computer. We then opened all the footage on a program called Adobe Premier Pro. We then all took turns to have a go at editing the footage. I had never used Premier Pro before, but i caught on pretty quickly as all the basic functions were much like Imovie which i use in my leisure at home. Premier Pro is a very good editing program, and i like how easy it is to edit each clip and put it into the larger video editing box.


The match-on-action shots were really hard to edit because the way you have to make the first shot fit next to the next one is so precise that you have to make sure it looks right. We had a lot of editing to do, but we got it all done well within an hour and a half. 


Overall, i think our video is very good, and i think our team worked very well to produce a very good video. The video has some light humour and it worked really well, and i'm very happy with it! Here is the video:

Joining Media Studies!

I Have recently joined media studies slightly late. I originally chose to take Graphic design, but i decided that media studies would be much more interesting and would go with my photography Alevel as well. I am really excited to get started!!

A log of media exposure during 24 hours


Hello everyone!
This is my Foundation portfolio for my AS level Media studies. I am really enjoying Media studies at Ringwood so far, and i can't wait to get into it more. On this blog, I will be posting updates from my pre-production to post-production and how everything is going.

My First Assignment was to write a log of what and how much media I am exposed to on a typical day. I Chose to do a school day because it is the most common type of day for me. This Particular day was a Tuesday.
7.00am- Alarm clock went off, and played the local radio station.
7.30am- Had the local radio station on whilst i ate my breakfast.
8.00am- Left to go to school with my ipod on.
9.00am- Checked my Email in registration at school.
1.00am- Went into town at lunch time and saw a few posters and adverts on Buses and on walls.
1.30pm- Did some research on 'wikipedia' for famous photographers for Photography lesson.
3.30pm- Waited for the bus and saw lots of film adverts on the sides of buses and on the bus shelters.
3.50pm- Got on the bus and looked out the window at all the posters on lamp posts, and shop windows.
4.10pm- Got home and turned on the music channel on the TV.
4.30pm- Checked my Facebook, Emails, Films on in the cinema, Twitter, watched YouTube videos and checked prices for 'The last song' DVD on Play.com, Amazon and HMV.
5.00pm- Completed my homework and this involved research on the Internet.
6.30pm- Ate my dinner with the news on in the background.
7.00pm- Flicked through the 'Whats on TV' Magazine and had 'Emmerdale' in the background on.
7.30pm- Watched 'Eastenders', then watched a pre-recorded episode of 'Grand designs'.
9.00pm- Watched a  'Friends' episode, whilst talking on the phone for 10 Minutes to my Nan.
10.00pm- Read my book for half an hour and texted a few friends.

After writing down every single piece of media i came into contact with, it really shocked me how much media really is in our lives!
 
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