Progress

Since we have started our coursework we have made a consistent amount of progress meaning that we have continued to move forward in our work as well improving our work through the learning process.

At this current stage, two adverts have been completed, meaning that we now only have one more to film and edit. I believe that our consistent amount of progress is down to our organisation skills and ability to work as a team. This has therefore given us a determination to make adverts which we can be proud of as well as to ultimately meet the deadlines.

After believing that I would be better off working alone due to various problems in working with a group after last years coursework, I have learnt that it is possible to work as a team and that all of you can have an equal amount to do as long as you all stick with the set schedule that you set yourself as well as apply communication skills so that everybody knows what they are doing. I also think that by making personal deadlines, it allows us to complete certain tasks by a fixed date meaning that the progress made on our coursework is more significant. I believe that I need to communicate my ideas with my partner in order to overcome everything that we face regarding our coursework. The advantage of our partnership is that we have identical timetables meaning that most of the time we can do our filming and editing together, meaning that we both put inan equal amount of effort into the coursework.

I also feel that our organisation skills have also contributed to our steady progress. To begin with, we did tend to miss dates in which we had originally planned on filming, and we realised that we could not carry on doing this if we were to meet deadlines. We found that because we did not always organise our time well, that we found ourselves rushing when it came to completing finishing touches of the advert, such as the music, meaning that we were over a week late that the original deadline that was set. We have overcome this lack of organisation stage and have been able to progress and be ahead in our work due to us sticking with our shooting schedule. In completing the majority of shooting and editing a week before the deadline, it allowed us enough time to focus on music, voiceovers, and re-shoots. We also found that by getting the filming out of the way early, it gave us more than enough time to fully edit the advert.

One of the key things which I have developed upon since last year's coursework is the use of camera. Before we started this coursework, I had very little knowledge on camera usage because my primary focus/role in my group last year was editing, meaning that I didn't use the camera as much as others. I feel that I have a much better understanding on how to use the camera. To begin with, my lack of camera skills were shown when we failed to tell the story of the advert through the camera, as well as having poor shots which did not meet the codes and conventions of an advert. However, after some discussions with our teacher and some more experimenting, we soon learned how to tell a story with the camera, as well as discovering more interesting camera shots.

Our progress was however, quite limiting at the very start of the project because we we had no experience in working with the new Adobe Premier software on the MAC's. This meant that we had to focus a lot of our time learning how to use the features meaning that valuable time was spend 'experimenting.' The advantage of this was that we could play around with the features and have an idea of what works well and what doesn't. Furthermore, the more time we spend on the programmes features and editing meant that we could master it therefore ending up with a good final piece.

At the beginning of this coursework, I wasn't feeling 100% sure about our overall idea, and i was having doubts as to whether we could achieve three good adverts. I was also quite reluctant to use other people's suggestions, believing that our idea was the one to stick with. However, as we begun the production process I soon realised the potential that our idea had and I realised that experimenting and getting feedback and/or ideas from potential consumers really helps to influence and guide my thinking. At several points during our project, we went against our storyboard and tried out new shots, which ultimately made the advert meet the codes and conventions much better, also showing the development that we have done. We also asked people's opinions of the work we had completed and this feedback helped us to see the project from an audience point of view meaning that we could tweak things in order for it to fit better with audience expectations. It also gives us a different perspective to view our work from, meaning that we could be more critical with our work leading to consistent progress in changing and improving our advert.

This coursework has enabled me to learn simple things, such as how to use several editing programmes such as Adobe Premier and Adobe Sound booth, which to begin with, I had no idea how to use. This means that if in the future I need to use these programmes, I will already have background knowledge from the work that I have been producing towards our adverts. In addition to this, the coursework has made me appreciate moving images in the media, in a variety of mediums, a lot more because I realise how much work is needed to produce a piece of media.

The next step which I will be taking from this point is to complete all of the filming during the space of a week, meaning that we have time for re-shoots etc before the deadline. I also aim to keep up the consistent progress by continuing to spend a significant amount of time editing in the MAC suite in order to get our final advert completed.