Revaluating the AS "Research & Planning"

Looking back at our work and looking at the mark scheme given to us, I feel that for the research and planning part of the coursework I got a level 2 overall. This mark is reasonable and nearly accurate because I feel that I have done the basic work but have not been able to get into depth with it which would bring my mark up. I feel that I could have done a lot more research in to the coursework as this allows me to have more of an area to work with and allows me to have more choices. It also shows that I would have looked up on the different factors leading up to the main task and gone through the tasks in order and in detail rather than skipping it and going straight to the main decisions with no backup research. I feel that I did do this to an extent but not enough for it to go up a level.

At the start I did research up on the different film openings which allowed me to gain knowledge on how films produce the opening scenes of the films and in which manner they present it to the audience so that they wouldn’t feel dissatisfied. However in saying this, though I did research up on it I didn’t expand my search into different genres and actually going into depth with what I found.

I also looked at the different camera angles and shots which I think was very helpful and helped me a lot in producing the final piece of work. Before filming something it is essential that the cameraman/woman know how to shoot a scene and in which direction they should shoot it because otherwise they may not get the result that they are looking for. This is because different angles/ shots have different impacts on the audience such as if there is dramatic scene with someone crying and you shoot a close up of their faces, you are able to see what emotions they are feeling and the audience feels more connected to the actors/actress in the scene whereas if it was shot from afar the audience wouldn’t feel as if they know what is happening which would most likely lose their focus on the film and the connection between the audience and those in the scene wouldn’t remain for long. I did my research on this subject to a good extent which I think did help me in producing my opening scene however as I am learning to develop these skills, I feel that I would need to expand on that in much more detail in A2 to improve on the standard of the work I produce.

I think that the research and planning I did for my AS coursework wasn’t as fulfilling as it should be due to many reasons such as me not engaging myself fully into the work and in somewhat ways that I didn’t actually know what I was doing but also that it was my first year in doing media studies. However I am glad that I did this in the first year as I can use the knowledge I gained and the experience I had to improve on my A2 production work and hopefully not make the same mistake again in A2.