Analysis of Lessons

First lesson: 17^th January

In our first lesson we discussed the mark scheme four our coursework and also discussed as a group what we would research and our planning. In our first lesson Miss Lesley made us watch an opening scene of a well-known film The Dark Knight.  We had to consider; the sound, purpose of scene, it’s link to the upcoming scenes and how that attracts the audience.

Analysis of The Dark Knight

This was necessary for our development of ideas as it gave us an idea on what we could base our 2 minutes opening scene on. We also analysed the mise-en-scene. This was very effective

The plenary: This is what we did at the end of the lesson, and discussed we should take camera angles / shots, effects, sound and mise-en-scene in very deep consideration, as without these it wouldn’t be a good piece of coursework.

Media coursework second lesson: 18^th January (2nd lesson)

By watching just one opening of a scene was not sufficient. Therefore, we decided to watch four different films and analyse their opening scenes.

We had to watch Spiderman, Dracula, Romeo and Juliet, Schindlers List and Insomnia.  For these films we had to discuss how on genre was portrayed and what makes them so affective. At this point we had decided to add no dialogue to our opening scene as such successful films opening scenes had no dialogue maybe just 2 or three words.

Media Coursework third lesson:

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

We had been given cameras and we had to complete this plenary task in two lessons. In my group there was Hardeep, Harmeet, Amrit and Madihah. Our scene was about me and harmeet going to the shops and Hardeep was the shopkeeper. We had to buy a tropical juice from him, this was not an easy task we had to ensure the 180-degree rule and match on action was conducted out properly. We did a match on action on the juice; first there was a medium shot on Sukriti (me) buying the tropical juice. Then Madihah did a pan on me considering the 180-degree rule. The it went on to my hand and on the drink through the use of match on action. I felt my match on action was good however, not that effective. On the other hand, the other group had conducted the match on action better than us. There play was about Mohammed and Amrit Dhatt are married and they have come to a councilor me) to ask for advice on their marriage. Sukriti (me) had a book in her hand where she’s taking notes on thier

Media coursework: fourth lesson

In our fourth and fifth lessons we looked at different ways in which genre could be portrayed and we found out that it could be depicted through:

·      Camera angles

·      Props

·      Sound (diegetic and non-diegetic)

·      Effects such as; fade wipe out etc

·      Dialogue (which we acknowledged through watching other opening scenes that there is no need for there to be much dialogue)

·      Mise-en-scene- (I feel this is one of the main characteristics in our opening scene and must fulfill the criteria our or project as it’s necessary for the overall the opening scene to be effective)

We had also watches three other films named; Portrait Of A Lady, Natural Born Killers and Blades Of Glory.

Afterwards we had made a ven diagram for these films, which compared them to each other.  I felt that it was a very effective task as it made use realise that despite these three film having different genres and completely different opening scene they still had some similarities, which were hard to spot straight away.

By using these similarities I also though about my opening scene and considered whether I should add them to my opening scene.

Media Fifth lesson
We were told to make a time table over the february half term on what days and times we will be recording. This was a challenging task as some of my group members were not available over the half term therefore we had to change the days our recording. Also in the same lesson we had to come up with a risk assessment. We analysed the risks which could occur in our project and came up with solutions for them. Therefore, if any of these risk hazzards were to occur we would be prepared.

Risk	Prevention Method	Worst Case Scenario	What is at risk?	Plan B
Background when filming.	Keep it the same for the part of the film, also do it when it is unlikely to change.	Confusion for the viewer	The film would not look professional enough.	Do the scene as quickly as possible but with precision.
Permission to use location	Research	Change location	Delay	Change location
Weather	Check weather before hand	Rain etc. Means set back on work	Camera equipment can get harmed and the filming will b	Backup camera and location