Describe the ways in which your production work and informed and aided by research into real media texts and planning. How was your ability to use research and planning for production developed over time.

Describe the ways in which your production work and informed and aided by research into real media texts and planning. How was your ability to use research and planning for production developed over time.

For the foundation year of my media course, I was given the opportunity to create a romance film opening. This consisted of an old woman who had lost her husband and was reminising on old memories. For the advanced year of my media course I was given the opportunity to create a romance film trailer which I based on a young woman who was diagnosed with cancer along with a magazine cover and poster to promote the film trailer. I was therefore able to develop my skills further from the foundation portfolio to the advanced portfoilio.

Research was key to the production of my film opening. Prior to creating the opening, I had to establish what key conventions were used within romance films. To do this I had to go onto Youtube and watch existing romance films - The Notebook, Dear John and The Holiday. This was an important part of researching as it allowed me to understand what conventions were used within romance films.  Using Youtube was a key part of my researching as it helped me to establish what audiences look for when watching romance films. When researching key conventions for my advanced portfolio, I was able to understand what I should be looking for because of my prior research in my foundation portfolio. It allowed me to see how important it was to look into existing romance films and therefore I completed this section of my advanced portfolio in more indepth. 

Research also helped with completing the codal anaylsis for both portfolios. My fondation portfolio codal anaylsis was infortmative but was not in depth as it was my first time doing this type of research. I completed four separate codes for each existing product I looked into. In my advanced portfolio I had gained knowledge of how to deconstruct codes and therefore found it easier to anaylse existing romance films and I was able to complete five indepth pieces for each individual film.

An important part within the researching stage of the production was using the web 2.0 to help establish the target audience for my chosen genre. In my foundation portfolio I did a small amount of research into what age and gender prefer romance films. I did this research as part of my secondary research which allowed me to have a little bit of understanding of what my target audience was for my opening. Within my advanced portfolio I was able to complete a more indepth study at the target audience. I was able to look into cinema goers as well as television stasticts which gave me a much better understanding of film watchers. In my advanced portfolio I was also able to look into target audience as part of my ancillary tasks. I was not able to do this during my foundation portfolio so I was able to do a more detailed search into establishing a target audience for my film, poster and magazine cover. 

Planning was also a key part of production within both years of my media course. Within the first year I had to ensure that I had planned out everything that was related to the opening of my film. As I was new to planning for a creation of a product, I had tried to the best of my ability but I felt like I was not able to do it very in-depth because I had no experience. Within my advanced portfolio, planning was a lot more successful as I had had prior experience with planning for a romance genre. It therefore allowed for my second year to be a lot more indepth and I ensured that I had everything prepared - including locations and costumes/props for each shot/scene. I also had more time with planning as I had to plan for a magazine cover shoot and poster shoot. This was an important part for me as I had not done this in the previous year but I understood how to plan it and what to look for/establish.

In terms of planning and research, within my foundation portfolio I decided to work on my own and therefore I had to complete a lot of planning and research for the first time and it became quite stressful to try and balance everything and ensure that everything was completed to the best of my ability. Within my advanced portfolio, I decided to work on my own again. This time I was a lot more comfortable and I had learnt how to deal with completing everything myself and therefore my advanced portfolio was a lot less stressful and therefore more enjoyable. Completing my foundation portfolio on my own was a good opportunity to practise working by myself and prepared me for my advanced portfolio projects. Although I had more to complete (ancillary tasks) I think that I had gained some skill in dealing and coping with the pressure of completion. 

Overall, I feel that I have developed as a media student from my foundation portfolio to my advanced portfolio. I also feel that I gained skills that have helped me to improve and understand the importance of research and planning. I feel that both years as a media student has grown my confidence in myself and I feel like I am capable of doing something if I put my mind to it.