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Daily progress

An account of all the things I've had to do and learn in class, in order to finish my coursework

Day 1:

August 9th, 2023

Today everyone in class had to pick what they wanted to do for their media product and I told sir that I wanted to do 'music video'. So, he asked which song I wanted to pick and I had the stunning idea of composing the song myself. I was warned that it would be very time taking and tedious, but I chose to do it anyway. 

Day 2:

August 11th, 2023

I had started with my research for my music video, initially I was only mentally planning on what to and not to so because I wasn't too sure what I was doing and chose not to immediately make an account of my observations in my blog.

Day 3:

August 12th, 2023

Despite choosing music video, I had a change of heart and finally decided to make a short film. I had this sudden change in decision because I felt like there was this sort of boundary when it came to making a music video. My thought process was such that, in a music video I'd be bounded by the genre of either the song I chose or to the lyrics. Thus, having restrictions to creativity. My idea was that whatever I'd make for my music video it would just have to co-exist with the song and the song and the video would have to go hand in hand and make sense together.

I had to change all my research and start from scratch. 

Day 4:

August 15th, 2023

I started losing track of time and needed to do my script immediately. I then began making my rough script, which took me a whole of 2 days to complete. My rough script, in my opinion is a good portrayal of my story line however I had played it safe. This is the sole reason why I want to dwell over my rough drafts for my short film, when I'm done making it, in order to improve my fair script.  

Day 5:

August 18th, 2023

After finalizing my script, I went on with my selection of cast. As I had chosen my cast, I quickly moved on with my location selection. I decided to finish all non tangible decisions, in order to start with my recording as soon as possible. 

Day 6:

August 19th, 2023

I hurried up and started with my research for better understanding of my short film and analysis part of the making and steps. But mainly for all that I wanted to incorporate in my short film. I watched a total of 40 movies and short film throughout the month, to finalize my storyline and genre selection. 

Day 7:

August 23rd, 2023

I had entirely finished all of my research and writing of all the genres analysis' separately as well as an overall analysis for all my research. So, I finally moved on to my final research (doesn't exist anymore because I changed my genre to psychological thriller) that is for, only my genre- tragedy, romance and ware wolf fiction. 

Day 8:

August 24th, 2023

Now came the time for me to start visualizing what to and what not to add in my short film. I tried penning down everything that I would like to see in my short film, when I were to produce, edit and direct it. I made a detailed section of all the aspects I wanted to incorporate in my short fil and wanted to start making my final drafts. 

Day 9:

August 28th, 2023

In order to start off with all of my final drafts, I turned in all of my rough drafts and really all my work in general to sir. For in depth corrections. Thus, he gave me suggestions and genuine critics about all my work and how I should redo some work and so I dwelled over it all so that I could perfect my work because I figured that if I had any work half done or not up to the mark, I would have to deal with it in the last moment. He gave me corrections mainly in my rough script, so I redid my rough script but since I awaited for getting it corrected I couldn't upload it in my blog just yet. As, I was in a rush to start my fair draft and I desperately needed sir to approve of my rough script.

Day 10:

September 2nd, 2023

I was finally happy with what my script looked like and began making my story board. However my school had given us holiday for exams, thus I had to finish my work at home. So, without further a do I asked sir and my peers what layout and format would look best for the rough storyboard as we were to do it on our own for our guide, unlike the fair story board, where we are usually given specific drawing books to use. All were in favor for any layout, I started making my story board.

Day 11:

September 22nd, 2023

It was at this moment that I realized I had so much work left to do and so little time to complete it all before I would have to submit it all. I quickly went ahead and made corrections in my rough draft and uploaded it in my blog. My peers and I had received a checklist from sir, as an aid for us to finish our work in the little time we had left. I then started with my social media aspect of my media journey, that is research and other things like how promotions and publishing works as well as what people like and what they would prefer instead, almost like an opportunity cost. 

Day 12:

September 24th, 2023

For my social media plan, I had to do my research so that I wouldn't be clueless as to what to do. I started my research by understanding about how to promote a short film as well as a media product in general. I looked into a lot of general sites and google definitions to understand a rather generic view, to understand both the primary and detailed perspective of promotions. I wrote an analysis on all of research, rather my understanding of 'promoting on social media'. After all this I started making a mind map of how I wanted to promote everything on my desired platform, Instagram. That is, making interactive posts, trailers and snipets on a regular basis. 

Day 13:

September 30th, 2023

My peers and I had vaguely discussed as to how we wanted to promote our media product but didn't get much clarity because we weren't too sure what an outsiders perspective would be thus, we all came to the conclusion that we had to make a 'questioner' in order to ask others how they would like a media product to be promoted as well as their basic perspective of how their age groups and a particular target audience would react to a certain media product. 

Day 14:

October 1st, 2023

My media exam is closer than ever and so came time for me to finish off all work I had undone and fine tune all the work that wasn't fully payed attention to. I first chose to make my final draft for my script as my page for pre production was almost entirely empty. So, I an detailed edit of my script and added it to the page. I then moved on to adding content to my 'social media plan' page. Where I had to do additional research in order to understand and get further clarity on certain topics such as, the 'publishing of my short film'.

Day 15:

October 7th, 2023

I was quite happy with the rate of my work and how my workflow was. Thus, I didn't worry too much about the work I was yet to do. I had done a second definite-check on my blog, my 'about page' and 'preliminary task' was done. My daily progress was obviously a more of a progressive page, as I would only be done when all my work was done, throughout the entire blog. My 'pre-production' page is actually quite empty, curtesy not having to do the entire page for my mock 1 submissions, sir only required for us to finish- specific genre research, a detailed analysis on all the things I'd be incorporating in my short film, my final script, consent forms and the call sheets format. 

Day 16:

October 7th, 2023

I think the one thing I was most scared of was definitely my social media plan page because I didn't have much content. So, I wrote detailed analysis on all my research, to give a clear account of all the work I had put in. That is, about my understanding of promotions and publishing of my short film. I also added my questioner, for I had received a lot of accurate responses. 

Day 17:

October 9th, 2023

Reaching the end of all my work, I was almost entirely done with every section's work and so I wanted focus on the smaller things that wouldn't take me much time to complete. That is, sending out my consent form to my cast, to get their signatures and adding an index to every page. That's about it I am finally done with all my work for my mock 1 submissions. 

Day 18:

October 10th, 2023

For my social media page I didn't really have enough content to set up my page. However, I wanted to start off with my work. Thus, I put in some time in setting up my production house and its logo. I realized that my production house is my identity and what will help audiences relate to to my short film. I then made a few logos after doing research for the logos. 

Day 19:

October 16th, 2023

For my social media one more important thing that I had to complete was the poster making part. I had to make the layout for my poster, so I began doing research and identifying with all the designs I liked best and what would truly bring justice to my short film and its storyline. I made a very rough sketch of what I visualized my poster to look like, leaving room for more additional corrections. 

Day 20:

October 18th, 2023

The last thing that I did was make my layout for my call sheet. Rather, use a reference to follow and create my template for my call sheet. Thus, I used 'studiobinder' to create it. After choosing the perfect template for my short film, I finally filled in all my short film's details in it. So that I had an idea of what it would look like when I would actually have to make my call sheet for my shoot.  

Day 21:

December 15th, 2023

I had spent quite sometime out of touch from media, considering studying for my other exams as well as college applictaions which made me worry as I had a lot major task to start off with, let alone finish. I started making a plan with the help of the guide given by sir, not a written one but a mental one just to prepare myself becuase I hadn't really made a plan for my shoot at all. 

Day 22:

December 19th, 2023

After our first set of exams school started off with a stride. So, sir had begun revising all the topics we had learnt previously. He made sure we weren't lost and knew what we were going to be facing for our finals. He gave us important information, like how we'd require to finish our media product before April and how we'd have to focus on our critiacl reflection.

Day 23:

December 20th, 2023

I initially decided to start with just writing my daily entries becuase I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do. All of a sudden I realised that I didn't like my short film anymore. The story just didn't make sense to me anymore. I then spoke to sir and confided in him. He was not too sure what I meant becuase he and I both knew how it was risky to change my entire storyline at the last momemt but he told me to think about it for a few days and tell him whether I really wanted to schange everything. 

Day 24:

December 26th, 2023

Over the week I had decided that I wanted a new story and so I wrote up a few storyline. I wanted my story to be crisp and simple which was not the case with my previous story. I made a final storyline and sent it to sir. He read through it and approved, however he did warn me of how difficult it would be because I'd not only have to do everything from the beggining but I would also have to redo things that I had previously done for my old storyline. 

Day 25:

January 1st, 2024

i sat and redid my specific research for my new genre, psychological thriller. Also the section below it, which are the things I wanna incorporate in my media product, throughout the whole short film. 

Day 26:

January 2nd, 2024

I was feeling very clueless and so I wanted to ask sir how to go about it and he told me that I should begin with redoing the work in my blog that was genre specific. So, I went ahead and redid my final analysis. While I was in between everything I went ahead and sent my fully fine tuned script to sir, to get it checked so that I could go ahead and upload in my blog.

Day 27:

January 10th, 2024

I went ahead and moved on considering my constraint in time. So, I began with my genre specific research, where I very attentively studied how the short films/ films made under the genre 'psychological thriller' were constructed and presented to viewers. I really liked it and finally chose that genre to make my media product. 

Day 28:

January 10th, 2024

All the things that I did finally came together but I was at the risk of not being able to to finish majority of my work before my given deadline. However, I bundeled up all my courage and started working on my script. I chose to make a script that had lesser scenes but more shots because I wanted the scenes to be crisp and well understood. 

Day 29:

January 11th, 2024

I wanted to go ahead and start looking for my cast, so that I would be able to send my finished script, the second they'd agree on considering to act in my film I'd send it to them. So, I went ahead and sent a pitch to potential actors who would fit the roles in my film. 

Day 30:

January 15th, 2024

I went ahead and made some changes in my blog to make sure the whole transition of changing from a 'tragic-romance fiction' genre to a 'psychological thriller' genre was clearly dispalyed in my blog. For example changing the layout of my storyline and adding a document in the bottom with clear instructions stating that ther storyline given above is the new one and the one given below is the old 

Day 31:

January 18th, 2024

I wanted to finish all my work step by step, beggining with my scrip. Thus I made my final script and sent it to sir to give me corrections. Once he approved I went ahead and set it up on my pre - production page, labeled 'fair script'.

Day 32:

January 19th, 2024

Post making my fair script, I went ahead and started drawing my storyboard, which assumed would take me a day, which I underestimated because it took me a solid three weeks to complete. During which I followed up with the potential actors that I had sent my pitch to. 

Day 33:

January 22nd, 2024

My storyboard finally got done and I proceeded to go ahead and lay it out on my blog, in the pre - production page titled 'fair storyboard'. I was done with the basics of my short film and now I could proceed to other aspects. Aspects that will help me bring my short film into life.

Day 34:

January 24th, 2024

I started my writing, which is theory work because I finally finished all of my research and I knew that if I started answering all of the major tasks questions I'd be efficient as I'd be able to remember all the points needed to write my answers, research being fresh in my mind.

Day 35:

January 25th, 2024

The short film package included both major and minor tasks, I wanted to finish answering my major task questions. So, I began answering the questions one by one.  Starting off with, 'What might the camera need to focus on to convey meaning to narrate the story?' Using the help of my script and knoledge from my research I went ahead and started answering them all.

Day 36:

February 7th, 2024

After a hectic week of completeing all my theory work, I started preperations for my shoot, starting of with my cast selection. I knew that once that was out of the way I could start off with all my other major tasks for my short film. For istance, all the stages of production and post production.  

Day 37:

February 10th, 2024

Once I was done choosing my cast, I moved on to sending consent forms to them all, to ensure thier approval for posting and making content with their faces. I gather all of their consent and then finally came the moment to finalise when I wanted the shoot to be, that is making of the film's call sheet. I had to ask all of my cast members when they'd be able to make time and whether they would be free on the respective dates I offered them to choose. Finally we finalised the 18th and so I designed the call sheet accordingly and sent them out.  

Day 38:

February 18th, 2024

Today I had my shoot as I had planned. Not only that I also did a photoshoot for my posters and postcard advertisement, for which I required inovative pictures. I took only the main scenes' shots today because I wanted to finish all the shots I had with my lead cast. After which I could finally could sit and start editing scenes. I was actually very happy with my raw footage and knew that I wouldn't require to do a reshoot.  

Day 39:

February 20th, 2024

I only decided to edit today, only because I had to stabalize every clip and script where I wanted everything to go. I knew it would take me a solid month to edit all of my footage into the short film, trailer and small little social media posts. I just stuck to arranging all my clips in an orderly manner as I wanted to focus on the colour grading, sounds and production later on when I have more clarity as to what I untimately wanted my entire film to look like to an average viewer. 

Day 40:

February 21st, 2024

I started sound production, mainly directing it and making decisions on what I wanted and when. I initially started recording the voice overs, I could do so only because I was doing the dubbing for my lead character and my father for the inspector. I also had asked one of my friends to do the dubbing for the father's role. Then wehn I had all of the audios I went ahead and editted them into my rough edit. 

Day 41:

February 22nd, 2024

Ithen went ahead and started recording the foley sounds, I didn't really think I'd include them in the beginning but after a ton of trial and error during the editing, I decided that I wanted there to be a good amount of foley sounds. It wasn't much of a task for me because I just had a majority of house oriented sounds.  

Day 42:

February 23rd, 2024

I went to school today because sir wasn't too sure where I was at in my coursework. So, I showed him my progress, on this opportunity I went ahead and asked him to give me corrections, in my blog as well my coursework. I did sit through with sir and add justifications to certain things in my blog so that it was easy to access everything throughout all the pages. 

Day 43:

February 24th, 2024

I had to sit and go through my whole blog so I could do all the write ups. Mostly because I didn't want to spend my future time on finish my blog as every small task was taking way too long. I started off by ticking all of the boxes on my 'media studies checklist'. Where the number one task was my 'major task package'. However, I thought I had to go through my work and research to do it and so I took the decision of doing it later. 

Day 44:

February 25th, 2024

My first major task was answering the flow of images in my short film, which had me having to watch my whole edit and having to write about every switch in location or time of event. I had to sit with my rough draft as I hadn't finalised what I wanted my final edit of my short film to look like. So, with whatever frames I had I went ahead and answered the question. I then moved on to the next answer but wasn't able to finish ansering it becuase the question required me to talk about all the music in my short film and since I didn't have the tracks and only the diegetic sounds, I wasn't able to complete it. 

Day 45:

February 26th, 2024

It was time for me to really pull up my pants and start working becuase time was running out and I only had a month to finish all of my work entirely, if I wanted a good grade. I did in fact start feeling restless and so I decided to start studying my theory part. My portions included unit 7 and unit 8 and so I went throught the first two chapters, regulatins and postmodernism respectively. I knew everything because I had previously studied everything in school as sir had taught us everything with the help of presentations that he had made. So, it wasn't too difficult for me to study the content and understand everything, I also decide to go ahead and take notes to ensure better understanding. 

Day 46:

February 27th, 2024

Today I sat down to edit a trailer for my short film but ened up becoming very impatient and kept re-editing it, so I just ended up studying the next chapters in my textbook and so I finished the last chapter under unit 7. I wrote notes for it as well as decided to go ahead and find a question under those chapters from a past paper to answer

Day 47:

February 29th, 2024

After all of my majority work completion, I wanted to start my social media page. For which I chose making an Instagram account. I started doing research for how the construction for the instagram page should look. I learnt about what are the different account layouts and then made a decision as to what to choose.

Day 48:

March 1st, 2024

I started making my account and decided making it for my film instead of my production house because the textbook said that it required me to make an account for my film, Called '@dowedeservethelovewechoose.' I started off by posting my announcement video of my production house and short film name. 

Day 49:

March 2nd, 2024

I then made a plan to go ahead and make all the posts that I wanted to post throughout. So, basically I decided to schedule when to post what because I made a 15 day promotion plan. I also decided to start taking the music production more seriously, I knew a friend who is also in fact my junior in media studies class, who could help me with the music production. 

Day 50:

March 3rd, 2024

I decided that I will be focusing on external factors like promotion, postcard advertisment and music as I was done will of my physical work like editing, scripting and directing all of the work flow. Firstly my friend (Rishi) who agreed on producing the music for me had sat on a call with me and we decided what the music should sound like, We made structured to sounds and gave depth to the things we thought would fit best in setting mood.

Day 51:

March 4th, 2024

I went back to my checklist to make sure I had completed majority of my work or at least the things that felt the most important. To my shock I had missed out the most important part of my coursework the CRITICAL REFLECTION. The most important part of my blog. I quickly wrote all the questions in my blog and put together a pen and paper to disect the questions, to make sure I had a sound understanding of how to answer them in the most effective way possible. My first question demanded me to remember my AS level concepts, like social groups. It took me quite some time to put together, what according to me was a perfect answer. Unfortunately it took me an entire of 6 hours to make the answer perfect. Which basically was that, I sat at 11PM the previous day and finished at 5AM the next day morning.

Day 52:

March 6th, 2024

Only know was it hitting me that it already became March and I really started worrying about everything way too much. I quickly started fine tuning absolutely everything in my blog and all of my edits. I then carried on writting parts of my critical reflection because I knew I would keep going back and writing more. So, I just kept answering all the questions in loops, back to back. I did although start feeling more confident about everything despite the timme constraints. 

Day 53:

March 7th, 2024

Today felt super long because I had to sit and do my final edit. I figured that if I needed my work to get over sooner, I would start having to finish the final and big tasks first, also I had to send my final edits to my friend and give him notes as to how and where to produce all of the music. So, I made all necessary final edits and added all of the credits as well as all of the necessary names, titals and headings for context. I made sure there was not room for error or interpretation in my film. 

Day 54:

March 8th, 2024

The edit was getting along good and I finally was happy with how it looked at the end of my editing tenure. However I felt like I required feedback as well as more improvement in the sound production and so I termed the edit I had mades as a rough. After the completion of my rough draft, I started geting more clarity as to how to make my critical refelection answers more precise and crisp. 

Day 55:

March 9th, 2024

 I had a tough time with the completion of my work in a whole but I deccided to do everything step by stepp. Thus today I simply went ahead and filled in on all of my daily progress work and made sure that everything that was accurate and linked with the necessary evidence required. 

Day 56:

March 10th, 2024

Now that I started scheduling all of my media work and doing it on a daily basis, I was able to keep an account of everything going. Today I decided to sit with Rishi and finish my music producting, with my rough draft being completely ready, I thought it would be smart to go agead and do the music production as soon as possible. We sat for 5 hours together on a call and made demos what would sound good and cancelled out what didn't and finally came with a final music for my film. He then exported the final music to me and I edited that into my rough draft making further minor changes.

Day 57:

March 11th, 2024

With my final draft out there, I decided to go ahead and make the postcard advertisement, however I didn't have adequete information for the needful and so I went ahead and saw a couple of postcard advertisements, only one that were made before 5 years after which I could start working on it. While starting to make it I realised that I needed to know how to construct a poster as well and so I went ahead and looked at a few as well. Only after all of this was I able to make my postcard advertisement. It took me approximately 7 hours to complete the entire task including its research. 

Day 58:

March 12th, 2024

My entire social media page in my blog was done except I then noticed, that the write up for the justification of the components of my postcard was missing and so I went ahead and wrote all of them with proper justification and my postcard advertisement, minor task was ultimately completely over. I also uploaded a new post on my film's social media account.

Day 59:

March 13th, 2024

With my postcard advertisement done and my final rough draft, I was able to finalise all of my final drafts and tick of the box for final drafts. I carried on with finetuning of my postcard, thus I went ahead and uploaded it on my blog. I also needed to post it on my social media account, but I waited for a while as I did not want to put it out without being confident whether it was my final. So, instead I started working on my trailer, which I wanted to be persuasive and open ended and so I started working on it.  

Day 60:

March 14th, 2024

Since I was in the middle of editing my trailer, I kept getting idle whenever I didn't like how the edit looked or whenever I had a writers block I went back to  my critical reflection. I would start writing an answer and then I'd just go back to looking at my film or my script and sometimes even just my research alone but I think I got the most desperate when I would find myself reading AS level content. Therefore, I kept going back and forth with concepts but wasn't able to finish my answers still.   

Day 61:

March 15th, 2024

I wanted to go ahead and send my film's rough draft to all of my peers to get feedback forms. I sent them my product via WhatsApp and sent a form for them to fill up. Only 3 of my classmates sent me back the feedback but because I didn't want to waste time I went ahead and uploaded it under the post-production page. 

Day 62:

March 16th, 2024

I found myself hurrying to complete my work, just when I had thought everything was falling apart, I suddenly remembered about my edit. Thus, I went ahead and rendered my short film but then discovered a glitch in colour grading as well as a little delay on th voice overs. Since, I had the time to edit and make it all proper, I called Rishi and asked him make the sound that it is shorter as I needed the music to match the pace of dialogues and since I was realligning my audios, I asked him to change the time of teh audio. Thus I was finally done with all my finall drafts including that of  my short film. 

Day 63:

March 17th, 2024

Since I was done with all of my editing work, I had felt relief, almost like a weight was lifted off my chest. I started switching all of my focus on my theory. I sat down to complete my critical reflection. something I had been ignoring for way too long. Thus, I went ahead and finished all of the questions asked under critical reflection and I was done for the day. 

Day 64:

March 18th, 2024

I was completely done with my blog and had to start studying my work alone. I simply went ahead and did final touches to my blog to make sure everything was in place but most importantly working. I was finally donewith all of my work in my practical part and was happy with it too. 

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