Mrs Clarke Learning log

WEEK 1

Monday 9th, Thursday 12th and Friday 13th September 2013

This was my first day on the course and i was introduced to our new topic. At first it was difficult to understand the topic but with Dieter helping me and me re reading the task, it became easier. In this lesson I was asked to catch up on what had been set for the others earlier in the week. This was to research two different sectors of creative media and find a number of things out about there organisation and structure. I chose Film and press as they where the most i felt i would get the most research out of and would be interesting to research. From here we had to research a large number of things such as competitors and ownership's of certain companies etc. As this was my first lesson I didn't get many for both to cover a wide range of research subjects but i did get a few. Over the next hours in Thursdays lesson, i got more of my work completed, but i found it a very challenging task. I found it challenging because we had to research into terms such as Conglomerates which i had to first research to find out what they mean. This was a negative as the ones i had to find out the definition for, i didn't choose for my PowerPoint as there was nothing on any websites providing me with enough information. This was a major disadvantage as it delayed the production of my work. This meant i still didn't complete this work in Fridays lessons and will complete this task over the weekend in order to be work free to start the next deadline

WEEK 2

Monday 16th, Thursday 19th and Friday 20th September 2013

CHECK WITH POWERPOINT!

For this weeks task, we have to research into the legal and ethical issues within each sector. This involves the values they have and the codes that they must abide by to suite there audience. I found this quiet hard for film as I wasn't really sure where to start. But further in the week i

 However, straight away i found a website that provided all the ethical issues that both the Guardian and ...... share. There was lots of these but i chose the ones i felt where more appropriate to the task. Quotes such as there care in their articles in terms of discrimination and content suitable for particular ages and more. This was an advantage as it then lead me to think of some of the legislation's the Guardian would have to consider and enforce. Legislation includes the laws the company had to use in order to keep ethics in the product. Examples include any racial or gender discrimination acts to protect people within the articles or content newspapers like the guardian use. I originally found it hard to think of the legal acts that would relate, and it was more of a common sense question as there wasn't much to research unless you knew which exact act you where looking for. This left me waiting for a while to find out what i needed and left me completing it into the weekend, which was a major disadvantage i faced. To improve i would have spent more time researching and brainstorming what legal issues are involved withing the p

WEEK 3 

Monday 23rd, Thursday 26th and Friday 27th September 2013

This weeks task is to research into our chosen case studies and find out controversy that we could think of in each of our media sectors. I found this extremely for the film industry as i recalled many films from my prior knowledge that where very controversial, and had many complaints about them. I got the information extremely quickly which was an advantage. All i had to do was Google paramount films and then from there choose which i felt or knew caused controversy. To find out additional information i then looked on news articles and other specialized film report websites, for example 'Rango' had a lot of issues form websites like the BBC as it encourages smoking. This was an advantage to this section of the assignment as it ensured my information was valid and from highly reliable sources. However on the other hand i felt that the press section was a lot harder as i could only think of one major controversy - the Phone hacking scandal. This was then hard to relate to the Guardian as it wasn't 100% involved. However it was a famous controversial issue that is very well known by all, and still fits the question specification. Again, when finding additional research i used the BBC website which showed me a timeline of the scandal from when it started and to where it ended, where it resulted in the news of the world newspaper being stopped from being printed and sold. This meant that the information was reliable and ensured the validity of my research. As the film section of this question was very easy for me to research and find out about, i did it a lot quicker, which gave me time to focus on the harder part which was the controversial issues within the press. The fact i found this difficult was a disadvantage but once i had figured out one controversial issue, i was set and finished it fairly quickly. To improve i definitely would have added another issue to the press section of this assignment as it would have made my understanding and work a lot stronger.

WEEK 4

Monday 7th, Thursday 10th and Friday 11th October 2013

This weeks task was to research into the employment opportunities and job roles in each of our media sectors. We where asked to choose a particular job role, discuss the types of job roles available within each sector, the opportunities that they provide, the qualifications needed, how important the skills are and career development. We also had to figure out how the individual would present their work in order to get a job in that particular role i choose. This was a very big task that we was set and again i ran into the weekend slightly to complete it. For the film industry, i chose the role director, and for the press i chose journalisim/!!!. I found both of these easy to find information about, however the amount made me prolong completing it in time for the deadline. I found out lots of relevant additional information from reliable sources that helped me understand the requirements needed in order to get to such a position in the chosen industry. This was an advantage as it assured the information was real, as many websites such as Wikipedia may not be entirely accurate, especially when it comes to something so specific as grade requirements to get into a chosen job role. I felt that an advantage of this task was that the information was relatively easy to find and was all on websites that answered a few other questions that this task required me to answer, meaning a lot of the answers where on one website instead of lots of other sites. Each of these mini questions within the task had there difficulties as some took a few searches to find information that answered the question properly. To improve my work in this section, i could have become more accurate in my research for film in terms of the qualifications and grades needed to become a director. Many websites i saw said that there wasn't really any required as its a job where you start from the bottom and gradually work your way up to the bigger position. However i feel that if i looked deeper into specific film/acting schools or university websites, it would tell me an example of a particular schools requirements in order to get to that job role.  I specifically found an example for the press though which is an advantage of my work.

WEEK 5

Monday 14th, Thursday 17th and Friday 18th October 2013

This week we have been working on our final parts of our second PowerPoint. This will be on the analysis of our original PowerPoint on our media sectors. We will discuss things such as layouts, our strengths and weaknesses and what we would have improved on. As me and Dieter was still working on our power points separately, we hadn't fully started the new power point, and we hadn't yet added interactions to our PowerPoint. We felt this was because where writing a lot of research into each task of the assignment, leaving us behind. This was a major disadvantage as it set us back a lot, delaying the time we completed our work. On Monday we decided this would be the last day we spent doing our separate PowerPoint as we still needed to complete them as well as our  new one. This was a good idea as it at least gave us chance to finish them in this time so it was one task done. I completed my PowerPoint in the lessons and within my frees that day. On Thursday, we started the new PowerPoint. It was certainly last minute as our presentation with it was tomorrow. However we both stayed focused and got it done. Whilst dieter made the PowerPoint and added bullet points and images to each slide, i went a long each slide with him and wrote out a script that we would both say for each slide in the presentation. I also then added my power point to dieters by copy and pasting each slide on to the end of his. This had to happen before we made it interactive as the interactivity wouldn't have been able to move to any other slide. We ran out of time on Thursday so we had to delay this till tomorrow, which Dieter will do during lesson 1 and 2 in his frees as i couldn't due to being in a double lesson then. Even though a negative was that we delayed making this power point till last minute, an advantage was that we had completed it and extra work that we didn't think we would get completed within our own milestones we set to complete our work before the presentation tomorrow.

Today was the day we presented our presentations to the rest of the class and miss Clarke, whilst it was being recorded. Dieter had added the interactivity to our PowerPoint and we where ready for presenting our work. During each persons presentation we where given 4 sheets that we has to fill in on how well they did and on what parts of their presentation skills they could improve on. The categories we had to fill in where quality of visual aids, Body Language, Voice, Time Management, Well organised, knowledge and two boxes saying overall comment and what can be improved. We where asked to rate out of 5 -being excellent on each one and give comments if necessary. An advantage of this was that we could view back our critique and pick up how we can develop to improve our grades and presentation skills. As i was a lot less confident than Dieter, a lot of our results where lowered to 3's and 2's which is a negative part of this lesson. At the beginning of the presentation, we realized we discovered a very last minute difficulty with our work as our script didn't match up to the slides on the screen. This meant to ensure we where clear throughout the presentation and so that we knew what we where doing, we took a few minutes to assure we knew what we where doing. This was said in our critique that it was unprofessional and many marked us a three for this. The camera wasn't rolling when we where sorting ourselves out and miss was ok to give us that small amount of time to prepare.