As part of a way to enhance
our Media A2 Coursework and research to gain access to higher levels we
attended a Conference at London University which was here and organized by Media Magazine. We
were one of the smallest groups as there were just nine of us, and there were
about 300 Media AS and A2 students there in total. The conference was running
from approximately 10 until 3 which included a lunch break, in which there was
the chance to talk to students from different universities who studied Media
courses. There were also different stands from the two leading Media
Universities handing out prospectus’ and giving advice on courses.
Itinerary:
First
off we had a talk from David Buckingham which included this presentation about
the riots.
This
presentation gave us lots of statistics on how youths are presented in the
media, especially in light of the London Riots.
We
also had speeches from Julian McDougall [insert link to video], Steph Hendry
and Christine Bell who all talked about different elements of Media A Level...
A
few of our group, about 70 students in total stayed behind for fifteen minutes
during the lunch break to speak to current Media University students at
Hertfordshire, Leeds, and Goldsmith Universities. They gave helpful pointers on
what choice you should choose and how you can better your chances on getting
accepted. They also did a short Q & A session in which they answered questions
posed by the A Level students. One of these questions was how they intend to
get into their desired career path after they have left University. This
session was very useful in helping me to decide about my future career.
After
lunch we had a very interesting and useful speech by Pete Fraser. This is the
presentation that he used to motivate us:
To help us more he showed us different examples of some coursework which has
been submitted as A2 final products and asked us all how we could improve it
all. The footage that we watch first of all was of a short film opening, and it
had many problems with it, which we all picked up on and included:
- You could hear the wind over the speech
- Unrehearsed
- The 'costume' didn't looked planned
- Shaky cameras
- Bad Quality
Tayler and I
decided that we would make sure that none of these problems applied to our own
production. We have since decided that we will make costumes for our actors to
make them over exaggerated and make them stand out. We decided that we would
not contain much diegetic speech in our movie trailer, but instead we would
make a narrative at the radio station where I am a volunteer. However, we would
definitely check that the actors involved know what they are doing, and run
through any actions that they need to do to make sure that they are comfortable
and aware of what they are doing. Also, for all of our shots my camera, which
records in HD format, will be on a tripod for the duration of the shot.
Pete then continued to tell of his 9 key words and to explain them fully to
help us to create a high graded media production, whatever brief we had chosen.
Next up to speak to us was Garth Jennings, who has produced and directed
many moving images such as The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. He told us
about his journey from being a young boy, to a Hollywood director by showing us
several of his films that he had made himself when he was our age.
Lastly, we had some speeches from Babita Sharma and Paul Lewis. Paul Lewis
is a journalist for the Guardian, and he talked to us about some difficulties
and highlights of his career in the Media. Babita is a newsreader for BBC News,
and she also talked us through the positives and negatives of working in the
Media. They both told us how they got the where they are now in the Media, and
what we could do to make ourselves look better for Universities and employers
in the future. At the end of the conference, after everyone else had left, a
few of us were also lucky enough to meet Babita, and have a picture taken with
her.
Overall, the
conference was very useful, and I am very grateful that I was able to attend.
The speeches made me realise how it wasn't that difficult to get high marks in
our Media coursework, we just had to have high standards. This helped both me
and Tayler to realise that we had to expect the best from ourselves; otherwise
our teaser trailer might be of a lower quality than we want. It also made us
think about all the different aspects of filming our trailer, and how we could
get to the high end of all of them. In addition, the speeches from the people
who are working in the Media helped me to see that I need to put myself forward
for every opportunity that is offered to me at this stage of my life, as everything
will help make me more employable in the future.
.
