WEEKLY JOURNALS

This is where you think about your FMP learning journey and development.
Don’t simply describe what you did - consider what you have learnt and how this has benefitted
your project. What do you need to improve?

THIS IS JUST GUIDANCE THAT YOU NEED TO ADAPT TO YOUR OWN PROJECT. YOU HAVE CREATED YOUR
OWN PRODUCTION SCHEDULES AND YOUR WEEKLY BLOGS SHOULD REFELCT THAT.

THESE QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED IN THE WEEKS YOU COMPLETED THEM. DO NOT JUST SUBMIT THIS
FORM FILLED IN FOR YOUR WEEKLY BLOGS. THERE SHOULD BE 11 WEEKLY BLOG ENTRIES (INCLUDING
EASTER).

Week One - Context

CONTEXT

How did you find coming up
with an idea that challenged
you enough for your FMP?
At the beginning of this week I began generating ideas for my Final
Major Project. I knew from the very start that I wanted to produce three
simple Ideas that would allow me to work creatively while also
challenging me to produce my best work possible. The main challenge I
faced during this process was coming up with three very different ideas.
I wanted the ideas I produced to differ from one another to give myself
a lot of range and to let me choose the one I felt was right for me. I
knew straight away that I wanted to produce a short film as the work I
am most proud of from the previous unit was my short film from Units 1 -
4. I feel this is because I used a simple idea and was able to create a
piece of work that clearly communicated my message and had an
easy to follow narrative. This is something I wanted to replicate within my
FMP.

At the beginning I only had one Idea in mind, and I then had to
develop another two. I felt as though if I came up with an idea that was
overly complicated I would risk more difficulty further along in the
production stages. I was worried that doing this would limit my standard
of work and I would end up wasting time trying to understand my idea
instead of working on them.

I decided to produce a mind map and took the time to develop each
idea individually. Within these I considered how each idea would
challenge me both positively and negatively. I looked into what would
be hard about each idea, and how this would impact my final product.
This helped me a lot when choosing my final idea as I was able to
understand which ideas would prevent me from achieving the standard
of work I desired and which ones would challenge me so that I could
produce something I was proud of.

Overall, I found the idea generation process challenging as I knew I

 wanted to find something that would challenge me, but I also wanted
to be sure I could continue the production process confidently. I feel this
process is integral for my FMP and it impacts how I continue and
whether the work I produce is to a high standard.

How has writing a proposal When writing my proposal I was required to consider my goals and
helped you with finalising ambitions for both my Final Major Project and in the future. Writing the
your idea? proposal has allowed me to understand what I need to do to achieve a
high standard of work.

I took this process as an opportunity to develop my idea and finalise my

plans for the rest of the unit. The proposal was split up into three key
section, the first one being rationale. This section provided me with an
opportunity to reflect on my work over the academic year so far and to
consider how I want my work to develop further. In this section I was
asked to describe my goals for the unit, which I decided was to
produce a distinction standard piece of work. I was also required to
acknowledge how my skills have improved since September and to
decide which of these skills I wanted to focus on as my work progressed.
I found this particularly difficult as I feel a lot of my skills could still be
improved upon. However, in the end I decided to focus on my editing
skills as I think they have improved the most considering I began the
course with a very limited skillset in this area.

The second section of the proposal, and the longest, was the project
concept. This was where I was really required to consider my idea for
the unit and to finalise some of the much finer details. Within this section
I described the concept I had chosen and my aims for the project
overall. I took this as a chance to discuss my plans for the research
element of the unit and how it would impact my production. For
example, I want to look into different types of obsessive personalities
and how they develop to ensure that my work is as accurate as
possible. I feel this process will be essential to producing a high standard
product and by writing my proposal I was able to reflect on this and
begin planning which resources I would use, alongside which questions
my research would answer. The project concept portion of my proposal
also asked me to explain what I hoped to achieve as an end product.
This element of the proposal allowed me the chance to consider the
smaller detail involved. For example, I was able to come to decide that
I wanted my short film to be between 6-8 minutes long and that I
planned to use mise-en-scène to communicate my message and
narrative as clearly as possible.

The final part of the proposal was the evaluation. This asked me to
consider how I will document my progress throughout the production
stages and how I anticipate my ideas to change. I took this opportunity
to highlight my weekly blog. It also helped me conclude that I will use
my evaluations to review on whether I have met my goals for the week.
It will also provide me with the opportunity to reflect on any mistakes I
have made that week and how I will work to fix and avoid them in my
future work.

How did the feedback help Once I had decided on my three ideas I put them into a survey. The
you adapt your idea – what survey included a brief explanation of each of my ideas followed by a
did you change after comment box. This allowed my audience and peers to provide
feedback? feedback on each idea and provided me with an insight into what they
 wanted from a short film. The beginning of the survey asked their age
and gender which let me collect quantitative data and understand
what certain demographics felt about each idea. The survey was
completely anonymous which encouraged my audience to answer
each question as truthfully as possible. At the end I asked my
respondents to choose their favourite ideas.

I have used this feedback consistently throughout the development

stages to adapt my ideas and to help me choose which one I would
continue with. A few people mentioned that my second idea about
someone and a ghost companion completing a series of tasks may be
too long to showcase within a short film. I took this feedback into
consideration and later came to agree with them. If I wanted to use this
narrative in a way I was proud of I would need a much longer time
frame. I would also want to dedicate a lot more time on the planning
process, but as I only have 11 weeks for this project I feel I do not have
enough time.

Another piece of feedback I received was that my third idea of

watching a film through the eyes of a villain (a stalker) would prevent
me from communicating the right amount of tension. I knew from the
beginning with this idea that I wanted to produce something that
engaged the audience and left them on edge. However, as the
feedback states a lot of this atmosphere is built up by communicating
the feelings of the victim, so I may struggle to pull this off with the point
of view I wanted to carry out.

This successfully helped me to choose my final idea, which was my first

one about a teenage girl becoming obsessed with her classmate. All of
the feedback I received on this idea was very positive with a lot of
people saying they felt it would be interesting to see.

The final part of the survey asked my respondents to choose their

favourite idea. Unfortunately, this had no clear outcome as both the first
and second idea gathered the same number of votes. Therefore, when
choosing my final idea I used the comments to decide which idea
would be the most appropriate to continue with.

Are you on track for the I am on track.

week? If not, how far behind
are you?

What work do you need to None I am up to date.

complete outside of lessons
to stay on track?