Semester One Reflection

             She’s Back! Here’s my reflection on what my media class has taught me this past semester!!

Once I found out that this media studies class existed and was available for me to take, I was ready for the new year to roll in so that I finally put one of my passions to work. This past semester I’ve expanded my knowledge inmensley about the media and what it consists of. I was able to understand the “why” behind certain moves or strategies of production companies, everything from the shots and angles to the marketing of the content. Due to that close investigation of the media, I feel like this past semester I was able to strengthen my capacity of analyzing, not just in media but in general. Although it may ruin a movie for me, having that capacity to analyze and break down the reasoning behind everything, has become a skill that I truly can see helping me out in anything I set my mind to.

A skill I need to further develop in, is the ability to properly condense, analyze, and output the content I have just consumed. Yes, I may have talked about how I have learned and love the ability to analyze, but sometimes, even when I watch content that does not require me to do an analysis, I can sense the importance and significance of a scene, but I do not know what are the relevant takeaways for me to fully appreciate the content that I am watching. If I were to learn how to compartmentalize and organize the constant and numerous significant pieces that add up to make that content I am watching, I would better digest and truly understand what it is that I am taking in.

As of my film pitch project, I thought my group and I did excellent. We were truly satisfied with what we were able to bring up. What we did need to improve was our creative side. Although you can’t really practice or perfect creativity, I felt that we needed to roam around the genre we were going for, romantic comedies, in order to boost any possibility of a different idea or approach that was needed within these films. Something we learned was not only how to organize a project and focus on what is necessary, but also the components and formulas that make a genre work the way they do. As per romantic comedies, as well as the other genres we learned about during that time, there are elements or even whole formulas that signal to an audience what it is that they are going in to. For example, for our genre, you typically need a character a and b, some type of conflict, and a resolution. With these elements, audiences will be able to get the “gist” of what message us creators want to convey. I personally thought that that part of creating was absolutely great and can see myself lining up those pieces to create something bigger in future projects.