Ricardo reflects on how research and planning has improved from his AS music magazine project to his current A2 short film project. For the magazine, he researched magazine layouts at a newsstand to inform his design. For the film, he analyzed three professional films and conducted audience feedback through a questionnaire. He has improved at pre-planning, delegating tasks to teammates, and blogging about the process along the way rather than retrospectively. Overall, Ricardo has made significant progress in his research, planning and time management skills as a media studies student.

1. Reflection: Research and Planning
Ricardo Reveron Blanco
In this reflection I will be assessing how the research
and planning has led to the construction of my final
music magazine last year and is presently helping my
construction of a short film. I will assess both of the
projects to draw comparisons and contrasts from both
year products.
This will finally allow me to expose the significant
progress that me as a Media Studies student has
achieved.

2. AS Foundation Portfolio & A2 Advanced Portfolio: Pre-production
The process of producing a media text should always rely on the influence of previous research.
AS Foundation Portfolio (ASFP)
Examining professional and similar products as well as collecting information on potential target
audiences has prevented my media products from being unfocused. In terms of the ASFP, I
focused on understanding how current magazines are presenting in society so I evaluated a
newsstand in order to see how magazine are represented and how my own should be to fit in
(details are in the next slide). I then collected audience feedback when presenting my proposal.
A2 Advanced Portfolio (A2AP)
Here I have also examined three case studies on professional and similar products which will be
discussed further. I have also carried out an audience feedback which differs from last year’s as I
did not present my proposal to my class but rather made a questionnaire in addition to creating an
open comment for people to feedback my treatment.

3. ASFP: Newsstand task
I took this photograph in WHSmith in Westfield
Stratford last year. In my blog I discussed how the
magazine has to stand out from the rest as when
they are displayed in a newsstand they must attract
the customer’s attention. In this case I found the
NME magazine to do this and therefore concluded
that adding similar features such as the masthead
and the colour schemes (red and white) will benefit
my overall product.

4. A2AP: Case Studies
Dexter Opening Sequence
This is one of the three professional short films that I analysed in order to incorporate certain
code and conventions into my work. In my analysis I presented a synopsis of the short
film, and then progressed onto examining customs such as the mise-en-scene, character
representation, camera techniques, editing et al.
I found out that the opening sequence with micro-shots of certain peculiar aspects would be
the most beneficial to incorporate in our project. Which we then presented in our storyboard
for potential audience to feedback.

5. ASFP: Pitch
In the pitch I presented last year I included
topics such as mission statement, publishers and
cross-media in order to reveal how the audience
would feedback and change some concepts
accordingly. For instance, this pitch revealed
that I had to develop why I wanted to add a
catch line with my masthead as well as the cost
of the product.
The link to the full presentation is attached here:
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0531573629312341#editor/target=post;postID=
6315354634507130100;onPublishedMenu=allp
osts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=18;src=
postname

6. A2AP: Audience Feedback

7. ASFP: Mise-en-scene
I decided that pre-planning everything that I would need in the shoot
beforehand would make my work in the studio much easier when shooting.
For this reason, I used a call sheet to plan costumes, props, and model needed
for the shoot:
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rget=post;postID=2852730763408837906;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClos
edMenu=allposts;postNum=14;src=postname

8. A2AP: Mise-en-scene
This year in order to prepare before creating the footage we managed to
present a recce with all the necessary assets that we would need to have
prepared before shooting. (Location, props, costumes…)
In addition to this we asked several individuals that would be potential actors
for our project as they fit with out treatment by using release forms: ( link)

9. A2AP: Paperwork & Team work
In our group we decided that sharing the different pre-production task would
meet the given deadlines and we would accomplish the tasks in a higher
standard. Some of us would manage the college paper work such as
equipment booking, or risk assessments whereas I took some pictures to add
in our location recce. In terms of group meeting, we would just allocate them
in class time in order to discuss them easily. This contrasts from last year’s
work as I would not pre-plan ahead I would do the planning retrospectively.

10. Continuation
• As I have arrived late to A2 Media Studies, I was unable to incorporate
ideas in the initial storyboard as my group already completed ir
beforehand. However, I was able to give small ideas such as presenting a
“dead body” in the container. After filming our test footage we were able
to do some group changes in our storyboards to incorporate combined
ideas. Although we were able to efficiently finish our storyboard
coherently, we could have asked several audiences to give us feedback of
our storyboard to avoid complications when actually filming.
• In last year’s storyboarding I found that I have had high standard work as I
firstly drafter music magazines in pencil and then started doing some
drafts in InDesign and following these drafts closely benefited my work.

11. Time Management & Blogging
I feel that that my own time management has improved from last year as this
year I take action by preparing a week in advance minimum whereas last
year I procrastinated and had to finish task retrospectively.
In terms of blogging I am constantly blogging from what we do in class and
extra whereas again last year this was not the case and I uploaded posts
retrospectively and late to meet deadlines. Moreover, this year I have
implemented more creative elements such as embedding technology to give
a higher standard to my present work.