This document is a personal skills audit for Alex Costello. It summarizes the skills they acquired for their A1 film project and how they will develop them further in their A2 project. For their A1 project, Alex used recording equipment, a track, dolly, and Final Cut software to film and edit their opening sequence. They researched common horror film conventions and analyzed other opening sequences to plan shots and storylines. Alex plans to build on these skills for their A2 music video by applying experience filming and editing, as well as research techniques.

1. Personal Skills Audit Name: Alex Costello
Skills acquired How did these skills
contribute to the creation of
your product?
How will you develop these
skills during the A2 project?
Digital technology
- What
equipment/software
packages did you use to
produce your
production?
Worked using recording
equipment when creating our
opening sequence. We also
managed to use the track and
dolly. Once we had all of our
equipment we then edited the
clips on Final Cut. We also
created a blog on blogger and
posted all of our work onto it.
Acquiring these skills allowed
me us to make the sequence
with a range of different shots
and techniques. Learning
editing skills allowed us to
create a final product, which
was rather acceptable.
These skills will help in my
second year because we’re in
need to shoot a music video for
our coursework and already
having experience with a
camera will help a lot. I will also
have experience when it comes
to making another blog for my
coursework in A2.
Post production
- What software did you
use to create your
production?
- Discuss specific features
of the software.
When editing the production
together, we used the software
‘Final Cut Express HD’. This
software was fantastic for our
task; I was able to successfully
crop together the sequence. I
could add in different sounds
and music wherever I like in the
software and could also use
different special effects to
change the brightness. This
was so the clip looked like it
Being able to add sounds and
different affects to the piece ma
de it 10x better. Putting text in
the piece over the video
allowed me to put in opening
credits and the title of the
opening sequence.
As I am experienced in using
the different features that Final
Cut has to offer. This will help in
the long run if I come face to
face with the same software
again.

2. was in the nighttime although it
was broad daylight when
filmed.
Research and Planning
- What tasks did you
complete when
preparing to film your
sequence?
- How did your planning
help the smooth
progression of your film?
For the planning, we first had to
decide what genre our opening
sequence was going to be on.
Once we decided that we then
started looking at popular
opening sequences in that
genre to give us a general idea
of what we will need to include.
We then started looking at
common conventions you
would associate with that
particular genre. After that, we
then started planning a main
story line making sure to
include different camera angles
and techniques.
Doing this gave me a lot of help
when it came to making my
coursework. By looking at
different horror opening
sequences, this gave me a
huge insight to what type of
things I would have needed to
create.
I will develop these skills for
when it comes to doing my
coursework. I have learned to
look at similar things to do with
my task so I can compare
ideas.
Using conventions of real
media texts
- Which texts did you
analyse?
- Did you take any
inspiration from the
conventions found from
your research?
When looking at all of the horror
opening sequences, I managed
to gather ideas like sudden
camera movements to cause
drama and the types of sounds
to build up tension for the
audience.
We were very stereotypical
when it came to the actors.
They were teenagers coming
home from a party drunk, this is
a common convention of
teenagers in todays age.

3. Creativity
- were our ideas for your
portfolio imaginative and unique
or did you adhere to
conventions?
We managed to come up with
some creative ideas and did not
in fact copy any of the research
we watched. Although we
filmed the scene in a graveyard
which is very stereotypical of a
horror movie.
Making our ideas up ourselves
contributed massively to our
final piece because it allowed
us to create an unoriginal piece.
Hopefully in A2, I can transfer
these skills in order to make
unoriginal pieces that are really
good.