Explanation of your prior experience of and learning around similar products

Before doing CTEC media I had absolutely no clue about how to use a camera let alone talk about it, I had no idea how to change the settings on the camera or how to take proper clear pictures. I would go to the lessons with no skill whatsoever to help me. However now I have a full understanding on all the skills and techniques that I need to make sure my work is at its best and this was all due to me taking media and exploring something I thought I would never see myself doing. Knowing that I'm still nowhere near being a professional and that I still have areas of improvement I still have a lot to learn as I go along the way. I have learnt how to create radio adverts, TV idents and how to edit short clips and make it look cinematic. Media is not the only subject where I learned about production and planning, doing CTEC IT has also helped me to develop a lot of planning skills as I have made planning documents for clients for a website making project which was done in Unit 9, In Unit 13 I was asked to plan a presentation video for a specific brand/company of my choice and that took a lot of planning such as creating; questionnaires, surveys and reports to help me gather my important information.

My experience of planning and production for a client was done through out a variety of units such as - Unit 14/16, Unit 3/22 and Unit 15. 

What I have learned through these units are:

• SWOT analysis  
• Script planning
• Location recce 
• Shooting script
• Creating story boards
• Production logs 
• Task allocation
• Mood Boards 
• Release forms 
• Animatics 
• Budgeting
• Editing
• Risk assessment 
• Potential client questions 
• Voice overs 
• Focus groups 
• Audience feedback 
• Creating short films 
• Radio adverts 
• Tv idents 

I have used these skills and ideas all across the production work for the projects I had to create. One important thing that stuck out to me was in Unit 15 when I created an ident for ITV2, I made a Love Island related advert which was really fun to make, I had to make an advert that plays straight after the show or in between the breaks and it had to be so the audience are keen to continue watching their show. First I created a plan of all the ideas that I had in mind and then started to film which was then followed by a rushes log where I had to put in all the clips and then see which ones I keep and the ones I delete. Even though I was very happy with the way my ident turned out I still think I had areas I could have focused on such as: 

• Deadlines - I would usually finish a couple days after the deadline

• Distractions - easily getting my attention taken away from work by small things

• Feeling like its not good enough - Need to understand as long as I did my best that's enough

• determination/encouragement - I need to be able to have the motivation to do the task and be determined to get it done to its full potential.

As long as I can focus on these aspects I think I will be able to improve a lot and make many changes that could benefit me in the future. However I also have areas where I think its important that I improve on immediately and these are things such as: 

• Planning - sometimes my planning isn't up to its full potential and can be very hard to follow.

• Deadlines - Again I need to focus on handing work in on time.

• Editing - I am not a pro, however I know that I can do better than what I do now.

• Script Writing - Not really confident on writing scripts

• Cinematography - Still have areas to learn on how to properly create good clips/pictures

• Confidence - sometimes I get a bit shy and wouldn't put myself out there or put my ideas out there like I should

Although there is a lot of space for improvement, I think that my knowledge and ability for production and planning is pretty strong.