800 word essay on progress

My progress in Media from my first year going on to my second year has shown me a lot about myself. Last year my progress in to my Media course work went slow on some parts, there would be days which we would plan to do stuff on but would end up not going to plan. This was due to either lack of commitment by certain group members, weather problems or other important events coming up. Because of this we found we had less time to edit all our footage then other groups may have had which really affected our final project. This year we will make sure we stick to deadlines that coursework is set to; recording footage is always recorded on the date its set without any scenes being missing and/or wrong; then lastly that all group members put equal effort in to work. This should not be too hard as long as we realise that doing this will cause less hassle in the future. We have lost one of our group members who we believe put a real strain on the rest of the group as he contributed very little, and replaced him with someone who is hard working and achieved a higher grade then either me or my other group member Aaron. But in honesty it’s not like we are completely putting the blame on our old group member, because at the end of the day it was a group project. There could be days where very little to no work would get complete; this was not because we had finished but because we had become lazy. This year I and my group are going to stay focus and make sure we do some work every lesson in order to be ready to create our project on time. To create a good music video this year I am going to have to learn from the shots and takes I did last year and learn how to turn them in to amazing shots that go well together, by reviewing my old shots I can see that some scenes may have turned out better if certain things had been done. One example is when we were recording scenes in dull lit places you could see instantly that the quality of camera was not as sharp, so by having good lighting we can create ultimately a better project. Another thing to think about when filming is when and when not to use hand held shots, as they are only really affective in high paced scenes and using it to record just walking can look tacky and armature. Not only is there the course work to think about, but also the exam. The exam last year I had to retake as I had failed my first attempt at it.  This was a shock as some of my mock test scores were bringing me back with B’s and C’s. I believe that this was to do with lack of revision, during my holidays; I would choose to ignore my exam revision and go out with my friends instead. I now see that because of this I lost the ability to have a higher grade than I achieved last year. This year I have dedicated myself to get revision done every week when the exam prep actually starts, if I promise myself this I promise myself a better shot at a higher grade in Media. There are cases where my blog was not always up to scratch with what I was meant to be doing, in this case I would like to be able to go back and edit some of those things if I have enough time, adding to some work in certain cases where it might be able to boost my mark. I am aiming for a B this year, if I was to increase last year’s work to I slightly higher level and get good grades in both my course work and exam then hopefully this would be achievable. I tend to struggle with the writing part of the course as I am not as strong in English as I am in mathematical subjects, even though I do enjoy writing I believe that I f I was to practice multiple exam papers and learn how to write them out then I might have a chance at an overall better grade. So what I can learn from last year is actually quite a lot. I have learned that I am now a more focused student who wishes to do better for himself; I have progressed in camera skills as I have now learned a lot more shots such as the canted shot and point of view shot. So lastly I would just like to comment on the energy that my group creates, It is a lot more positive than last year and we are getting more done, quicker.