Group Meeting

 Group Meeting #1

Yesterday in class, we held our first group meetings to get feedback on our projects from other classmates. Previous to actually meeting in groups, we watched a TED talk, shown by our teacher, providing helpful information on story writing. I will provide an image of my notes from the class period, in which I wrote down the most important things that I thought could benefit my film opening.

In the top section, you can see my notes from the TED talk video, and on the bottom, by quick notes from the group meeting.

    During the group meeting, I met with 5 other classmates, one of them being my partner, Alex. Each person proposed their idea for their film opening, and then we discussed any questions we had and any recommendations that could improve our piece. We also had access to looking at other classmates' blogs, to reference whilst they spoke about their ideas.

    The first thing I wrote down from the group meeting was not said out loud, but was more of a recommendation that I had for myself. I saw on my classmate, Agam Gago's, blog that she had written a blog on representation in the characters in her film opening, and I thought I should write this down as it would be a good blog post to create for my own film opening, as it will allow me to further research characteristics that the characters in my film opening will have, such as how they process emotions. This will allow me to create a better piece, in the end, as I will have a deeper analysis and understanding of our characters.

    When it came time to explain my concept during the group meeting, Alex and I explained our plans for the film opening together. While we did not have any major issues that we were encountering, our classmates were incredibly helpful in giving us recommendations to improve our film opening. As we explained that the film in its entirety would be about the older sister, Valerie, our group members expressed concern that the film opening seemed to be a bit too centered around Mara, and that if we wanted to introduce that the rest of the film is about Valerie, that we should begin showing this towards the end of our film opening. They proposed that we could show a scene, set a few days/weeks in the future, showing Valerie's strong emotions dealing with the loss of her sister. I think this was a great recommendation that solves an issue that I had not yet thought about, and I like the execution of the potential solution. After the group meeting was over, I discussed this with Alex and Andrea, and even offered that we could show dates on screen using text in the film opening to make it clear to the audience that time had passed.

     Overall, I think this group meeting was incredibly successful, as it not only helped improve my project by giving me feedback from others, but also allowed me to hear about my classmates' creative ideas for their own film openings! I can't wait to see their projects in the future!!