Weekly Blog

Week 1 – Context

This week was the first week for the Final Major Project. I started the week by doing the
proposal and production schedule. This was the most time-consuming pieces of work, so I
wanted to do these first. The proposal took around a day and a half, I wanted to get this right
and communicate everything that I wanted to. I found it quite difficult to stay within the word
limit for each section, however I wanted to get my points across without missing anything
out.
I found the production schedule quite difficult to complete because I was unsure of how long
tasks would take and when we would be starting filming and planning. To try and give
myself more on an idea of coming weeks schedule, I looked through VIIBE to give myself an
indication of these time periods. Throughout the week I then completed a mind map of my
three ideas, proposed bibliography, anticipated problems, competition, social context, and a
brief.
Coming up with a third idea for my mind map was something I was stuck on for a while. The
had my first ideas already thought-out months prior, so trying to come up with a third idea
just tricky. In the beginning of the week, I had written down ideas and jotted down a few new
ones, with not much thought. I decided to look back at my notebook and mix them together.
This is how I came up with my psychopath idea.
When looking for a film festival to enter, I realised that there were not many options, some,
such as BFI’s film festival, was already in the final stages of the festival, meaning I was
unable to enter and other festivals did not have the category I wanted to enter, Lift-Off Global
Network only had a “Live Action Short Film” category which could have related to me, but it
was not what I was looking for. I searched for other film festivals and came across UK Film
Festival London. It included a category for students, which was very helpful because it means
I will be separated from those who have had years of experience.
Finally, I found it quite hard to find some problems for my Problem-Solving section. This is
because I do not know what to expect over the next few weeks, and I was not sure what I
would encounter when researching and planning. I made rough assumptions and also referred
to potential problems which might happen that I may be able to foresee.

Over the week, I found it quite hard to stay focused and concentrate. I have not been in full
work/concentration mode for a while and have been focusing on postproduction topics, such
as editing, which is not as thought provoking as written work and context. I battled this by
using the Forest app where you can set a dedicated amount of time to focusing and once that
time period is over, you have grown a tree. I will be keeping track of my forest throughout
the next few months and track my progress. In the beginning I was only able to focus for 15-
20 minutes at a time, but now I am working into 30-minute periods.

Next week, I want to stay on track and keep up with my work. I have realised how important
it is to keep up with work and keep to deadlines, I do not want to fall behind and I want to

Quinn James
Weekly Blog
Week 1 – Context
keep the chances of getting a distinction as high as possible and help myself as much as I can.
Now I am getting more routined with working daily, I think this will become easier due to
this rhythm.

Quinn James
Weekly Blog
Week 1 – Context
Scan of my notebook
week 1

Quinn James