My Reflection

For this assignment, we had to focus on group work analysis. Our group consisted of myself, Jessica, Isaac, Mia, and Nikita. We had very little interaction prior to this assignment and so I was quite anxious about working in a group with people I didn’t know, however they all proved to be very friendly and welcoming which served as a huge relief for me and made the group experience a lot more comforting. Throughout the weeks, I would pay attention in lectures and try to apply what we were learning to my own short film to study ‘The Hunter’. I have found this method of research and applying to be incredibly helpful, as it not only deepened my own understanding of this short film, but it also helped me with applying these concepts to my own work.. After a few weeks, our group separated different key categories of the short film for each person to study individually, and I ended up researching sound design. 

 

I began reading through different sources and books for references and to help me learn a little deeper about the purpose of sound. Film Art : An Introduction [2019] was particularly helpful in helping me understand how sound emission works. One particular quote that I found to be very relevant was “The center speaker emits most of the onscreen dialogue, as well as the most important sound effects”, this quote alone helped me a lot throughout the analysis of sound in our short film as well as just for reference in the future when creating my own animations or analysing others. I found that this effect was used thoroughly within our short film, using a center speaker for louder and more relevant sounds, and side speakers for ambient background music so that the film still had an eerie atmosphere. 

 

The short film was very interesting, and through all categories it was made apparent to be a noir themed film. In our group, we discussed the traits of noir films and how our short film shares many of these traits through mise en scene and lighting especially. I also read Art of Sound : Creativity in Film Sound and Electroacoustic Music [2023]. This was an incredibly helpful source in learning the deeper meanings behind sound choices. The book quotes “Sound is often considered the polar opposite of music, not even a shadow but something fundamentally concrete, earthly, and ‘real’.” and I found that this could be applied on several occasions throughout our short film since sound was a key component, especially scary and realistic sound effects rather than just background music. The use of eerie sound design throughout the short film heightened suspense, reinforcing the noir theme and keeping the audience entertained in an auditory level.

 

When it came to making our powerpoint, we gathered in class to discuss how we would want to lay it out and set it up with shared editing access so that everybody could edit their own parts freely. Unfortunately, I do think communication could’ve been better within our group as I do feel as though many people were not discussing our presentation and short film or talking at all for that matter, and so in the future I would definitely attempt to reach out a little more to get our group talking amongst each other even a little more. The way we had discussed creating our presentation was so that people could freely add to their respective slides throughout the week as long as it would be finalised and ready prior to presenting. I soon noticed that in comparison to my group members, I had written quite a lot and the layout of my writing looked a bit cluttered. I did not want to talk for longer than 2 minutes since this would be taking away from the time that my fellow group members would need for presenting their own categories too. To counter this problem, I summarised some of the points I had made within my paragraphs and also shortened it down too a few slides of just bullet points. I laid out 3 slides in relevance to each aspect of sound within our animation with a small summarised description as my final point. I read my own slides aloud to myself several times the night before and timed myself on it to ensure that I wasn’t writing/talking too much. 

 

Our presentation definitely could’ve gone better in some aspects, but it also could have gone a lot worse. Unfortunately, some of the members of our group speaking before me did speak for over two minutes, and so when it came to my turn for talking, I was left a little short on time and didn’t quite get to go over every point that I had researched. Thankfully, I did have that short summary point prepared and with that I was able to wrap up the presentation pretty quickly and smoothly despite being cut slightly short. Our presentation itself was also quite messy, the layout definitely could’ve been much better and I would have to deduct myself of points simply due to how cluttered our final presentation looked. I am definitely proud of my group’s motivation and ability to work together on this assignment, but I do feel as though we were a little bit underprepared and if we had communicated amongst each other a little better, it could’ve been solved very easily.

 

  

 

FINAL REFLECTION

 

Throughout this assignment, I have gained very valuable insight into analysis, teamwork and personal growth. I think my biggest takeaway here is the importance of communication within a team setting. Our group was certainly strong in terms of individual contributions, but we lacked discussion and cooperation, which ultimately had a negative effect on our final presentation. In the future for assignments like this, I will make more of an effort to initiate work related conversations and ensure that all group members are partaking in discussions.
Overall, this assignment was a needed learning experience for me, highlighting both my strengths and areas for improvement within a group based assignment. In future projects, I will aim to communicate better within my group, improve organization of presentations, and remain flexible for both my group members and to ensure a more polished final product.

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