OUR SHORT FILM “PARASOMNIA” – LINK

GROUP WORK

GROUP MEETINGS

IN-PERSON MEETINGS:

For in-person meetings we made use of the “Group Study Rooms” on campus. These rooms were equipped with whiteboards (useful for brainstorming & diagrams) and a monitor.

Below is a record of our meetings & work.

MEETING 1 – Tuesday 04/02/25 

 

Attendants: Hurley & Jack

Summary: We began preliminary work analysing the characters and narrative structure of the short film. The spider diagrams and multi-step investigation here formed the foundation of our group analysis going forward.

Whiteboard Work:

MEETING 2 – Tuesday 18/02/25

 

Attendants: Hurley, Jack, & Christine

Summary: We analysed our short film in sections according to the 4 pillars of filmmaking – Cinematography, Mise-En-Scene, Editing, & Sound. 

Whiteboard Work:

MEETING 3 – Tuesday 25/02/25

Attendants: Hurley, Jack, & Christine

Summary: Decision on how to divide up our short film for research & analysis + structure PPT Slides.

Whiteboard Work: N/A

 

MEETING 4 – Friday 28/02/25

Attendants: Hurley & Amber

Summary: Continued work on our presentation and updating Amber on group work.

Whiteboard Work: N/A

VIDEO CALL MEETINGS: (DISCORD)

MEETING 1 – Wednesday 19/02/25 – CANCELLED

Attendants: Jack & Amber

Summary: We were supposed to have a video call meeting at 9-10PM this day. Amber forgot and cancelled the meeting.

MEETING 2 – Monday 03/03/25

Attendants: Hurley, Jack, Christine, & Amber

Summary: We had about an hour long meeting finalising our PowerPoint and consolidating all of our analysis and research, making sure it was all of satisfactory quality before our presentation the next day.

REFLECTION – MEETINGS: (MY OPINIONS)

These meetings served many purposes, they:

  • Allowed us a space to brainstorm and experiment with our ideas together.
  • Enabled us to combine our differing and unique perspectives together – hence generating more nuanced and multi-facetted observations
  • Strengthened group morale and interpersonal relationships with each other.
  • Encouraged us to take booking and planning more seriously – enabled us to better plan and assign work.

 

ITERATIVE COLLABERATION (TEAMWORK EXAMPLE)

We created our shot list via. a cumulative process of translation and improvement upon multiple iterations of the same shot list. With each team member (excluding Amber who was absent) having a hand in that process.

1) HURLEY – HANDWRITTEN ANALYSIS ✍️

Hurley came to Meeting 2 having independently handwritten a wide variety of wonderful notes on each shot in our short film. These notes are linked below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1D6VpiE4gkMvDUFW75I_QCfefM4jLOQRtsRdS4Mi4y30/edit?tab=t.0

2) JACK – TRANSCRIPTION 🔁

We took these handwritten notes and turned them into digital editable text to put in our blog and PowerPoint slides. I was responsible for transcribing these handwritten notes to a google doc linked below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q03t_8QY9pEzAPve9gJGXf-bJHODeMc6pCBewyrRha4/edit?tab=t.0

3) CHRISTINE – ORGANISING & STRUCTURING 🗃️

These shots were placed alongside images and given a formal style of analysis. Christine undertook this task of combining my transcribed notes + a formalist analysis of each shot. Her work is linked below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-Qd2ZkiNW1KOiTtPziN0F7SmsGZZXw_fXgIZllCQneE/edit?tab=t.0

REFLECTION – ITERATIVE COLLABORATION: (MY OPINIONS)

This process served many purposes, it:

  • Allowed us to break up a long and complicated process into individual parts we each could be responsible for – thus reducing unnecessary time and effort required to gain our desired result.
  • Encouraged incremental improvement upon prior ideas – thus weeding out any unnecessary or inaccurate observations.

This shot list was very useful because it acted as a reference for analytical points & terminology that we could refer back to throughout our project.

 

GROUP FEEDBACK (FROM TUTORS)

FEEDBACK – Tuesday 25/02/25 (CARMEN)

Carmen advised us we didn’t always need to have quotes for every one of our citations. She also suggested we remove slides I’d made previously on the different types of “Research Methodologies” & “Theoretical Frameworks”. We implemented this advice in our final presentation – this made it more focused and concise.

 

GROUP PLANNING (INSTAGRAM)

We used Instagram & Discord to discuss our ideas and plan meetings.

MY INDIVIDUAL WORK

INDIVIDUAL TASKS – RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

  • MY TRANSCRIPTIONS (Mentioned Previously)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q03t_8QY9pEzAPve9gJGXf-bJHODeMc6pCBewyrRha4/edit?tab=t.0

 

  • MY SLIDES (12 slides out of 29 – Linked below)

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VTa_4BVtUt2GU3OSq7lLXrJolG609bgyHbjEuoOjRiQ/edit?tab=t.0

REFLECTION

I wanted a sleek and practical design for my slides. I knew drowning them in text would disrupt the viewing experience and that limiting my text to key bullet points (as well as using many accompanying pictures) would appear more engaging to audiences and keep my speaking part concise.

  • MY RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

 

Summary: My research involved a wide variety of sources referenced at the end of this blog (books, articles, journals, etc.).  Below are some of my process notes:

 

REFLECTION

I did in-depth research for this project. However, I could have included more sources in my PPT slides to better support some of my arguments.

INDIVIDUAL FEEDBACK 

FEEDBACK – Thursday 13/02/25 (RACHEL)

Rachel offered me advice on my blog: To organise it into sections based on the course structure & prospectus (Year ➡️ Semester ➡️ Module ➡️ Coursework) and then each coursework divided into blogs for different sections (Reflection, Slides Link, Peer Assessment, etc.) rather than weekly blogs. I implemented this and it made my blog far easier (and more intuitive) to navigate.

 

INDIVIDUAL PLANNING (TRELLO)

For keeping track of my own tasks, I used an application called “Trello” to set up an animation board to keep track of my to-do lists.

 

POST-PRESENTATION REFLECTION

FEEDBACK – Tuesday 04/03/25 (CARMEN & DARA)

PROS:

  • Overall good design of PowerPoint.
  • Introductory context and synopsis about short film was useful.
  • Lots of technical detail and terminology used.

CONS:

  • Some of our bolder claims could be supported by some more sources.
  • Time Management Problem – wasn’t able to get through all the slides.
  • Text-to-Image ratio was off which contributed to a slower presentation.

 

REFLECTION: I agree completely with this feedback. I would also add the following criticisms as well:

  • The structure of our Presentation (Introductory Context, 4 Pillars research & analysis each split into 4 parts) was useful because it allowed all of us the opportunity to speak on each Pillar. However, it created a lot of slides (29 in total) which meant we didn’t have as much time to cover Editing & Sound vs. Cinematography & Mise-En-Scene.
  • I spoke on all the introductory context slides – I feel confident at public speaking and I had made all those slides, so I knew I could get through them efficiently. However, it’s possible I dominated the beginning slides. Dividing those slides between us would’ve created a more equal distribution of presentation effort and time for each speaker.

 

WORD COUNT: Approx. 995

My References:

 Websites Articles:

Journals:

  • Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal Animation Practice

Books:

Videos:

Paintings:

  • Fuseli, H. (1781) The Nightmare. Oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Detroit

 

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