University of Kent

On Wednesday 14th January the two media classes from my school visited the University of Kent in Canterbury.

Firstly, we were put into small groups and were given half an hour to create a film. We were also helped by two film students who showed us the quiet areas where we could film. Our brief was to include: a mysterious stranger, blinding light, a lost soul and a key to a lock. Because of the short time we had to film, we couldn't re-film anything or delete any clips, meaning it all had to flow continuously when we presented it to everyone at the end. This taught us a lot about the importance of proper planning and thinking of all eventualities in order to produce the best footage possible in one take. I feel this was an important lesson to learn as I think it is all too easy to over film, which does have its benefits, however by taking lessons learnt from this exercise we should be able to film our film opening in as few takes as possible as we know now the importance of planning and making the first take as good as you possibly can.

 We then had a session on screen play and shooting scripts, where we watched scenes from films and got to view the actual shooting script. After, we were set a task to team up with a partner and write our own shooting script then feed back to our friends, the lecturer and the film students.

 Next we were given a tour around the film, arts and drama building, including the very high-tech recording studios, computers suites and the green screen room. We also had an exclusive viewing of a documentary, Living the Dream, made by two students who are currently studying at the University of Kent which will be shown on BBC 3 Fresh. They are amongst a select number of up and coming film students who have had their work chosen to be aired on national television.

 We also had a lecture on the types of horror films and the iconography associated with them. I found this very helpful and interesting due to our film's close link top the horror genre.