Well. After 5 months of unstructured, unrestrictive and enjoyable holiday times, Uni is once again upon us.

Although the return of structure to our lives may be annoying at first, it’s probably for the best.

What better way to get the block started up again than with the Week 1 Questions set in class…

My goals for this semester basically consist of keeping relatively up to date with all the set work and assessment tasks, to contribute in class and to be not only an active, but a critical group member – doing all that I can to ensure all submitted work is as good as it can be. I think the hinderance of 1st year uni expectations will not be such an issue this year and I’ll be able to focus more and ultimately produce media of a higher quality, using the skills and learning from my experiences in 1st year.

My desires basically revolve around the all important grades that we achieve for our works and I’d simply like to achieve results that I can be proud of, rather than feeling like I may have just scraped through.

The main thing I want to take from Film and TV 1 in semester 1, 2014 is a greater ability to work effectively within deadlines and also within the sometimes challenging context of the group, outside of class time. Organisation and time management will be key for me this semester if I wish to produce work I can be proud of.

One point that particularly took my interest from Jasmine’s lecture about screenwriting was the notion of writing for the screen by starting with a key event, then writing backwards from then, forging the story that led your character(s) to the final scenario. Another interesting point that Jasmine made was the idea that our imaginations are reactive and associative, – meaning that we are able to creatively write if we are able to listen to the natural impulses of our mind and refrain from disregarding ideas that may seem too strange/shallow/different at first.

Because I’ve never really taken reflective writing seriously and thought that there was any particular way to ‘write’, I found Jennifer Moon’s handbook on reflective writing to be hugely informative. Particularly, her summary of ideas to be covered in reflective writing – I’ll definitely be coming back to this list when the time comes for me to write my self assessment for Film/TV 1 later this semester. Whilst not explicitly mentioned in this particular reading, I began to think that it might be beneficial to come back to reflective writings once in a while and remind myself what has worked/hasn’t worked in certain situations that might end up saving me time/effort and also making my work and role within a group dynamic more efficient.