The Boys whoes Skin Fell Off

'The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off' is a film documentary that follows the life of John Kennedy in his last 4 months of life. He sufferers from dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa which causes his skin to break away from his body at the slightest touch, this documentary provided a candid and very personal perspective of dying as well as well as living whilst also raising some sensitive and controversial issues.

Below is the link to the full documentary 
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-boy-whose-skin-fell-off/4od


One of the most prominent issues that is raised in this piece is the reality of life and living when faced with death. A question that came to mind when begging to watch this documnetry was is it morally wrong/right to document someones death in a media text? This question was present in my thoughts especially knowing the fact that this was broadcast on TV and is still available to watch now. The way the text is presented it comes across that John was heavily invloved with the filming process and the planning of how the documentry would be formed, in one scene he actually mentions that he wasn't going to die according to the schedule. This was said with humor but it does suggest that the specifics of his death was discussed in detail and what role it would play in the documentary coming from a tenchical aspect. Due to John's consent I feel that this documentary, depite being senetive did not cross any moral boundries. The boudries were pushesed  but from this bravery shown by both the documentary makers and John himself channel four were able to make a emotional but thought provoking piece. 
The documentray was able to show the stress that illness can place upon family relation ships and I feel that the way his family were represent by the media was appropriate and done well. Due to John's condition the majority of the attention has had to be on him and the film was able to show how this has effected his brother and mother. Out of context the attitudes of John's brothers could be viewed as selfish but with in the media piece John's emotions were able to provide insight and shed light on the fact that everyone's emotions are valid no matter of their situation.The documentary was presnenting John as a admarble character who appeared have a full fulling life however there were many things that were not present in his life that most of us take for granted. John's lack off romatic relationship were also touched on in the proccess of this documentary and at some points the framing and the camera angles shown were able to emphasize this further. I felt this was executed subtly but were still able to have a impact on the audiences emotions.   







With in media we the audience are often trying to relate to what we are being presented with and over I feel that documentaries of this nature are rather important. They are able to put life in to perspective for those of us who have perhaps lost sight of things or who have got wrapped up in materalism. I also feel they are able to provide comfort for those people who too have life threatening illness and can help them feel that they are not alone. These kinds of films are not all about death but they are also about living life and making the most of it. 

AS Over View

Below is the video for my AS final production, the creation of my opening sequence was able to expand my media knowledge as well as improve my over all skills.

From this production I was able to learn how to effectively execute the three areas of media production which include planning, filming and editing. I feel my group and I made good use of the time that we had to plan and accounted for everything that needed to be done by our set deadline. Because we were well planned this allowed us to get to filming our opening in good time as we were ahead of schedule, however we had to postpone our filming date before hand which ended up dragging out our overall production process. From AS I have learnt that having a good a detailed plan makes the rest of production run much smoother and is able to save time for the other areas of production. 

From the previous course I was able to learn a lot about film language including symbolism, camera shots, angles and movement. This was beneficial to my production as I was able to apply it when filming, I feel that my product as a whole was good as it included a variety of camera shots and angles however I feel it could have had more movement. If I was to re film my opening sequence I would aim to have more control over the what is seen in the shot, there are some shots that to me come across messy and not organised. I don't think it harms my product to badly but I now see several ways in which it could have be avoided. Now moving on to my A2 course when it comes to filming I will make efforts to make sure that everything seen in the shot is there because I have chosen for it to be. Another area I would improve is try to make the production as whole seem more natural, a lot of the shots were very obvious and I think that is the main factor that makes a student piece come across less professional. The challenges of filming were ones that were often out of our control for example the weather, however due to our good organisation were able to plan around this effectively. 

This production was able to teach me the fundamentalist of the editing process and I was able to learn that it is important to leave adequate time for editing. Editing allowed my piece to come together and in the end I was pleased with the overall out come. In the future I would put more time into the color treatment as this is able to determined the tone of the sequence. 

Now approaching my A2 I will apply everything learned from AS in order to make my future production as strong as possible 

Having this post will be a good reference for how I have improved when reaching the end of my new course. Next I will decide of which brief I feel will be most suitable and appropriate for my self.