Describe how your understanding of the importance of good research and planning skills developed throughout the pre-production of your AS and A2 coursework.

In the last two years of media studies I have been given two briefs. One was to create the opening sequence to a Film Noir or Horror film, lasting 2 minutes including titles and the other was to create a music promotional package including music video, digipak and advert. We created ours based on the song Save The World by Swedish House Mafia. I will look at these two years and evaluate my development between the two for Research and Planning.

For my research in the AS Year when I was creating the Film Noir I analysed the conventions of the genre. I did this by looking at films that would be of a similar style to mine and looking at the things they used e.g. mise-en-scene, edits. This was good because it meant that I could see the sort of things that I should include in my product. This was important; as I could make sure that my film matched the real conventions. I also looked at my audience, researching the trends with audiences and seeing if people who I would be aiming at would be interested in the type of film I was creating. This would be important because if they weren’t interested in the product I was creating, then no one would buy it if it were a real product. It could also mean that I would have to change some of the things that were in my film to match the demands of the audiences. I had to look at the issues surrounding the organisations that my film would have been controlled by, such as the BBFC, and the ways that they policed the products that people created. Looking at this was important because it meant that I was able to see the sort of constraints that would be on my product and the guidelines that I had to adhere to when creating my final product. I had to research certain aspects of the brief, and doing this gave me a greater understanding of what was expected of me. I could look into the two genres and famous films from each, and this could help me decide which I felt was best for me to do. I could also look at the different things that would be included, the titles and video and how I felt I could do the tasks. I also drafted my original ideas and could then put them down after comparing them to the research that I had done. This would be important because it meant that I was able to get a good idea of what I was going to do and the ways in which I was going to do it.

For my research in the A2 Year, when creating my Music Promotional Package, I researched the brief, like at AS, with the major difference being the amount of detail I put into the A2 Year compared to the AS. When looking at the A2 brief I had 3 parts to look at, due to being asked to do a video, advert and digipak, compared to the one product, a film the previous year. It was important to get more detail because of the amount of work involved in creating the A2 product and all of the things I’d need researching to make it a success. In this year I also researched the things I was going to do, in this case it was the lip sync. I got a camera and videoed something mouthing the words to a song, and then matched them up to the song that was playing in the background. This would become more important because it meant that I was able to see the way it was going to work and this gave me good ideas for my products. I did a shot count task, where I could see the way that these videos were constructed and the kind of shots and edits that they used. This was more developed than the AS Year because it meant that I had looked into the construction and would look in to the conventions of these videos. I did look at the conventions and it was much more developed this year because I was looking at the videos conventions, advert conventions and digipak conventions, in much more detail. By looking at these conventions, and specifically in products of my genre gave me a good idea of things to include in my final products. I did a lyric breakdown of the song that I was doing and this helped as I could add times and brief notes to show myself where I wanted things to go, and for how long. This was more developed than AS, as I just created a storyboard and hoped that my timings were correct for it all to fit into the 2 minutes. At A2 I had to be much more precise with my timings.

When planning for AS I created a storyboard so that I could have brief sketches and notes with times on that would be the main guide for the film. This was good to use because I was able to see all of the ideas down on paper and this meant that I was able to take them with me and film the parts I needed to, ticking them off as I went. I also created call sheets, which were very helpful. This allowed me to have a document to give actors that told them where they needed to be, when they needed to be there and what they needed to take with them. It also had the contact details of all those involved, so it gave us something to use if one of the actors was late, or was going to be unavailable. I did some recce shots, which was where I got photos of locations, costumes and actors and could then use these to test their suitability for the task that I was attempting. I got lots of these photos and this meant that I was able to look at lots and make a judgement, based on what I felt would suit the genre and storyline that we created in the best way. I also created an animatic, allowing me to see the transition between shots, and then I could decide if I needed to change the timings, add extra shots or get rid of certain ones, based on this. It was important because it was the closest that we could get to a pre-produced product without doing any actual filming.

When planning my A2 task I also created a storyboard but because of the greater number of shots it needed to be more detailed, with more notes and with much more precise timings. This allowed me to see my ideas down on a page and then by looking through them I could see if anything needed to be changed, added or deleted. Again, I created Call Sheets because they are a reliable way of getting the actors and props to the right place at the right times. Because of the greater number of shots I had to film, I had less time per shoot than last year to fit it all in, so getting people and props to said places was vital to create a good final product. Instead of the basic recce shots, I used test footage, which enabled me to look at how certain scenes could be acted and could also try out effects, like slow motion, before I committed to using them in my video. This was much more effective than the recce shots as we could much more detailed shots and could see how all of the individual things would fit together, whereas before it was all individual. I looked at costumes when planning the video, as I knew it would be an integral part, due to the superhero theme we were going for. This would be important because to make it believable and an original idea. This was more developed than AS because it was a much more detailed look into the specific areas.

Describe how you developed your post-production skills for media production and evaluate how these skills informed your creative media practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

In the last two years of media studies I have been given two briefs. One was to create the opening sequence to a Film Noir or Horror film, lasting 2 minutes including titles and the other was to create a music promotional package including music video, digipak and advert. We created ours based on the song Save The World by Swedish House Mafia. I will look at these two years and evaluate my development between the two.

In the AS Year we used the programme Final Cut. This is because it allowed us to do non-linear editing, and this helped as it meant that we could start editing, even though we may not of had all of our footage together at that point. Another reason that we used it was that we were able to use the razor tool to split clips, and this helped as it meant we were able to show a development in time. We used this because we saw that this was used a lot in real media tests of a similar genre and we were able to take something old and create something new. This is how we fuelled our creativity with this programme. We used LiveType to create our titles, mainly because of the fact that it was able to have the effects, sizes and colours that we wanted. This was good because it meant that it was reasonably easy to create the titles that we wanted, the way that we wanted to. Also, there was a rendering tool, which meant that we could export them almost directly to Final Cut, and this meant we could keep all of our footage in one place. We used the programme Photoshop to create our company logo. This programme allowed us to take an older picture and create something new, meaning that there was the opportunity to be more creative. As well as this we were able to create new things on a separate tab and then add these to the original picture. Using the lasso tool we were able to grab the parts we wanted from said tabs and this meant we could construct a professional logo to add to our film.

In the A2 Year we used Final Cut to create our Final Product (Video) and this was because of the tools that were readily available for use. We had developed in our use of the programme and were then more confident of using the more complex tools. Because we had seen the sorts of ways that real videos were set out we knew that the way we could edit using this programme would be good enough to make it look professional. By taking these conventions of real media products and using them to create something original we were able to use our creativity more freely. Similarly, because of the lesser constraints on the brief this year we were able to be more creative as we were allowed to choose our song, artist, style and interpretation. We also used Photoshop, using it to create both the digipak and the advert. This was a good programme to use, as it was a good quality when it came to editing and the effects that were available were very suited to the genre we were aiming to represent. We used the filter effects to add a new dimension to the photographs that we had taken, making them seem more like what they were meant to be. We used the ‘Film Grain’ tool as this gave a cartoon effect, which is what we were looking for, due to our video portraying a superhero. We used Photoshop and Final Cut in unison when editing the video as well, dividing the frames up and adding the ‘Film Grain’ effects to create a comic theme, and this tied in with the digipak and advert, giving continuity throughout all of the products. Using these effects allowed us to create something original, as people wouldn’t of used this before and this is how we were able to be creative in this part of the postproduction phase.

When evaluating the work for AS, the Film Noir, we used Web 2.0 site Blogger to gather feedback from our peers. It was a good tool to use as we were able to post what we had and get people’s opinions and then if they felt that there were changes to be made then we could do this and post the new products later. There is also a comments part of the site, where they could leave their thoughts and it was easy to collect it all from one place. Doing this was something new and reasonably original, so in that that way it was helping our creativity. We also used the site Prezi to display our evaluations, as we felt that it would be a rather unique way of doing so. It is like a modern take on Microsoft’s PowerPoint application, but instead of moving through slides, it zooms around the page at different angles, speeds and sizes. By using this website to do something new, based on something old we were able to be much more creative when evaluating.

When it came to evaluating the A2 work, the Music Promotional Package, we again used the site Prezi, but because we had used it the year before we knew how it worked and how to get the best out of it. We also knew that we needed to add more information this year as we had to display three pieces of work and our evaluations of it, whereas in the AS Year it was only the one piece, the film that we produced. By having more parts to the presentation we were able to do a much deeper evaluation, finding out exactly what you felt about each individual part. Again, like in the AS Year, we used Blogger to display our work, and leave it open to feedback from our peers. Again it was a good way to do because of the way that we could post something and then re-post an improved version later, to see what they thought of the improvements. We were able to post a lot more this year, as we had a lot more things to evaluate within the products that we created, the video, digipak and advert. We also left our work open to feedback by posting it on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. This was better than just using Blogger last year as only a few people that we knew had our Blogger links and by using these social networks we were able to aim it at a larger audience and get a broader level of feedback. This was more creative than just Blogger because we were able to use a broader range of skills when trying to attract people to give us their feedback. 

A2 Creativity Mind Map

Creativity mind map a2

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AS Creativity Mind Map

Creativity mind map

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Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.

Over the last 2 years in Media Studies I was required to complete 2 tasks, one of which was a 2 minute opening sequence of a Film Noir including titles and the in the A2 year to create the promotional package of a music video, including video, digipak and advert for the Dance Music genre. I will look at the pre-production, production and post-production of these two things, showing a progression between the two.

In the pre-production of the Film Noir we looked at the film LA Confidential, which had everything that you would expect from the genre. There were many things that we got from this film with the camera angles being a main one. It uses a low angle tilt shot to show the power and the respect expected of people like police officers, something that we thought we would use in our opening sequence when we produced it. It also used a lot of close ups of the facial expressions that the protagonists had and we noticed that this meant we could see the emotion that was shown in the scenes. Also whilst researching in the pre-production stage we looked at the film Double Indemnity, which gave us a good idea of the costumes and locations that would be good to use to make it look realistic. We could see by the smart suits, trilbys and briefcases, the way we needed to look to be convincing. The locations used in this film were a good indicator as we could see that we could use bars, offices and similar business environments to make it look like a real opening sequence. We then made sure that our locations matched this when we came to the filming.

In the pre-production of the Music Promo Package we looked at a lot more textual examples, and did much more in depth research to give us a better understandings of the Dance Music genre. We look at the video for All Of The Lights by Kanye West and Jay Z, which gave us a good understanding of the genre, with the mise-en-scene being very apparent in this video. We could tell by watching it and taking notes that things like bright lights, a party atmosphere and the protagonists being the centre of everything how we would need to set it out. We could also see that the main settings were bars and clubs, typical of the genre we were looking at. The other video we were looking at was Call On Me by Eric Prydz, and this showed us some good editing techniques, with thought beats being a big part of this video. We then knew that we needed to include this in our video to make sure that ours was as realistic as the one we were watching. It also had provocative women, who were in the video to grab the attention of the male gaze, which was a theory by Laura Mulvey, saying that men can be drawn to a music video purely because of the women who are used in it. After watching this video we decided that it would be good to have the protagonist used centrally, and reversed the male gaze, by using lots of meat shots of this male character. We noticed that the amount of research collated was a lot more and was much deeper as we looked at every part of the videos, breaking them down and evaluating meanings and the sort of things their director wanted to show.

In the production stage of the Film Noir I again used the LA Confidential film, as I thought that it was a good example of the genre and a one that could help us to create a good film opening. I noticed that when there was an important meeting there was usually very little natural light in the room, so when we were filming similar scenes I made sure that we did this and were able to create the correct effect. I also noticed that it used a lot of angled shots, to show the power that was reflected in such scenes, so we made sure that we reflected this in what we were doing e.g. in ours we had former President John F Kennedy so when people were looking at him they were looking up, and he was looking down on them. We also looked at the film Smokin’ Aces, which was a more modern Film Noir, a hybrid crossed with a thriller. This film showed us a lot of the sorts of costumes we could use in the modern day, but to keep the 50s feel we were going for, and this meant that we could do a more modern take on this genre, but still keep the history, due to the storyline we were incorporating in.

In the production we used the music video for What If by dance/ RnB singer Jason Derulo. He used some good camera angles that we thought would be good for some of the ideas that we had formed, for example in his video there is a shot in a car from behind the driver in the car on his phone to let you know what is happening, and we could use this for a scene we had planned earlier. We also looked at the video by hybrid genre artist Ed Sheeran and his video The A Team, and the angles and framing that he used. We could see that he used lots of meat shots, to portray who the protagonist and antagonist of the video were. The director of said video made sure that at certain points it was just the person they wanted in the frame, but then, to generate meaning, had parts were they were with others to show that although they were in the middle of this story, they weren’t known to everyone.  In doing this we had collected a lot more research than we did for the Film Noir as it was important to get the whole meaning in there, and there was a lot more to get as the music video was going to be twice as long and the film opening, so there’d be more edits, angles, lighting issues and other parts that we hadn’t needed in the AS year.

In the post-production of the Film Noir we again looked at the film LA Confidential, as some of the edits and changes in time could be important for the overall style of our opening. In between two scenes it showed a newspaper slamming down to show passing in time and we incorporated this into our video and it became an integral part of the final product. Also the actors in the film showed the passing in time with different voiceovers, so we used this during the first few seconds of our opening to create this meaning. We also looked at Smokin’ Aces, and its less conventional editing, which was much faster paced than you’d expect, possibly because of the year it was produced in, compared to LA Confidential. We took both of these films into account when editing our own films, as we wanted to get a feel of both and incorporate in both of them. As mentioned we used the newspapers in our final film because it then meant we had a common denominator from an existing product and to ours.

In the post-production of the Music Promo Package we looked at the dance/ hip-hop song Day n Nite by Kid Cudi and the hyper-realism that he used, in the fact that there were inanimate objects talking to him and the ‘world’ he was in was blurred in between dreams and reality. This theory is one that we used when editing the video especially, with us adding superhero ‘POW’ effects to make it more comic and to mask any real violence from the audience. We also had thought bubbles in the video, which showed the audience the feelings of the characters in it, without interrupting the song to stop and hear them saying it out loud. We also looked at the original video for the song that we were doing ‘Save The World (Tonight)’ by Dance/ Hip Hop group Swedish House Mafia, which features dogs acting as superheroes, fighting with criminals and saving members of the public. This again showed the hyper-reality and gave us some good ideas of the ‘crimes’ that we could use in our final product. This was something we thought to do in this year, but not the last, as we thought that if it was successful then examples like it must work in other people’s videos too. By looking at the comments section we were able to see peoples opinions on aspects of the video, whereas we couldn’t do this in the AS year without very significant research into the world of film, which we had neither the time nor the resources to do.

Section 1A Question

Section 1A Question

In the last two years I have took an AS and a full A Level Course in Media Studies, using lots of different digital technologies and improving in my use of them as I have progressed from the AS to the full A Level. In the AS year I was asked to create the opening two minutes of a film and in my A Level year I was asked to create a promotional package for a music video. I will structure this essay by looking first at the pre-production of the tasks, then the production of it and finally the post-production of it. I will then use examples from the past to illustrate how I’ve used it.

In the pre-production of my AS Task I used Blogger, part of Web 2.0, to record my work and to store information that I needed before I could start to actually produce the product. Blogger helped with me creativity as it meant that I was able to set out the things that I had collected could be set out colourfully and clearly. I was also able to embed clips from video hosting site YouTube and diagrams from sites like Prezi, Slideshare and Wordle. I used Blogger because I felt that it was the best site as you were able to fit in lots of information and it was a good place to store it quickly and easily. To create things like preliminary task we used the computer programme iMovie, which we could add effects, cut clips and put videos together. Using iMovie meant that the tasks we were doing were able to be seen altogether as we could move the clips and use non linear editing so we could film little bits and then put them together to form this preliminary task. This helped with the creativity I had when doing this as it meant I was able to film the idea s and then get them in to edit and then if I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would I could edit, delete or replace clips easily and keep doing this until I was happy with the final product for the preliminary tasks. We had to create storyboards and when we had to animate these we used a USB Flash Mic as it was the easiest and best tool to use and it meant that we were able to get the audio files from it quickly. We had to record what we wanted from a script that we had previously prepared and we were able to do this without any other equipment, as we had the option of doing it, then if it wasn’t 100% matching to the animatic storyboard we could re-record. We could do this as it was just  a case of recording it and then getting the files using a USB connection and then putting them into the programme we were using to edit it.

In the pre-production of the A Level task I also used Blogger, as it was still the best site to store information and other parts of research as it could support audio, visual and word-processed files. However, because I had used it for the whole of the last year my skills on Blogger had improved and I was able to use more complex pieces of information. With the task including a Music Video the research included embedding lots of videos to get ideas from, and so had to get videos from the Internet on sites like YouTube. Creatively this helped, as you were able to see what you were doing and could see all of the information you needed to, helping your research. Another part of the pre-production was to use a site called Prezi, which is a zooming presenting website. This can store pictures, videos and text and it was a very creative way of presenting all of the information I wanted to, and this meant that I could see all of the things I wanted to, and could bunch things into topics so could have different parts of the music video at different parts of the website. For example, I could have one part for mise-en-scene, one for narrative and one for editing, to help with the managing of the project. To record preliminary parts for this part of pre-production we used a better quality Canon XL2, as we thought that it would be the best one to use to test out things like the slow-motion effects in iMac program Final Cut HD. We used it on a tripod to record small clips of different things and then, using a fire-wire, uploaded it onto the iMacs and then into Final Cut to check the footage, helping with creativity as we could see the footage and could decide if we were happy with it before uploading it online.

In the production of the AS project we used a Sony Handycam, which was useful as it meant that we were able to get all of the footage, and store it on location due to its 80GB internal memory. We used this camera to film all of the scenes that we needed to, creating a good effect as it had all of the features that you’d expect and made it possible to get all of the angles that we needed to. To put all of the clips together we used an eMac, which made it possible to store all of the information and due to the programs that are available on these Macs you could also go on to do little bits of editing in the filming process, if any small mistakes were seen in the coursework, as to not jeopardise the rest of the coursework and meant there wasn’t any need to re-record the bits we had on the eMacs. Also when producing the film we used iMovie as it was the best program to use, as we’d used it before, to explain some of the angles, how we wanted the locations to look and how the characters being portrayed were to act. It was a good programme to use because it meant that we were able to have all of the effects that we wanted to, but didn’t have to take a lot of our filming time to create these as it was reasonably quick, and was a good quality once we had completed these small points.

In the production of the A Level Products we used the Canon XL2, as it was the best quality camera available and, from what we did in the pre-production it was able to create the angles and zooms that we needed to create the music video that we had originally planned to. It was good because by using a fire-wire we were able to create these films in a non-linear fashion. The quality of the camera helped, because it meant that we were able to film, in detail, all of the things that we wanted to. In the A Level year we used iMacs, opposed to the eMacs that I mentioned previously. These were better as they allowed me to develop my skills, due to the better facilities that were hosted. The iMacs were used to display parts that we needed to check during the production and was a good tool to use for sheets we needed to run it smoothly e.g. Call Sheets, Scripts etc. They allowed me to be more creative, as they had all of the programs we needed to do this with Final Cut HD, Photoshop and iMovie at our disposal, so we could add or delete the parts we wanted to. It was also quicker when rendering the video clips we had collected and this meant that the time that we had was able to be put to good use and was used much more effectively. We used Final Cut to host these clips due to it being a better place to store the non-linear footage as we could be it as a timeline meaning that once we had it we could put it in the right place and then it would be ready for the postproduction that we would do later.

In the postproduction of the AS Task we used Photoshop a lot, taking advantage of its features to create titles and a company logo. It was good as it had many tools that we could use to make the project look professional and suitable for the audience groups that we were meant to be aiming for. One of the tools that we used was the lasso tool, which meant that we were able to grab parts of the larger graphics that we had, and make them smaller so that they were suitable for the task, and would fit with the genre we were working on (Film Noir). We also used Final Cut extensively, knitting together the clips using this program because of its features. We used the effects, such as the monochrome effects and the fade in/ out effects. These allowed us to create a deeper meaning in the film and could show elapses in time effectively.

In the postproduction of the A Level we used the Tricaster cameras, which are located in our filming studio.