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.