1A - Research and planning

Explain how you research and planning skills have developed over time, and how this has contributed to your media production outcomes.

My research and planning skills have developed significantly over the two-year course which has involved the planning and research behind my AS film opening and A2 music video. When starting the course my skills were very limited, over time i learnt the importance of research and planning and how it impacted my work which improved in A2 because of my developed skills.

The research and planning in AS for our film opening was mainly focused upon the genre of film which was teen drama, we looked at similar genre films to analyse what makes a good teen drama film and how it captures its target audience, we looked at perks of being a wallflower. We also done research into the titles this involved researching the length and style of titles. To develop our skills we carried out practise tasks such as creating a short sequence of titles which helped when it came to the film opening. We also carried out research into genre and how elements such as mise en sense were used to create a teen drama we looked at costumes and took inspiration from other films into our own. However when reflecting on this the overall research and planning was quite basic, therefore when it came to the A2 music video we carried out intensive more developed research. We done lots of research into the genre of our music which was pop/R&B. We looked at music videos from artists such as SZA and Rhianna which we found had narrative based videos, we wanted to create a performance style so we began looking at other pop artists such as Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus. We took inspiration from their videos such as the idea of 'Star image' in Dua Lipa's video New Rules, she is made the centre of attention through the use of low angle shoots looking up at her and zoomed in shots, we then mirrored this in our own music video to create our artist Nova as the star image to the audience. 

When it came to planning our film opening we used a storyboard this helped us to plan the sequence, the storyboard was quite basic which meant we only included the characters and what we wanted to happen in the scene. However this meant went it came to filming we still had to decide what shots and angles and how long we wanted them to last. Therefore when it came to planning our music video in A2 we used a voiceover on the storyboard so we could go into specific detail, we included the specific angles of shots and how long they would last, we also included the locations and the outfits our artist. This was a significant improvement from AS as when we came to filming we were more productive and efficient as we knew exactly what we were filming, therefore our time management improved  meaning we had more time to edit and focus on our other media products such as the Digipak. Overall improving the outcomes of our production. 

For our ancillary tasks in AS which involved the making of a website and film poster we carried out very little research this made our outcomes basic and look unprofessional. We did not do any research into the elements of synergy therefore the media products to go with the film did not carry the same synergy meaning that each product looked different and carried no correlation to the actual film opening. As a result of this in year 2 we made sure we done more in depth research into synergy in order to make our products flow and fit the style of the music video. We carried out research into the synergy of Miley Cyrus analysing how her music video linked the website, album cover and merchandise and then used this to help us develop the synergy of Nova. As a result our media products in A2 showed clear synergy in contrast to those in AS, portraying how our research and planning skills had developed and improved our productions.

In conclusion throughout my 2 year media course i have learnt how important the research and planning stages are and how they have an impact on the work i produce.