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. 

Genre 1B Notes

GENRE - DISTINCT
D escribe
I  n detail
S ettings
T hemes
I cons
N arrative
C haracters
T extual analysis

- Daniel Chandler - type of film, audience expect certain things to come up
- Steve Neale - Repetition & Difference

Film opening 
Setting - Family home
Theme - Conflict, sexuality and family relationship
Icons -  bottle of vodka, backpack
Narrative -
Characters - Aurbery and her mum Carol
Textual analysis - Mise en scene

Subverted
confirmed

Audience 1B Notes

Notes from Class:
1B (30 Mins)
Prelims, Digipak, and Website
Choose one production + Theory
Why the concepts were important and significant, lots of REFLECTION.
Targeting the audience how did they respond.
Apply the models.
How you got feedback how you communicated with the audience .

N arrative - TODOROV, LEVI   (Film Opening)

G enre - DISTINCT.    (Film Opening)

R epresentation - DR. CAGES

A udience - Uses + Grates, effects, editing, decoding ( Music Video Audience) 

M edia Language - Any theorist  (Music Video)
-Camera
- Editing
-Mise en scene

Basic Essay Structure 
1) Define the concept you have been given in the question e.g "Genre is a type of ...."
2) Outline the Production you have chosen to evaluate
3)Tell the examiner what you're going to discuss, use theories

Para 2: Using theorists describe key concepts. Outline 2/3 ideas of theorists and how it relates to your production

Para 3: Apply the concept

Para 4: Show ways in which ideas work in relation to your production

para 5: Conclusion - Sum up by returning to the question and, having discussed key issues, say how your product follows or challenges the conventions of that issue

AUDIENCE

Discuss how audiences are represented and how your product applies - mention the effects theory and audience consumption habits. Every media product has to have an audience, otherwise in both a business sense and probably an artistic sense too it would be judged a failure. In your projects, you will undoubtedly have been looking at the idea of a target audience- who you are aiming it at and why; you should also have taken feedback from a real audience in some way at the end of the project for your digital evaluation, which involves finding out how the audience really ‘read’ what you had made. You were also asked at AS to consider how your product addressed your audience- what was it about it that particularly worked to ‘speak’ to them? All this is effectively linked to audience theory which you then need to reference and apply. Here are some links to some starting points for theories:

Three theories of Audience.

1) The effects Model or the Hypodermic model

2) The uses and Gratifications 

3) Reception Theory 

The effects Model -  The power lies with the message 

- Audience are passive and powerless to prevent the influence 

- The consumption of media texts has an effect or influence on the audience

The Hypodermic Model

- The message in media texts are injected into the audience by the powerful 

- Audience becomes addicted e.g adverts promoting cigarettes to be good for you make the audience convinced 

Gratifications 

P ersonal Indentifiaction 

I nformation/ Newspaper/Documentaries/Question Time 

E ntertainment 

S ocial interaction (Watching a film and then telling your friend about it)

 Reception Theory 

Prefered Reading/coding (Agree with the reading)

Negotiated (Sensible reading)

Oppositional (Does not accept the media text)

Conventions plan

DISTINCT

In your experience how has your understanding of conventions developed through creating your productions?

Intro- The tasks you have done across the two years

-       Write about concept of genre and why it’s important (Institutions, audience)

-       What research you have done similar productions (Real media texts) what you learnt

-       What Influence

-       Enigma codes

-       How have you used these conventions?

-       Have you challenged the conventions of the genre?

-       Consider the music video- what research did you undertake into the genre? What conventions are in the genre?

-       How have you used the conventions in the digipak, did you challenge it

-       Performance, narrative and concept – how have you made it this style of music video

-       How, why – give REFLECTION – high marks

-       What have you earnt about using conventions from real media texts?

1A - Post Production

In your experience how has your understanding of conventions developed through creating your productions?

Post Production Essay

Throughout my two-year media course, I have used a variety of post-production techniques which have significantly developed.

In the first year of coursework my post production skills were limited and basic this was shown throughout the year 12 practice edit tasks which involved creating a sequence of dancing animals on Adobe Premier Pro. This was my first time using Adobe Premier pro therefore my editing was very basic and not creative consiting of simple swipe and dissolve transistions aswell as basic cuts. The final task in year 12 was creating a film opening (Untamed). Firstly as a group we had not done enough reaserach and planning into the genre of our film, therefore when watching it back we had no obvious props or editing techniques to portray the overall genre which was teen drama. The editing was aslo limited as we were unexpereinced and had no knowldege of profesional editing techniques, therefore the editing also consisted of basic cuts and transitions with the titles simply put on as text over the moving image. The quality of the video is also quite grainy and of poor standard  as we filmed outside in the dark and did not know how to change the camera setting to create a more visible image. From this i learnt how the importance of good lighting is crucial to create a proffesional looking outcome as it improves the overall quality of the video to much a higher viewing standard.

Although the film opening was simplistic, it was an improvement from the dancing animals task as we had more freedom and creativity within our production, which meant we could play around with effects such as black out, colour correction and importing text. This helped me gain experience on Adobe Premier Pro and improved my confidence and ability on the software which later help me in year 13.

In year 13 my editing skills developed further throught the preliminary music video task and the final music video task. In the post production of the prelim task we used more advanced editing techniques on Adobe such as using Blur Gallery and defining a focal point and warp stabalizer aswell as colour correction these more advanced techniques used shows the progress i had made from the start of year 12.  In the final Music video task the editing had dramatically improved, we now felt confident and experienced in our editing abilities to create a music video that was almost at a professional standard. The editing techniques used included the use of motion (zooming in and out of the footage), warp stabaliser, pink colour correction, reverse and different speed durations.

In year 12 we had created a range of other media products to go with our music video this included a website and film poster. When we creating the film poster we used Word as we felt familiar with the programme as it is easy to use.  Looking back the film poster is vety basic and at at an ammature level using Word meant we did not callenge ourselves and did not get to experience a professioanl editing programme. We also created a Website for Untamed on wix, the website was very basic we chose a simple layout and made minor changes which made the outcome vey simple and not attractive to a user.

In year 13 we also created a range of products to go with our music video, we focused on trying to create synergy across our products by creating a strong colour theme and a recognisbale image of our artist which was both used extensively across the media products. In year 13 we used photoshop to create our Digipak rather than word as we felt this would help us achieve a more professional oucome  as we could use precise cutting and cropping techniques on Photoshop.We used youtube to watch tutorials and gradually got use to the software. For our website in year 13 we also used Wix, however we used a more complex profesional layout and made more modifications to it in order to create synergy. We made sure all our pages worked and that the website was easily accesible to its users by creating links and tabs that worked, this also made the outcome look very professional compared to the website made year 12.