Research and Planning Development

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

When looking back at my AS coursework, I can see that throughout A2 I developed my understandings into the codes and conventions of genre as I included more detailed information. When planning and researching our mise en scene for our opening sequence we did not put too much thought into what our characters would be wearing, as we did not see this overly necessary. Although once planning for our music video I began to understand the importance to this as it allows the audience to establish the main characters.

While researching into videos for my AS project from similar genres such as the research I done into the first 3 minutes of ‘The hills have eyes’ and ‘Touch of evil’, I could see that I did not include too much information into these, this did not help when needing inspiration when producing our opening sequence. This is not the case for my A2 research, as I looked into number music videos by artists such as Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, N-Dubz and Katy Perry, from watching these videos I was able to understand what the audience would be looking for in a Dance-Pop video allowing my group to develop our music video around the conventions that we had found.

Another planning element that I found very useful throughout both my AS and A2 coursework was the use of storyboards, these helped my group and I when filming for both productions. When filming for my opening sequence, my group and I were very unsure on how our video would come out when editing. So using the storyboards allowed us to be sure that we would not miss a shot out that we had planned to include in the sequence. During A2 we were more confident with this, and had been given more detailed storyboards, these allowed us to write down each shot type and number, along with what scene number it was. Having this extra space to include detail allowed our group to develop our use of camera skills from our opening sequence.

When using primary and secondary research during A2 we were able to expand our knowledge from AS and gain more information on specific topics relating to our music video. Secondary research such as Goodwin’s analysis + Auteur theory allowed us to look into music videos with a lot more detail and understand the nature of different genres. Primary research such as our audience feedback in AS developed during A2 as we knew what we would need to be asking our audience to gain the information we needed, so that both of my productions met the expectations of our target audience.

Throughout my pre-productions stages of AS and A2 I used the internet to find information I needed on genre and to be able to watch videos from these genres. I used a programme called Wikipedia, often this programme can be changed by anyone with an account so I had to ensure I checked all the information I found of this site. I done this a number of times by using an internet site called ‘imdb’, although this was time consuming during AS it allowed me to prepare my time more efficiently when doing research for my A2 coursework. All the information I gained form these two website proved to be very helpful when considering what to include in my final production for my opening sequence and music video.

When completing my pre-production work last year we, as a group, all had separate blogs, this meant that all of our work had to be created separately. As appose to this during A2 we shared a blogs, this meant that we had to remember to include tags at the bottom of each post and ensure all our work was in the right order. It helped us as a group to make sure we got all our research done and helped if we ever needed to find information from another member of our group.

During AS we went out and found the location in which we want to use, we took photos of these by using an apple ipod this allowed us to then easily upload the photos onto a computer once back at home. This developed once reaching A2 as we used a digital camera to take photos of our location; this provided us with a clearer image. In establishing our location before the date of filming it allowed us to picture how we would film the productions and enabled us to become aware of any obstacles that may prevent us from some of the shots we had planned. We were also able to see if we would need any artificial lighting as both our productions were set outside we had to monitor the time in which it would get dark each night so that we knew how long we had to film, if there were no street lamps.

When first coming together as a group in AS we worked very well, but due to rising expectation from other subjects our group found it hard to ever be together. This became difficult during the editing and filming process as we needed to all be together. Although once our final piece came together it was better in our opinion than that of our opening sequence.