Research and Planning - Prompt Questions

How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?
During our AS project, we chose to make a thriller beginning sequence to our film. We researched the genre by doing various tasks such as using YouTube and thriller/horror DVDs to look at the opening sequences of films. This helped us to gain ideas and inspiration for our own final production. Inspiration included the mise-en-scene and narrative from films including the teenagers and setting from the film 'The Ring'. We also watched film trailers as well including 'Saw' and 'The Orphanage' to gain more knowledge and inspiration on our chosen genre.
Our final film shows elements from our research including the group of teenage girls and the location of the house and woods for filming.
Our A2 project was based on the genre of Pop Rock. In order to gain inspiration and knowledge on our chosen genre, we researched Pop Rock by using the Internet and search engines such as Google. We researched elements of a Pop Rock video and how we could portray these. Another site we used a lot during our research and planning was YouTube. This allowed us to watch music videos of our chosen genre as well as others. We also researched our chosen artist, Pink. We looked at her music videos, style and images. These elements helped us to keep in with our chosen theme and contributed to our final music video. For example, when researching the Pop Rock genre, we found that musical instruments such as guitars and drums we featured. Therefore we incorporated a guitar into our music video.

How did your research into audience contribute to your production work?
For our AS production we did initial research into our target audience by producing a questionnaire. We received feedback from the questionnaire indicating that a horror/thriller genre would be a good idea as it was a popular theme, especially amongst teenagers. This obviously helped us in deciding what genre to chose for our final production.
For our A2 music video we also researched the target audience. We did this by researching on Google and Wikipedia our chosen genre and the target audience for this genre. This allowed us to identify who we would be aiming our music video to and what we could include in order for our video to relate to our target audience of females aged 15-25.

What pre production planning techniques did you employ? How effective was your planning - how did it effect you in the production phase?
During our AS project, we used various planning techniques. These included initial ideas in which we were able to brainstorm ideas we wanted to use for our final production. This included a general storyline, mise-en-scene, location and props. We then moved onto more detailed planning in which we created a storyboard. We planned what shots we would include, what would be in the frames and the camera angles. We planned various angles such as close ups, mid-shots and long-shots. By creating a storyboard, we were able to see what shots were needed to be completed and kept us organised when filming as we knew what to film next.
In our A2 project, we developed these techniques by creating a storyboard as well as a shot list. The shot list allowed us to figure out the shots we would use and what would be included in these shots. We were able to plan in more detail what we would like to include for our final video. We also planned what lyrics the shots would go with in order to meet the requirements of Goodwin's point of lyrics and visuals. By creating a shot list this allowed us to keep organised when filming as we knew what parts needed to be filmed next. We were able to tick off the shots that had been done so we knew how up to date we were. The shot list also helped us when editing our music video as we were able to tell what sequence came next.

What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to improve your planning for the second?
I think when planning our second production, we were able to use techniques that we had learnt in our AS project. For example, by creating a brainstorm of initial ideas, this gave us a chance to thoroughly discuss and plan our main aims of our music video and elements we would like to include. By also doing storyboards and shot lists in AS, we had learnt that this was a successful planning technique which we could also apply to our A2 music video. However, from doing our AS project, we had learnt to include more detail in our planning to enable filming our video was quicker and smoother as we knew what to include and what was going to happen in each frame.

How did you use audience feedback to influence your production work while it was in progress?
During our first production, we didn't really gain much audience feedback which made it harder for us to see what people liked and any improvements that could be made. However, for our second production we recieved audience feedback when we initially presented our ideas to the class. From this we learnt what people thought was good about our ideas and also any adjustments that could be made. We also gained feedback from our initial rough cut. From this we were able to see what people from our target audience liked and didn't like. For example, we were told that our shots were clear and steady and people liked that we had linked the lyrics and visuals. We were also able to improve on points they didn't like including that the shot of the guitar was too long and was slightly out of time with the music. Therefore we were able to correct these mistakes.