Importance of good research and planning

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

Good research and planning were highly important during the pre-prodcution of the AS foundation portfolio adn A2 advanced portfolio. By doing good thorough research and planning it helped me know the typical forms and conventions and to include them in my work and all work was organised so during production it was made easier due to good planning in pre-production.
Research into make-up by using the internet to find images and tutorials on how to make a zombie effect and experimenting with materials helped me to find what would look most effective and still look authentic and proffesional. By experimenting, this made it easier to find what worked and then apply it quickly during production so time wasn't wasted.
I watched opening sequences on youtube and did an analysis of the story for the horror genre (among others) and I found that they either started with soe kind of death or murder. This created mystery, which was an element we could use. However the deaths were usually gory and this was unrealistic and too difficult for us to replicate in our production but our research led us to use the idea of mystery. Another narrative idea that I used was that there was the element of the 'fear of the unknown' which played on the imagination so this research through textual analysis if narratives led me to use this idea.
I found during research that black and white scenes are used to show something is happening in the past and that these shots were often plashbacks. As a group we decided this convention would be useful to use in our production. We also noticed during analysis of existing products of the horror/thriller genre that this technique was often used.
Research into music and dialouge showed that more music was used to create a feeling of suspense, mystery and horror. This research proved useful as we used this idea in our opening sequence. By doing analysis of existing opening sequences, depending on the pace of events, we found that the music was often fast paced tempo went along with fast action, whilst for scenes that were supposed to be creepy, more sinister music was used. Fast tempo was used most so we decided to create this sort of music.
We carried out questionnaires, to find what sort of things our target audience wanted in a film and what type of genre by asking specific questions such as 'what genre to often enjoy watching'. This research helped us to decide what genre to do and helped us understand our target audience and know what they want in a film.
During planning, storyboards, shotlists, call sheets, risk assessments and timescales/schedules were produced to help make production run smoothly. These made good organisation and helped make sure that there was no confusion during production, such as the storyboard and shotlist clearly showing what shots needed to be done and how they should be composed. This made it simple to get shooting done whilst out filming. The schedules helped us know what was going on and when so we could get shooting done and so that our actors knew when they were needed so there were no problems of actors not turning up when needed. Risk assessments made sure that everyone was aware of the dangers whilst filming so that these could be avoided.

At A2 advanced portfolio level I used the internet to find secondary research about the definition of our chosen track genre of pop-rock. This helped me to understand that our track was of this style and gave a better depth of the genre. I used youtube to look at existing music videos from the pop-rock genre and artists that were similar to our track artist.
We did a textual analysis of these videos and found what types of camera techniques, shot types, editing techniques, mise-en-scene and narrative (either linear or fragmented) were used showing the typical conventions and elements that were used within this genre. This in depth research of the elements gave us a clear outilne of what needed to be included to make our music video look more proffesional and keep with the conventions. Such as we found that the narrative of these videos was often fragmented and there was alot of direct narrative used so we included this within our music video.
We used the same planning methods as AS level, however we relied on a more detailed shotlist to get what we needed. We had difficulty with scheduling as we had a shorter time frame to get the shots we needed. We didn't all have free time outside of our  media lessons to all be involved in the shooting and we were not as well organised, such as one of our actors didn't turn up for shooting, this caused us to change the narrative to fit around this, so better planning of schedule would have made things run more smoothly in the production phase.

Developing research and planning skills

Describe how you developed research and planning skills for your media production and evaluate how these skills contribute to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

From our opening sequence at Foundation level I developed how to create a good storyboard to create a clear outline of how the media product would look. The storyboard at this level had little detail and was only a short, rough showing of how the opening sequence would be. This had a positive effect as I had a rough guide even though it wasn't as detailed. Into Advanced Portfolio, I created a more detailed storyboard to get a better understanding of how the music video would turn out. It was a main guideline when setting up the camera and framing the shots and was vital to the production and gave a positive effect.

Shotlists were also created at foundation level to show what shots were needed and accompanied the storyboard. I relied more on the shotlist to get what shots were needed for the production of the opening sequence. At advanced level I made the shotlist more detailed and refereed to what picture it related to on the storyboard to help further understand what needed to be done and what was needed in the shot and what type. By having a more detailed shotlist and storyboard in A2, it made it easier and was more effective to know what needed to be shot whilst filming so this development had a positive effect on the production.

At foundation level I analysed existing media products to find what conventions were used to make it that genre. I looked at a wide range of genres and this helped to combine the thriller and horror genres together and I had knowledge of other conventions for the other genres so I knew what didn't need including. This was an analysis of the narrative and wasn't a close analysis. At advanced level I developed this by looking more specifically at the pop-rock genre of our given track. I did a textual analysis of the music videos of which the artist/artists were of a similar style as the artist on our track. By analysing these videos in more detail and not those of other genres, I clearly found the conventions of the pop-rock genre and included them in the production. Some conventions can be included in other genres but they are still part of the pop-rock genre. We also decided to further our research by looking at the existing media products of the artist of our track. This furthered our idea of what needed to be included and the conventions to keep it to our artists style. By developing a closer textual analysis of existing media products, it gave a positive effect on production as I knew the conventions well and what elements were needed to make it a pop-rock music video.

At foundation level I researched target audiences by using secondary sources on the Internet to find the statistics of what demographic visit the cinema most. I then furthered this by researching what genre they often watched. This helped us decided on our genre of thriller/horror. We also gave put questionnaires to our peers to further our research as they were of the demographic of those that visited the cinema most often and this would be our target audience. There feedback helped us further our ideas for the production. This research had a positive effect on our production as it enabled us to know our target audience well. At advanced level I didn't look closely at audiences, but analysed what demographic were likely to look at these videos by their style. This helped us target the video to those that enjoyed this genre and what age range to include in the video.

AS and A2 Moodboard of ceative elements

Creative Elements

These are shots from our AS Foundation Portfolio production of an opening sequence. We used many creative elements in this production. Such as with the use of black and white in many of the shots to symbolise that this was happening in the past and gives it a more surreal effect. This method has been used in many films before but is still creative as it symbolises something that the audience can easily pick up on.

The close-up shot of the zombies eyes was creative as the use of contact lenses gives it an unnatural look, which links to the idea of zombies being unnatural. This was a creative element we chose to use in our research and planning as we thought it would give a good effect. We had not planned the smashing of the drugs bottle in our storyboards and shot list, but when our actress dropped it, it smashed. We decided this would be more creative and give a dramatic effect. The dutch angle shots are often used in the horror/thriller genre to create a more tense atmosphere, so we decided to use them in our production to re-create the same effect, making it more creative. We thought the shot from behind the tree was creative as it acted as a sort of point of view shot and gave a more sinister effect as it made it seem like the zombies were following and watching her. The make-up of the zombies was creative as it clearly showed the rotting flesh of the zombies and gave a good effect, even though we didn't use professional make-up techniques to get the look.

These are shots from our A2 Advanced Portfolio production of a music video. We used many creative elements in this production too. Such as the note to show that her partner had gone out. This was creative as our actor didn't turn up for shooting, so we had to come up with a creative idea to get around this man not physically being in any of the shots. The other note clearly signified that she was leaving him, so this creative idea helped us keep the narrative easy to understand. Again black and white shots were used to show that it was in the past and was creative as it clearly showed this. The shot of the clothes being thrown into the air and at the camera was creative as it gave a more dramatic effect to the scene and conveyed the characters frustration. The shot through the glass was another creative element as it gave a warped effect and symbolised the drinking that the character was doing. It gave a nice effect to the shot. The jump cuts were creative as they moved the narrative along quickly to go along with the pace of the music and made it more interesting. The editing that slowed shots down was creative as it fit to the tempo of certain parts of the song. The shot of the disco ball showed that our character was at a sort of club/ party and by including this shot it made it more creative.

Research and Planning Prompt Questions

How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?
For Foundation Portfolio, researching the different types of film genres helped us to determine what genre we wanted to use for our opening sequence. We decided on the horror/thriller gerne and researched further into the conventions of an opening sequence of this genre. We then included many of these conventions into our production of the opening sequence, such as the death in the narrative and sense of mystery.
For the Advanced Portfolio, we first had to establish what genre our chosen track was. This was simply listening to the track and deciding what genre it was from general knowledge. We then researched into the pop/rock genre. we searched the definition and then watched videos on youtube of artists we knew were of the pop/rock genre. We noted what elements were common throughout these videos thereby finding the conventions of the genre. An example of these conventions is the narrative is usually fragmented which we used in our music video.
Throughtout both portfolios we used real media products to find the conventions of each genre and included them in each production.

How did your research into audience contribute to your production work?
For the Foundation Portfolio we researched what type of audience watched films and went to the cinema the most to find what sort of an audience demographic we wanted to market our production to. We also gave out questionnaires to our peers to further our audience research. We founf the main cinema aidence was 12-25, so we decided to market out production to this audience. we found this audience enjoyed the horror genre so furthered our decision to do this genre.
For the Advanced Portfolio we researhced our genres audience and gave out questions to find what our audience thought of our music video and the results showed we were following the conventions of the pop/rock genre as the audience thought it looked like it was of the pop/rock genre.

What pre-production planning techniques did you employ (scripting, storyboarding, shot-lists etc)? how effective was your planning, how did it help you in the production phase?
Foundation Portfolio we used scripting so the actors knew what they were saying so time wasn't wasted when filming. This helped gieve a better vision of how the sequence would look. We used a storyboard so all involved knew the storyline and look of how the opening sequence would initialy look. The group worked together to produce it so further understood the idea. We knew what shots needed to be taken when out filming and how they would look. We used shotlists so we knew what shots needed to be taken when out filming, threre were slight alterations but was a guideline of what we needed. We made a risk assessment to assess what could be hazardous so we were more consious of this during filming.
For Advanced Porfolio, scripting wasn't used as it was a music video, but the lyrics were printed off so our actor knew the words to lip sync to the song. Storyboards, shotlists and risk assessments were all used like at foundation portfolio. We didn't produce as detailed a storyboard as we did at foundation level, we relied more on a detailed shot list we compiled. We again made alterations to this shotlist wilst out filming and added shots that we didn't think about doing such as shots of the sun and the reflection in the water. Our shot list allowed for changes like this and we could then add them into our production, this would have been harder to fit in if we had used a detailed storyboard. Again the risk assessment made us more aware of potential dangers and accidents whilst filming so we knew to try and avoid this.

What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to improve your planning for the second?
From our first production we knew it was very important to have good planning so that we were well organised. We didn't use call sheets for our second production and this caused problems with one of our actors deciding to not turn up so we learnt this was important to have. Having a detailed storyboard was more important at foundation level and we learnt that having a more detailed shot list helped us more with the advanced portfolio production as it allowed more freedom to change things around when shooting. By having a stricter storyboard for foundation level we learnt it would aid our creativity more if we used a more detailed shotlist, although a good storyboard helped give us a good picture of how the product would look. Having a good risk assessment made for our first production helped us improve our planning for the second production as we knew what sort of risks there were and we could apply the risks we found at AS to our A2.

How did you use audience feedback to influence your production work whilst it was in progress?
We showed the rough cut to our teacher and peers in both Foundation Portfolio and Advanced, by doing this we learnt where we could improve, what wasn't working etc, so we then changed or added elements to improve the overall final cut. We used this more at advanced portfolio and our final product was of a better standard, so audience feedback was crucial to maing our video good. in advanced portflio we gave a presentation of our research and initial ideas which we recieved audeince feedbcak from our peers and teacger and this helped us to improve our written work.

Key Media Concepts Task

Within our AS project, we added titles to the opening scene to introduce the name of our opening sequence to the audience. This links to the 'Media Language' key media concept and by adding titles to our opening sequence we included written codes.
We also used technical codes within our AS project by producing our sound effects from combining the default sound effects on GarageBand. By combining a few xylophone sounds together, we managed to produce a sound effect resembling a clock ticking as if time had passed by.
We also included the key media concept 'Representation' by using an archetype character. The main character within our opening sequence for our horror film was a ghost. We researched typical codes and conventions of horror films and ghosts, and then transferred our research into producing the final look for our 'ghost'. Some of the typical conventions we used to create our ghost character include white face paint, a long dark cloak and scary facial expressions.

For our A2 project of producing a pop-rock music video, we included technical codes within media language by using a 'fade in, fade out' transition between some scenes to create a smooth change between scenes.
By using special effects in our music video such as greyscale and slow motion, we portrayed that some scenes occurred in the past. This would come under institutions as we produced some work to fit within our specific genre and the music idustry in general.

Research and Planning - Prompt Questions

1. How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?

Four our AS project we made the opening sequence of a film. In our groups we got to choose which genre we wanted to produce an opening sequence for. We all seemed keen on the horror genre, and had several ideas from a very early stage.

In terms of research for our horror genre, we made a questionnaire to find out key aspects and features of a horror film. We also watched the openings of several horror films including ‘The Ring’, ‘The Unborn’ and ‘Saw’ to develop the research of our genre further.

We used our research when it came to noting down our initial ideas, and made sure our research and planning was kept consistent throughout the production process. This helped our AS production to run a lot more smoothly as we all had a clear idea in mind.

When it came to our A2 project, we had to do a lot more in depth research for our genre, depending on the track we’d chosen. We had picked the song ‘Heartbreaker’ by the artists Pink, which came under the genre of pop-rock.

Some of our research included watching other music videos by pop-rock artists such as Maroon 5 and Miley Cyrus. We also watched a handful of other music videos by Pink and took notes on the conventions which often appear in pop-rock videos, according to Goodwin’s theory. We typed the words ‘pop-rock’ into several search engines including Google, Ask and Wikipedia to broaden our knowledge of the music genre we had chosen.

I felt as though our research for both projects contributed greatly into our production work, whether it was a questionnaire, watching horror film openings or analysing music videos within our chosen genre.

2. How did your research into audience contribute to you production work?

For our AS project we created a questionnaire which we gave to friends and family in order to find out what they thought typical conventions of a horror film were. We all found the questionnaire very useful in the planning stages, as it enabled us to include certain conventions such as using a ‘spooky’ location like the woods, using props such as face paint to portray a ghost and also using scary music in the background, which would clearly portray our opening sequence from the horror genre.

For our music video project we didn’t create a questionnaire as we found it quite easy to see what an audience looks for in a pop-rock music video. The conventions were quite obvious and we ensured we’d use at least 2 typical conventions within our music video. A few of the conventions we included were bright girly make-up to emphasise the fact that the artist is female and various locations and specials effects such as slow motion and black and white to show that some of the events occurred in the past. We felt the conventions such as bright girly make-up and facial expressions whilst lip syncing were a couple of the more obvious conventions used in pop-rock music videos.

3. What pre-production planning techniques did you employ (scripting, storyboarding, shot-lists etc)? How effective was your planning – how did it help you in the production phase?

For both projects we used a couple of pre-production planning techniques to make the production element easier. We created a storyboard for both projects including rough sketches and annotations. We also created a shot-list which shots we wished to include to represent variation. Our planning was effective as it made the production element much easier as we all had a clear idea of what we wanted to achieve. For our AS project we had clear ideas from the beginning that we wanted to film our opening sequence in a spooky looking woods, and for A2, we also knew from the start that we wished to film our music video in several different locations to show variation. Another example is the music. For AS we had to find and/or make our own music to accompany our opening sequence, for this we used Garage Band, whereas in A2 we chose the song ourselves from a list of 8 songs fitting into different genres so we didn’t have to adapt the song itself in anyway.

4. What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to improve your planning for the second?

Looking back and watching our first media production and comparing it with our second media production, I personally can see a vast improvement! We learnt a lot as a group throughout both projects however, from planning our first production and noticing the ease of filming, we ensured to plan in much more depth for our second production as it would help us even more; especially when it came to editing. Although our second production didn’t always go as smoothly as we’d imagined, we felt much more confident in what we were doing second time around.

5. How did you use audience feedback to influence your production work while it was in progress?

During the process of our first production we didn’t receive any feedback

from the audience therefore we continued to produce work in the way we 

felt was best however, watching it back now, I can see several things I’d like to take out, redo or adapt. We didn’t receive feedback for this project as at the time, we didn’t realise we had to, or that we’d need it to improve our project.

The second time around was much better as we produced a pitch presentation stating our initial ideas, and our fellow classmates gave us some feedback on what they liked, disliked and what they felt we could improve on. Once we’d chosen our final idea, we produced a short rough cut as an idea of what our finished music video would look like. We also showed this to our classmates to which we received more feedback with a list of pro’s, cons and improvements. We all found the construction feedback extremely helpful and we took it on board, as we went back to our music video to edit, we changed a few things which were suggested in the feedback.

Creativity Moodboards

AS Mood board

Above is the mood board I produced to show the elements which I felt were creative throughout my AS production of the opening sequence of a horror film. I felt the first print screen image of a scene within our production, became creative once it had been edited and developed further. We added a title to this scene and used a 'fade in, fade out' transition, therefore adding a creative element to the scene. The second image also shows a title frame, we added this to show that time had progressed. We also used a 'fade in, fade out' transition on this scene, and produced our own 'ticking' sound by experimenting with the sound effects on 'GarageBand'. By doing this, we made our scene more creative.



A2 Mood board

 Above is the mood board I produced to show the elements which I felt were creative throughout my A2 production of a pop-rock music video. I felt the first print screen image of a scene within our production, became creative once we added a special effect making it black and white. We altered this scene with the special effect using Final Cut Pro. The print screen in the middle of the mood board is another scene we developed further to make it creative. Again, we did this by adding a slow motion special effect on Final Cut Pro. Each scene that we altered to make black and white, is a scene portraying an event that occurred in the past. Before each of the black and white scenes we used a transition such as 'ade in, fade out' or 'clock wheel', just to add a bit of creativity to the music video.

Creativity moodboards

A2 PRODUCTION

AS PRODUCTION

I feel that if you compare my A2 production with my AS production it is clear that there are more screen shots from our 2 minute sequence at AS as we didn't have other tasks to display our creativity. Whereas if you look at my A2 piece there are example of uses of photoshop for digipaks and magazine adverts. Furthermore, you can see the different effects we have used in our music video at A2 such as filming in a shop fish eye lens, desaturating scenes and extreme close ups. Whereas during our AS filming it is clear we commonly stuck to mid shots and close ups, nothing too extreme. It is clear here that my creativity has developed as a media student as i have learnt to be more risky when creating a media piece. Also, during our A2 research and planning we displayed much more creativity with large moodboards and coloured sketches.

Link 6 post production choices you made to one or more of the key media concepts

During A2 Level examples of key media concepts:
1) desaturated scenes were an example of our involvement with institutuions of music videos as it related to our chosen genre of Hip-hop
2) CCTV Shots helped portray our study of signs and symbols, particularly with connotations. As the audience member views our protagonist through the lens of a CCTV camera it leads them to read a specific meaning of the shot. Our example of dennotation use would be the audience member understanding the fact that they are experiencing a character through a CCTV lens
3) Altering the speeds of our lip syncing scenes displayed our relation to institutions of music videos as it related to the conventions of our genre of hip-hop

During AS Level examples of key media concepts:
1) Flashbacks in black and white can allow us to display our technical codes

Mood Boards AS & A2

Here I have created a mood board that represents the creativity throughout my AS opening sequence. A number of these images are of different camera angles, these helped when trying to show the tension and atmosphere between several characters also allowing our audience to establish the connections between some characters. In the blurred image at the bottom of the pictures it shows our murder standing in front of all the new paper images and then the image slowly fading out into white. The high angle shot that we included shows our character upset and the low angle shows her actions of dropping the bottle after witnessing her boyfriend cheating. The image of the car shows our character being abducted, we used a red car to represent the signs of blood and death yet to come within the movie. We used props throughout the sequence, a bracelet shown in one of the photos is meant to represent the girl who dies, also the boy is kicking a beer can across the grass showing his aggravation towards his alcoholic mistakes from the night before.

Here as you can tell we used a number of bright colours throughout our music video, this enables us to keep with our dance-pop genre. The images of the boot, solider, bear, hand and squirrel were all used throughout the quick cuts in our video, I felt that these added to the creativity throughout our video and broke up the video, allowing the audience to maintain their interests. The locations of the ball pit, hall way and bedroom all relate to our genre in their own way. The ball pit includes bright multi colours, where the hall way at the bottom of this mood board has images of famous musicians and guitars to the left of our character. The bedroom in this video was shown for a long time throughout our video, and so I thought that the handprints on the wall were not something normally found in a bedroom and therefore added to the creativity of our music video. We included a split screen with 4 different colours to keep with the conventions of our genre.