Research and Planning Essay

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

The importance of good research and planning is essential in the pre production stages because it is the best source of inspiration as well as a section to learn all needed conventions. The AS brief was to create a two minute film opening sequence to either horror or film noir genre including titles and the second year brief was more open but still contented some detail. It was to create a promo package for a music video of my choice, including music video, digipak and advert. Research was very important because the briefs have specific sections so conventions in these areas needed to be found and considered in my own work. In my essay I will describe how my research and planning have played an important part in pre-production and how i have developed these at A2 and what impact particular areas have helped my final outcomes.

At the very beginning of the AS project looking well into the given brief enable me to stay on track in creating a product which fits the given parameters. An example of this would be how the video had to include conventions and correct titles, therefore after making the sequence i knew my video had satisfied the brief because at the start and throughout the brief i kept the requirements in mind. Initial research into the film noir genre had shown be what general conventions are used in the genre. As my conventions research i watched popular film noir films, LA Confidential (1997) and Sin City (2005). Both of these films had similarities in the way they had dark settings,are based on criminal activity and both there had been a femme fatale character, which is an attractive female to attract the male gaze. I feel that watching those two films had really helped me to get good ideas of what a film noir film should be. Following this research i included this in my final sequence in the film of an attractive mysterious female character and black and white effect over my footage. I looked at the film SE7EN to construct a titles timeline for my own sequence and make sure that all titles are correct and that the direction credit is placed at the end of the sequence. For example by recording the times when each title appeared i used this when editing to make sure i left a gap where the title would go. As the times recorded fitted the two minute requirement i had it was very useful to have done this research. After the titles were made in final cut and enhanced with some additional smoke effects it was very beneficial to have done this simple titles research. Making a pitch for our opening sequence allowed me to see how the film could be received by our audiences and if it had a good impact. When making the pitch i took all major aspects of our idea to make it as appealing as possible. In particular i mentioned how not many film noir films are made and this would be similar the classics because it follows so many of the classic conventions.

In contrast, the A2 music video project had required as many aspects of research to look into all of the possible music genres. The initial lip sync task had given me of how recorded footage will have to be matched with the selected soundtrack. For example, when i had recorded all the required footage with the song in the background, i needed to put the song as the master track of the sequence. As the final production of my track was syncronised in the same way i synced the sound in the lip sync task, although with much more precision to make sure the alignment was perfect and doing the initial task had shaped the way the final product was made for there was a clear benefit of doing the task. Even though there was not such detail in the correct alignment of soundtrack at AS, making the music video which had to have perfect sync has really helped me develop in using sound effectively throughout the two years. The shot count research made me think of the number of shots using in a normal music video and given me an aim for my music video. I looked at the music video for the Script’s song For the First time which had 172 cuts which means there is a lot of camera activity and considering this is a medium paced song the number of shots is very high. Using this as a guide, my video had 120 cuts, less than Script because of the song’s length although the look of the video seems energetic. I clearly felt the benefit of the shot count because it gave me something to aim for and if i had not done it i may have had many few shot which would have resulted in less energy. I think this was a very successful aspect of the A2 work over AS where I ended up with quite a slow paces sequence, so looking back over the two years i have improved a lot in conveying appropriate emotions through pace of editing. Looking at the indie rock video such as ‘Foster the People’ and ‘’Bombay bicycle club’ made me think of what suitable clothing would be appropriate for my performers to wear and if i wanted to challenge these conventions. I quickly found that t-shirts and jeans were most common, although the type of song i have chosen inspired me to challenge the current conventions and make the performers dress up in smart looking clothing. In the final sequence the performers wore shirts and ties which made for a format look which was a creative decision to give the band its unique look. Looking back at the two projects in second year i had used my own initiative to aim to challenge general conventions to create a product which would be different from the rest. By making a detailed lyrics breakdown i was able to find out long each line takes to sing. Therefore i used this to look deeply into the meanings of each line which helped me to think of ideas for shots at those particular points. Going into so much detail has really helped to come to a good final product, much more research was done that last year which shows the extent of my development from AS. In order to see what our audience are looking for i have devised an online questionnaire. To get good feedback it required a range of people and ease of use so i have used Google Questionnaires to produce a ten question survey about specific parts of a conventional music video. Taking all the results into consideration i have used these as raw building blocks for my video which would ensure that the final product would be suitable for the audience. The step up at A2 has been the use of this detailed primary research which allowed me to pinpoint my audience, whereas the AS project was driven by unrelated secondary research.

The planning of my storyboard for the film noir sequence allowed me to look at the whole sequence as a whole before the production stage. Black fade outs needed to be placed in between shots where the titles would fit in. Having made the storyboard had really helped the organisation of my work, even though some frames had to be rearranged, the final product clearly links to the original storyboard. The making of a shot list guided me in making sure all shots have been used for the correct scenes. For example in my sequence there was a close up which then had to be followed by a medium shot. As the final product featured this combination of shot types i really think that the shot list had helped to make sure a range of shot types had been used in the sequence which made for a good looking sequence. Unique to the AS project the sequence had to have a script and writing this before the filming made sure it was inserted in the final sequence. In my sequence there were four brief instances where the femme fatale character would be narrating the action on the screen. The planning of the script beforehand ensure that this would seamlessly fit into the final sequence and this skills could only be learned in the first year as the A2 project had different needs such as recce shots which allowed to test my ideas before i actually went out to film. Following the storyboard i had taken a few images in similar conditions and shot types in order to gain experience to learn how the shots would have to be done. In the final sequence i took inspiration from the recce shots, although improving them with the use of a dolly and crane to give smooth camera motion, i felt that the initial planning allowed me to go straight into production rather than spending time thinking of shots on location. This was a skills i learned from the troubles at AS film shoot where on location i had to spend time to think of how the shots would be achieved. To think of the overall appeal of the A2 music video i have done a treatment sheet which outlines the appeal and ideas for the video. In my treatment sheet i had noted that the main point of the video was to convey the meaning of the song through the use of fast paced editing and the lead singer’s performance. Using this during the production stage i related back to this which reminded me the aim of the project and make sure i hit all the requirements. Having made this before hand i clearly belt the benefit because at AS without having detailed aims i kept drifting off which resulted in different final results than planned. Conducting some test footage with the camera allowed me to get an idea what difficulties i may be faced. For example i used the Canon 550D DSLR camera in the video mode, although i found that it would stop after around 3 minutes of recording. Having done this i made sure i recorded the final shoots in sections in order to overcome the problem, I found it very useful being able to find this out before the final recordings to be able to avoid the problem. Even though i did not face problem such as this in first year, it shows that the deeper planning into using the equipment before the shoots did improve my own planning skills especially in the second year. Lastly the planning of a project calendar allowed me to see when each of the project tasks needed to be done to keep ahead of the deadline. Especially in second year when the  production load was much bigger because of having to create more products i had to have a good balance of time spent on year of the sections. The fact i generally was able to keep up with the amount of work, i found it very beneficial in making a calendar to organise my tasks. Even though some changed always had to be done to reorganise the plan i was able to see all the tasks that needed to be done, better than AS where i had only listed the tasks needed for completion but not including dates for which the tasks had to be done for. Therefore this was a great area that i improved in during the second year.

In conclusion, the amount and depth of research and planning in second year needed to be more specific and had to go deeper in order to have good preparation in order to make the following areas of production run much smoother than without good planning of initial research.

Post Production and Creativity Essay

(Describe how you developed your post production skills for media production and evaluate how these skills informed your creative practice. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.)

Throughout the media course there was a big emphasis on post production skills which aided the final products. There has been two major production and the progress from the first project has been very significant in the way that in second year more advanced techniques were tried in post production which was driven by importance of creativity which was due to the widely adaptable brief. At AS my brief was to create a two minute opening sequence to either horror or film noir genre including titles which follow the specific conventions of that genre. On the other hand at A2 the brief was to create a whole promo package for a music video of my choice, including different mediums digipak and advert. This brief was much more open where I could choose any genre of song, this allowed me to be me creative by descending into the genre i was familiar and had many ideas for the video. In this essay I will outline how the development of post media production skills throughout the media course has influenced the outcomes of my final products and helped express my own creativity better through the use of the available software.

At AS, after filming of my opening sequence I used Final Cut Express to edit the raw footage. This included setting up a sequence and selecting slices of footage to be dragged to the timeline. By using markers i was able to select accurate point from the footage and split the clip at the exact point i needed. Being able to have such selective editing control of my footage allowed me to make sure all clip were correctly chosen. Initial research into the 2005 film Sin City directed by Frank Miller had inspired me through the use of vibrant colour. In turn I used a similar effect where a strong colour is contrasted from a black and white shot using the chroma key tool in Final Cut. The tool allowed me to separate a single colour from the frame and key this out to reveal the colour. This technique was used constantly throughout the opening sequence as it enhanced the look of the shot, on the other hand at A2 it would not have been appropriate to adapt this technique to the music video as the style was really different. Although the video post- production contained many more advanced techniques which tested my skills in second year. A big requirement in the AS brief was to include correct titles to the sequence and these had to appear in correct order and time. To incorporate titles to the video i had used LiveType which is part of the final cut package which meant transferring work across the platforms would have been very efficient. A range of simple titles is available although to take the work into a higher level I had to introduce my own creativity and make the titles in the way i thought they would suit the correct genre. The use of this software has hard because of the tricky interface  although as I practiced with LiveType my titles improved with more appealing title font and now i was able to add animation which really enhanced the titles. In post production, along with the video I had to produce an original soundtrack to suit the genre of the sequence. As I could not record actual instruments I decided to use Apple’s Garageband software where loops of sound are used to produce a soundtrack. Even though the software was very easy to use i found some issues in the form of having trouble with inserting sounds from outside the software which meant additional tracks had to be downloaded to iTunes first before putting into Garageband. Having a wide range of loops allowed me to create a very unique soundtrack to be combined with the opening footage. In the film analysis that i have done before hand i saw that the company logos which produced the film use strong graphics or imagery to create a good identity of the company.So as this is one of the requirements from the brief, i decided that using my own captured images would be the best. To get the best quality i used my DSLR and captured a scene of a tarmac stretch because i thought this would suit the genre of film noir. I later used this image in the final sequence, of course with some added post editing effects to make it look darker and more dramatic. I was really happy in the way the logo had turned out because of using my own image rather than taking one from the internet. Even though the final logo appearance was quite simple, i was happy that it looked very effective.

Continuing to towards A2, this time the project was much more in depth and the higher requirements meant that all throughout the project, especially in post production the importance of effective editing and finalising was needed because music videos have certain conventions which should be followed.

The fact I used a 1080p High Definition DSLR camera to record the footage meant that i had to make sure my editing sequences and exporting options were set correctly to keep the high definition standards all the way until the final product. After capturing and importing the footage into Final Cut Express HD, I had laid out the footage on the timeline and synchronised the maximo park master track, while using the sound captured by the camera as reference and i also used markers to make sure everything was positioned perfectly. Here the step up from AS was the use of the HD version of Final Cut which supports high definition formats. As this year my aim was to create a professional looking product i had to use a better quality camera. The result was a complete transformation in the amount of detail visible, especially this allowed for more control and creativity in the production stages which had led to better control at the editing stage  because once fx enhancement have been added i was able to come to a better looking final product.As seen in existing music videos, creativity is a driven aspect to create an identity of a band, this is supported by David Buckingham’s theory that “Identities are not given, but are constructed and negotiated”. Therefore to construct the identity for my music video i had decided to use a film burn effect which enhances the flow of the video and makes transitions look more creative. For the music video i ended up using a variety of film burn because i thought the effect looked really good. This was a big step in making own transitions and effects whereas in first year i did not look further than just using the default transitions given, and most of the time i did not have control over these and at the end of the day those transitions were very plain and i could not make them suit the product. A new contemporary technique known as double speed is not used in many current music videos. The technique involves filming the artist performing the song at half the format speed, later this is readjusted in Final Cut by changing the clip speed to 200%. A technique such as this is quite advanced and difficult to achieve although taking on this technique has really developed my skills from the previous year. The ambition from using the simple effects to enhance the footage to using advanced filming methods used in the industry really has much my own skills to create video which suits the current music video market. Photoshop CS5 has been also used quite extensively throughout the A2 project for all of the promo package parts. At the end of the music video i placed a record label logo which i designed in photoshop. The design was very simple but effective and for it to be used in the video it was important to remove the white background and save it as .png format, in order to when the image was dropped into the video editing timeline it would blend with the current background. The development from AS to A2 could be easily seen at this stage because i used a variety of aspects which were made on different software and then put into one to finish the product. In the creation of the remaining pro package parts, digipak and advert i have used Photoshop again. As the aim was to create a full package package i needed to make sure all products show the same brand identity. To make this happen i have used exact same colours throughout the product range right up to the smallest titles. The colours, white, red and black have also been kept across the range. I think this requirement from the A2 brief was what that made a big difference from AS. The fact all product has to relate and match to the same details was an additional skills i had to master. The final package was really successful in the way that they all looked really similar and i feel that this was one of my highlights from the project. Again to push the boundaries of editing techniques and creativity from first year i attempted the challenge to create some extremely slow motion footage using the Twixtor plugin in Final Cut. The plugin allowed me to blend footage frames to mimic what could have been captured using a professional slow motion camera. The final effect was used on a few cutaway shots in the video which were completely transformed with the added effect. The result was very unique and something which had not been tried before in my class before which had made my work very unique.

The first year evaluation had also benefited with the use of Final Cut. My evaluation was very creative in the way i merged many aspects together. I had filmed my team in front of a green screen while we talked about our work then in Final cut i had keyed out the background and replaced it with footage from the sequence and other relevant information.  I was really proud of my evaluation in AS because once all aspects were combined it had looked very good because i considered the same conventional look as the film sequence. To publish written analysis of our AS project i had used Slideshare. The website allows for convenient publication of work documents which can be shared and downloaded while still in a .doc format. The benefit of using this web 2.0 site was apparent because my work could be easily published and embedded in other sites for final marking. The video part of the AS evaluation had taken much consideration in the appearance of the evaluation although during the A2 evaluation i had decided that this was not that important and that good content was key. Instead I simply filmed myself talking about the work but showing printouts of digipak and advert as evidence of final pieces and talking about these in depth. The footage then could be edited in iMovie and i had chosen it for its ease of use and quick publishing to Youtube. Going for the better content option was very beneficial because the final evaluation was of a good standard and the use of internet sites had broadened the range of mediums used from first year of media. To evaluate the processes and the making of the product i had used Screenr. This very simple site allowed me to film my computer screen while using the computer microphone to record the sound. Using such a variety of technologies has introduced more creative ways of evaluating content which i think is very useful because after making the evaluation videos i have seen that it was much more effective than looking at simple slideshare work documents which i had used in the first year.