LESSON 2

Describe how your analysis of real media texts informed your own creative decisions

 

Before starting each of our media productions we had to look into what genres we wanted to be a part of for our opening sequence and music video.  By looking into these genres we had an understanding of the conventions that these real media text use and how we can then bring these into our own media productions. This is going to make them look more professional and follows the audience’s needs by what they want and want to get out of watching these types of genres.

When we started creating our first media production, during AS our knowledge and understanding of the conventions that real media texts use were basic and didn't have much of an understanding of it, because of this we had to research and analysis the genre that we wanted to be in, which was ‘Thriller’. By analysing real media texts such as ‘The Ring’ and ‘Se7en’ we were able to see that many opening sequences are dark, dingy and mysterious looking, this was following the enigma coding, wanting to keep things hidden from the audience so it wasn't all given away. By seeing this we decided to add this convention into our own opening sequence, such as at the beginning we created the scene by having a dark background of the room and then having one lit candle on the table, this was giving off a mysterious effect. Another convention that real media texts used was the non-digetic sounds, this was to create an atmosphere for the audience, some real media texts such as 'Halloween' and 'Saw' have their own distinctive sound, this is to create an known ideology for the audience so they are aware of what is happening. The non-digetic sound that we used was a slow paced, contemporary which was composed by an orchestra. We chose this piece of music as it sounds professional and goes along with the opening sequence well. 

After we created our AS opening sequence we had a lot more knowledge about the types of conventions that genres follow and that the audience look for. When we started our A2 media production for Music Videos we already had some background knowledge about the conventions as us as an audience member. One convention that we used throughout our music video was that we used a lot of close-ups and mid shots of the singer looking through and into the camera. This is one of the main conventions of the genre that our song 'Hey You Beautiful - Olly Murs', one of the reasons that the artist does this is to get and feel a connection with the audience. We have used this throughout many times during the music video. Another convention that we also followed was that we have a story line throughout the music video. This is one of the main conventions that music videos in this genre tend to use, this is so the audience have a better understanding of the song and able to see what the artist is singing about. Many artists use story lines throughout their music videos, such as in One Directions - What Makes You Beautiful' the story line is based around love and serenading the female actors. We decided to do something which does follow the same concept, created a story line about a couple's relationship. This helped us as a group to get some ideas about what we wanted to create out of the music video, this was going to follow the audiences needs of what they look for in music videos in the category genre.

By having to analysis the conventions of both real media texts we was able to use these in our own piece of media production work. This was going to make them look more professional. Also we have gained a lot more knowledge and understanding from the media production of AS to A2, about what conventions are used to fit the specific genres in the media. 

Timetoast

TimeToast Timeline

[Lesson 1] Skills Development

Skills Development in AS :
During the gap between AS and A2 my reserach skills has improved from a basic level to a much more advanced level in many ways by using much more technical skills such as ICT and devloping my writing skills making things much simple such as bullet pointing my presentations so its much easier to read so I could always look back at my points that i did instead of reading a paragraph again.

Skills Developed in planning production:
In AS I was not a very organised person since it was my first time planning and filming videos which I was not really a proffession at for example I did not use softwares to plan such as using timetoast to make things easier for me. By using timetoast it help me see through all my work in order of the dates i posted in which organised me really well during A2 which i hoped I could of used during AS. In A2, I mostly used the help of my team mates as i knew teamwork was a really important thing we need and I had to trust them no matter what or we all would have achieved what we needed to.I used different types of planning softwares which helped me check what i needed to do and researching before actually doing my music video.

Skills Developed in video work:
During AS, I did not understand all the basic programs which I needed to know such as final cut pro and sound track pro. Also I knew the basics whilst taking videos of shot angles but then developed much better during A2 as I knew all the technical skills behind them and understood all the key terms which taught me how to hold a camera and how to shoot the video properly as a proffesional. For example in AS, I always had the camera either out of focus or not in the rule of thirds which are the most important things you need in a music video or a film. However in A2, I included all these skills from the help of my teachers and learning new things during this course.

TimeToast Timeline

Timetoast Timeline

Lesson 2: Timetoast Timeline of Post Production Skills

[Lesson 2]Development of Post Production

[Lesson 1] Skills Development

Reflection back in AS year:
- Using programs such as Final cut pro, sound track pro, blogger
- Embedding and using social networks such as Youtube
- Using presentations like Slideshare, or voice recorders like Voki
- Photoshop used to create logos for thriller

Research for music video:
In AS my researching skills were very basic, in only taking information on Youtube, and Google.
This was simplistic in ways of finding out who theorists were i.e. Goodwin, since AS and now in to A2 I have significantly developed my research skills I went more in depth with the audience, theorists, genre or the conventions of real media products. It was a good transaction from AS to A2, because I was more precise and detailed on who or what I was researching, this helped me to harness the creativity for the music video that was to come as a final production project.
My blogging in AS was also very basic, it lacked details as it only contained print screens, Youtube videos and full text typing. However, in A2 I learned that to get high marks I needed to use more than just images, so by transferring the text to a presentation e.g. Powtoons, I would then convey my use of technology and embed the information to the relevant topic. The A2 blogging, is a lot more detailed and full of analysis as well as conveying a range of technologies.

Planning for music video:
The research on the music video was in depth with the audience, genre, theorists as this was all needed to help myself and the group to create a music video. It was a slow steady start to researching, but then it was more frequent, finding out what to include in the music video was hard because I've never done it before. But the research in to other real artists music videos, helped a lot, due to their inspiration the music video that was created was based around all of the research.

Production of music video:
In relation to AS, the use of Final cut pro was used a whole lot more, on a new level because we needed to know how to change the colour of the scenes, or to create slow motions. Skills such as match cuts, or any other cuts used was developed from a basic match cut or eye line cut in the thriller. Also, the syncing was even better than it was in the Britney music video remake, it was a lot more on the dot and precise, which helped the video seem more realistic.

Lesson 1 Homework: Timetoast Timeline - Development of my Post Production Skills

Timetoast Timeline - Development of my Post Production Skills

Lesson 1: Section A: Skills Developed throughout A-Level

Research Skills:

1. Able to use websites such as Wikipedia.com and Yahoo Answers to gain important informations and a wider explanations on media products, history, theory and conventions. 
2. Used Youtube.com and Vimeo in order to watch videos related to my coursework to gain similarities and stereotypes in music videos. 
3. Researched about the differences between audiences and wider audiences. 
4. Researched which record label our artist could represent. 

Planning Skills:

1. Planned the locations carefully and made sure it was a safe place.
2. Planned what props would be needed
3. Planned the clothes would suit the genre.
4. Chosed our record label where our artist would fit. (Island Records)                                  

Production Skills:

Lesson 1: Skills Development

Skills developed in research:

• Looked at the conventions of music videos and what is stereotypically featured in music videos of certain genres.
• looked at a wider range of media products
• looked at different theories relating to music videos e.g. Laura Mulvey, Andrew Goodwin, Carol Vernalis
• researched more into target audience – looked at it in greater detail (core audience, wider audience)
• looked at what makes a good music video by analysing student music videos and normal music videos
• looked into cross-media and synergy amongst their products
• looked into costume and props in more detail as they are of importance in a music video

Skills developed in planning production work:

• looked into the different aspects of our artist in more depth (name, age, personality, influences)

• looked into songs and chose the best one that suited the person that will be performing
• adapted our video to suit the genre of the song
• planned our locations carefully (where exactly in Richmond)
  
• planned precise outfits that our artist will definitely be wearing
• any specific make up or hair styles
  
• plan what props will be needed and when (guitar diary)
  
• planning in advance of how we want our ancillary to tie in with music video
  
• established our core and wider planned our music video around this
• looked into any scenes or styles of edits that could influence our music video
  
• chose a record label where our artist would fit into by looking at the other artists signed to it
  
• made an animatic to give a basic overview of how our music video will look like

Skills developed in producing the work:

• experimenting and filming with a variety of shot types
  
• useful ways of adding movement to shots
• adding filters to our shots (colour correction)
• adding our own text with our font into our video (editing in Photoshop for a transparent background then importing into Final Cut Pro)
• chopping and screwing and slowing/speeding things up if certain lyrics were out of synch (simply because it was sung in time while filming)
• marking the sound track to establish the beat so we can edit to it

I think my skills have developed greatly over the two years of studying media as I have been able to build on the basic knowledge that I did have. In AS, the research and planning was more or less looking at clips on YouTube and screen grabbing the shots that was relevant for what we needed and googling things. In A2 we looked into things at greater detail and went into it in more depth at made sure we understood why chose certain things. During the production stage, I would say that A2 was more challenging as more things needed to be done in terms of filming and editing. For example in AS we just shot the different shots and just pieced the bits together, added titles and sounds if it was needed. Whereas in A2, we shot PLENTY of base tracks, cut to the beat, established a structure and cut to that, shot any additional shots or cutaways, made sure that the video was in sync to the soundtrack and much more!

Post-Production Development Timeline