summer task

Research

I analysed similar products. I looked at Dave – Wanna know, and Abra Cadabra- Art of war which are both music videos in the genre of rap. This was useful as it gave insight to key conventions of the type of things a rap video would have for example they will all wear tracksuits or be filming on an estate and usually have their friends (around 3-6). This let me know basic things I needed to include I’m my rap music video.  The genre I picked was useful for me, as I know how to appeal to the target audience as the audience for the style of music is aimed for my age group and the demographics of my peers in college who I interact with on a daily basis.  I feel like my skills in researching real media products have improved since last year. I say this because if you look at the amount of research I did you can see it isn’t sufficient, so I wouldn’t of have known…(things my research for as didn’t tell me) (get images sc of case study music magazines and music video and give specific examples of how I improved).

Research

As I said our target audience was our peers (due to the fact that the majority of them listen to that genre of music) so we decided to

Logistics planning

actors

I felt like at first we didn’t organize our actors as well as we chose people who were from different areas and sixth forms so getting their timetable to match and finding a location that was close to all of them was difficult, we also picked people who was un reliable as they would drop out last minute or tell us last min their plans which made it hard to organizes a day they everyone could meet on. If we reduced the amount of people in the video that would of made it much easier to organize. However because we had so many people that wasn’t needed, it meant that if someone dropped out it was okay because they would fill a main persons position.

location

We planned our locations well as it was accessible to everyone and within reach only one person travelled far but that is because that was his song so he wanted to be in the video. We also made the different locations in the same area which was Stratford, canary wharf (on the train it is less than 5 stops) and Woodford. The different locations within the areas was walking distance from one another. When deciding locations we took in any ethical problems or problems in general such as if people would be okay to us filming and how they would react/ feel towards it. For example we made sure when filming near flats we didn’t film too late or in areas where are gangs.  We used location release forms to guarantee access to our privately owned locations it made us plan the time we had to be there and what days to film as not all were available all the time. For example the shisha lounge was only available from 12 am-1am so we had to find actors that were legally allowed to be in there and lived close so could get home quickly and safely as well as the bank we want to use does not open on certain days as it is a small branch and closes early on some days. Doing the risk assessment made us think of the possible risks and how to overcome them. For example one prop we are having is smoke so we made sure the location we will be using will have an open space.

Costumes

In terms of costumes we was organized as we told everyone what to wear after analysing our case study costumes we knew we wanted the starts to stand out in terms of colours of their costume to everyone, we also told the extra’s what to wear. The locations help connote which attire was appropriate for example in the office scene we had the star wear a shirt.

Props 

As were ordering the balaclavas from chine from eBay we decided to order it straight away as soon as we decided that we wanted them and in which colour as despite it saying it will take around 2-17 days from research came to find that it was unreliable and can take weeks. Having the mask early also allowed us to see if it fit the actors and let us try out the make up to colour coordinate. We ordered them on… and received them on … Another prop we used was money, we printed this off to the actual size double sided.  We also ordered smoke pellets (two in the colour white and red ) as we saw this in many rap music videos this would also help with our editing as we will zoom into the smoke and then do a black out or even use its as a fade or transition from scenes.

Throughout the weeks my partner and I made multiple phone calls to the actors to remind them to keep the date available, however some of our actors had zero hour contracts so didn’t know what days they were working, some received last minuet news which mean their availability changed.  We formed a group chat where everyone can say their availabilities and even get to know one another so on the day feel comfortable with acting and lip synching in front of one another.

The logistic planning of the music magazine is different to the logistic planning of my music video as in my magazine, I feel I was less organized as I did not have a group chat or make frequent calls. Only with the main starts I would say I was organized as we spoke frequently about their availability, costumes and the location of their photos n detail.  I did not plan the risks and how to concur them or prevent them. However I did fill location release forms for one the locations which was for the front cover of my magazine.

Add evidence and annotate/analyse if possible

Narrative planning

When making the storyboard we tried to match the words/narrative to the shots if and where we could. This helped to know what location and shot variations we could use to have a range which in turn would challenge and learn new skills. For example we knew we wanted a shot reverse shot, and we only thought to do a over the shoulder shot when he says “F*** them N***** from my past” and do a monotone filter to represent the past.  We made our storyboard colourful and detailed enough where we knew the location just by looking at it, we knew the time we was having them scenes/shots, the angle of them, the editing type (e.g. fade in and out), the transition of shots and the movement of the camera.  Making the storyboarded allowed us to see and make sure we had variety and not just mid shots and establishing shots at a straight on angle.  I was not working in a group but a partnership which meant that there were more task for each of us. As she was good at drawing she drew the scenes out as we both planned the locations of the scene at what time whilst I thought of the shot types, angles, movement of the camera etc. We has problems with making the storyboard detailed, to improve this we could of used a different style storyboard which gave us more space to write.

This was more detailed than my sketches for my music magazine as I had thought of the colour the shot type I wanted any why I want it what it represents.

(have image of both side by side )

I felt our time management was good as we gave our self's deadlines for our preliminary task and made sure we stuck to them, however only one of the task we did not get done on time (storyboard) so intern this delayed us as we was nor able to film until it was done. For this we had to communicate a lot and relies on one another as we were all in charge of certain parts of each task. This made my time management better than my music magazine project, as others were relying on me, so it forced me to do the work straight away to work well in a team.

I have presented my research and planning in a variety of ways using creative technology on my blog for example:

Thing link, Google slides, Google docs, Prezi, Albumizer, Canva and Emaze for this. I am still wanting to use spider scribe, Infogram, Wix and Powtoons. Powtoons was something I used last year and found difficult to use however I feel I have become more familiar with the software since so feel comfortable to use it again this year.
On my blog last year for my music magazine I used creative technology such as:...
since last year I have used more creative technology and know how to work some of the ones better.