Skills that you have developed in researching:
AS
In my AS year, I would say that my research was very basic
(compared to the skills I have now) and most of it was done on the internet and
through watching thriller openings to get some initial ideas. My AS group didn’t
carry out detailed research to gain inspiration for location/mise en scene etc,
and because of this, our work definitely wasn’t as strong as it could have
been. We did research aspects such as appropriate fonts for our titles, target
audiences and structure which was good however the content of our actual
opening was mostly made up and improvised. The research we did do was still helpful
as it assured us that our idea was heading in the right way, however I definitely
think that with much more detailed research our final outcome would have been
better.
A2
My A2 group used these same two research methods (internet
and watching existing examples) as I did in AS plus a lot more (questionnaires, magazines, HMV visits) , however, the
difference was, for every decision made for both the music video and ancillary
work, my group did research to make every detail perfect. For the pitch of initial ideas we presented to the class before doing any practical work, research for everything had already been done, from costume to location to target audience. Because of all of this extra work, the strength of our A2 work is visibly higher than the AS work.
Skills that you developed in planning production work.
AS
The planning for my thriller opening consisted of storyboards with initial ideas that were then turnt into an animatic. This was basically the main part of our planning side and it was quite straight forward. We did ensure that the storyboard was perfect and that everyone in the group was happy with it so when it came to filming there were no gaps and we knew exactly what we were doing. Other than the story board, we planned everything very generally, (similarly to the research), we made the decision to film in college (not a specific room, just college) and we decided on the room on the actual first day of filming. In a sense, it does show that our planning was very basic, however, for the length of filming required and the content that my group wanted to specifically include, we didn't need to plan anything complex.
A2
On the other hand, my planning for A2 was very detailed! again, as i mentioned for the research, we planned outfits and location from way before we started filming. We planned our location using some example ones that were available at college, we went for the ones that looked as urban as possible (graffiti, brick walls, alleyways) and went to check them out before actually filming (something that we wouldnt have thought of doing in AS). My group also made a story board - animatic for the music video, but it was much more complicated than in AS, simply because we knew how many different shots had to be used to make a strong piece of work and also because it was a lot longer. We did weekly filming plans, again, another thing we wouldn't have come up with in AS, we planned where we were going to film on which day, at what time, what equipment we were going to need, what was going to be worn and exactly which part of our story board we were going to shoot. All of this planning led to a really successful final product and the knowledge behind our A2 planning is clearly much more developed than in AS.
Skills that you developed in producing video work:
AS
Our filming skills were very basic as it was the first time any of us had produced this type of work. We had a lot of practice before getting to film our thriller opening by doing activities such as the pre-lim and work on the macs of putting existing films in order using final cut pro (had never used it before). I think it was good that our opening wasn't very long as we simply didnt have the right skills or experience to produce a strong lengthy piece. We used equipment such as tripods and lighting which were also new to us but really helped and overall what we produced was quite successful considering none of us had done it before.
A2
This year was a giant leap from AS, we had to produce such a detailed a longer piece compared to anything we had done before. Overall, we were very successful, we had to learn new things relating to music videos which werent relevant for our thrillers such as using basetracks (compulsary) and editing to the beat. Our filming skills were much more advanced this time, we had another practice before summer where we filmed a mock up music video and that really helped as editing to the beat and using a range of different shots had to be done for this too. We tried out a load of new camera angles and movements that we didnt need in AS and it all added to our knowledge, the use of 360 shots and framing are just two of the new skills we picked up which really made our final video stronger. There was so much more to consider for our music video compared to our thriller opening and the video work was something that we had to practice along the way through trial and error but the main thing that helped our video work was our planning.
