Retrospective

Research and Planning - Comparsion of the past 12 Months

Research for Decipher

Looking back at my research leading up to 'Decphier', it became apparent that quickly I had settled on a theme of thriller and had stuck to that confidently. The research, at first was basic as I analysed the opening squences to thriller themes of a wide range, though became more detailed as more were written. These looked into shots and broke down the squences, though now in comparsion are extreamly short; they look into the opening squences well, but not like the detail I have gone into this year when analysing music videos for alternative rock. Other 'Decipher' research was very basic, such as looking at title squences and the branding e.g. logo and studio. These are breif and marketing is hardly looked upon. However, the links between influences and film are very clear - particularly when we show our presentation of our research compared to our product. In some ways, I feel my research for Decphier was decent but not as great as it could have been. At the time I felt I knew the opening squences to thrillers, though I couldn't always justify something immediately as I can when working on the music video.

Research for All The Small Things

As previously stated, I felt my research for 'Decphier' was descent though compared to my research and analysis for the music videos is almost minimal. For a start, I looked into a lot more videos than just five, I looked at least in eight total if not more and only one or two were extreamly short analysises. All other analysis were very descriptive, showing screenshots of very little significant shot or convention or even branding I could find in the music video and begin to explain why this is conventional, why it is effective, how it is edited well to the music, the atmopshere of the music and even how the audience would respond, including links to the viewer. I was also quick in deciding what type of music video I was going to look at; immediately I had chosen to look at alternative rock and began with 'Sum 41 - In Too Deep'. Gradually, these have also become more and more developed. Two of the most icon analysises for me, which have helped me when creating All The Small Things is the analysis of 30 Seconds to Mars, due to the inclusion of band members in narrative, Linkin Park for editing and artystic style and Jimmy Eat World for the ability to easily connect to the audiences. By looking at the analysis of videos, I could find that I could identify the conventions of the genre of music video, such as isolation, drugs, sex, alcholol, revolution - a wide range of things that I could immplement into my planning.
This year, my planning was far more specific. Me, Sean and Reece created a treatment saying what we were going to do and how we were going to do it and most of all, why. What conventions would we include and why? How would this connect with the audiecne eand why? Things that would preper us on set and before hand to plan to create the music video. Just as last year, we created a log sheet, though there is one thing that we hadn't really prepared for in terms of plannign as compared to 'Decphiper': storyboard and script. We found it was really hard to write a script to a music video, so we outlined a basis of narrative and had chosen sets. The storyboard was done by Reece whilst I was fimling in Rothbury Residental over the October half term - this isn't the problem, but we didn't refer to it often. We had a check list and a basic shot list to tick off. What would have been an improvement when filming and planning would have been to get a cold of a clapper board so we were more organised during the process.
Product planning is something that I didn't have to do last year, though is just as effective. I spent a long while scanning in my own alternative rock albums, covers and digi books and all, and looking at them and why I think their affective as part of the audience that they try to reach. I used social networking such as Facebook to catch up on some of my influences, such as Linkin Park and looked into a different, possibly making a come back in convention, different type of product, vynle. I think I streched all of my extremes in the planning and research and rounded it up nicely so that now I know the conventions well, I can justify what I do and I can say why it works.

To improve this any further, I would say that I could get audience feedback. Being at a sixthform is particularly useful as a large percentage of the students here enjoy alterantive rock, meaning I have access to this audience. To improve my research, I could take tolls of favourite bands and look into albums and posters and magazines of them; even for this, when creating the album cover and the digi books, I could ask these peers to gain research and see how I can improve.