RESEARCHING AND PLANNING

A2 Media: Research and planning the moving image work

Research:

This year I chose to do a music video, which consisted research and planning into the type of genre I wanted to use and who it was aimed at. Compared to my AS coursework and my A2 there are similarities in terms of genre and target audience.  For my AS product I produced a music magazine into the genre of RnB, I chose to do this because I felt that because I listened to it I would be more comfortable in working with the sort of work that came alongside it such as the case studies I would use and the artists that I could access. My target audience were young adults from the age of 16+ and that’s also the same age range for music video.  Case studies for my AS coursework were to look into magazines of your chosen genre which is also similar to my A2 case studies which is looking into music videos of my chosen genre. From looking back at my researching skills from last year and how they are going now I believe that they have improved. I blog more often than how I used to before and I have related them back to the main product. In my case studies I chose to go into more depth about what sort of techniques I would also use in my music video which helped me think ahead of what I might need before starting on the filming. I made correlations form my case studies and plan for the music video and what needed to be changed or improved, which is something I didn’t do last in my AS coursework. I think it helps to see what you could include and analyse the differences from your own plan or how you wish your video to look like.

For my target audience I looked at my plan of how I wanted my magazine to look like and asked whether they would read it and they gave back some positive feedback and what could be improved but overall because they could relate to it, they were pleased with the content. However for my A2 coursework pitch my audience were also able to relate to what were trying to achieve from the type of artists we and the costumes/dress code to suit the whole concept. In terms of the feedback we received, there wasn’t much feedback from the audience which is why we assumed that there weren’t any changes to be made to our music video. Compared to the feedback I received last year and this year there is a huge difference because I feel that last year I was unable to understand much about what I wanted my target market to see so therefore there was space for improvements to my music magazine, such as changing the font, colours and also the artists positioning on the page. However this year because I’ve learnt to know how to present my ideas and to make sure that everything that needs to be included that I want to show to my potential audience is there, allows me to receive less negative feedback and less space for improvements.

Logistics planning:

In terms of organising locations, actors and costumes/props, as a group we were very clear in what we needed and we wanted. What we needed was looked at as the most important such as our actors; we had auditions to see whether those who auditioned were suitable to be in the music video. Unfortunately we did not find them suitable for the role we wanted to portray in the music video, nevertheless one of my team members took it upon her to look for some actors which did successfully and from there we were able to move onto the locations that w wanted to shoot at. This was done fairly quickly because the locations we chose were accessible. All the paper work (release form, risk assessment, recces, and call sheet) was done during the pre-production, as a team we did not see this as an important part of the work but filled those out to allow others to see that we have understood and gone through it.

In our team there are three of us, between us we divided roles to do to ensure we do not miss anything out. I did the storyboards and also planned out when and where we were to shoot first, Mariam kept contact with the actors, did their makeup and also directed them on set during the shoot and Shakera did the paper work (recces, call sheets, risk assessment and release form), we helped her on that because it became too much for her alone.  Compared to last year for my AS coursework I did not have as much tasks to do but it does not compare to the logistics from this year because tasks were divided in the groups chosen.