Tuesday 28 June 2011

Considering my Initial Ideas

As I begin to prepare and research into the project, I have started to consider some initial ideas that would be relevant to each possible project task; music video's, trailers and short films.
Miss placed us into groups, so that we could, as a group, begin to start thinking about ideas, even if we didn't want to use them as the final choice. I was working with Matthew Hill and Jessica Alecci.

Trailers-
Firstly we considered trailers, where in which, miss gave us three title examples and we had to choose one of these and create a trailer around it. We chose one and decided to create a trailer in the style of a thriller as it seemed to reflect the title in which we chose. We came up with the idea of a stranger obsessed with a ordinary young girl. We thought about shot types. Thinking the trailer would begin with quick shots of a busy sidewalk, with strangers, obliviously on their way to work and events of their day, and as this occurs there being a narration above it, with something along the lines of 'every day, one million people pass each other by, without even noticing; but what if one was watching'. It continues to show a quick summary of the film that helps to invite an audience in. It was showing shots with cliff-hangers, leaving audiences wanting more and ultimately wanting to watch it.

Music Video-
For the music video, we broke it down. We wrote down as many genres of music we could think of. We then chose a genre and wrote down a number of artists whose songs were in that style of music. We then chose one of these songs and considered how we would make a music video to suit it. Our group chose rap, this genre of music is not one of which i have alot of knowledge on, however my group did. It is also a genre of music that is quiet stereotypical, when it comes to a music video. It tends to have quick shots of the rapper 'rapping' but is very well known for its vast pieces of narrative scenes. Therefore we decided that regarding a music video that we would attempt to make, we would create narrative scenes that reflected the lyrics of the song.

Short Films-
My group and I found this the hardest idea to consider. We realised that short films have a extremely wide basis. As in, they really can be about, just about anything. We looked at a number of short films online, and found that the storylines were very unusual, but somehow worked. However many of them had meanings behind them and therefore we realised that the way in which we tried to reflect the meaning of our short film, could be done in a large number of ways. We watched one short film called 'moments'. This was not similar to anything I’ve seen before, and therefore when considering an idea for a short film our self, we tried to consider something similar to 'moments'. The film consisted of a large number of shots that changed very quickly, although at first this did not make sense, it was trying to portray the moments in our life that go un-noticed, as well as the ones we never forget. We felt this would be a great challenge to create something along these lines, however we did consider the idea of creating a short film about a topic that meant something to us, or an idea about 'life' that we've always had, and how we could portray this through a short film.

Monday 27 June 2011

Skills that will help me this year

During my time on the course, so far, i have gained a number of skills that I feel will be very beneficial towards my new project this year.
I also have a number of skills that i wish to develop, as this will help progress my understanding and knowledge base within this subject area and more importantly regarding this particular area of media.

During the course of my project last year i learned how to work well both independently and as part of a team. This was very useful to me at the time, and will be this year as I will have the ability to continuously work towards finishing my project to the best of my ability, whilst also working as part of a team, learning to separate and take on role and also to adapt the voices and opinions of my partner to combine our ideas in to one piece.

I've learned to work efficiently to complete different tasks of my project in good time so that i am able to change or 'tweak' any tasks I am not happy with, it is also a great advantage as it allows me to work towards and meet deadlines set for me and for those that i set for myself.

I will be able to use the knowledge I obtained last year and apply and adapt it towards helping me with my project this year. I am able to use the knowledge that I know, such as that I’ve learned of target audience, what appeals to different people, who we typically connote certain audiences with. Representation, what we traditionally perceive and what is now perceived in a modern light. Conventions, different things we associate with particular things. For example things you would associate with a certain genre of music.

I hope by the end of this project and course I have developed my creativity, and that i will be able to create ideas and develop them in to more original and thoughtful suggestions for ideas towards practical pieces and that involved within them so that the creativity is reflected throughout my practical and perhaps even my thoughts towards theory.

Finally i wish to develop my skills and understanding of editing programmes, so that I am able to use them to their full extent. I think I will use programmes such as 'Adobe Photoshop' and 'I Movie'. Which we will be using on the course to create the music video and also the advertising we are creating alongside it.

Thursday 23 June 2011

Roles of the Group

Within my group for the project, it is only I and Jess. As there is just the two of us we have spilt the jobs of the project but have both been helping and conferring with each other throughout. Jess is going to be the performer, and will be featured within the music video and upon all of the ancillary pieces and i will therefore be responsible for filming the footage for the music video and for taking the photographs for the ancillary tasks. I have not had a massive amount of experience with the cameras, so this will be a bit of a challenge for me, however Jess has many skills with using the camera so will be able to help me and teach me along the way. Our next spilt of work was the editing of the music video, and the producing of the ancillary tasks. I have had some experience of the editing machines we will be using and therefore i am going to be responsible for editing the footage. The ancillary tasks require another type of programme called 'Photoshop' which my partner is very skilled in and she will therefore be in charge of that. We will constantly be conferring with each other throughout the work to combine both of our ideas. Jess is also going to be a great help as she has many creative ideas in comparison to me and will therefore be a brilliant way to produce some really creative practical pieces.

Monday 13 June 2011

Considering Skills


During the last project I gained a number of skills that will become very beneficial to me throughout this new project.

- I learnt how to use the cameras, using them at different angles, using different lighting and also how to use them with other aspects of media, such as the computers.

- I learnt how to use the programme of adobe Photoshop in which I will be using for some aspects of this project. I learnt how to use different tools on the programme, creating different effects and generally how to create a practical piece of work.

- I learnt how to use 'BlogSpot' and also how to create a blog upon it; creating posts and uploading files and images. This is a great advantage to me as i will be using this to present my work once again.

- I learnt general things in which to consider on a practical and the effects in which they have; to consider costume, the way different pieces of costume suggest different stereotypes of people. Narration, the way a story can bring meaning to a song (if doing a video piece of work) and continuity, how a piece can flow, and relate. How all of these effect the practical, what they symbolise and the meaning they create.

- I learnt about target audiences, who in which my practical is to be aimed that, and how, by choosing certain choices, creates this appeal. Looking at both male and female audiences and both of all ages and the different aspects that appeal to each of them, and how you create these.

- I learnt about representation, how different things can represent different meanings or connotations, whether these meanings or connotations are modern; are they new looks upon such things, or traditional, traditional looks.

- I learnt about how to research before a project. How to analyse different genres of work and how to consider different connotations of each genre, and how they appeal to their own audiences.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Welcome- The Reason for my Blog

This blog will be used to display all my work throughout my A2 media studies course. It will show my progress and each development along the making of each required practical piece, including my music video, my album, including inserts, and a magazine advertisement.