Research & planning l3 h

Explain how your research and planning skills developed over time and how these decisions contributed to your media productions outcomes. Refer to a range of examples in your answer.

In order to create an authentic opening sequence, we needed to ensure that the titling of the piece reflected the titles of existing action-adventure films. This could not be achieved without pre-production research through title analysis. We watched and thoroughly analysed the opening sequences of action-adventure films such as Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Skyfall (2013).

Through title analysis found that generally titles stayed on the screen for an average of 3 seconds in 4/5 films and the most successful transition of titles on and off screen was dissolve . Also, there were often planned shots for the titling to appear and disappear. For example, as a character runs past the area on the screen where the title is placed, the title leaves the screen with the motion.

Indeed, we also incorporated this in our own opening sequence as the protagonist Jessica runs down the stairs and the titling dissolves just as she runs through. Furthermore, this use of research can be seen in our final piece from the titles of Sherlock Holmes in terms of font. Wanting to follow the calligraphy-like font that holds personal connotations and the idea of antique/fantasy as 3/5 films used a similar type of font. We used the font, ‘St Charles’ in our final piece for this reason which I think heightened the film’s genre of actionadventure.

Placement of titles was also important in the opening sequence of our final product. For example, 5/5 of the films we observed had the main film title framed at the centre of the screen meaning that the audience could focus solely on the title and this is something that we followed in ‘Into the Heart of Leda’.

In terms of casting, we were incredibly conscious in choosing a female actress as our protagonist. We wanted to invert the convention of the male protagonist in typical action-adventure films as we saw that the genre was dominated by this type of narrative thus an attempt to challenge the convention by using a female lead. From our research we also found that the majority of the protagonists were aged in the 20s (5/5) and we wanted to also challenge this along with the gender by casting a young female actress. We researched into actresses weighing the age range 12-20 in order to hit the target audience and make our protagonist relatable. We achieved this by initially thinking about who we knew could possibly act in the final piece and their previous experience with acting, their availability/accessibility to us for filming and also pay. The first actress we thought of was Sophie, aged 12. Not only was Sophie my cousin meaning that we had easy access to her when needed, we would have not required to pay her with the limited budget we had. She also had previous experience with voice acting though was yet to debut an acting role. However, our prior research indicated that if we were to hire such a young actress, the overall piece would no longer appeal as an action-adventure film but rather a child's film. The next potential actress was Molly, aged 20. She had previous acting experience on stage and on screen meaning that we knew she could be trusted in acting in our film and also talented in her skill. However, Molly was engaged with prior acting commitments so could not partake in our film. Finally, Eve suggested that she could act in our piece. We researched clips of her acting online and thought she'd be perfect for the role of Jessica. Also, she's a member of the group and therefore easily accessible for filming and would require no pay for acting which was perfect for our independent film opening.

The location of our shoot was essential in the narrative of the opening sequence, as we wanted to clearly establish the difference from the mundane to the fantasy. Narrative was split between ‘before’ and ‘after’ and meticulous planning went into finding the best location for an effective and authentic opening sequence.

For example, for the 'Before’ we wanted an area with a mass of water (preferably a pond or lake) in which the main character could find the bottle and as Ana lives near Raynes Park and is familiar to the surroundings she was able to suggest the location during a group discussion. Photos were taken and incorporated into the storyboarding of the piece to see if it would be suitable prior to production. It was the planning of these shots from the photos taken that allowed for different and interesting views/areas for great potential shots as well as ease on the day of shooting our opening sequence. Similar planning went into scouting the location for the 'after'. For the second half of the sequence, we wanted a wooded area for fantasy feel and also some ancient looking buildings. Recalling the grounds of Crystal Palace park that included these things we wished to include, I presented the location to the rest of the group. As we are all relatively local to CP area, they knew about the areas to shoot after recall and seeing images of the grounds we searched on Google maps. From the photos and plan available to us online, we were able to plan many of the shots that would take place at each location and storyboarding along the way. If we did not storyboard the main shots of the day, I believe we would not have been able to achieve such a high standard of shots as well as had the day run so smoothly as we knew what we wanted to shoot and how.

Ahead of production, we also knew lighting could be an issue with shaded wooded areas so planned to shoot early morning and was able to schedule a rough time frame for every scene we shot to ensure we didn't waste too much time on one shot. Aside from production, we also planned the location in terms of

accessibility as both of these places are public and allow for filming. We also planned the journey specifically depending on train times and ease to and from each location therefore demonstrating the detail of planning we went into for our product.

In terms of the music video we produced for A2, we were just as enthusiastic about research and planning.

As we were given the brief just before summer break, I decided to add to my experience of planning by creating moodboards in order to get inspiration from existing media. This was achieved by extending my research skills to include researching existing concepts and work of indie alternative artists. These took the form of photographs, artwork, concepts and existing MVs. I created the digital moodboards on tumblr.com (image blogging site) for ease and to separate from Blogger (media work portfolio) so that I could have a distinction between the two meaning that it was easier when organising my work. I broke down digital moodboards into categories: Concepts, Artist, Costume, Cinematography, Videos.

This allowed for easily accessibly during production to refer back to initial inspiration. For example, we used the ‘costume’ of existing Indie artists in our own MV shown through Isla's use of loose fitting clothes and minimal make-up and hair similar to images on moodboard. We also included the motif of the yellow flower after research as we found that a relationship between artist -especially female artists within the genre - and nature. Thus, there are several images and GIFs of flowers and floral concepts on the moodboards that we attempted to replicate in our own work. Using a moodboard to present research also provided a clear visual of things we wanted to include in our own MV. An example is the MV's of Carrie Underwood and Gabrielle Aplin’s that incorporated the use of contemporary dancing - a concept that we also included in 'Lost'.

Audience feedback was much appreciated during the production of the DigiPak as essentially the marketing campaign could not be successful without the support of the audience. A key part of our audience feedback for the DP was through the video we shot asking individuals what they liked about the drafts and any improvements they could offer.

Example of the feedback we received was that many liked the links to the website through the colour theme of yellow/gold, use of a motif and also the varied use of images of Isla. They also commented that they thought it made it personal and effective as a marketing campaign although there were suggestions for improvements such as changing font size as the fist drafts were slightly hard to read. Without audience feedback research for the DP we would not have been able to further develop our product in order to have an effective campaign all together.

Furthermore, we developed research skills from AS as we researched into existing websites of artists when creating the webpage for Isla. Looking at the pages of Birdy and Nina Nesbitt for example, we found that there was a key theme of having a large image of the artist on the homepage that clearly establishes who the artist is. It was also observed that 2/3 websites used dark backgrounds and lighter colour highlights which we also incorporated in our final website design for Isla. It can also be considered that without these research skills looking at the webpages already there, we would not have been able to pull off a product that looked so well put together. This is known because our final audience feedback included comments about the website being "authentic and attractive" which We believed to be key in the marketing campaign of Isla as the website can be considered as the foundation for the entire A2 portfolio.

EAA

5/10

(Explanation/analysis/argument)

EG

9/ 10

(Range of examples used)

TERM

5/ 5

Accuracy/ range of media terms )

A* 22.5

A 20

B 17.5

C 15

D 12.5

E 10