Blog Reflection Week 13

Blog Reflection Week 12

Blog Reflection Week 11

Digipak Flatplan

Magazine Advert Flatplan

Blog Reflection Week 10

Blog Reflection Week 9

Production Scheldule

Location Reccies

Call Sheets

Shooting Script

Blog Reflection 8

The key aspect we focused on this week was planning. We created the shooting script for our product and the flatplans for the digipak and magazine advertisement. For the shooting script me and my partner met up a few times this week and worked through it together and completed the rest at home and for the flatplans we discussed what we wanted for them when we met and designed it accordingly. The shooting script forced us to think about every aspect of our production stage as we had to know what actors we were using, what equipment we were going to use and where and when we were going to film. The shooting script will help us keep organized and stay on track as nothing is left to the day to decide, it will also help the final piece to have more structure.

We made a lot of key decisions and revisions this week as we decided what would would happen in our film shot by shot, one revision we made was not to use the original mask we intended and use a prosthetic one instead where we can still see the character's face and make facial expressions which is needed for a key character. We also decided what our magazine advert and digipak would look like. 

Blog Reflection Week 7

Treatment

Research Analysis

What Did You Aim To Find Out?

Our aim was to find out who our audience is for the video as we asked questions to identify what kind of person it was then asked questions relating to our idea to see if they would like it for example if they like romance music videos or not. We did this in order to mold our idea in order to please our target audience as much as possible.

How did you undertake it?

For our research we carried out a survey on surveymonkey.com and I shared it online and asked some friends to fill it in so I could analyse the data. We also did Vox Pops where we went around the school asking people some questions and recording the responses. This was difficult at times as a lot of people we asked didn’t want to be filmed and took a lot of convincing or just flat out refused.

What do the results suggest?

Survey

From this pie chart we can see that narrative videos are preferred by over 86% of the audience, however 46% of that liked it when it was tied in with elements of performance suggesting to me that this is what I should do for my music video. Be that as it may 40% wanted only narrative and 13% wanted only performance so the majority of my audience (53%) may not want to see both in my video. This means that the majority of viewers would not find this music video appealing, but since I’m doing both it may please them to at least have had some features of it in the final video.

From this bar chart it appears that Beauty and The Beast was a well-liked film as 40% said it was excellent and 20% said it was above average and so a music video where there are some intertextual references would be well received by this audience. Even though we hadn’t considered this before but because the film was so popular we may make our video homage to it whereas before we just used a similar storyline based on the original but now we might take into consideration using similar; camera, editing and mise-en-scene for the video.

We asked our audience what their views on acoustic guitar music were and we found similar results as to their view on Beauty and the Beast where over 72% of the audience said that it was either good or they loved it meaning that our music choice is perfect for this audience. It is clear that the 16-20 year old age group is the right target audience as they liked beauty and the beast, acoustic guitar music and preferred a narrative idea or one with elements of performance and narrative as our video is going to include all these things.

From this we can see that the audiences overwhelmingly prefer fast paced music videos over slow paced. We can use this to our advantage as the music itself is quite fast and upbeat and so our music video will match the tone of the song. There was a small group of people who preferred slow paced music videos but we couldn't be able to make our slow paced to suit them as the beat is just too quick for a slow paced music video. We will consider the pace of the music video is post production to match the beat and just doing that alone should make it fast paced.

Vox Pops

1) Why do you watch music videos?

-easiest way to watch,legally.
-to entertain me
-enjoy music whilst be able to visualise the song
- gives the song more meaning
- music videos have a variety and is a sense of escapism
lets you experience the life of the artist

Overall, from these answers I can determine that my audience watch music videos to feed escapism,social and entertainment aspects of the uses and gratifications theory. Therefore, it is important that my music video has a strong visual to cater towards these needs. I also like the fact my audience look for meanings in songs as my music artist has deep lyrics.

2) Do you like music videos that tell a story or just have interesting visuals?

• tell a story, visuals are too repeated,stories are more different
• a back story but with entertaining visuals
•   to keep the mood and enthusiasm towards the song
• a story is only good depending on the song, in contrast a song with a good beat would look better with visuals
• a music video should tell a story rather than 
• just pass time, a story lets you connect with the artist

Overall, I have decided to use a narrative style music video because my audience feels they would have better connection with the artist and the meaning of the song itself,where as visuals are too repeated and only pass time.I personally strongly agree with this and look forward to creating a music video with a sense of purpose rather than just for aesthetic reasons.

3) What music video have you watched that you really loved - why?

-Mika Lollipop,

has animation but it unique interms of it adult 

humour

-Rihanna and Shikara Can't remember to forget you

because of the beautiful women 

-Hayley Kiyoko- Girls like girls 

because it has been 

shot like a film and has a strong narrative

-Hozier Take me to church 

because the video wasnt 

based on the title and had a different deeper meaning

-Justin Bieber What do you mean 

because it highlights 

a strong theme such as trust

-Macklemores Thrift shop 

because it was funny 

and the actors were using the props associated with the words

literally ( an illustrative/interpretive style music video)

In particular, we see why someone mentioned Shakira's and Rihanna's music video because it was under the male gaze, however as my audience are mostly female, we would make my music artist appealing in the same attractive manner. we also liked that my audience liked strong narrative videos that were based on significant themes such as trust in the Justin Bieber music video, thus ensuring me and my partner that our music video narrative is on the right path.

4) What do you think of my music video idea, any improvements?

• Don't conform to the society and make the happy ending on how everyone accepts the beast rather than him turning into a handsome man. Make him still less socially desirable. Let it focus on how people should be considerate of others.
• Add more iconography from the film such as teacups
• from the film.
• It's a great idea and I have no improvements
• It's interesting because its a modern twist on a traditional film
• It's cute and interesting and I would watch it

We are extremely pleased that my audience enjoy the concept of my music video, however we think it is a good suggestion of making the actors perspective change rather than sticking to the beast transforming into a human. It adds a much more deeper context and highlights the emerging ideology that people are still starting to consider others more. We was also pleased that the male audience liked the audience rather than just the females, therefore we do not feel like I have to manipulate the storyline in any way to fit a masculine approach, because regardless of it being a romantic genre (which is stereo-typically for a female audience), its truly about society and that includes everyone and both genders.

5) Have you ever felt like you did not fit in society?

-Race has been a concern for me because I am Indian. In India I am not Indian and in England I am not English, so its hard to fit somewhere in particular.-I fit into society really well.-I've always fit in.-Occasionally when I make English Literature jokes on poetry referencesbecause I feel as though my hobbies are a minority.
I feel like it is a mixed view on whether my audience identify with not fitting into soceity. However, I still feel like my narrative idea is amazing because I get to give a sense of personal identity for those who do not feel like they fit in, as well as give the other half some education and insight on how they could perhaps alter their views and help those who feel excluded and alone.6) What extra features would make you buy a music artists product rather than illegally downloading it?

-Beside the scenes footage, Bonus songs
- Cheaper price- Reasonable price and proof I support the artistand the special features need to reflect the artist in particular.-Acoustic/remixes of songs already on the track list.- Associated with the album in particular such as a bookletand download to make the purchase more valuable.
In all, my audience are looking for proof that their purchase is valuable. The special features I have chosen from my audiences suggestions are remixes of original songs and perhaps a pullout poster of the artist himself. The audience were mostly concerned about having their money worth spent to stop them from illegally downloading songs. They also wanted things that could not be downloaded as easy which is why I have chosen to do a pullout product like a poster. This is great for those fans that really appreciate the artist in particular too because they can support him by buying his album and placing the posters in the bedrooms for their friends to learn about too, thus supporting the artist via word of mouth.

Are any of your results surprising or conflicting?

One set of data I found surprising was the results we got back from the question regarding what their favourite  genre of music video is. There was no clear pattern or favourite as the results were pretty even no genre really took a lead. This made it hard to analyse as it was so even and we couldn't do anything to make it appeal to the mainstream audience as there was none in this regard just a lot of a niche groups. In terms of our voxpops, art first it was conflicting have a mix of people like visuals and narrative, but in the end we felt more connected to a narrative idea. I was particularly surprised at how the male audience felt passion for this narrative rather than just girls. 

Are there any reasons why your research could be bias?

One reason why our research could be bias is because I only asked people aged 16-20 years old which is a niche group and doesn't give much range in the data. The ideology of this group would likely all be similar and so not give me any variation in the answers given. It is also not a accurate representation of the population and shows only a small sample of it. Our voxpops were also centered on those of a similar age to us, therefore their views are limited compared to those who are older and perhaps had more experience with society.

How does this affect our product?

From the results of our research we thought we might implements elements of intertextuality and reference Beauty and the Beast as we now know it is well loved so referencing it will be enjoyed by a large audience. We could do this by choice of mise-en-scene for example costume where we dress up the Beauty character in a dress similar to Belle's yellow dress. We also saw that having both performance and narrative is what is wanted by our audience so we are definitely going to do that now as before we were considering just doing short film.

Meet My Audience

Music Video Analysis

Digipak and Magazine Analysis

Reflection Week 6

Research Plan

Pitch and Feedback

Blog Reflection Week 5

What have you been doing this week?

This week I carried out my survey and asked 20 people various questions on surveymonkey.com about music videos and what they like to see in them I could have gotten more reliable data if I asked more people but I felt this would take too long for the short time I had. The key concept here is audience as I wanted to find out who our audience would be as I asked what age, gender, etc they are then asked questions which would let me know if they would enjoy the music video.

This week we also looked at example of music magazine advertisements and Digipaks. This gave us an idea of the conventions of these products and allowed us to shape our idea for the advert and digipak to meet those. To find further examples of digipaks me and San went to the library and took pictures of some.

A big decision we made this week is what our advert and digipaks main page would look like and one idea we came up with is an image of a busker sitting in the street playing an acoustic guitar as the artist is an acoustic guitarist and we feel the image chosen is very conventional.

Research

Survey

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DCN6SQ

Vox Pops

Week 4 Blog Reflection

Advanced Portfolio Rationale

There is a powtoon embeded in case it doesn't show up ;/ https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/dyRTbbx1y25/advanced-production-rationale/

Music Video Narrative

Narrative Devices

Plot Twist

Plot twist is a narrative device where something that is not expected happens which changes the course of the story. The music video I have chosen for this is Tom Odell's Another Love.

 At 1:50 we can denote that there is a plot twist as Tom Odell's character has been putting up missing signs for a girl who turns out is not missing and he even gives her one of the signs but when she tries to talk to him he ignores her. This is not something we expected as when someone is putting up missing signs we assume that the person in question is actually missing so it turns the story on it's head when she isn't. The emotional effect this has on the audience is confusion and intrigue as they try to understand why the character is putting up missing signs for a girl who is clearly not missing and it intrigues the audience as they watch to try and pick up clues as to to why the character is doing is what he is doing.

In Media Res

In media res is when a story begins midway through events, rather than at a natural beginning.

Alt-J Hunger on The Pine is a music video which uses this style as at 0:04 we denote someone running away as arrows fly past him so we can connote that someone is after him. It does not start at a natural beginning  as if it did it would establish why he is being chased but instead all we know is that he is being chased and running for his life. The emotional effect this would have on the audience is excitement and is captivating for them as it starts straight in the action. They're on the edge of their seats from the start of the video and stay there till the end. It also leaves many things unclear to the audience and so they don't know if the main character is actually an antagonist or not but they still root for him regardless.

Omnipotent Narrative

An omnipotent narrative is one where the audience are Godlike,knowing everything that is happening in the diegetic world. 

The music video which uses this style is Skrillex's Bangarang, we can see there is an omnipotent narrative at 0:28 we can see where the Ice Cream Man is, 0:35 know what the boy in red is doing, at 0:37 what the boy in purple is doing and 0:51 what the boy in black is doing. This is more information than any one character has but the audience knows everything and is aware of the boys scheme against the ice cream man before the ice cream man does. The effect this has on the audience is the anticipation that is built in waiting for the heist to be pulled off as we know what each boy is going to bring to the heist and how it might go down but the audience eagerly wait for them to pull it off.

Structure

Mckee's 5 part structure involves an inciting incident, progressive complications, crisis, climax and resolution. A music video that follows this narrative is Thriller by Michael Jackson.

We can denote that at 1:41 we can denote human like creatures emerging from graves and through the use of mise-en-scene like costume and actors we can connote that these creatures are zombies, this is the Inciting Incident of the video as an event has happened that gets the story going and in this case it is zombies coming to life. The Progressive Complication occurs at 2:20 when the key character and her companion are surrounded by zombies determined to attack them and it looks very bad for the character,2:26 is when it gets even worse for the character otherwise known as a crisis where her companion is now also a zombie and she no longer has an ally to help her against the zombies. We can denote the climax at 4:20 (blaze it lol) when the key character of the story is seen cowering in a corner surrounding by the inching ever closer zombies this resolution appears all of a sudden as we see the that the character is in a different house and the use of location helps the audience understand that the resolution has occurred as the house look more done up and actually lived in and not abandoned as before, her companion also looks like how he used to and there are no other zombies around so it seems like everything is back to normal.

Character Driven

Propp's narrative theory suggests that there a re several roles which any character may assume in the story. A music video which follows this theory is Iggy Azalea's Black Widow.

At 2:52 we can see that Iggy Azalea's character is the hero as she is given a task to kill someone or in other words departs on a search which is what most hero characters do. We also see her getting training from the Donor we can see at 2:38 who is running her through different tests to train her ability as a samurai to see if she is ready to eliminate her target. We can see at 4:22 that Rita Ora's character is the helper as when Iggy Azalea's character is surrounded and looks outnumbered she comes in to help. We can denote at 4:59 that the male character is facing the girls aiming a gun while they stand ready with their swords this connotes that he is the villain character in this as he is struggling agaisnt the hero and attempting to stop her from completing her task.

Cause and Effect

Levi-Strauss

Levi-Stauss' theory suggests that all narratives are organised around the conflict between binary opposites. The music video I have chosen for this is The Arctic Monkey's Leave Before The Lights Come On. From the video you could suggest that the opposites in this video are between Sane and Insane. We first see that they are opposites and cannot co-exist at 1:49 when we denote her trying to kiss the man but him rejecting the kiss connoting that he is not comfortable with kissing her showing that even on a physical level they cannot touch and co-exist It also establishes that they are truly opposites as they want different things from each other. We then see another example of how they are binary opposites at 2:07 as the audience can denote that as he tries to get away from her she wants to stay with him connoting that they are opposites as one wants to get away from another while the other wants to be intimate with the other showing they have different motives and mindsets. At 3:03 we can denote that the characters are arguing with each other and it turns physical connoting that they can no longer co-exist as when they are they argue and fight. At 3:41 we can denote that the female character is attempting to jump off the building again which is the exactly what the other character tried to stop her from doing before and is exactly the opposite of what he wants signifying that their views and wants are completely different.

Week 3 Blog Reflection

Music Video Genres

One Clear Genre- Pop

The song I have chosen to illustrate one clear genre is Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. We can see the genre is clearly pop as it uses some form of the male or female gaze and in this video it uses the female gaze as at 0;23 we denote her watching the male taking off his shirt to reveal a six pack connoting that he is just something to be looked at by the audience and is given no real depth. This is conventional in many pop music videos where attractive people of either gender are denoted dancing around commonly in provocative clothing.

Another common element of pop music videos is the performance aspect of it which we can see here at 0:35 where she is denoted singing the lyrics to the song to the camera or the audience. Pop music videos do this a lot as an attempt to sell more concert tickets so they can get a feel for what it's like and want the real thing, the video is more about the star than the actual music making them famous so the institution can market easier as they have a clear brand.

One Hybrid

A hybrid song is a song where it contains a mixof 2 or more different genres.  Walk This Way by Run DMC featuring Aerosmith is a hybrid of Hip Hop and Hard Rock. In the video at 2:04 we can see the in the music video the rock element of it coming through as they are on stage performing it to a crowd. The mise-en-scene is also typical of the genre as the costumes they are wearing all black and the actors have long hair which many rock artists had in their music videos.

We can see the Hip Hop in this video at 2:39 as a low angle shot of the group is used to give them an intimidating look which is common in a lot of Hip Hop videos like 50 Cent's 9 Shots. The costume of the actors here also make it clear it is a Hip Hop video due to the white trainers they are wearing which appears in a lot of Hip Hop videos as many of them contain the theme 'the currency of cool' so they attempt to show off how cool they are with what they're wearing.

One Subgenre- Grime

Grime is a genre that focuses on real life, it doesn't sugar coat anything hence the name grime. Grime in the dictionary is known as dirt ingrained on the surface of something. What grime is about is revealing the dark side of London which is seen as a place of wealth but in reality there are places in London which are in real poverty. The grime song I have chosen is That's Not Me by Skepta. Throughout the video for it we can see that there is a lot of poverty and deprived areas for example at 0:02 we denote a wall covered in graffiti connoting that the area this video is set in a harsh area.

Another common feature of Grime songs is that the music video heavily features on the artist's performance, we can see this throughout the video as they have used a greenscreen to add their performance over the montage of clips playing. The reason they do this is to sell the artist and so that they can make more money from concert tickets as the 16-23 year old active audience for this type of song are more inclined to download music illegally so they need to make their money from concert tickets instead. We can see other grime songs do this for example Stormzy's Where do you know me from, this music video features the artist walking around performing his song with some visualisation of the lyrics.

Generic Conventions

NWA- Straight Outta Compton- Hip Hop

In this video we can denote that the artists are running from the police connoting that they have committed a crime and are being chased down for it. This type of narrative style is very conventional for Hip-Hop videos as the rappers try to establish how tough they are so to show this they are being hunted down by the police. 

The Mise-en-scene is also very typical as it uses a real location connoting that the artists are 'legit' and actually came from areas like this. We can denote in this shot at 1:33 the setting has lots of graffiti and rust connoting that it is set in a run down, derelict area giving the group some reputation as if they had a tough growing up the audience will be more accepting of them. We also see a similar shot in Eminem's lose yourself as the set design has a lot of graffiti, fading paint on the walls and his costume is stained which again is something linked with poverty and anchors the fact that these artist are tough and to be respected.

Hip Hop artists try to seem as tough and strong as possible and so the actors in their videos act in certain ways to portray this. In NWA's video for Straight Outta Compton we denote at 0:44 there is a low angle shot of Ice Cube and Dr.Dre, this low angle shot signifies that the two rappers are intimidating and dominant. In R&B the singers try to look as attractive and sexy as possible to sell records, in Hip Hop the singers have to look as hard as possible to earn the record sales by the public as they have to be taken seriously to sell any. We see a similar type of shot in Eminem's video which is used for the same effect.

In Hip Hop music videos woman are seen through the male gaze and are sexualised and seen in provocative clothing, men however are seen differently in a Hip Hop video. This is because it is assumed the target audience are mainly other males so sexualising men in the videos wouldn't appeal to them. This is why the stereotypical representation of men in Hip Hop videos are that they are hard and intimidating as other men won't buy the records from men who they think of as weak for example Justine Bieber not many 16-30 year old males which would be the target audience for NWA would buy Justin Bieber.

Themes

One theme that comes across in this video is rebellion. We can connote this at 2;36 we denote them running away from the police or in other words rebelling against them and society as they have done something which goes against society's laws which has caused the police to come after them. They may also be rebelling against racism and signifying in this video that the police single out black men not for their actions but for their skin colour. This is backed up in the video as we don't actually see them commit any crimes but still see them running from the police. Fight the Power by Public Enemy also contains a video where there is a rebellion. In their video at 2:26 we denote a protest occurring with people wearing fight the power shirts, this connotes that they are protesting the government and all branches of it.

Crime is another theme that is focused on in this video as the narrative for the story involves the group being chased by police which we can see at 2;20, this could indicate that the group have committed a crime and this is the reason the police are hunting them down. Whether they have actually committee the crime is left to the audiences imagination as all we see is a group of them huddled around and instantly sprint away as soon as they see the police. The audience is lead to believe they have committed the crime as in society we are taught that if a group of young black men are together they are doing something illegal which links to the next theme in this video.

The police in the video are denoted to start perusing the group without no clear evidence of any wrong doing. The preferred reading of this might be that the police might be racially profiling them and are perusing them for no reason other than because they are black they must be doing something wrong. A negotiated reading could be that the boys have committed a crime and the police are rightfully perusing them and an opposite reading might be that even though the boys may have not committed a crime they should still be arrested due to their race. The theme of racism can be connoted when we denote that the police are chasing the group without any reason which could connote that the police are hunting them down purely on race.

Week Two Reflection

What Have You Learnt About Different Music Video Styles?

Throughout the week I have learnt many different music video styles including; performance, narrative,interpretive,impressionist,parody and many more.

I learnt that for a genre of song there is normally a type of music video style that accompanies it for example a surrealism music video would be made for a song that is of an abstract style. Below is the music video for Deep Six by Marilyn Manson which follows this rule.

I also learned that music videos have genres which they stick too. The genre of the music video defines what mise-en-scene, representations, editing style and recurring camera techniques. For example a Performance music video would use a lot of close ups to focus on the main star. If the star is female they will aim to sexualise her and give her the typical female archetype as something pretty to be looked at. The editing style will stay the same for most music videos in the sense that they cut to the beat but they might slow down time so that the audience can look at the star or longer.

My idea would use a narrative structure. A narrative structure is one where it follows a chronological sequential story from start to finish and for my idea we will follow a guy going through a breakup with a girl when he meets a man dressed in a rabbit suit who starts chasing him and they eventually go for drinks together. He wakes up the next morning and can't find the man in the suit anywhere however he finds a rabbit soft toy resembling the man in the suit before and gets an idea and gives it to the girl.

Music Video Pitch

Remake Evaluation

Research & Planning

This stage of our process was very simple. As we had to make a shot by shot remake our research was to watch the video and write down what happened in each shot and the duration of it. For our planning we made a shooting script which gave details about the location,camera shot,camera angle,description,actors,equipment and duration. To do this we just looked at what they did in the actual video and replicated it with a few exceptions to location and actors. From this task I became much better at creating and following a shooting script as with good planning I was able to pull off a very difficult scene in which a group of boys had to walk towards the camera.

Conventions

What sets a music video apart from other media texts are the conventions which are typically used in it. One of the conventions we tried to match was to make it look quite bright and vibrant as many are including thrift shop. To do this we had to look at mise en scene and give the actors brightly coloured costumes and props to use. I think we matched that as best we could and had the actos wear similar clothes to the characters seen in the video. For example the fur jacket that Macklemore wears we had a Jacket like that.

Creativity

Our section of the music video was a shot by shot remake leaving us little room for imagination. That is until we looked at the lyrics for Thrift Shop and we saw that there used to be a bit in the beginning where a kid asks Macklemore if there can go Thrift Shopping. This tiny detail allowed us to be more creative and so we produced a Cold Opening where Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are playing cards when Ryan Lewis asks him the same question. In the original video they did this over the opening shot and we never saw the interaction between the two characters, so we were able to add something new to the piece. 

Post Production

Out of all the skill areas, this area was the one I learnt the most from out of the Thrift Shop Video. This is because I used Final Cut Pro to actually edit a whole video together whereas before I had only used it to add graphics to my BSR opening. I learnt how to use the razor too and the select tool to cut the videos and an important aspect of Music Videos is to cut to the beat so this is exactly what we did. Out of all the editing software I've used Final Cut seems to be the best.

Digital Technology

Through this task I became more confident and skilled with the camcorder and I was able to use different camera shots and angles for this production. I also used some camera movements I had never used before like the tilt up in the cold opening.

Skills Reflection

 Research & Planning

In Year 12 our task was to create an opening sequence for a British Social Realism Film. This was a genre of film I did not regularly watch so doing research for this was vital. For some research into what the conventions of British Social Realism Film are we found YouTube clips of British Social Realism films and looked at the technical aspects of it and found some conventions within the genre for it. To understand what the exam board required of us we looked at past students work and evaluated it looking at the positives, the negatives and how we could improve on it. The institution we were creating the film for was film 4 and so we had to research them heavily to find what kind of films they generally produce so we looked at their ethos and history and examples of their films.

 We also needed to know who our target audience was so we created vox pops and asked them various questions. Some of the questions we asked were if they were watched BSR films and whether or not they thought our idea was good. We also created a theoretical audience for our film in a PowerPoint slide and said what kind of films our audience watch and what they do in their free time.

 We also had to do a lot of planning to make sure the production process went smoothly and during this we made; call sheets, location recces, cast list and location lists. All these things helped us during the production phase as it gave us a clear guide.



From this I became much better at understanding what my audience is like through research as we can see from my original 'Meet the Audience' blog to the more recent one which included much more detail.

Another example of how I improved my research and planning skills is my planning for when, where and what I will film during production. An example of this is my shooting scripts for my BSR film and the Music Video Mashup


If we compare these two shooting scripts we can see that the first one which is the one for the mash-up has much more detail. As well as that during production we actually followed it better meaning it was less of a disaster and made the editing process much easier on us as we didn't have to salvage a mess.

Conventions

Camera and Editing

To make a BSR film you have to use the conventions of BSR. Using the research I found out the conventions of all the technical aspects of BSR films.  Here is an example of a blog post looking at camera and editing in a BSR film and what about it is conventional in a BSR film. Some conventions of camera typically was that there was an establishing shot in the opening sequence for most of the films. We also noticed that the editing in these films is generally very basic and consist of mainly cuts to add to the sense of realism created. One way I improved was that I learned how to use continuity editing better as when we compare my opening sequence with my continuity editing exercise it was a much better piece. My editing in general improved to as it looked smoother and more refined than previous pieces of work.

Themes and Narrative

The theme of our film was racism and from researching we found that this was a very common theme in BSR and we saw that BSR films normally have a negative theme like poverty or abuse so our was keeping with these which was good. This is England is a film which has some similar elements to ours as we both had scenes of racism where a man betas another man due to his race and we see the corruption of youth too as Shaun in This is England witnesses the abuse so does Joe in our film. For narrative we looked at Mckee's theory and tried to follow it as best we could. McKee's narrative involves an; exposition, agents of change, conflict, elaboration and a climax. I felt I improved with narrative over the year as my BSR opening told a much clearer story than my continuity editing exercise. 

Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene is a big part in all films an encompasses very key elements including; location, actors, costume, era and props. When we were planning our BSR production we kept all these things in mind and wanted all these things to match what they would be in a BSR films. This is why in our shooting script we paid such detail into the mise-en-scene so detailing who our actors were where we were filming and what equipment we needed as props. We saw that in BSR films most of the character live in poverty or run down areas, this is why in our film we used mise en scene to match this. For example in my opening sequence we set the largest scene the fight scene in a run down alleyway and had the characters wearing very cheap clothing.

Sound

In order to keep the idea of realism many BSR films have only diegetic sounds meaning what we hear is what the characters are hearing with the odd exception for a voice over or soundtrack. We kept the same style in our film and keep most of the sound diegetic mainly being dialogue.

Creativity

The definition for creativity given by Csikszentmihalyi was "creativity occurs when a person, using the symbols of a given domain has a new idea or sees a new pattern, and when this novelty is selected by the appropriate field for inclusion into the relevant domain. This means that when someone comes up for a new idea for something within the restriction of a genre and the conventions within it and is approved by the teacher and deemed worthy by the exam board then it is creative. I showed this when I came up for my idea about a BSR film as it stuck to the conventions and was a new idea which was approved by my teachers. When we compare this task to the continuity editing exercise I showed a lot more creativity with the story and the the editing techniques I used as in the continuity editing exercise I just used simple cuts that told a story in chronological order but for the BSR opening I used the idea of parallel editing which added another level of depth to the piece.

Post Production

Video
I think the biggest improvement of mine over the year has been my editing. I learned many new techniques such as; match on action, continuity editing, parallel editing , fades, dissolves and many  more. These techniques allowed me to improve upon my work and saw a drastic change in the quality of my continuity editing exercise to my BSR opening. For example in the editing exercise the clips jump around and there is very little continuity but in the opening there was much more continuity and it flowed much better.

Sounds
Most BSR films consist of mainly diegetic sound meaning what we hear is what the characters hear with the exception of some voice overs or music. In my film most of the sound was through the dialogue exchanged by the characters. I used the dialogue recorded by the camera which made my job easier but the quality of the sound was not as high as it could have been if I used a mic. Sometimes when a character was speaking when off-screen I had to separate  the sound from the video and place it over the clip I wanted it to play under.

Graphics
For graphics I learned that the graphics in BSR films are played over the video which differs from other types of films where the graphics are shown on the screen by themselves. In order to do this we imported the clips and the graphics into final cut and placed the graphics on a higher layer than the video of the film. This helped me imitate a BSR film opening even more as I followed one of the conventions.

Digital Technology

Hardware (Digital Equipment)

For the course the digital equipment we used were the Cameras and the Macs. I have developed my understanding how different camera angle and shots can convey different meanings. For example in this shot in my opening I used a low angle of the bully to connote his authority over the other character.

Software Digital Programs

When making my BSR piece I became proficient with iMovie an editing software, something within iMovie that I never did before was adding in external audio into the movie and editing it. I did this with the music for the film and also recorded basic background noise that I put into the film. As well as iMovie I used final cut to add in the graphics. Final cut is something I have never used before so everything was new to me but I learned how to add in images and place them into the timeline.

Online (Web Base Technologies)

At the beginning of the year when I made blog posts t on blogger and not use any other form of digital technology. As  the year went on however I began using other technologies such as E-maze in my evaluation.