After a lot of thought I have decided to create a music video rather than a documentary. I had to think long and hard about this decision, however I have to be content in my choice. I have taken this decision for a number of reasons, the foremost being that making a documentary on the idea which I had wanted to would take a huge amount of planning and work outside of the class, and with pressure being added in other subjects I don't feel I could produce my best work in this direction no matter how hard I tried. I had always felt that the music video option was attractive from the very off anyway and have already started my planning in this area anyway so I have no problems in continuing down this route.
It is required in the specification that we provide an action plan for how we want this years project to pan out. This is the main subject of this post and I now know that I am going to have to relate my action plan to a music video. I will split the production of the video up into the following stages:
Mood Board
Script
Storyboard
Audience Research
*Section revisited after change to Documentary*
For my audience research I plan to do a number of different things. The most simple of these will be a short questionnaire to hand out to people about documentaries in general, with the emphasis on how to make them more interesting and relevant to a younger audience. On a more topic based method of research I want to conduct two further pieces of research. The first will be to ask what people about the Greek riots in 2008 and 2010 and see what they know about them, if anything. This will be recorded in some way, most probably through audio. For the final piece of audience research I will show a sample of people a clip of the riots and ask them to give me their feelings towards the piece of video and why they feel like that.
Revisit IdeasAfter completing all this, it is important that I revisit all of my ideas and take into account what I have learned through people's opinions and my own activities as well. I need to come up with a product that is both appreciated by myself and my audience which is why the audience research is extremely important. With all of these things taken into account I should be able to improve on my original idea and make it worth the effort. If people do not like my finished product, then the main reason would probably be that I have stuck to my guns too much and have not taken the new ideas into account. I could reproduce elements such as the script and the storyboard with the changes applied to prove that I have taken this into into account.
Production
This is of course the most fun part of the project and the part which I can be most creative whilst concentrating on. One thing I could do for this is go out and film different shots of what I want to do before hand then post them up on the blog, asking for comments from people and asking whether they think these ideas would work. That way I can get a good idea of whether or not I am heading in the right direction in terms of how I am getting on with the video.
Editing
Although I can plan a lot of this before hand, I really like playing with different effects for the video so that it works well with what I have actually shot. This means using different colour contrasts, editing things in and out of the video, adding different motions between shots etc. I can have a rough idea about which shots go in which order to help me with this stage, but apart from that I think that most of it can be done more successfully through careful improvisation.
Evaluation
I know that I did lose a lot of marks last year because of my poor evaluation. This year maybe instead of just writing down the answers to what was required in the specification I could record myself answering the questions and post that on the blog instead. I could also produce a kind of directors commentary to help me fulfil the criteria, something that is a bit more exciting than just reading a written answer. The step up to A2 from AS is a big one and I am sure that they will be looking for me to be a lot more creative in my approach to all aspects of the blog, especially in something as important as the conclusion.
Everything written above will of course be subject to change depending on where I choose to take the project and how it fits into my research and planning.
Original Ideas
Firstly of course, I need to come up with some original ideas of what kind of characteristics I want the video to have. Mise en scene, genre, the actual song and the actors who I want to have in the video are all part of this section. This is a very reflective part of the course which means I am going to be looking both back to the previous project and seeing what worked and what didn't work so well back then, and also forward to the new ideas I can use to improve on what I have already done. This should be a very short exercise as this is the most basic of all the planning stages. I will research more music and videos and post up ideas on the blog as and when they come to me.
Mood Board
The next step will be to create a mood board. This could be done in a variety of different ways both digitally and non. The most usual way of creating a mood board is done by producing a compilation of images that are put together and linked through a particular theme. This is the way I produced my mood board last year. I may do this again, or I may try something completely different. It was recommended we used different (and more creative) digital means to do this, such as possibly creating a short video of images, either still, moving or both to portray our feelings. Another idea could be to produce our own series of photographs that show how want the feeling of our pieces to turn out in a similar way. This would add both more a personal touch to the early stages of the project, as well as showing that we are confident in exploring other media technologies too.
Script
Once I have used my research and mood board to come up with a good idea which I am confident in and want to pursue with in the project, the next step will be to script down how I imagine it will run. This will most probably be through writing as I will experiment using more media technologies with the storyboard rather than the script. I will explain my ideas for this in the storyboard section below.
Storyboard
As said in the post above, storyboarding could be a very interesting part of planning the music video. Of course there is the traditional way of sketching how you want the video to turn out, including captions at the bottom telling of aspects such as camera angles, or if it not clear; what is actually happening. However it has been suggested that I try a more creative and interesting way of producing this. I could still produce the sketches and upload them into a kind of slideshow video that can be placed on the blog, or even create films using digital drawings or actors to represent what will happen in the film. A traditional storyboard is fine, however I want to utilise my resources to the best of my ability this year and it may spice up my blog a bit if I were to do so.
Audience Research
*Section revisited after change to Documentary*
For my audience research I plan to do a number of different things. The most simple of these will be a short questionnaire to hand out to people about documentaries in general, with the emphasis on how to make them more interesting and relevant to a younger audience. On a more topic based method of research I want to conduct two further pieces of research. The first will be to ask what people about the Greek riots in 2008 and 2010 and see what they know about them, if anything. This will be recorded in some way, most probably through audio. For the final piece of audience research I will show a sample of people a clip of the riots and ask them to give me their feelings towards the piece of video and why they feel like that.
Revisit Ideas
Production
This is of course the most fun part of the project and the part which I can be most creative whilst concentrating on. One thing I could do for this is go out and film different shots of what I want to do before hand then post them up on the blog, asking for comments from people and asking whether they think these ideas would work. That way I can get a good idea of whether or not I am heading in the right direction in terms of how I am getting on with the video.
Editing
Although I can plan a lot of this before hand, I really like playing with different effects for the video so that it works well with what I have actually shot. This means using different colour contrasts, editing things in and out of the video, adding different motions between shots etc. I can have a rough idea about which shots go in which order to help me with this stage, but apart from that I think that most of it can be done more successfully through careful improvisation.
Evaluation
I know that I did lose a lot of marks last year because of my poor evaluation. This year maybe instead of just writing down the answers to what was required in the specification I could record myself answering the questions and post that on the blog instead. I could also produce a kind of directors commentary to help me fulfil the criteria, something that is a bit more exciting than just reading a written answer. The step up to A2 from AS is a big one and I am sure that they will be looking for me to be a lot more creative in my approach to all aspects of the blog, especially in something as important as the conclusion.
Everything written above will of course be subject to change depending on where I choose to take the project and how it fits into my research and planning.
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