Essay Plan- question 2

What decisions have you made during post production stages and how have these effected you work?
Introduction- Define post production, how it has effected our work during music video
Paragraph 1- Editing =using final cut, what tools? Why? How? e.g. split screens- putting more than one shot onto the same screen, changing size, adding effect and editing time
Paragraph 2- e.g lip syncing -matching sound to image, how and why? to make the video look more professional
Paragraph 3- e.g. slow mo our bumping into each other scene, how and why? To emphasis their meeting and make it more clear
Paragraph 4 - EGG. Fades between shots, how and why? make video look more professional and smooth
Paragraph 5- Cutting clips to fit or look more effective
conclusion- How our decisions during post production improved or effected our video

What decisions have you mde during post production stages and how have these effected your work?

Music Video

• Sepia tones thoughout - made footage softer to match calmess of the song
• Added many dissolve transitions - made the clips run smoother
• Over laid some footage e.g. of the couple together to make it look like he was thinking of her
• Changed brightness in photo flashback scene and added soft edges so it appeared dreamy

Thriller

• Made footage look like it was shot in the dark - created a more creepy feel
• Slowed down clips when girl walked past guy to add effect
• Added voice over at the beginning - created more questions for viewer, whilst giving an insight into the storyline
• Added crow samples in graveyard scene to add to the atmosphere
  
• Created a piano soundtrack using Garageband - created a saddened atmosphere
  

Question Plans by Fred and Josh

1) How has your understanding of real media conventions developed over the A-level media course?

• Thriller: Developed certain cinematography techniques such as Blocking (hiding characters identity) giving an air of mystery to the antagonist (badman). Framing, which uses one character in the frame alone, can be used to show the victim (protagonist) alone and vulnerable, or the antagonist as powerful or creepy. Over the shoulder shot (OTS).
  
• Media Language used to analyse the Thriller opening (Cinematography, Editing, Mise-en-Scene, Sound)
  
• Cinematography: Panning used to show scenery, set scene, and provide element of fear. Close ups used to show fear in the protagonist's face. long shot used to show scenery and protagonist .
• Editing: Used continuity to improve flow.
• Mise-en-scene: Scene genre and characters all introduced in thriller opening. Body language used to show Fear in protagonist.
• Sound: non-diegetic sound used for soundtrack, created in Garageband.
• We used a lot of the same micro-elements for our music video.

2) What decisions have you made during post production stages and how have these affected your work?

• We added effects to our video such as ghosting and black and white. These made our video look more professional. The ghosting effect slowed down Josh B's hand movements and made them in time with the beat, which went with Goodwin's Analysis, point 3.

3) What are the pro's and con's of the various research and planning strategies you used?

• One of the planning strategies we used was the storyboard. This took quite a long time to plan and draw every single different scene in order on the different squares. We didn't follow the plan much either, as we didn't finish it.
• We used YouTube to research some music videos and pick up some tips and gain inspiration for our own project. One of the issues we had with YouTube was the problems with copyright, and not being allowed to post their videos on our blog.
• We used Blogger to put all of our research in a place where we could read it easily and keep it all in 1 place. The pro's of this were that we had no boundaries of what we could post. It was a central place where we could bring together digital examples of our research and planning and present it in a coherent form. However, when we had a lot of posts on the blog and wanted to find an older post, we had to search the older posts by going back lots of pages, which sometimes took a while. Navigation was tiresome.
• The Internet is absolutely vital to our project because it is the root of all research with websites such as YouTube, Blogger and Google. Google did cause us some problems, however, as when we searched 'dripping' in Google images we were met with images of an inappropriate nude nature (By the way, we searched for work purposes. lol)

How has your understanding of real media conventions developed over the last two years?

Through our two years of studying media at sixth form college we have expanded our knowledge of media conventions.
The different conventions of a thriller are:

• Narrative centres around a crime ie murder/theft/RAPE
• Mirco elements build up suspense e.g. creepy sound, camera shots, slowly reveal character
• Protagonist's floor is exploited by the antagonist
• Themes of identity are common e.g. mistaken identity
  
• McGuffin (false clue) optical illusions gives misleading clues - mystery
• Voyeurism e.g. objectifying of female characters
• Enigmas at the opening then further complications are added throughout - only resolved at the end
• Leaves viewer with questions

Our Thriller

• Dark surrounding like a graveyard
• Involves the supernatural - ghosts, vampires
• Mise en scene is dark - clothes
• Vulnerable females who play a large role
• Camera angles make characters seem vulnerable or powerful
• Dark music to add suspense
  

Music video

• Usually has a narrative storyline
• Edited to the beat of the song
• Relationship between music and video
• Relationship between lyrics and video
• Some genres have a performance based video like rock and stage performance
• The camera sells the artist - close ups
• Notion of looking
  

Essay Plan- question 1

How has your understanding of real media conventions developed over the last two years?
Introduction - Explain what we have done over the last two years (Thriller opening sequence, opening sequence and Music Video). Give a brief explanation about conventions (e.g. Editing) and explain why it is important that we have this knowledge.
Paragraph 1 - This paragraph will include examples of how we gathered knowledge about how and where conventions we used, for example vertigo film opening has; a crime at the core of the narrative (often murder, but not necessarily), a complex narrative structure, with false paths, clues and resolutions, a narrative pattern of establishing enigmas which the viewer expects to be resolved (From blog from Tanya) etc
Paragraph 2 - While planning we thought about the different thriller conventions needed to create a successful opening of our own =WHAT MAKES A THRILLER??
Paragraph 3 - How we applied conventions to our narrative, shots and editing e.g. random shots and muddled editing to hide the identity of character and their location and give an uneasy atmosphere
Conclusion- How conventions helped us to create an effective film opening and why?? -audience can identify that its a thriller, mystery keeps them watching,

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