Exam Question 1a - Research & Planning

Discuss the progress and development in the use of research and planning in your AS and A2 coursework portfolios.

My media coursework portfolios has progressed form AS to A2 in terms of look and design of my blog as well as the content that has been posted on it. In both years I have produced research and planning in order to find out information about the products I was making. At AS I analysed posters i.e. looking at colours and identifying conventions and themes from thriller movies as well as opening scene analyses and just general scene analyses to see how they were presented through technical codes such as shot types and symbolic codes like costumes and colours of objects. These were films both of my choice which I believed best suited the style of video we were making as a group as well as those we thought were good examples as part of a group. At AS I only managed to rewrite some of my posts as I did not leave enough time to edit all of the ones I had done. At A2 however my research and planning was a lot more specific and I was able to chose music videos and digipaks to analyse which I believed best suited my chosen artist. As a result I was able to go into greater detail in conventions of the genre as I knew it better and also the links in symbolic and technical codes from the videos I found easier to identify since again I knew the genre as well as the artists i.e. I could identify what was typical for a video and/or digipak as well as something which was different and unusual for that genre.

In terms of organising my research and planning initially I did not have a very good technique. I did not have labels on my blog nor did I give good titles to the posts, it was only later on that I realised it was needed to keep relevant posts together. Conversely this year for A2 I have had labels from the beginning of my coursework portfolio to help keep on top of organisation. I have made the label relevant to each post i.e. video analyses or digipak analyses. I also have made sure that the titles of each blog entry is relevant to the post so I know e.g. which analysis I am looking for as oppose to simply "Poster analysis 1" like I had at AS. It has helped my learn that if you keep organised from the beginning of the assignment then it helps later on and you're not rushing trying to find old blog posts which you don't know because the names aren't relevant. Keeping on the theme of my blog I have changed the look of my blog for A2 as last year my blog did not really look like it was selling the product i.e. my thriller "Hightide" I in the end created some graphics to go on there but they did not look brilliant. This year I have created a theme of my artist from the start and put in photos and other links so it looks like a living advert for the Mojokings.

At AS I didn't really have any draft pieces of work which meant that any work I completed had to be edited or was not adapted, meaning I didn't always have as good quality in terms of presentation and content. However at A2 I have completed drafts of work and had it assessed by peers such as my survey where I posted a draft questionnaire and we commented on each-others work to help improve the quality of questions which therefore would create a higher standard of responses for analysis later on. This will therefore translate into a more successful music video as it will follow themes and conventions the audience want. The targeting of my questionnaire is much more specific than what it was at AS where I simply sent out an email with the link to my survey out to everyone at my college. This year however I have put a lot more care and consideration into who I am asking as it needs to be the opinions of fans of either the Mojokings (my chosen artist) or those who are fans of the Rockabilly/ Psychobilly music genre.

Looking back at AS we should have made checks on our equipment and settings before filming. For example in our thriller we had a party scene at night which was really too dark and this affected the quality of the video since we had to use plug in flood lights and lamps to light it up as best as we could. Additionally when it came to shooting the actual video we also could have taken a shot more than once as some did not come out as expected and therefore had to be left out of the final edit. Therefore this year I will make sure technical aspects such as lighting and costumes (as mentioned previously) are correct and actually reflect the image of the band as well as keeping up to a professional standard. Additionally I will take more than one shot of each as well as other alternative ones as 'backup' in case some don't come out as planned or do not look right with the rest of the video. With issues regards lighting this might be helped with the equipment I am using this year as the cameras will be professional filming cameras with back-light options. I will also consider additional lighting.