Music Video
Skills Audit
Demo Work
Demo Work
Demo Work
Contents
Demo Work
Contents
> Theoretical exploration of the purpose
and application of research
> Secondary research into
music video genres, codes, conventions,
techniques, and theories
> Primary research with the
client to inform ideas development
> Focus group presentation of ideas for
feedback and review via questionnaire
survey
Moving Demo
Monday 14th March
We were officially introduced to our Final Major Project today. This is quite a big deal and I’m quite nervous about this project as this is what our entire year has led up to. We spent the first hour or so going through the project brief as well as being introduced to the project proposal and action plan. These two pieces are part of the ideas development, which is also my first deadline, being this Friday (18th March) at 4pm. This is a lot quicker turn around then I had expected so I’m a little bit nervous as I want to try and get quite a good grade.
I began by doing what I felt was the most helpful thing and created a list in google drive of every section (e.g. ideas development pre-production etc) and what work I need to complete in each of those sections. This gives me a realistic view of all the work I need to do and when. I also introduced a traffic light system into it which will help me keep track of what I haven’t done, What I’m currently doing, Finished work and Finished work that is also on WIX. Using this list I then structured the rest of the week for myself. Currently with all the work I need to do I have structured it so that I finish it by Thursday. This’ll give me the Friday before the deadline to check everything and hopefully get some lecturer feedback.
I then moved onto the thing I felt was of high priority which was creating my WIX pages for this project. I used the headlines from the brief to create my separate pages as well as creating a separate weekly journal pages to go along with this project. I will still up date the monthly journal which is part of the main website, but this weekly journal will help the examiner in finding all the journal entries which are specific to FMP. At the moment the pages are blank with only the up button added and all the navigation is just one colour at the moment. This is not what it will look like at the end but just having a solid base to build off of and add to is a really good thing to have right now, and I believe having a strong base will really help me later down the lane.
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Then using my list for what I needed to do today, I started on my Mind Maps. I had several ideas running through my head so I detailed these on a single mind map. This allowed me to get a rough idea of all of them and what I’d be able to achieve with them. They consisted of a drama, animation, music video and Mockumentary. Using this Mind map I detailed all the rough points about them and what I’d have to do to make them. I was still struggling to choose between them though.
To fix this problem, I created a separate document where I detailed the rough plan of each of them as well as pros and cons. This allowed me to get a really good and easy view of what all of them would contain and some of the challenges I’d be facing. I then narrowed these 4 ideas down to 2, being the mockumentary and the music video.
At this point I decided to do some initial research into both of them to help me decide between the two. For this initial research I only used YouTube videos as at the time and place where I was this was the most accessible form of research for me. Using this further research, I created another mind map for the two ideas. All of this allowed me to get a much more thorough idea of both of them which then allowed me to come to my final decisions.
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I have chosen to do the Mockumentary. I felt this was the best choice as it allows me to use a mix of live action and animated skills as well as allowing me to further my skills in foley, soundscapes and dialogue. But additionally, I haven’t tried to create anything like a documentary or mockumentary before so it will also allow me to try a new form of media out. I think this mix of medias as well as brand new challenges will be able to best show the skills I currently have as well as allowing me space to develop new skills throughout the project.
I then went back to WIX and added all my work so far. But most importantly I started working on the aesthetics of the website. I chose the colour palette for the FMP as I want to make it resemble the work that is being produced instead of making it blend in with the rest of my website. However, I’m unsure that what it looks like at the moment will be what it looks like at the end as it is quite hard to design it at the moment considering I have only just started and don’t 100% know what my final piece will look like. But it’s good to start designing it now, even though I’m fairly confident that I will change it quite a lot later down the lane. Currently, I have just given it it's own colour palette, I'm still designing it like I have my previous pages as this is the way I am used to designing a website. However, when I'm more aware of the aesthetic of the piece I can update the website. But having it like it is now is quite useful as everything will be up on the website in a way which I am used to which means adapting it later on will be a lot easier.
Overall, I’ve used this first day to collect my ideas and choose a specific one. Knowing this early is best and will allow me continue my Ideas Development with a single goal in mind, as well as taking this further it allows my research to be more narrow focused which will make the research I do be a lot more specific and useful to the piece that I want to make.
Tuesday 15th March
I continued with my idea development today. To start with I created my mood boards. These are pretty important in ideas development as they continue from the Mind Maps and help to start visualising how the piece will actually look.
I separated my Mood Boards into four different ones. These consisted of one for style, characters, locations and techniques. Based on what I had planned in my mind maps yesterday, I felt these were the most important features that needed development but also the sections that would benefit most from the creation of the Mood Board. Other sections I had planned yesterday such as how I plan to research, I felt wouldn’t benefit from a Mood Board as I would only be repeating the things I had already discussed yesterday. So I then created the Mood Boards.
I started with finding the pictures for each of the Mood Boards. This allowed me to get a rough sense of the important things I wanted to discuss within these Mood Boards. I only chose 2 to 3 images for each talking point within the Mood Board as I felt that was enough to illustrate the point, but I also wanted enough space to be able to write around each of the sections and discuss my ideas in accordance with the images.
I finished my 4 Mood Boards and was pretty happy with how they turned out. Most importantly, I feel by creating these Mood Boards, I’ve been able to flesh the idea out a lot more in my mind than what I already had from the mind maps. I now understand a bit more what I want to do but also what I need to do in order to accomplish a good final product. This is useful to know now as it gives me a realistic sense of what I’m about to undertake in this project and helps me prepare for that.
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I then moved onto my next part of ideas development, which was comparing my current idea with the theories and practitioners that I had learned about in project 4. I felt this was a really good ideas development task, as from project 4 I’ve realised how many films these theories apply to and how each film conveys them. Additionally, the fact that all these theories can be applied to all of these films shows the importance of the theories and also that following them will allow me to create a better base for my idea and make it a lot more solid. As well as allowing me to start the fleshing out of my idea.
I started by outlining the theories I felt were most important to my piece. This left me with 8 headings I could talk about: Codes and Conventions, Genre, Todorov’s narrative theory, Propp’s character types, Levi-Strauss’ opposite, editing, sound and representation. These headings covered many of the topics I discussed in project 4 and I feel they are the most important in helping me to improve my idea as they covered the bases of most features within a piece.
I completed the first four today being codes and conventions to Propp’s character types. They were all incredibly useful and I wrote a summary for each of them detailing how each of them has helped me so far. But Todorov’s Narrative Theory I felt was especially helpful as it’s really given me a skeleton to further build my narrative off in the coming weeks. This is useful as having a good foundation will help to prevent further problems down the road, for example having a rushed or undeserving ending, which is something I definitely would like to avoid.
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I finished off my day by uploading my Mind Maps to WIX. However, I didn’t upload my theories today. This is down to two reasons. Reason one is that I still have the second half of it to finish tomorrow. But secondly, I have asked Lainey if I can send my theories to her for review once I have completed them. This will be really useful as I want to make sure that my analysis with these theories is good. I’m slightly worried I have either repeated myself a couple of times by accident or possibly rambled on a bit at times, so getting it reviewed I think will be really helpful for me.
So I will upload these theories onto my WIX after they have been reviewed.
Wednesday 16th March
Unfortunately, I had a dentist appointment this morning, which meant I had to miss today’s lesson. However once I returned I started my work at home.
I started by continuing the application of project 4’s theories which I had started yesterday. This included Levi-Strauss, editing, sound and representation. Similarly to yesterday, I wrote summaries for all of these in which I detailed their usefulness, but particularly the representation theories aided me quite a lot. I had already considered the other three before coming to write about them. However, I had not really begun to consider how my piece related to representation. I had a brief idea but I had not put a great detail of thought into it. But after completing it, I really started to better understand how it applied to my piece and I was quite surprised by how useful that particular theory was. But, all the theory applications have been very useful, and as I said in many of their summaries, I will continue their development by applying them into my research stage.
Once I had completed my theories, I emailed them over to Lainey as she said she would be able to review them when I asked her yesterday. Currently, I have not received the feedback yet, but I’m hoping it’s all good as I feel I put quite a lot of effort into the work and I hope it is up to the right standard. Once I receive the feedback and depending on what it says, I’ll upload the theories to WIX.
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I then moved onto the second piece of work I had to do today which was the Action Plan. I really struggled with this piece of work. I read through the brief on it again, and saw it mentioned “time spent sourcing materials, other resources, feedback and when you will carry out independent study”. On the whole I feel I have made a solid start to the Action Plan.
So far I have included, the week and start date of each week. I initially got a bit confused with these as I forgot to take into account holidays which don’t apply to the week numbers. Week 29 confused me a bit as week 28 is the week before easter holidays and week 30 is the week after. This would mean week 29 lands in the holiday. However, I’ve been able to adapt this. The first week of Easter I know for a fact I am on holiday, and for that week it will be practically be impossible for me to do any work. Therefore, I have made week 29 starting on the 18th of April when I will be back from holiday and therefore able to continue with work.
I’ve also included what I will be doing each of the weeks along with a day to day guide of the activities I will be undertaking. Not all of this is able to be completed at this time. For Example, my production and post production sections are quite brief at the moment. However these will be updated during my pre-production phase where I will be planning more, and can therefore update my action plan when I have more information.
Finally, I included any additional tasks such as receiving feedback as well as the resources I will need for each week. This is a lot of information within the action plan and I feel means I’ll definitely be able to run my production a lot smoother as I’ll be able to understand better what I am doing each day. Additionally, I’m making sure to have flexibility within my action plan so that if and when plans may change I’ll be able to easily adapt and not lose any time. This is essential as falling behind on this project would not be good, and I would hate to be in that predicament.
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However, currently I have not included any information on time spent resourcing materials and when I will carry out independent study. This is essentially because I am not quite sure of what I need to include here. I carry out independent study basically every day after lesson as I come home and work from my own computer as I find that more efficient if I am only doing work that requires typing or theoretical work, such as research and ideas development. However, I’m planning to ask either Danny or Nigel to look at my action plan as well as help to guide me on the things I am stuck on within in. Hopefully this will allow me to finish off the action plan by tomorrow.
I am also supposed to be doing my bibliography and formal proposal tomorrow. However, thanks to my planning I left Friday open if any delays were to occur. I still plan on trying to get both of them completed by tomorrow, but if delays do occur due to the action plan, I can be confident I still have time to complete my work thanks to my planning.
Thursday 17th March
As I entered college today, Lainey talked to me about the work that I had sent her to review yesterday. She said that all my theory applications were good and I didn’t need to change anything about them. This was really good to hear and meant that when I returned home I was able to upload them onto my WIX website.
Originally, I had planned to spend the entire lesson working on my proposal and bibliography, however Danny offered a small workshop for people who were planning to do a drama. Now mine isn’t strictly a drama but it is within the same category so I thought it would be a useful thing to participate in. In the workshop, Danny ran us through the behind the scenes and job roles that went into shooting a scene. We included the actors, camera operator, director, first assistant director, clapper board operator and boom operators. We were each designated positions and I was given the boom operator, but I was also able to see how all the other jobs worked as well. I think the most important thing I learned from the workshop was how the flow of command works on the set. The director is in control, who then indicated to the first assistant when to call first positions. And then the camera operator instructs the clapper board operator before starting. Understanding the importance of each jobs was a really good thing to learn about, especially as I hadn’t considered some jobs such as the clapper board before. But overall, I will definitely keep this workshop in mind when I am doing my own shoots as well as this workshop can count as my research. And acts as a good jumping off point for my further research.
Then in the second half of the lesson I went back to my paperwork. I began by showing Nigel my Action plan and asking for help on how I could improve it. He said that it seemed very thorough to him, which was a good thing to hear as I was a little unsure. He did give me a few things he said would just help to push it up even higher which I was happy to include. These included; adding the exact dates to each day; improving the descriptions of what I was doing each day; including and talking about the holiday weeks and mentioning what work I was doing in and out of college. I was very happy to add these things and definitely feel they improve my original action plan. Obviously, this action plan is still unfinished as certain sections like holidays, production and post production are quite brief currently as I have not reached pre-production where I will plan them out in much further detail. However, having this action plan now is extremely useful and I will be able to build on it and further my planning as I progress through the project.
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I then spent the rest of my day on my formal proposal and bibliography. I had no problem with the bibliography as I had experience with Harvard referencing thanks to my project 4 essay. And similarly to the action plan, this bibliography will grow and progress along with the project. I had a little trouble with the proposal however. The first two sections on rationale and project concept were not to bad. We were told we were allowed to go slightly over the approximate word limit as long as it is closer to the word limit. So for rationale I wrote about 140 and for project concept I wrote about 240. And these should be fine as they are closer to 100 and 200. However part 3 about evaluations and only having roughly 50 words was quite a struggle for me. I started by writing everything I wanted to in the section and I ended up with about 100 words.
This was bad as I needed to be under 75 words for it to count. So, I spent quite a long time scanning through the text and either removing any unnecessary words or joining words such as “I will” to “I’ll” to save me words. Eventually I was able to get it down to 73 words although it was quite a struggle.
I’m fairly happy with my proposal and Lainey has said she’ll be able to read through it tomorrow and give me any feedback before the deadline at 4 so that will be really helpful.
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The very last thing I did today was create my project title. Obviously, I want my title to seem like a real documentary title as that is the aesthetic I am trying to achieve. I already had a rough plan in my head which was: “The name of the protagonist” The Animated Man. So my biggest struggle today was to create a name for my main character. I wanted the name to have a purpose and not just be pointless. And then I came up with the idea to have an anagrammed name. Where if the letters were put in the right order they would create different words. And as my piece was about an animated man I though it would make sense for his name to be an anagram of a very famous cartoon character. Originally I planned to use Spongebob Squarepants but that was way too many letters to make a normal name. So then I decided to use Scooby Doo. And after quite a lot of attempts and playing around, I was able to come up with the name Cody Soboo. I was surprised by how well this actually worked as I was able to come up with an actual normal first name which had been my biggest struggle. The name doesn’t have a massive influence within the piece, but I thought it would be a nice little easter egg for anyone who realised what the letters could also spell.
Friday 18th March
I started my day by sending Lainey my proposal for review.
Then at the start of the lesson, Lainey showed us some previous examples of FMP works. On the whole this was really useful, especially seeing the different people’s WIX websites as I think the design of my WIX website may be something I’ll have a little trouble with. But seeing these past examples of work was really reassuring as it’s given me a realistic example of the kind of things I need to achieve.
Then a little while later Lainey was able to get back to me on my proposal. She said on the whole it was good she just felt there were a couple of bits that weren’t 100% necessary and I could probably remove them to save on word count. I was fine with doing that and so I was able to complete my proposal and bibliography and was able to hand it in with plenty of time before the deadline.
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I realised I made another mistake with my Action plan, when I was figuring out week 29. I had miscounted the weeks and thought we came back a week later from Easter than we actually do. But now the action plan is 100% completed. Currently the action plan, bibliography and proposal are all up on my WIX website. But as my bibliography and Action plan update I will also add the new entries of them onto my WIX website as well, to demonstrate my progression.
I spent the rest of my time in lesson writing up evaluations of my Ideas development and official paperwork section. This is really good to do know while the information is fresh in my mind. However, It will also be able to fuel the larger evaluations later on down the line as well as providing me a reminder of what I’m currently doing. There was a lot I wrote in the evaluations, however, I realised I had written some of it before, especially when I was talking about my Theory applications. So instead, I replaced the sections I’d written and added in a thing saying I had already mentioned that point in the summary. I felt that was better than repeating myself multiple times which may make it seem like I had nothing else to talk about.
Finally when I got home, I started looking ahead at my research week which is next week. I began by adding in my day to day plans into my to do list so that I can always check what I need to do. I also added in some more research that the lecturers mentioned such as research into target audience and equipment. I then started looking at the possible times I’d be able to book out the studio and equipment so that I could hold some demos for research. There are quite a lot of bookings at the moment so I need to look more into this to try to get what I want. I’m hoping to get in for either next Thursday or Friday as this is when I’m planning to do the majority of my primary research.
Tomorrow, I am visiting a university so will be unable to work, but I am considering starting some work on Sunday as this will help me to keep up with the workload of research.
Sunday 20th March
As I said on Friday, I wanted to start some research today, so that I could try to keep up with the large workload which I’m going to have next week. In order to do this, I spent my day today starting my research into Mockumentaries and Documentaries.
This is the best place to start all my research as the genre and style of my piece is based around these two. To start with I looked into the history and techniques off mockumentaries, and after that I looked into the Techniques and visual style of documentaries. I wrote summaries of each of these detailing their uses but mainly, I felt these were the aspects of both that would provide me with the most useful information. To initially collect all my information, I wrote up all the useful parts into a google drive document. This allowed me to gather my thoughts. Then, for most of the parts I made them into tables in Photoshop to better lay out their information. Previously, I have made tables on WIX, but they have been unreliable and messed up their own layout several times, by making them on photoshop I hope they will be laid out better on the website.
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I used quite a lot of sources today, however they are quite limited. As most of the references are from YouTube and all of them are from the internet. This was mainly due to the fact that I was at home doing independent study today. However, over the coming days I plan to go to the library in order to get more of a variety of sources, as this is important for better research.
The final thing I did before uploading all my work to WIX was to update my bibliography, this is important to complete as the project progresses and I made sure to do that today. Unlike my action plan, the bibliography is easier to update as each reference has the accessed date so understanding when I used things is a lot easier. So I was able to upload my updated bibliography along with the work I completed today.
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Overall, I found today’s research very useful, however, I think I will do some further research into Mockumentaries tomorrow as I feel there is more information about them that I could discover.
