Timed Essay Before - Teacher Feedback.
That highlighted in orange is when the student addresses the question of how their research and planning skills contributed to their creative decision making. Whereas that highlighted in yellow in the improved second essay below, makes clearer/ more direct references to how their research and planning skills developed over time.
Research and Planning
I am going to discuss how my research and planning skills contributed to the process of creative decision making and my progression from my foundation portfolio to my advanced portfolio.
In my research on youth culture films for our AS production, I found that 5/5 of the youth culture films researched used rap or hip hop music in the opening two minutes, and 4/5 portrayed a young person as being the main character in the movie. The impact that this research had was to follow these conventions, as we could see that these were the most important two. However, we opposed the convention of the main character being male, and instead constructed a representation of a male and a female character. We also decided, converse to our research, that we would not have an underlying plot of a gang war, and definitely not one displayed in the opening two minutes.
At A2, for our music video, I researched more music videos and focused more specifically on a certain genre. I found that 90% of the music videos of the same genre had a dark colour palette, with blacks, dark greens, purples and dark blues. This led me to make the decision to have the bands costume in these colours, and to film everything in low light.
The quantity of research gathered at A2 was much higher than at AS, meaning our creative decisions were made with more depth. For example, while at AS only around 4 or 5 films were looked into, at A2 I researched around 10 music videos. This helped me massively when making my creative decisions as it meant I had much more background information to look into when I needed.
At AS, we had no timetable and filmed shots at random times. We found that we didn't have all the footage we needed at the time of editing. We also ignored the weather, which meant you can see the change of weather between the part with the male character and the part with the female character. We also found that we couldn't get the actors we needed at the times we wanted to film. However, at A2, we followed a strict timetable and alerted our actors weeks in advance, meaning we could film when we wanted and had planned, and our actors were available when needed.
When I researched existing band websites, I looked specifically at the websites typography and colours, which are the main factors that create the look of both the website and and the band. I found that no websites have more than 3 fonts, so I made sure I followed this rule when making my website. I also looked at the page layout and the positioning of elements on the page. Doing this helped me to position all the main elements of the page in the best places.
At AS we did our audience research by hand, gathering peers and filming their responses. We found that lots of people would get nervous in front of the camera and not give a full, or detailed enough answer. This meant that a lot of decisions had to be made by us with little or no impact from the audience. However at A2, we used Facebook and Twitter to gather audience research, where people could give a full answer and go into more detail without getting camera shy. This meant we could get more relevant and elaborate results, and found our research could be much more structured and systematic. For example, the website was impacted by quotes from people about the importance of the font and titling.
We had already gained the skill of storyboarding at AS, but enhanced it at A2. At AS, we couldn't follow every shot on the storyboard exactly to plan. This is shown at the beginning, with the shot of the male character walking which was not planned. We also found that, while some shots seemed to work on the storyboard, they didn't in real life. However, at A2, we planned each shot and made it into an animatic so we could picture how each shot followed on from the other, and could see which shots didn't work. This impacted the end result as it meant that we took out and replaced some shots, for example the shots of the dancer had to be changed, as they did not flow from the shots of band.
Overall, from AS to A2, I improved my research and planning skills in a number of ways, leading me to make better creative decisions to overall create a more professional and better looking final product at A2.
AFTER
Research
and Planning
I
am going to discuss how my research and planning skills contributed
to the process of creative decision making and my progression from my
foundation portfolio to my advanced portfolio.
In
my research on youth culture films for our AS production, I found
that 5/5 of the youth culture films researched used rap or hip hop
music in the opening two minutes, and 4/5 portrayed a young person as
being the main character in the movie. The impact that this research
had was to follow these conventions, as we could see that these were
the most important two. However, we opposed the convention of the
main character being male, and instead constructed a representation
of a male and a female character. We also decided, converse to our
research, that we would not have an underlying plot of a gang war,
and definitely not one displayed in the opening two minutes.
However
I progressed this skill at A2,
when for our music video, I researched more music videos and focused
more specifically on a certain genre. I found that 90% of the music
videos of the same genre had a dark colour palette, with blacks, dark
greens, purples and dark blues. This led me to make the decision to
have the bands costume in these colours, and to film everything in
low light.
I
progressed my research skills at A2 by expanding the quantity
of research, making it much higher than at AS, meaning our creative
decisions were made with more depth. For example, while at AS only
around 4 or 5 films were looked into, at A2 I researched around 10
music videos. This helped me massively when making my creative
decisions as it meant I had much more background information to look
into when I needed to.
At
AS, we had no timetable and filmed shots at random times. We found
that we didn't have all the footage we needed at the time of editing.
We also ignored the weather, which meant you can see the change of
weather between the part with the male character and the part with
the female character. We also found that we couldn't get the actors
we needed at the times we wanted to film. However,
at A2, I enhanced my skill of time-management and followed a
strict timetable and alerted our actors weeks in advance, meaning we
could film when we wanted and had planned, and our actors were
available when needed.
When
I researched existing band websites, I
exercised my judgement and improved this skill by looking
specifically at the websites typography and colours, which are the
main factors that create the look of both the website and and the
band. I found that no websites have more than 3 fonts, so I made sure
I followed this rule when making my website. I also looked at the
page layout and the positioning of elements on the page. Doing this
helped me to position all the main elements of the page in the best
places.
At
AS we did our audience research by hand, gathering peers and filming
their responses. We found that lots of people would get nervous in
front of the camera and not give a full, or detailed enough answer.
This meant that a lot of decisions had to be made by us with little
or no impact from the audience. However at A2, I
progressed my audience collaboration skills by using Facebook
and Twitter to gather audience research, where people could give a
full answer and go into more detail without getting camera shy. This
meant we could get more relevant and elaborate results, and found our
research could be much more structured and systematic. For example,
the website was impacted by quotes from people about the importance
of the font and titling.
We
had already gained the skill of storyboarding at AS, but
enhanced it at A2. At AS, we couldn't follow every shot on the
storyboard exactly to plan. This is shown at the beginning, with the
shot of the male character walking which was not planned. We also
found that, while some shots seemed to work on the storyboard, they
didn't in real life. However, at A2, we planned each shot and made it
into an animatic so we could picture how each shot followed on from
the other, and could see which shots didn't work. This impacted the
end result as it meant that we took out and replaced some shots, for
example the shots of the dancer had to be changed, as they did not
flow from the shots of band.
Overall,
from AS to A2, I improved my research and planning skills in a number
of ways, leading me to make better creative decisions to overall
create a more professional and better looking final product at A2.
