Research and Planning Question 7. Answer

How your Research and Planning has informed your practical production:

• How did your research into genre contribute to your production work?
• How did your research into audience contribute to your production work?
• How did your research into institutions responsible for the production and regulation of the media influence your production work?
• What pre-production planing techniques did you employ (scripting, storyboarding, shot-listing, flat-planning etc.)? How effective was your planning - how did it help you in the production phase?
• What did you learn from planning your first production that helped you to improve your planning for the second?
• How did you use production feedback to influence your production work while it was in progress?
• My research into my genre contributed a great deal to my overall production work as a lot of the mise en scene, although a more niche and period take on rock music, relied alot upon research into the genre and traditional imagery with the style of music over both years.
• My research into audience contributed top my production work greatly as it helped me to vision my work from an audiences perspective and imagine how they would view the overall media piece. By doing this, I could then change things I needed to for example, mise en scene or camera angles that didn't work and adjust them to suit from an audiences perspective.
• My research into institutions helped me to organise my production in a more professional way and affected the amount of work and depth of detail I researched into my work areas in order to bring my work up to professional standards.
• For my AS year, I used flat-planning for my pre-production technique in order to have an initial rough idea of what my magazine layouts would look like. In my A2 year, I used the rest of the techniques including scripting, storyboarding my video and shot-listing in order to prepare me for production.
• From planning my first production, I could then improve the things that needed to be improved for my second to have a better overall finished media text. In my A2 year especially, this planning influenced my organisational skills to help me keep to my filming schedule.
• I used production feedback to influence my work whilst it was in progress to make sure that what I was producing was right for my audience as well as right for my genre and visually appealing. I felt that by doing that, My marks could be improved overall.

Post Production.

Post production

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Research and Planning Question 6. Answer

Presentation of Research and Planning:

• How did you present your primary and secondary research on your blogs? We are talking about enhancing creativity and use of digital technology.
• Did your presentation of audience feedback for example become more creative through your increased use of digital technology available for embedding on the blogs e.g. animoto? Slideshare? etc.
• In order to present my primary and secondary research on my blog, I used a number of multimedia to present my work on my blog. I used digital technology such as scribd when presenting long texts or large images that would be best to view when zoomed in. I also used technology such as slideshare to view multiple photos such as locations etc. Animoto was another technology I used in order to present mood boards to music etc. I felt that if my research was presented in an enhanced creative way then I would be able to view it in a more creative eye.
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Research and Planning Question 5. Answer

Organisation Of planning Materials:

• How did you organise your planning materials?
• Did you utilise the blog more at A2 level than AS?
• How did you follow your flat plans and storyboards - what did you understand about changes to be made?
• Did all members have copies of production schedules and storyboards?
• Did you complete diaries and/or 'progression so far' posts? Why was this important in terms of planning both pieces of coursework?
• Have you used any of the research and planning skills in other products?
• I organised my planning materials by blogging about them on my blog. I felt that by doing this, I could easily organise and view my planning whenever i needed to with the use of labels on my posts. By organising my planning materials this way, I could also stick to a schedule more as I could clearly see the progress and areas I need to utilise and work on more.
• I utilised my blog more at A2 than AS by blogging every idea I had so that I could easily go back to them and read up to where I was ideawise. I also used my blog as a type of almost 'advertising' to 'promote' my fictional band by having the name of the band at the top banner of the page.
• I used my flat plans and storyboards when producing my first drafts, I also used them as a basic guide when creating them. They helped me understand the direction I was going in when producing my products as well as helping me to understand the areas I needed to work on and improve to get the best grade I could achieve.
• as i worked independently over both years, there was no need to produce multiple copies of production schedules etc. However, I did create multiple copies of lyrics etc. at A2 so that my band would be able to all understand and learn the song.
• I did create 'progression so far' posts over both years, especially at A2 so that I myself could keep up to date of where I was as well as my peers, teacher and the examiner who would be looking at my work. I felt that this was important in terms of planning both pieces of coursework in order to keep to schedule and keep everyone informed of what I was doing.
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Research and Planning Question 4. Answer

For the planning part of this write-up:

• Drafting - What drafts did you produce?
• Gaining Audience Feedback - How did you make sure you collated this - what was the development between AS and A2?
• Drafting - At AS, we were required to produce a draft for a cover of our music magazine, a contents page and a DPS. At A2, we were required to produce a draft of firstly the ancillary tasks which were a magazine advertisement promoting our band and the album and a draft digipack for the CD album artwork. Also, we were required to produce a draft music video. In preparation for my draft, I was uncertain that I had never used the editing software before, so I produced a mini 'test shoot' music video to a track by 'Blur' in order to prepare.
• Gaining Audience Feedback - In order to develop audience feedback, I posted my drafts and asked my peers to comment on what the thought the good points and bad points were about them. I also asked my teacher to analyse each of my drafts and give me a rough grade and points that I need to improve on. The development of my drafts over AS and A2 would be that at A2, I had to produce a lot more draft work which required more time and more feedback from my peers and teacher. 

Organisation of time, personnel and equipment:

• Did you complete on time? did you meet the deadlines?
• What were the pros and cons of organising personnel?
• What have you learnt about communication between personnel?
• Did your knowledge of production schedules grow?
• What could you have done better?
• What were your strengths and weaknesses?
• For my draft work over both years, I succeeded in completing the work on time and meeting the deadlines. This sometimes included me producing extra draft work for analysis from my teachers, for example, at AS, I produced three magazine covers instead of one as I was unsure of which one would succeed in getting me better marks as well as A2, when I produced two album artwork digipacks instead of one.
• The pros of organising personnel would be that I could organise and plan where and when we would shoot, when we would test out things such as styling etc. It also helped that the personnel in my music video live in close distance to me. The cons of organising personnel would be that finding a time when all three artists were free to shoot proved a hard task although at AS, I only had a solo artist which made it easier.
• I have learnt that in order to communicate with personnel and rely on them in a situation like this, you need to talk and plan with them in a professional way, letting them know that this is important to you and could affect a grade etc. if they did not oblige and appreciate what you are doing.
• My knowledge of production schedules definitely grew over the two years as in my A2 year, I planned out time schedule on paper as there were more dates and things to do in preparation for my music video. I definitely think this was the case as well because of the fact that my A2 year proved more challenging to produce an ancillary task as well as a music video so therefore, more work and time had to be put in. 
• I believe that I could've possibly planned a bit more ahead and starting production a little earlier than I did,  due to this, I was a little pushed for time however all filming and photography was completed to schedule.
• My strengths would be my organisation skills and abilities to multi task and think about more things than one at any given time. This was a particular asset when filming and doing the shoot for my A2 coursework as travelling to the studio and planning before hand about where it is, maps, styling, time etc. was challenging. My weaknesses would be perhaps that I could only carry out one task at a time, due to the fact that I was producing both media texts by myself, however I think that I preferred this in the end.

Working individually or as part of a group:

• What did you learn about individual and team work?
• What are the pros and cons?
• What main things have you learnt about group work at AS and A2 in terms of planning your product?
• For my main products I worked as an individual as I felt that this was the best way to work for me as I always seem to have multiple ideas and love getting myself involved in them. If I work within a team, I find it harder to do so and end up taking over everything and every detail which would be a downside of working in a group. However, for both of the Preliminary tasks over both AS and A2, I found that working in a team helped the production flow better in some ways as everyone had a job and I didn't have to think about everything all at once and I could just concentrate on my own designated area.
• The pros of working in a group would be that I could rely on other people as well as myself and if something messed up or went wrong then everyone would want to help and sort the problem whereas if your on your own, you only have yourself to rely on and yourself to blame. The pros of working as an individual would be that you can carry out any idea that comes to mind without consulting your group first, there is no compromise needed. The cons of working in a group would be that you have to talk about everything with the rest of your group before carrying out an idea into production, it needs to be a 'group' effort and a 'group' piece of work. The cons of working as an individual would be that you have to multitask and think about everything all at once, otherwise, if something went wrong then you have only yourself to rely on to sort it out. 
• The main things I have learnt about group work at AS and A2 would be that at the start, you can share ideas and come up with an idea and concept that you would've not thought about yourself. I have also learnt that it is okay to trust others with something as someone else is just as capable of doing something as you are yourself and that everyone else has a vision also. 

Research and Planning Question 3. Answer

You used your blog to organise ALL of your research.
•What skills did you learn about organising and referencing materials?(Remember if your research isn’t referenced correctly then you will not get full marks–e.g.every poster from the internet has to be referenced).
•How did your skills of organisation develop from AS and A2?E.g. If it was the first time you used blogger at AS did you find it easier to blog at A2?

• The skills I learnt about organising and referencing materials would be that I have learnt to reference them without even thinking about it too much, it has become second nature. I feel that I have progressed in the way I have referenced materials as well as the extent and detail I have gone into in order to reference, for example, analysing music videos with postmodern elements and intercontextual references in great depth.
• From AS to A2, my skills of organising havent improved greatly as I think that the way in which each post is presented has been consistant over both years, however, I feel that the depth of my organisation and detail has improved with the presentation of my blog posts.

Research and Planning Question 2. Answer

• Expense/Cost of Research - Over both years, the expense of my research has including purchasing magazines for inspiration, hiring out a studio for the filming of my A2 coursework, expense of travel to places in order to have inspiration, for example, locations etc., buying costumes and pieces for mise en scene over both years,  buying the track for my music video at A2 from iTunes and an OLYMPUS PEN E-PL1, although this was for other subjects also.
• Accessibility - Researching wasnt too hard for me as I had alot of initial ideas in my head already for both years so all I had to do really was research further into my ideas and gather images etc. Finding locations didn't seem to be hard as I had already seen the factory I used for my AS shoot before and thought what an amazing building it was, it was really nice to use it for something. I could say that finding the studio to shoot my music video in was quite hard as many photography studios did not hire out their facilities, nor did any of the colleges nearby. Time - All of my research and planning took alot of time I would say, however, when I am so involved and interested in an idea, it doesn't seem like effort for me to put the time in as I just want my final piece to be the best it can be.
• Reliability - I wouldn't say that I ever found my research sources unreliable as I feel that the inspiration suring research and planning that I found only fueled my own ideas and so I could twist and take inspiration from all kinds of places without having to 'rely' on it.
• Accuracy - Due to research into audience profiles etc, I felt that over both years, the reception from my peers was positive who were ultimately my audience for both years as my AS music magazine was aimed at a 'rockaholic youth' and my band for my A2 coursework was also aimed at a teenage audience.
• Bias -
• Validity - Over both years, I believe that the links between my research and planning and final media texts were consistent and in this sense I believe that the outcome of both years was what I expected to get out of it and had only a positive effect on the final body of work. Usefulness - I feel that all of my research and planning added something to both years of work in some way.