Research and Planning Essay

Plan: AS: research into set genre & techniques in filmmaking: basic, irrelevant, not presented creatively, animatic did not match the timing & there was not enough footage
A2: research developed, presented on various software, into the genre & intertextual references, planned it well, animatic was detailed and in time
overall: in A2 our project is much stronger than as down to the detailed research and the schedules and other planning we have done, the way we organised ourselves

Research for my AS project was quite limited and I only followed the instructions given by the teacher. I did not look at any intertextual references or in-depth research about different techniques. I was given a certain genre and I was meant to represent the conventions of it in my work so I wanted to research mainly the vague and essential information about filmmaking rather than try something different. However, in A2, I had more freedom with creative decisions about genre, research and planning and type of my music video. I used that to my advantage by researching into different genres and artists of those genres' and music videos to get some ideas and maybe combine them in my project. I learned how to present my work in a more interesting and creative way by using online presentations, online animation makers and videos as well as moodboards. This made it also easier to go back and look at different research when doing my evaluation and post-production stages as I could look through the videos and moodboards and I could use that more effectively.

I also created an animatic in both years to visually present my storyboard and also see whether the amount of footage I wanted to include would be enough or not for the length of the video. In AS, the animatic was not really helpful and I did not use it to help me through my production stage as it was only 30 seconds long, whereas our video was to be 2.00 mins long. The animatic did not include a lot of shots and it only had the main ones there to represent the idea behind them. However, I did not find it useful later on, which then caused problems with production stage. I had to re-shoot some footage and add more into the film as there was not enough included. Nevertheless, I learned from that experience and in A2 I paid great attention into making sure that my animatic was detailed and that I could successfully use it as a guide during the production stage. The animatic included enough shots and extra footage, we never ended up using, and it helped us to keep on track with the filming and editing.

The research and planning affect our both projects massively. The lack of in-depth research during the first year, and lack of detailed planning of the shoots and edits meant that my project as a whole was much more stressful and hectic. I needed to add more footage in the post-production stage because there was not enough and we could not organise ourselves with the editing of the footage either as there was not enough and we did not know what order it goes in as we did not plan it very well.
However, my project has improved a lot during this last year as I spent more time planning and researching the genre, conventions, music videos, and promotional campaigns for the artists to make sure that I had enough information to produce a successful piece of work.