Consider the Consequences

For our media Task we had to created a video, showing the consequences of underage drinking. Our target audience was 13-18 year.

I worked in a group along with 4 peers, each of us had a fair input into the production work load.
As a group we planned our video and the different locations that we would set our video in and talking about who was going to be in our video. With all the different ideas and the different views within the group, we had to take some decisions to a vote, but everybody was happy with the decisions made.

After our planning was completed we then went out to find our actors and go through a stage of asking for their permission to leave school from their parents. Although we was only going over the road health and safety was key, we also had 2 staff members with us at all times.

We filmed our video on 1 day because our schedule was very constricted with bad weather and the availability of our actors, I felt that this meant that we rushed the filming as to have enough time to edit it before our deadline. However i still think we had good ideas with good steady camera angles and a wide variety of shots that created different atmosphers.

From doing this video I learnt that you can never rely on the weather and not have a backup if it goes wrong. Also I learnt that you need to be able to chose people in the video who are going to be available when you need them, a lot of our time was wasted because we did not have the right people at the right time. I also feel that 2 many people in one group just cause conflict, as everyone has different ideas and deciding the best one can be difficult, maybe 3 to a group maximum, preferably 2, however this increased the workload per person.

I am pleased to have experienced producing this video because I learnt alot from my mistakes and what to expect and what to adapt in the future when making a video.

PSA

In our lesson today we were briefed on a new piece of work we have to do, but first we have to research.
We will be filming a short piece on Women's Rape/Women's Safety. The type of advert this is called is Public Service Announcement. These are done to either educate, entertain or inform the desired audience.
I will be researching into videos and have looked on a few websites and am now going to post the links - I will update this post once I have found some videos that I can put in.

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Following some research for first hand viewings of PSAs, I found a good video that was used as a public service announcements in 1976. It is about swine flu - here is the link (I will also add it to the 'links I have used') :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iJLpe1tZl8

I found this video to be quite good as it was informative enough, the music used when the man was talking to inform the audience seemed quite intense, as did his voice. It was informative enough to let the audience know the overall view of swine flu.
I will be researching further and adding links when I find other videos.

The Phone Call

On monday the 15th June we was set a task of planning, filming and editing a short video called "The phone call". We was given a list of instructions which displayed what the shot had to be i.e "Close up of phone" and as a group was enabled the freedom to decide the location of the shots and the meaning on the phonecall itself. We had to be creative with different angles and meaning of the scene.


Planning
We continued using groups from a previous task, in which I was absent because I had an A level exam, and there was only two persons present in our group for the planning stage - Daniel and myself. We carefully planned our story board with the timings for each scene, our locations and different shot angles. We discussed the purpose for the phone call and we decided to put an element of mystery and leave dialogue to a minimum. We also wanted to create a fast pace so this is another reason for the limitation of dialogue. Despite these factors we also wanted to make our production believable and use a variety of techniques of which we learnt.

Filming
On the day of filming we had 4 members in total that were present. We had some challenges with our location as it was quite noisy due to lessons that we ongoing and general classroom noise was present in our takes. We decided to continue filming as the noise may make the production seem more realistic. We took into account a variety of different angles and encorporated those from our plan into our filming process. After filming some of the shots we came to realise we could improve it but choosing a different angle and this was easily achieve but I feel we stuck to our plan throughout. The only real change we made to our filming from our planning was the location of character 2, as we planned to film at the back of school, on the day of filming the area was full of people that we could not have forseen. We moved away slightly so that the noise from these people was lost.

Editing
For the editing process our whole group were present however I found myself doing all the editing with no help. I used ImovieHD which at first seemed very confusing but after Mrs Howlett showed me some simple steps I was able to further investigate things such as inputting audio and special effects for slide transitions. I also had to cut some of the clips and rearrange them in order of the production. I used a "Centered Title Tool" and a "Rolling Credits Tool" in which finalised the video we planned, filmed and I edited.

Conclusion

In conclusion I am very pleased with how final portfolio has turned out. I feel that I planned very carefully each of the design processes and created a magazine which will attract my target audience and represent a specific social group in which they can relate to. I would not do anything differently as I think I have learnt a lot through the different technologies I used and I got my skills to a good standard to create a realistic and competitive music magazine. I found the preliminary task extremely useful as it gave me the best possible insight into what I needed to do in order to achieve high marks. Hopefully I followed the advice given to me correctly and my final product is worth the amount of time and effort I put into creating it, not to mention the stress and technical difficulties that I came across.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My media product represents the gothic social group quite evidently. My colour scheme that I used creates a very dark image for the magazine and this plays excellent alongside the threatening images I used. Goths are seen to stereotyped as always dressed in black with lots of chains, dog collars and sometimes makeup which is normal black. Some say they are aggressive and anti social but they claim to be an independent group of people with their own desires in life and do not involve themselves in everyday life of other people. I feel my magazine represents this social group because the magazine itself appears to be quite threatening and I certainly think that the language and topics interest Goths. Also the name of some of the artists mention such as, Cradle of death, do not sound so friendly.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From my preliminary contents page to my main task contents page I see a big jump from the level of understanding and research into a music magazine. I feel it is clear that I have researched different music magazines of the same genre and have applied the knowledge in which I gained. I learnt a lot from doing my preliminary task to my main task, not only about Photoshop but through my research. When looking at the current rock music magazines I looked at their content and their images. After studying them I interpreted my own version of what a magazine that I would buy would look like. For my preliminary I didn’t do as much research which I think is evident as it very bland.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

As you can see this slide demonstrates the difference in appearance, knowledge and understanding between my preliminary task (front page) and my final task. I feel that my biggest weakness was the fact that I didn’t have enough experience with Photoshop for my preliminary. This is shown through the use of text styles and image editing which looks like a poster rather than a magazine. Although my magazine’s front cover for my final task, I personally feel it looks similar to a magazine cover you would find in a shop. This is because my understanding of Photoshop and its tools became more obvious the more I practised. My preliminary task helped me a lot by showing me how I needed to improve my skills in order to make a decent competitive music magazine. From the feedback I received I was able to look for new ideas and paths I could take by achieving my ideal music magazine. I was adamant to insure I created a house style throughout my magazine using the same masthead, fonts and borders throughout. I think my planning worked well in junction with the final product that I created.