Category: 2MD001: Screen Production

Follow the link below to find our music video for the song ‘Half the World Away’ by Oasis.

https://vimeo.com/310161430

Director – Harry Postlethwaite

Producer – Chloe Cartmell

DP – Harrison Cox

Camera – Emily Peers and Sarah Burden

Lighting  – Jasmine Stainton

Location Manager – Ellie Sheldon 

Reflective Evaluation of the Music Video:

Although music videos don’t always necessarily follow a linear narrative, the lyrics of the song that we chose to make a video for seemed to be suited to one. Therefore, our main objective for this task was to create a linear visual story that matched the tone of the song. We aimed to do this by applying good teamwork, research and time management to the task, assigning each member of the team a role for which they would be responsible. One of the big planning points for this task was scouting locations for the shoot, which was managed by the location manager, as we needed to be aware of where we could shoot and when. As such, we checked potential locations beforehand for pros and cons as there is ‘no substitute for a recce’ (Bamford, 2012).

My role as a camera operator taught me a lot about camera movement and how it can enhance a shot or sequence. This is due to the way in which we experimented with different movements on several shots, although the shots themselves were planned in advance, to see what would work best on screen and so that we had options to choose from in the edit. This is one way in which one person’s role can have an effect on another’s, and one example of how we utilised teamwork throughout this task.

The most significant problem we faced was that we underestimated how much time we needed to shoot over four minutes worth of footage, especially without dialogue which is often used to fill time. As Nick Bamford (2012) stated, ‘real time and screen time are not the same’ which is a concept that we did not consider enough during our planning stage. Therefore, more shooting time needed to be scheduled for us to gather enough footage to complete the video. From this, we learned as a team how long a shoot actually takes accounting for aspects such as travel and breaks. This is a very important lesson as, in the future, it will allow us to better plan projects and stick to any deadlines or schedules.

References:

Bamford, N. (2012) Directing Television: A Professional Survival Guide. London, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. pp. 24 – 178

Follow the link below for a review of the Canon 77D DSLR and the Canon C100 and find out how they are different, plus the benefits of progressing from the 77D to the C100: 

Reflective Evaluation of the Review:

As the target audience for this review was students, our main aim was to create a video that is both informative and fun to watch so that the audience would engage with the content and learn from it. As such, we aimed for the tone of the video to be fun and humorous in such a way that students would be interested so Ellie (the presenter) delivered information in a quirky way in an attempt to appeal to meme culture that most students of today find funny. However, this actuallt became a problem as the decision to take this approach was not agreed upon until after shooting had started. Having only two hours to gather footage, we didn’t have time to re- shoot what we had filmed before we decided this. As a result of this, some of the footage felt a little disjointed and the tone didn’t really match up. In order to rectify this, we decided to edit the video in the style of a vlog so that the final outcome flowed better and was more cohesive. ‘Before you begin filming you need to get everything together’ (Orlebar, 2002) so that you don’t waste valuable time, which is a lesson that we learned when we ran out of time for re- shoots, and one which will serve us well on future projects. Working to tight time constraints is a big part of professional media production, so the ability to prepare well and ensure that you have time to film what you need is essential, so this was a valuable lesson for all of us.

A major part of this production was researching the Canon 77D DSLR and the Canon C100, so that the information in the video was accurate. This is essential for all informational videos, as otherwise the video would be pointless, and it certainly wouldn’t be useful to our target audience of students wanting to know what makes the two camera models different. This is something that went very well for us, as we were able to find lots of information about the cameras, allowing us to make a video that can be of help to students.

References:

Orlebar, J. (2002) Digital Television Production: A Handbook. London, Arnold. p. 12

(No date) Canon EOS 77D [Internet] Available from https://www.canon.co.uk/cameras/eos-77d/ [Accessed 13th December 2018]

(No date) Canon EOS C100 [Internet] Available from https://www.canon.co.uk/for_home/product_finder/digital_cinema/cinema_eos_cameras/eos_c100/ [Accessed 13th December 2018]

The James Martin multi-functional blender is a must have product for those wanting to live a healthy lifestyle, even if they have busy schedules. Follow the link below to find a video explaining how to use the product and why you should purchase it. 

https://vimeo.com/306562364 

The storyboard for this video can be found below: 

Reflective Evaluation of the Advertorial:

As a group, when given the task of creating an advertorial, we aimed to produce a video that both explained and promoted the lifestyle product that we chose. After much deliberation around what a lifestyle product could be, we decided to produce an advertorial for a James Martin multi- functional blender with the intention to aim the video at a target audience of people wanting to live a healthy lifestyle without necessarily having lots of time to dedicate to making full healthy meals from scratch.

Lots of research was useful in the pre- production stage of this particular task as we wanted a clear picture of what an advertorial should consist of. Essentially, we found that advertising is the ‘distribution of persuasive messages by or on behalf of brand marketers’ (Schultz, 2016) so the video needed to really persuade the audience that the product is useful as part of a healthy lifestyle and that it is worth purchasing, while also explaining how the product actually works. Although the tutorial elements of the video are clear, and I feel that the video does include some persuasive elements such as describing the various useful functions of the blender, I do feel that the message that the audience should purchase the product was not pushed hard enough. For example, graphics such as ‘buy now’ could have been included to really push the advertisement side, something that I will consider on future projects like this.

Another problem that I faced myself was during the individual edit when there were various technological issues occurring, such as the music cutting out halfway through the exported video and visual glitches that only occurred once the video was exported. I also struggled to put the soundscape together due to my lack of experience with sound editing but I did try my best to enhance the product with sound, a skill that I will definitely practice. This was a major issue for me because it cost a lot of time as I tried to figure out various problems. However, being fully aware that edits can change ‘up until the last minute’ we ensured as a crew that there was plenty of time left after the shoot to resolve issues such as these (Kindem and Musburger, 2005).

References:

Kindem, G. and Musburger, R.B. (2005) Introduction to Media Production: The Path to Digital Media Production. 3rd ed. Burlington, Elsevier. p. 203

Schultz, D. (2016) The Future of Advertising or Whatever We’re Going to Call It. Journal of Advertising, 45(3), pp. 276 – 285

Follow the link below and you will find a pitch for a music video for the song ‘Perfect Isn’t Enough’ by The And Ensemble, a York based band. As a group, we looked at the band’s past work and considered the brief that they provided for us to develop our own idea for a new video.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1UYR6du2RfqkQ3aOmHZJjes87LnR7EVrWwHvRWOktNe0/edit#slide=id.p 

As part of the process, we also made a creative brief that outlined all of the key points of our idea, which you’ll find below. 

Creative Brief

Reflective Evaluation of the Music Video Pitch:

The main goal in mind when producing a pitch for a music video for the song ‘Perfect isn’t Enough’ by The And Ensemble, was to pitch an idea that was on brand for the group and showcased their popular appeal but to create something unique and interesting. This required a lot of research, both into the group and into what young audiences (the target for our pitched video) want from music videos, to ensure that the final idea was appropriate.

Working well with a client is a very important skill for any media producer and one that should ideally be developed while in education (Fitch, 2011). This particular task required us to interpret a client brief outlining what the group wanted us to include in the video, significantly developing this skill. For example, one important note in the client brief was that the entire production had to be shot indoors. As a result, we developed an idea that centred around one take, with Abby walking through different scenarios involving romantic partners. This is just one example of how we were able to consider the client throughout the production of our pitch, which is a very important skill that will serve us well in future projects.

A significant problem that we faced during this task was ensuring that we hit the right target audience of young people, as ‘pop music is a cultural space which belongs predominantly to young people’ (Hogg and Banister, 2000) and captured the popular appeal of the band while creating something that was unique, and not just a copy of what has been done before. This proved difficult at first because, through research, we found that a lot of videos for pop music share similar characteristics. However, we decided to incorporate various elements from a wide range of different videos together alongside our ‘one take’ idea. For example, the colour scheme would be reminiscent of videos by the likes of Meghan Trainor and Katy Perry, popular artists in the world of pop music. We believed that this was the best way to appeal to our target audience and convey the client’s brand while producing a pitch for a video that was new and fresh.

References:

Fitch, K. (2011) Developing Professionals: Student Experiences of a Real-Life Client Project. Higher Education Research and Development, 30(4), pp. 491 – 503

Hogg, M. K. and Banister, E. N. (2000) The Structure and Transfer of Cultural Meaning: A Study of Young Consumers and Pop Music. Advances in Consumer Research, 27, pp. 19 – 23

York is a beautiful city full of fun things to do. Check out this travel vlog and find out all about what the city has to offer!

https://vimeo.com/304644349 

And here’s a shorter version created just for Instagram: 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BrQx3WKDcl7/

Reflective Evaluation of the Travel Vlog:

The aim of this task was to work as a team in order to make a travel vlog that presented York as a desirable place for young people to visit. This meant making it engaging through fun visuals and sound and finding interesting locations to include in order to appeal to a younger target audience.

Working as a team was a very important aspect of this task as, after assigning individual roles to each person, everybody had to focus on their own roles while ensuring that the whole piece came together well. This provided some difficult challenges to overcome as there were some disagreements over aspects such as the script and how it was to be delivered. However, we managed to overcome this challenge by doing several takes of lines that we disagreed on and deciding which one turned out better afterwards. This approach not only gave us better footage, but we managed to gather more footage to choose from, making the edit much easier in the end.

My role in this particular production was the sound technician, which also resulted in some major difficulties. For example, as much of the shooting took place outside, wind interference really affected the sound. Although I did my best to combat this, through using a windshield and a boom pole to get the microphone as close to the presenter as possible, it was still very much an issue. While trying to eradicate this sound with effects in post- production was a possibility, ‘the effect this has on the foreground sound has to be considered’ (Holman, 2010) and it would have affected the sound of the presenter too much in this case. As such, this is definitely an aspect of the video that can be improved upon and something I will consider in all future projects.

Another important process in the development of this video was drawing up detailed risk assessments for each location. ‘Thinking through what you are going to do and how you are going to do it will focus your mind on accidents which could happen’ (Bamford, 2012) so it was important that we got them right. It did take time to make them as detailed as possible, but this process only taught me what I need to include in the future.

References:

Bamford, N. (2012) Directing Television: A Professional Survival Guide. London, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p. 60

Holman, T. (2010) Sound for Film and Television. 3rd ed. Burlington, Elsevier Inc. p. 34

Below you will find three creative briefs for different advertisements designed to bring new business to ASDA through a brand new ASDA-specific shopping app. There is a brief for a television advertisement, a Facebook advertisement and an Instagram carousel advertisement all aimed at students as they were identified as a potential gap in ASDA’s market.

Television Advertisement:

ASDA TV ad brief

Facebook Advertisement:

ASDA Facebook ad brief 

Instagram Advertisement:

ASDA Instagram Brief

Reflective Evaluation of the Zigzag Pitch:

In creating the pitch that my group was to deliver to Zigzag, there were some very clear goals that we were trying to achieve. One of these was to plan three potential pieces of content for one of Zigzag’s clients with creative briefs for each, but more importantly we were aiming to truly understand the company that we chose (ASDA) as well as their customer base and why certain advertisements would be suitable for certain platforms.

Nick Bamford (2012) suggests that ‘the trick is to have a clear plan’ for any kind of production, so research into ASDA was integral to this task. It allowed us to get an insight into their brand image and target audience, which helped us to create ideas for content in line with those things. The concept of a clear target audience was important as it meant that whatever content we planned would be engaged with and actually help the company. On this front, the pitch went well because we identified students as a viable target audience for ASDA due to their brand image of having low prices, and we used this knowledge to very clearly drive our content towards students. However, although the content was relevant in this way, we did have problems with some ideas that we included in the pitch not necessarily being good for bringing in new customers. Therefore, although the creative ideas turned out well and related to ASDA’s brand, more research into how business works would’ve benefitted us.

Another aspect of this task involved deciding what our pieces of content would appear on, be it the internet or television etc. Again, this required research, this time into the effectiveness of different platforms when it comes to advertising. ‘Despite fierce competition from digital advertising, TV advertising is still huge and growing’ (Mela and Yiting, 2018). Therefore, we decided that one of our pieces of content would be a TV advertisement and, as we found that internet adverts are good for reaching our target audience of students, we decided on a Facebook and Instagram advert. As it helped us target our content effectively, the research we carried out was the most important part of the pitch’s process, a concept that will be carried forward onto other projects.

References:
Bamford, N. (2012) Directing Television: A Professional Survival Guide. London, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. p. 13

Mela, C,F. and Yiting, D. (2018) TV Viewing and Advertising Targeting. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), 55(1), p. 1