Research and Planning.

Primary Research

• Ancillary task - analysis of album covers, back covers, album artwork, other album names and magazine adverts, target audience feedback and class feedback.
• Music video - analysis of other music videos and genres, research into artists of our chosen genre, analysis of editing and filming techniques.
• Music magazine - analysis of music magazines, research into music magazines, research into music interviews and articles, target audience feedback, class feedback and research into magazine photo shoots.

Secondary Research

• Ancillary task - class notes, music magazines, music websites and a book containing album covers.
• Music video - class notes, music magazines, music websites, youtube and other blogs.
• Music magazine - class notes, music magazines,  and music websites.

Pros: inspirational, helpful in making decisions, allowed us to gather ideas, let us see what elements needed to be included for both the music genre and the conventions of a music video.

Cons: time consuming, restricted some of the ideas that we may have used because it didn't fit the conventions.

For both my AS and A2 coursework I believe I spent a lot of time researching relevant information in order to make my work seem as professional as I could. I do think that I did a lot more research for my A2 coursework as the task was something I had never done before, whereas I had done some work on magazines before so knew some of the elements that needed to be included.

Organisation of time, personnel and equipment:

• I met all the deadlines for both of my coursework pieces and completed everything on time.
• It was difficult to get the people needed for the coursework to all meet up because of busy schedules, but when everyone had gotten together the work was completed much faster and better.
• I've learnt that when you need to get everyone together, for either filming or a photos, it's best to plan it way in advance because it's unlikely that you'll be able to meet up if you leave it to the last minute.
• My knowledge of production schedules did increase as I didn't use one for my AS coursework meaning that some of my tasks were done at the last minute, but the use of the schedules in my A2 coursework meant that everything was completed on time.
• I believe that for our A2 music video we could have planned our filming even further in advance because we did have set backs as we were forced to change our artist and therefore our draft video was filmed in a hurry.
• Strength - still manage to complete the work on time even when under pressure.
• Weakness - to put myself under pressure by leaving some tasks too late.

Working individually or part of a group:

• When you work in a group the work load lightens as you can evenly distribute it, but it means that you have to rely upon other people to work hard otherwise it will affect your work. When you work on your own you have a lot of work to do and it's was to become stressed, but your work will be exactly how you want it without someone else's input.
• I think it's slightly harder to plan when in a group because people's ideas will clash and therefore there needs to be a compromise. It's also quite difficult to get work done together as you have to find time when you're all free.

Organisation of planning materials:

• Most of our planning material was posted straight onto our blog as soon as we'd decided what we were going to do, but some of our ideas were jotted down on paper.
• I think I used my blog at A2 a lot more than I did in AS because there were more ideas and changes as I was working in a group.
• We mainly followed our storyboard exactly, except for one action of the artist when he changed the hat he was wearing instead of his jacket because at the time of filming we didn't have another jacket available, so we deviated from the storyboard on the spot.
• Every time we progressed in our coursework we added a post to mention how we'd moved along and it was important because it showed all the work we had been doing for our coursework and it showed that we were meeting the deadlines.
• I used the research and planning skills for my ancillary tasks as well as the music video.

Presentation of research and planning:

• Most of the primary and secondary research was posted on our blog in writing, though we also used prezi presentations, scribd, slideshare, youtube, tubechop and animoto to present our research.
• The presentation of our research did get more creative as throughout our coursework we used as many different digital technologies that we could.

1. The research into our chosen genre helped us with our production work because it showed us what professional music videos within that genre tend to be like and what kind of theme they have, so that we could include it in our own music video to make it look professional and let our chosen genre be obvious.
2. The research into our target audience contributed to our production work because it gave us an idea of what our audience liked and we could then include it in our coursework and aim our work at our audience.
3. The research into institutions and the regulation of media influence effected our production work because it told us what we could and couldn't include and what needed to be present.
4. We used storyboards and shot lists to plan our music video, which helped us to complete our filming and editing efficently and on time.
5. We found that it was easier for us to film our music video in chronological order because otherwise the shots were different and jumpy, whereas when we filmed it in the same order as the storyboard the shots flowed better, so we needed to change our shot list.
6. The audience feedback helped us to decide how to film and edit our work to gain the best look, it told us whether the elements we had included worked and what things we should maybe consider changing, like the framing of our shots.

Detail how your understanding of the importance of good research and planning skills developed throughout the pre-production of your AS and A2 coursework.

The importance of good research and planning skills increased for my A2 coursework because the research was crucial to our work, as neither of us had made an music video before and therefore didn't know where to begin. The research taught us what we needed in order to create the video, whereas the research in my AS coursework just gave me ideas for my own music magazine, as I already had an idea of what I would need to include to create the magazine. For both pieces of coursework it was essential that research was carried out into the likes and dislikes of the target audience, as this allowed me to design the magazine and video to be interesting to the audience I was aiming for. It was important to look into the institutions and the regulation of media influence, because the research affected the production work as it informed me what I could and couldn't include within my coursework pieces in order to fit in with what needs to be included within a music magazine and video. The planning of the coursework pieces meant that the draft was based on the information I had collected through my research and therefore the audience feedback I received for my draft allowed me to improve my work and planning so that it would appeal to my target audience. Looking into the importance of primary and secondary research helped me to create my coursework through analysing media conventions that needed to be a key part of my work. I think this held more importance for my A2 work as I had never filmed a music video before and therefore didn't know anything about it.