Welcome to my media coursework blog!

Hello, I’m Iona Murray, I am a A-Level Media Studies student at Ballakermeen high school and this is my blog. Here I will display my media coursework and its progression with weekly updates, to remind myself of what I am do do next on the road to the completion of my preliminary project and main coursework task.

Enjoy!

(A link to the Ballakermeen coursework page)

As Coursework:

Preliminary Task

Main Task

A2 Media Coursework:

A2 Preliminary Task

A2 Main Task

A2: CCR

A2: Creative Critical Reflection Script

How do your products use or challenge conventions?

 

• A/V conventions

 

• • • • As far as the conventions in my audio visual piece, I have somewhat followed the
        • Three act
        • Long shot
        • Interviews
        • Music
        • Visual coding

 

• Website

 

• • • • I believe that my website was very successful and follows the conventions of a typical documentary websites. However, much like What We Do In The Shadows website I didn’t have the budget to create a personalised URL for the site which is something I definitely improve upon if I were to do something similar again.

 

• Poster

 

• • • Comparing the original idea of my poster against my final product my ideas has stayed fairly consistent throughout. As you can see in my final poster design I added a faded white grade to the top, where the title sits. This was to clarify the title against the background, which allows for greater ease of reading. My poster also follows the conventions of that in the genre as it shows a main subject, reviews and the title. I have, however, played with the image composition through adding the black boxes, which creates the impression that the poster is a piece of film, this links to the subject of the mockumentary as Wes is a filmmaker in the filmmaking process.

How do they represent social groups or issues?

 

• Representation

 

• • Though previously mentioned on my blog that I might have struggled to find much diversity for my cast, I did include two female character, however, in my final product they don’t appear together or talk about anything other than a man. So in that respect I haven’t passed the Bechdel test. Another form of diversity I showed was in nationality, only two of my four cast members were from the Isle of Man and therefore Manx. My other cast members were originally from Wales and the Philippines.
  • From my initial idea of having a mockumentary following a filmmaker I wasn’t to sure on how to build upon this to create a piece. Through looking at case studies, for example, the Office, particularly the original uk version was very helpful when considering the subtle comedy of everyday life and how a small glance at the camera can be exceptionally funny in context. The the same can be said for What We Do In The Shadows, the lack of background music for the majority of the Mockumentary creates a feeling of realism when the topic, being vampires is very out there. I was inspired by some of these elements and as you can see slightly implemented them in my own work. There is a lack of background music in the beginning as I felt it would have taken away from the initial realism of the situation.
  • The focus group I conducted, also gave me some ideas, based on some opinions they held that didn’t fall with the rest as expected. Some brought up the idea of not strictly following the typical conventions of mockumentaries by outright suggesting that it is fake straight away.

 

Branding:

• • • Font
      • My fonts a pretty consistent throughout the three final products, of san serif fonts, in either black or white, which highlights the importance of the text and its meanings and also sits well on the background to create a stand out effect.
      • The only divergence in my font choice occurs in the text with in my A/V piece. I used this cursive font as it felt more professional in the context of the piece, making it look as though it is similar to the likes of professional pieces, such as Attenborough.

 

• Images

 

• • • • The majority of my images where edited using photoshop to have colours that follow my colour palette of the blues, blacks, whites and greys. This further developed a sense of branding for my project and created a degree of realism for my product. The edition of the production company logo further cemented the suspension of belief as it showed professionalism and that the piece maybe real.

 

• Colour Palette

 

• • • My colour palette consists of light blues, greys and black. This creates a sense of realism. I continued this throughout my three pieces of work, which helped to show consistency as well as … the only divergence from the colour palette was the ending of the a/v piece as the colour palette changes to variants of red to convey his madness.

How does your product engages with the audience?

*Mentions of focus groups*

How would it be distributed?

I feel that my product would be best distributed through YouTube and the use of my website as it allows for sharing and potential growth, much the same way as the likes of other mockumentaries such as the blair witch project and WWDITS as they both picked up traction using the internet and showing targeted at their chosen audience.

 

How did you integrate technologies?

 

I integrated technologies in this project through once again usi

By once again using my blog to convey ideas through my research into the industry and similar concepts to my idea to planning, filming and editing my final product to make them the best they could be.

I also used editing software such as photoshop and premiere pro to exercise my skills in creating a piece of consistent and cohesive media’s. My skills developed through this process (insert colour grading point)

Colour grading of the piece

• • I had to modify the colours in my mockumentary so that it had a somewhat consistent throughout. I chose to have a blue tinge to each scene to add to the “realism” and intrigue behind the character and also loosely links to the Office (UK). The later scenes show a red tinge that gradually builds up to a fuller red, which show slowly the realisation of Wes’ madness as that is the colours’ connotation in popular culture.

 

I also used wix to create my website for my audiovisual piece as it contained a lot of the features you find on typical sites for mock and documentaries. The site was also easy to construct and free which was particularly helpful when considering time constraints and my budget. Overall it looks cohesive and professional.

 

Recording equipment

 

Research (books and online)

 

• Audience research:

 

• • Comparison of where people are from to what they watch
  • Age groups and what they watch
  • Other category (what i missed when creating the survey? niche)

 

 

• Focus group:

 

• • Colour balancing on my focus group
  • The organisation of my focus group was very coincidental, I didn’t realise at the time that one of my participants had studied media before and has created multiple pieces of media content so their opinion was very helpful.

 

 

• Location reasons:

 

• • • When considering the location for the interviews – the machine cinema seats, professional look and conveys the “typical” interview setup
    • The beach scene conveys that he is just your average filmmaker who needs to do a location recce like everyone else.

 

• Why my final product doesn’t look close to my shots, edits, script and location

 

• • • My final audio visual product doesn’t strictly follow my shot list, script and location planning. This is down to budgeting, scheduling and the unfortunate weather situation.

 

• Cast schedule alignment

 

• • • • • Was very difficult as the cast all had different times they had to be at places. Some of the cast had work commitments or meeting they needed to attend, which meant my filming had to be done on a quick schedule.
        • One of the most successful scenes I filmed was the interview with the character of Andy as it was a quick shoot and didn’t involve take after take.
        • Another issue that came up with filming and the cast availability was to do with the heavy rain that fell on my original filming date of the 15th of December. This being my outdoor shoot it was impossible to film that day and have the footage be usable to counteract what seemed like a disaster moment, I quickly rescheduled my shoot to the 16th of December meaning I could only film with 2 of the cast members. The rest of the filming was done the day after with the full cast. I believe that shoot was immensely successful in terms of content and its quality. The only issue I have is that the most of the footage is filmed in the lecture theatre which and somewhat out balances the beach filmed scenes.

 

• Budget

 

• • • • • I didn’t have a large budget for my piece so the availability of certain elements and materials was difficult. This led to the cast having to create their own interpretation of the characters outline and costume based on my moodboards and description.

 

• Props

 

• • • • • Acquiring props wasn’t the easiest of things to do based on my budget, borrowing and creation. On the days of recording certain props that I wanted and wrote about in my planning were unavailable to me. Example of this are the fact I couldn’t borrow the horsehead in time for my recording of that scene, so I resourceful in creating a quick alternative of a low quality wig and strange pair of glasses, which still held the same commedic value, especially since it was paired with ‘the world’s greatest boss bowl’.

 

• Script

 

• • • • • In regards to script, I also allowed the actors to have free range over the set lines, some of the improve was funnier than the initial ones in the script. Through this can be seen as abandoning my ideas it came across better and more realistic, which is what I wanted.

 

• Showing my final product to the focus group

 

• • • I showed my final product to the original focus group to gauge their reaction and to see if it was successful in my approach and whether they enjoyed it.

 

• What I would improve upon next time:

 

• • If I had a bigger budget and more time I could have potentially hired a full crew opposed doing writing, marketing, producing and distributing on my own. Giving the opportunity again I would potentially trying using crowdfunding to create a higher budget and approach local producers like Isle of Man Film to aid me on my creative process. Also, I would look into maybe having a professional editor to colour grade my final piece as I feel there are areas such as the end that could have been smoother in the introduction of the red to symbolise the madness of the situation.
  • I also would have perhaps been more adventurous with my focus group, which although having my target audience seemed rash in who I chose to have in it, as well as also containing people who went on to be in my project. I also might have chosen to complete more focus groups to really look further into the humour of the target audience as I ended up sort of falling into a niche sort of humour.

A2: FINAL PRODUCTS

Mockumentary:

Poster:

(pdf version: Between TAKES)

Website:

https://ionamurray56.wixsite.com/wesallenbetweentakes

A2: Website and Poster Contact Sheet

Original images:

Edited images:

 

 

A2: Audio Permissions

In regards to the audio used in my product, most of the audio and clips are my own so therefore don’t require a permission for them.

However, the ‘In The Hall Of The Mountain King’ audio at the end of my product comes from an external source. Fortunately, ‘In The Hall Of The Mountain King’ is a piece of Royalty Free music by Kevin MacLeod and therefore only requires that I include the following in the description of my mockumentary once uploaded to YouTube:

In The Hall Of The Mountain King By Kevin MacLeod|http://incomptech.com

Music Promoted By https://www.free-stock-music.com

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence

https://creativecommons.org/lisence/by/3.0/deed.en_US

A2: Production Companies

Information on production companies:

The use of production companies can impact the quality of the product. To explain further the budget value of a movie created by a big corporation like Disney, the movies produced are given budgets in the millions (for example Disney’s Tangled (2010) had an estimated budget of $260 million) and in turn create a product of standard that reflects the original budget, bring in a reputable amount in profits.

Alternatively, smaller more local production companies, tend to have lower production budgets and therefore can’t afford to have equipment and editing software of the highest quality available, also they tend not to have the distribution budget of the likes of Disney so their products will have limited showings. For example, Isle Of Man film work with other production companies to create the film Stormbreaker (2006), which was a book adaptation of the same name. It had a budget of $40 million, which is comparatively small when compared to the “average” Disney budget of $150 million. The film over all made back $20.7 to 23.9 million, which could be down to the lack of recognition of the companies involved paired with its limited release (only showing in 221 cinema worldwide).

Local production companies:

Locally on the Isle of Man there is only a couple of production companies, these are namely Isle of Man film and Isle of Media. These companies work on the films that are shot on the Isle of Man, they mostly feature the island and its activities, such as the TT. They also tend to work with other production companies to be able to create content that its high quality.

---

Production companies tend to be named after there founder, the location they are from or something important to the founder/investors. For example Paramount, Warner Brothers, BBC, etc. For my own piece and to fit the conventions of a Documentary poster I am going to create a logo for my “production company” as I am producing my product myself.

Name ideas:

• Murray Productions
• IJFM Productions
• Buster Studios
• B&B Pictures
• Kewaigue Studios
• Windsor Productions

---

 

Final design ideas:

Proto-type Final Product:

I chose to use black and grey to reflect the colour palette of the one I am using for the documentary, poster and website.

Final Product:

For my final production company logo I have decided to reflect the whole of my colour palette as I believe it further buys into a sense of branding among my products.

A2: Website and Poster Planning

Colour Palette:

Colour palette ideas:

Chosen palette:

I have chosen to use this colour palette as it adds a degree of “realism” to the theme.  It also adds to professionalism of the website and poster to convince the audience that what they are going to see is all real, when it is in fact a mockumentary.

---

Logo design options:

Website layout ideas:

---

Poster:

Image Composition Ideas:

Poster arrangement ideas:

Draft final product:

 

A2: Equipment Specifications and Discriptions

iPhone 7 plus:

I will be using my smart phone to record the audio to assure a quality sound as the sound on my camera is not the best.

Phone Specs –

• Capacity – 32GB
• Audio formats supported: AAC-LC, HE-AAC, HE-AAC v2, Protected AAC, MP3, Linear PCM, Apple Lossless, FLAC, Dolby Digital (AC-3), Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3), and Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+)
• User-configurable maximum volume limit

App description from Apple’s App Store –

Record:

• Record using the built-in microphone, a Bluetooth handset or compatible external microphone.
• Choose compressed or uncompressed audio formats.
• Automatically name and tag recordings based on your location.

---

Camera Specifications:

I will be using my Lumix DC-FZ82 to film my piece to assure a higher quality image for my final product will will require little editing to improve.

Link to camera specs on the Lumix website

A2: Shooting Schedule, Risk Assessments, Personnel and Equipment list

---

The weather for outdoor filming:

As shown the weather for the hours I am filming are dry, which is good as it allows for an atmosphere and are also ideal for the costuming/actors well being.

---

Risk Assessments:

Although those there is no real extreme risks for my actors and myself during filming as there is no “stunt” activity in any of my scenes. The only risks are the potential high tide, which I will avoid on the beach by filming further up it as to not allow my actors to get soaking wet when filming those particular scenes. The other risk is the unstable nature of the ground of the beach being rocky, I will avoid this by making sure the cast wears sensible clothing and watches their step as this will prevent the slim chance of the cast falling and causing injury to themselves.

A2: Location Recce

The beach location:

Port Skillian:

This area is at the bottom of Douglas Head and is fairly easy to access on foot, which will perhaps be more convenient when filming these scenes.

 

 

 

Port Sodrick:

This is a fairly intriguing area and could be great to film in, however, it could be difficult for certain members of the cast to get to.

 

 

Sixth Form Lecture Theatre:

This is a relatively large space for what I need it for. However, this will be a excellent way to recreate the sort of conventions seen in regular film documentaries.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.