Exam question 2

Describe the ways in which your production work was informed by research into real media texts and how your ability to use such research for production developed over time.

My production work was well informed by research into real media texts and throughout the two years on the course my ability to use such research has developed considerably.

The two briefs I was given were at AS to create a 2 minute horror opening film sequence, and at A2 to create a music video promo package which included a music video, digipak and advert, and the genre I chose for A2 was the indie genre.

I will answer this question by discussing pre production, production and post production at both AS and A2

During the pre production stages at AS I done a nine screen analysis of the Texas chainsaw massacre, this influenced me to use shots of the crime and also to use different effects of the opening sequence. I also done a timeline of the Peeping Tom opening credits, and from doing this I could see that the opening credits were quite long, and I also discovered that the director was named last at 4.27 minutes in. This encouraged me to make my opening credits longer and to put the director last. I was also influenced by se7en, and from watching this film I was influenced by the way that the murdered wasn’t really revealed fully and just evidence was there, so this influenced my opening credits.

During the pre production stage at A2 I analysed a range of music videos from the indie genre, which included videos from Warpaint, Yeasayer and Vampire Weekend. These videos had no clear narrative or the narrative was complex which was something I thought I could bring into my music video. I also analysed adverts and digipaks, and took influence from the way that they were laid out, with clear writing indicating who the artist was and the album name, and the images also matched the genre, so therefore I matched the images on my own digipak and advert as closely to the genre as I could. I also done a nine screen analysis of a music video by Yuck, and from this I discovered that they held up signs with some of the lyrics on, I decided to do this in a similar way for my music video by writing the words on pieces of paper, as I thought it worked very effectively in the Yuck video.

During the production stage at AS due to the influence of other horrors I had seen such as se7en, I decided to film using unrevealing camera angles, such as the over the shoulder shot of the knife and of the killer looking through the book of images, and this allowed me to create suspense. During the production stages I also used very low key lighting, because all of the horrors that I had watched were very dark and dreary, so I decided to use this in my opening sequence. I also used images of children as this was something I had seen often in horror films and I found it very creepy, so to stick with the conventions and create more suspense, I took this influence from other horrors I had seen.

At A2 I was influenced by videos such as Vampire Weekend, and used images of the band playing, I also done audience research and found that this was something that they expected to see within the video. I was also influenced by Warpaints video of Stars and seen that their video was quite dark, and as my chosen song was called ‘shadows’ I decided that it would be good to be influenced by this and use some dark shots, therefore I done some shots outside by a fire, which I found did work very well. To add to this during the production stage I was also influenced by the mise en scene used in music videos such as Warpaints video and Yucks, so I decided on costumes that fitted with the genre and ones which were similar to those I had seen in music videos I had studied.

Finally at AS in the pre production stages I was influenced by the times in which the opening credits appeared, so decided to space out the timing of the opening credits and also decided to put the directors name last.