Personal Skills Audit

	Skills acquired	How did these skills contribute to the creation of your product?	How will you develop these skills during the A2 project?
Digital technology -        What equipment/software packages did you use to produce your production?	- Panasonic Camera - Tripod - Live Text	The Panasonic cameras’ we used to shoot the footage. These were rubbish quality to I hope to develop this skill this year with better cameras. We used the tripod last year to be able to get still shots. I think that I have already developed this skill throughout the shooting sessions prior to this year and couldn’t develop it further. I used Live Type last year as we used it to make rolling credits for out thriller opening sequence. This is good programme, but I don’t see how we can use it this year.	We have new cameras for this year and I hope to be able to broaden the technicality by being able to record Shallow and Deep focus. Hopefully these camera with be better overall picture quality.
Post production -        What software did you use to create your production? -        Discuss specific features of the software.	- Final Cut - Photoshop - Garage band	We used final cut to edit our overall pieces. This took a couple of practices and so we used this programme to also edit and put together our rough cut and animatic. When using Photoshop last year, we only used it to produce our company logo. I have used it previously and find it hard to use. So I am going to focus on my Photoshop skills for this year. I used Garage band previously to edit and put together our thriller sequences’ background music. I used it for fades and a smooth transition from one piece of music to the other. This went well, but we might use it this year, in which case I will have to improve on my technicality if I want our video to be convincing.	We will have to use this programme this year also to edit and polish out music videos. Because this year topic is going to be more adventurous, I will hopefully be able to experiment with using effects such as fades and transitions etc. Photoshop is a hard programme to use, in my opinion, and so I am going to use it this year, to make our group’s music video more professional. Garage band may have to be used this year, in that case I would like to improve on using this so that our coursework looks more polished and professional.
Research and Planning -        What tasks did you complete when preparing to film your sequence? -        How did your planning help the smooth progression of your film?	We carried out certain research tasks that helped us to make a decent film opening, these included conventions of a typical thriller opening, the stereotypical thing included. We done other tasks were we had to identify what order typical credits roll. For example, is the Producer or the Director of the film shown first? Then we had to arrange or set of credits accordingly.	Carrying out certain parts of research helped the production of a good sequence, because it told you what to include, it make you aware of what professionals so in order to make a decent film overall, even though we were only making the opening.	We will be carrying out more research this year on how certain music videos are put together and what the conventions are.
Using conventions of real media texts -        Which texts did you analyze? -        Did you take any inspiration from the conventions found from your research?	We took a lot of conventions from research and included them in our own film, these were things such as darkness and eerie music. We think that we added these correctly. But it would be unrealistic to use blood and gore especially in just an opening sequence. We analyzed classic films like Phycho and Rear Window. Even to more recent films like Secret Window, and Fight club. We analyzed these to get a better idea of what to include in our overall piece.	These skills that I had during the course of last year, did help us make more of a professional opening sequence. As without that research that we had carried out prior to think about a sequence narrative wouldn’t have followed the typical stereotypes of thrillers.	I will expect to be doing this again this year, as without doing this I will be unaware of the typical conventions of a Rock music video, which I am hoping to create. I know from watching them in my own free time that they mostly always in include a live performance and they have a cross-cut to a narrative. I will have to carry out more research in lesson and outside of class to before properly aware of my conventions and how I can use them in my own music video.
Creativity - Were our ideas for your portfolio imaginative and unique or did you adhere to conventions?	I think that we done both use the conventions and use our own ideas last year and this contributed to make a decent opening sequence. We had to use the typical conventions as this is what made our film look professional as we had researched camera angles and sound techniques that made our film look more skilled, but on the other hand we used our own ideas to make our film our own. Although, apart from the opening sequence we didn’t really think about what was going to happen in the rest of the film in detail as we weren’t shooting that and in which waste would have been a waste of time.	Using conventions definitely made our thriller sequence stereotypical and fit in the thriller genre guidelines. But we did use most of own imagination to make our film stand out and become more defined.	I think that following conventions that we have found out during research is especially important this year when creating out music video because it is going to have to follow a certain genre, this is the same as last year, but a music video can quickly become another genre by only inputting a few extra ideas. So we are going to have to follow the genre guidelines in that way. Although I do want to include intertexual aspects that I’ve seen in other rock videos, it will obviously include my own ideas and imagination as we can’t copy other existing products.

Shot Count - (blessthefall - You Wear Crown But Your No King)

Common Shots – Extreme Close-ups to instruments, especially guitar because they are a guitar driven band. Extreme close-ups onto their faces to show the emotion. There are lots of meet shots in this and this is because they want people to recognize the band, if this is their first time watching them. Meet shots are also used to show the audience the band faces; these are genuinely to give then star quality because they are attractive people.

There is also a handheld camera involved and this is because the song is fast and heavier than usual, so in that case it would be wrong to have a steady camera because the music isn’t smooth but edgy.

Slow motion to get started, to faze people in to the video instead of coming in quick and loud. This could so be used because the music video is really fast, it just gives the audience a chance to see the setting and the band members properly before the music starts and the craziness happens. 

Music Video Analysis - (blessthefall - Promised Ones)

Lyrics

There are lyrics in this song talking about blood and fighting, so this should make the audience think that this is a rock genre that is because these things are all conventions of a rock genre.  Although this song and music video do come under the rock genre, the audience would expect to see explicit language, but there is none, not even in other songs. This is because this band thinks that they can get a message across, without having to swear. The song lyrics match up to the music video, as they are in preparation for a fight. Although most of the scenes are of live performance, the audience can still understand what is planning on happening. At the beginning of the music video we see a stampede coming to wards the camera, these fit with the lyrics ‘so welcome to our fight’ as they are joining people later on in the music video.

Narrative

Later on, we see three band members putting a bag of what could be weapons into the boot of his car. Two other members look at each other in disappointment, this scene is shown along with the lyrics ‘and now we’ve come to far, to give it all away’. Because these member look at each other, I think this lyric means that their better than to fight. Although, the last member in this scene is strong and believes that they could win.  

Another part in the music video is that a bunch of people are all together and they receive a note, we don’t see a close-up of this note, so the audience is unable to read it, but the lyrics at this point are ‘Tell our enemies we’re ready for the war’. These lyrics tie in with the music video at this point, and everything becomes clear. Because the lyrics are there, the audience assume that it’s a note telling them that their ready. It then repeats these lyrics again later in the video, were the crowds are together. This makes everything become clear, even if you didn’t know the lyrics.

Other than the lyrics I don’t think that many others match up to what the video is describing. This makes the rest this video contradictory. This doesn’t make it a ad video, but sometimes spontaneous videos are the best, those videos where nothing matches, so this then makes you think harder than usual.

Editing

The editing in this music video is very fast and do therefore has a fast pace of editing. Some scenes are dark. It goes from dark to light, just like morning to night, this gives away that this is a elliptical edit and shows that it hasn’t been filmed continuously, but instead it’s been filmed t different points in the day. 

Shots and Framing

There are a lot of meat shots in this music video. I think that this is to try and make the audience aware of whom the band members are, because if you’ve never watched any of their music video’s before you may get confused with the other band members. When showing the meat shots, these are all portrayed as wide frames; these show the entire band member’s all at one time, this may be easier for the audience to understand also. We see a lot of establishing shots of the setting in this video. Although, in any other music video this would be good, but in this case there I no need for this frame, as the setting isn’t that interesting.

Mise en Scene

This music video is set in what looks like at the bottom of an empty riverbed. This would make more sense, as then we’d understand more as to why the costumes are as they are. They are all dressed very dirty, in old tattered clothing; this could also symbolize that they don’t want to fight in their best clothes. In other music video’s of different bands, they are shown wearing average costumes, nothing that those people wouldn’t wear from day to day usually. This is what makes this band unique as on their music video’s they make an effort to stand out from the crowd.

Overall, I think that this is a fairly pleasing video; it has some good elements and some that are very contradictory of the lyrics. Having said that, this band does make a special effort in making their video’s unique to them; they do this by different costumes an overall a different vibe to other bands around now. They make their video’s simple and easy to understand, and I think that this is sometimes what makes them good, as they are easy and simple, and because it doesn’t take much thinking to enjoy. Unlike other music videos of this day and age, where you have to watch them a few times to understand the first minute of the video.

Opie

This is my Opie; I used Photo booth and Photoshop to get this overall picture. I initially took a photo on Photo booth, uploaded it to Photoshop and then created layers depending on to facial feature that I wanted to redo for this Opie.

I used several layers in creating this Opie, in which you can see in the screenshot to the left. I used one layer for every feature that I was going to recreate for my Opie. Some layers were used as fillers, where the background colours’ was peering though and then the overall background colour. This background layer was placed behind all of the other ones that was to make the created Opie standout. This task has lead me to understand the order in what the layers go as I couldn't have the 'Eye' layer under the face as then they wouldn't show. Other processes included the magnetic lasso tool, this was useful for cutting out the hair and face shape ready to be filled with a solid colour.

I think that this turned out better than I thought, as I have had no Photoshop experience prior to this. I am happy with Opie and have learnt a lot through just using Photoshop and playing around with some of the other features of this programme.