Weekly Progress

This blog contains my weekly progress for the Component 3, music video project  

Music Video Project Timeline

Week 1 : In this week we were given a brief on what the project is all about and what we will need to create. To me this is exciting but at the same time scared because of my previous project. I was put into teams and I believe my team is good as we are strong with our own advantages. In the first week me and my team decided on what genre we want to do, and in order to decide me and my team did a preliminary research to understand all of the other genre before choosing. 

Problem: In this week the only problem we had was choosing the genre, as we were thinking whether we should do pop which has a very wide artist choice while RnB have limited amount of artist that are girls as we as a group were planning on making one of my team member to be the actor / artist. 
Solution: We decided to not fully research on known artist who are considered in the RnB genre but other artist who made songs in that genre but their popular songs are not RnB. This made the research more easier and we get to have a wider option as different artist have different styles. 
To do: Before the next lesson, I should finish putting all my research into the blog for both the preliminary research and the genre research. 

Week 2 : In this week we started on planning which song we wanted to do, as my team has suggested several songs but we narrow it down into 3 different song. In order to pick the song, we decided to have a discussion on each music video and we would say things that we like from the song and what ideas can make from it. We also added several things that we think from the music video is cool but it was not realistic, as doing this will allow us to find several alternative if we were to implement that idea to create a good but with the budget that we have. We continue the genre research as it was more better to do 6 music video that gives more ideas on what to do and what to follow the convention of an RnB music video. 

Problem: For this week there was no problem at all, as we were just doing our research. Picking the songs as well was narrowed down easily without any disagreement.
Solution: -
To do: To start on research before next week so we can start on figuring out storyboard and everything like ideas for the music video. 

Week 3 : In this week we continued our research as it was not finished from last week, while I was done researching I started looking for ideas on the music video and compile them as a draft of ideas that will be pick and get inspiration from. 

Problem: 
Solution: 
To do: 

My Team

 This blog contains my team for the music video project

Cassie: https://cassie-regentsmedia.blogspot.com/
Kimora: https://kimora-regentsmedia.blogspot.com/
Kellie: https://kellie-regentsmedia.blogspot.com/

Reflection: This project is new to me, even though I have work with Cassie and Kimora as a group before but Kellie individually this creates a new opportunity especially understanding each others perspective to create the project. I am excited for what me and my group will do for this project.

Brief

 This blog contains the brief for the component 3 project

Reflection: This brief of the project makes me excited for this project as I have been waiting to use my creativity and especially it would be a fun project listening to people that will be in my groups perspective. 

Final Documentary and Thumbnail

This blog contains the final documentary introduction video and the thumbnail.

Thumbnail: 

Documentary: 

Critical Reflection (CR)

This blog contains the critical reflection of the documentary project. 

CR 1 - How do your products represent social groups or issues?
CR 2 - How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
CR 3 - How do your products engage with the audience?
CR 4 - How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

My team and I produced a crime documentary opening titled The Final Bell: Thirteen Seconds along side with a thumbnail. This documentary follows the incident of a school bombing that was caused by an unexpected student.

Branding is a way to create a label or identity of a certain media, and it is important because it gives the audience a main idea of what the product is about and audience will recognize the creation easily. In my documentary The Final Bell: Thirteen Seconds, the thumbnail (fig 1) and the video worked together to create this branding; where both used muted colors to build a serious mood. Bold fonts and an "Alarm clock" font where it gives an effect where the text looks like a time to emphasize the text "thirteen seconds". A CCTV-style footage is used as a background to set the crime documentary tone, where during the making I added a glitch effect of a VHS to add the low quality camera of a cctv. This was done to add hermeneutic code where the unclear chaotic scene creates with a dark tone makes it a mystery and they would want to watch more. The thumbnail was meant to be the hook that introduces the main idea while the intro of the documentary explains the deeper meaning of the title, this is use to encourage the audience to stay until the end. However, because of the lack collaboration between my team and I with our own busy schedule we created the thumbnail last minute which took a lot of my time especially in helping with finding pictures while juggling to finish the editing. Even so, the idea of consistency between the thumbnail and video was clear.

(Fig. 1, Thumbnail)

As I research through different documentaries following the crime documentary tropes, these strongly influenced these choices. I noticed the way they used bold typography, eerie sound, muted color palettes, and glitch or CCTV editing to build suspense. I conformed to these conventions by using handheld shots during the scene of the students having fun, muted tones, and eerie background music to create realism and tension. The editing choices that I use for the edits was jump cuts which helped in going back and forth to the day of the event and the interview which create instability. At the same time, I subverted conventions by making the bomber a girl, which challenges the stereotype of male perpetrators usually shown in crime narratives. This mix of choices and challenging conventions made my product recognizable to the genre while creating the documentary to be unique.

The target audience for my documentary was teenagers to young adults of any gender with the age range of 14 above, because they are the most likely to watch documentaries and they are closest to the school environment. Having the age range to be 14 and above is used because my documentary contains scenes and footages that conformed the convention of most crime documentaries, where there may be unsettling and violent imagery that are shown. To appeal to them, I showed teenage characters by using handheld shot (Fig. 2) from school footage that was taken as well as social media chat overlays (Fig.3) to reflect their daily lives. Where in the thumbnail it uses CCTV footage, chaotic environment of students trying to run away, and the title choice is used to raise curiosity. These hermeneutic codes made the audience question who the blurred person was and what the title meant, encouraging them to watch further. The documentary follows Uses and Gratifications through personal identity, as young people can relate to the school setting and bullying and social relationships where this shows the dynamic between the bomber and the victim. 

                                                                 (Fig. 3, Social Media)                                                 (Fig. 2, handheld)

Finally, the issue raised in my documentary was about bullying and how it can affect people long-term, even leading to extreme consequences such as a school fights, cyberbullying and in this case school bombing. This issue was shown by the teenagers perspective where using handheld footage (Fig. 4 & 5) this shows both the happiness of friendships and the cruelty of bullying. In the documentary the choice of styling and uniforms was used to create realism, while from their behavior it showed both positive and negative sides from students life. Teachers were shown as authority figures who are close to students but fail to notice the signs, as represented by how they reflect on missing the warning signs and feels devastated. This representation shows that jokes and actions can have consequences, and that teachers need to go beyond their role to truly understand and help students before it is too late. 

                                                     (Fig. 4, bullying, fighting)                                                 (Fig. 5, happiness of friendship)

Thumbnail (Research & Development)

This blog contains the thumbnail research and development for the documentary project which was done by me (Tisha) and Kristine

Thumbnail is important to be applied into visuals, which in this case is the documentary. Before audiences open a documentary it needs a hook and a thumbnail is the first thing that they will see. Thumbnails are use to attract viewers as it gives a brief idea of what the documentary is about. To attract viewers are not only from the design but it has a lot more than that. The choice of image being use needs to be chosen carefully as it needs to be relevant with the content of the documentary and the style of font for the title of the documentary where a font can express the emotion and feeling of the documentary to the viewers. 

Here is a presentation that consist the research and development of creating the thumbnail.

Thumbnail Research & Development by Jyotisha

Edit

 This blog contains editing process for the documentary project where it was made by Tisha.

Pre-production: Editing by Jyotisha