Shooting schedule 
My group and I decided to shoot our film in Kennington park due to the fact that it was central and easily accessible for everyone and had the correct facilities ( e.g. a swing and various other forms of child entertainment ) to shoot a film based around children.
We planned to have the shooting completed within the space of 2 consecutive weekends however this did not happen due to factors such as bad weather ( we could not film during windy or wet weather due to the fact that the picture and sound would be unclear as well as the fact that we would damage the schools filming equipment), prior commitments ( one of the members of the group had already made plans to attend a family event and general miscommunication this meant that the process of recording took a lot longer than we had initially hoped and as a consequence, we had very little time to re-film any scenes that had to be re-shot for any reason and that was very risky because we had to do it regardless of the weather conditions so if it was raining heavily, the new scenes would not match the previously shot ones.

Animatic blog

After successfully completing the animatic task, and uploading it on our individual youtube accounts and blogs , We showed our work to our remaining classmates and our teacher  our plan and received the following feedback:

What went well 
-Everything included looked relevant and deliberate
-Good use of sound
-Good range of shot types and angles
-Shots were clearly marked out and were fit for purpose






What could be done better in order to improve the animatic 
-More clarity regarding exactly what will happen in the opening scene
-Review the fourth scene which was confusing
-Make certain scenes longer in order to add effect
-Match the beat of the song with the change in picture in order to add effect and collaborate the two.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1w_-C7I0ys here is the link to the animatic



MATCH SONG TO THE BEAT

Music video plan

-Plan to split locations between the house of the main  girl and kennington park due to the fact that they were the two joint most popular answers we received from our questionnaire.

-Plan to start getting prepared for the task as of this coming saturday

- These two locations are listed in the 'typical R&B' conventions list

-We chose to follow this convention because we wanted to allow our audience to clearly see the genre of the music rather than having to guess which genre it is which would draw their attention away from the music and the video itself.

My blog feedback


After presenting our presentation, Kristal and I received the following feedback :


Positive points
-Ideas sounded well thought out and feasible
-The black and white theme would be 'different'
- The idea of the video being shot in London would make the video unique
-The colour scheme would work and would really bring out the emotional lyrics in the song






Not so positive
-Difficulty surrounding who would be the main character in front of the camera
- Difficulty in decoding the meaning behind the singer applying her make-up with a black and white setting- could turn out to be a pointless effect
-Difficulty is making the video itself in slow motion.

Copyright letter

My Copyright  letter for Jhene Aiko's 'comfort inn ending'

In order to avoid any legal issues, I have been requested to ask for permission from the legal owners of the video and the song itself to use for my coursework, here is the letter below:

La Retraite RC School

                                                                                                            Atkins Road

                                                                                                            London SW12 0AB

                                                                                                            UK

EPIC records

550 Madison Ave.

New York, NY 10022-3211

USA

17^th September 2014

Dear Copyright Holder,

I am currently an A level student studying Media and I am writing this letter to ask for your permission to use your song (Comfort Inn Ending by Jhene Aiko)  for my music video recreation task which I will be working on  for my practical work assignment. 

I can assure you that the music video will only be shown to my Media Studies class, my teacher and the OCR exam board. Your company and the artist herself will have an opportunity to view the final video if you wish.

If possible, could you please send me a written copyright notice to be included in my coursework portfolio?

Yours faithfully,

Luke Levy-Shepherd

My audience research survey 
In order to conduct the most accurate research, I have created a survey which contains 10 questions that I believe will help a great deal when it comes to gathering the most accurate details because it is designed to be concise and extract the relevant information from the audience rather than having multiple tick boxes where they can tick whatever they want which leads to an ambiguous result overall.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2YXRSPY

Character profile

Age: 18-25
Gender: Not of high importance
Favourite food:Ready meals
Voting preference: Labour
Class: working/middle- preferably student if under 23
Likes:R&B,clubbing,bowling etc
Dislikes:Rock music,80's- the past (in terms of music)
Current  residence:in and around London
Favourite Tv show: anything related with MTV
Favourite restaurants: something cheap, fast food such as McDonalds/Nando's
Where they go on holiday: Cheap party  destination such as Ibiza or Malia

Google blogg

Media R&B research (3 videos with links) 

Conventions of women within the music industry
After conducting my research, I discovered that women within the R&B industry tend to wear a minimal amount of clothing to appeal to their male audience this idea is fortified when you look at various artists  such as Lady Gaga and Rihanna who often decide against covering up their bodies to convey their promiscuous side which is generally associated with females. Here is a link to Miley Cyrus' latest video 'wrecking ball' which supports this idea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8
















I have also discovered that watching videos from artist's such as Keri Hilson and Beyonce ( such as single ladies and run the world) women tend to wear heels which show their legs which makes them appear taller hence less of inferior in comparison to a male.
These artists tend to use dance studios to record the majority if not the entire video in order to display the synchronised dancing which is a common feature of an R&B music video.
Females such as Beyonce are renown for consistently using love and relationships as a theme for their videos which often contain scenes of semi-naked intimacy which supports the idea that 'sex sells'.

Men within the industry (such as Trey Songz) tend to prefer using a slower pace to their songs and music videos whilst using more of a monotone tone of voice to again, make them seem more 'sexy' and 'desirable' and really make their target audience (women) fantasise about them so the likelihood of them purchasing the music is increased.
Men also tend to have more close up shots than women because it again shows their intimate side which many women are said to find appealing.

women on the other had tend to typically use a wider variety of shots because they normally have some sort of storyline accompanied by synchronised or solo dancing Britney Spears' 'hit me baby one more time' would be a good example of this. Artists tend to have fairly attractive  backing singers and dancers in their videos however, they tend not to be 'overly' attractive in fear of them upstaging or taking the limelight away from  the main artists and the
audience's attention would be diverted.


Here are the links to my videos of choice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhIbbBwrOsc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-u5WLJ9Yk4

Miley Cyrus' wrecking ball- VMA 2014 
After watching Miley Cyrus' latest music video 'wrecking ball' I have formed the opinion that it was a very unique video which included various different 'typical' music video conventions however I strongly believe that it was not worthy of the award that it attained.
I think it is challenging to confidently state which video is clearly better than another one purely down to the fact that different people have opinions as to what makes a music video 'good' hence worthy the award.
If I was to choose another music video in place on Miley Cyrus' to win the award, I would perhaps choose a video which tells a distinct story or causes some sort of emotive feeling from the audience because it is a lot harder to manipulate your target's audience's feelings in comparison to simply shocking them by doing something 'out there' such as appearing half naked on an oversized piece of equipment.
If members of today's target audience continue to pay attention to these sorts of extreme videos which appear to stem from half-baked, extreme thoughts anybody within the music industry could decide to emulate a video similar to the nature of 'wrecking ball' which I personally believe would remove the credibility of the award and the quality of the music produced could potentially be compromised simply due to the fact that the artist's could decide to spend the majority of their time creating an extreme video to shock the audience.

Here is a link to the original video created in 2013:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8

Media studies: Evaluation

I personally feel that we stayed as close as possible to the original movie and I strongly believe that we would have made are video even more similar to the original if we had the same resources (e.g. the convertible) but I think that this worked in our favour because it gave our video a sense of individuality which set both our video and the original video apart.

We encountered various problems particularly whilst filming because the majority of our cast (including Britney) was not a member of our media studies class which meant that it was difficult for us to film all at the same time because the rest of the cast had other commitments which meant that they had to sacrifice their own lesson time and free periods in order to help us with our project. 
However, I would not change anything in terms of the cast members because the end product that we produced was to a high standard and this barrier taught the group how to manage time more effectively because we had to make the most of the little time we had together (e.g. during lunch and break time) 


With all the feedback received taken into consideration, we mainly received positive feedback especially regarding our use and quality of the camera which many  described as  being professional  which really aided the clarity of our shots  however,  many also felt that we could have provided more of a variety of shot types for example, the shot used at 2.14 was used 3 times in order to fill the gaps due to the lack of time we had left to complete the task. 

If I was forced to change a scene, I would change this opening classroom scene because the classroom looks very wide on camera and we didn't have as many students as they did in the original video so it makes our video look less realistic and it was hard for the camera to pan due to the shape of the room itself. I think that if we had used a narrower room it would work better because not only would it make the whole scene look more realistic but it would also make Britney look more of a leader due to the fact that everyone would be behind her. 

Here is the link to our Britney Spears 'hit me baby one more time' re-make https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vvk39Apsrk

blogging (continued)


We decided to use the corridor just outside the classroom because we felt that it was the widest corridor in the school which would of course allow us to manipulate the camera better and really use a range of shots and techniques without making those involved look cramped or awkward due to the lack of room because if they did look cramped whilst shooting, the quality of the film would be compromised and we would therefore receive less marks we also decided to use the classroom next door to our own because it was not being used,had a similar layout to the classroom in the video and we could take full advantage of the wide walkways between the tables which would allow us to use the camera in the same way that it was used in the video which increases the similarity between the two video's and looks very professional once its done correctly
We also plan to use the small park at the top of the road to film the basketball scene as it is in the video because we aim to keep the video as similar to the original  as possible however due to the deadline we may have to improvise

As you can see above, Alice and Shariece were given the role of directing the film due to their vision and strong leadership ability these characteristics were quintessential in ensuring that we stayed on task and completed the task before the given deadline.

Due to her make-up skills, Alice was chosen to be in charge of hair and make up and would work very closely with Shariece who was in charge of analysing the original video and attempting to make any changes to our own video to better replicate the original so hair and make-up was a very important role to have as well as the choreographer ( Ashleigh) because she had the responsibility of  ensuring that our Britney was fully prepared both physically and mentally because she would have to do the dance moves and stay in time with the song at the same time so it was quintessential that we had adequate preparation time however, many felt and still feel that the time we have been given is not long enough to do this task to the best of our ability and that may have a mental effect on Britney who may become flustered and realise how much pressure she is under and may forget her lyrics/dance moves which would mean that time would be wasted through re-shoots and no progression would be made I think this can be easily overcome by regular practice and everyone involved having a positive attitude towards each other to take the pressure off of others  this can be done by using our free time together( e.g. after school hours,break/lunchtime) to go over things (such as the dance routine) which would normally take a lot of time out of our normal shooting time so by using our free time wisely, we can make sure that the essential things such as the dance routine to ensure that we take advantage of the small amount of time we have shooting together.

 We have come across  various stumbling blocks whilst feeling mainly due to the fact that Britney herself (and 3 main backing dancers) are not in our media studies class which means that they are unable to film when we are filming which means that we are unable to have the whole cast present at one time unless they are taken out of lessons which means that they will be heavily involved in a task that will be of no particular relevance to them.
We have also experienced this problem with our team members because we are all also free to record at different times for example Shariece is free to film periods 1 and 2 on a Friday whereas Alice is only available during periods 3 and 4 which means that one of them will have to compromise and perhaps miss a lesson in order to ensure that all filming is completed before the given deadline

Blogging

At first, i was shocked to discover that we would be making a music video especially such a well known hit such as Britney Spear' 'hit me baby one more time' however I am looking forward to the challenge and working with classmates who I do not normally communicate with as well as the fact that I will be able to pick up various new skills as well as building on skills I already have which follow up from the production of my horror movie opening from the AS course


I personally believe that this is a good music video to re-enact because it has a similar setting with similarly aged cast members which will allow us to re-create this video as accurately as possible. 



Before we took conscious steps towards creating our own video, we decided to look at other Britney videos to gain a better insight as to what we could do in order to make our own video as unique as possible whilst still following the general theme of the original. Here is an example of a re-created video that we watched. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbmFN9x2Bww
This video was also particularly helpful due to the fact that it focused on the dance routine which enabled the dancers and the choreographers to teach and learn the dance as quickly as possible which saved a lot of time and effort which could be spent on something more worthwhile such as editing or re-shooting scenes. 

My music video  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU9JoFKlaZ0

For my music video of choice, I chose Greenday's 'wake me up when September ends' due to the fact that both the song and the video have a subliminal message.
After researching,i have found that the message behind the reference to the mont 'september' was to commemorate the september 11th attacks that happened only a few months before the attacks had occurred.
The video its self is so moving due to the fact the young man who was so happy with his girlfriend and then decided to join the army in order to make things easier for them and the digetic sounds of the gun and war itself was very emotional especially after the 9/11 terrorist attack  because it conveys the message that your loved ones are very important and should not be taken for granted as well as the fact that things can change at any time.

Question 5

5.How did you attract/address your audience?

I believe that this particular film we have created would be a very successful mainly due to the fact that I have discovered that it has direct comparisons with various other handheld films such as 'cabin in the woods' ( which generated approximately $15m ) and due to the fact that this is a similar sort of movie which of course has the same target audience we are very confident that we can re-create the same success that this film has experienced. 

I strongly believe that the fact that this film has more of a current, realistic theme sets it apart from films such as ['cabin in the woods' because when the storyline is more feasible, the chance that the audience will engage and actually feel the aura that the film creates is intensified greatly due to the fact that  they acknowledge the fact that these events could happen to them and i am of the opinion that films with such far-fetched story lines are becoming more and more outdated and we can simply see this by the recent success of films such as 'the exorcism of Emily Rose' and 'the conjuring' which include more concrete story-lines by incorporating normal, everyday people into their movies and the audience appear to appreciate these more than the average 'horror movie, involving Zombies and Dragons because many feel that this is something that has simply been created too many times to provide a new, worthwhile experience and we can offer them that by including the various conventions included within our film that have been never seen before and i honestly feel that this bold move will earn the respect of our fellow film makers and will intrigue the audience into trying something new. 

The v

Here is a copy of our horror film which explains the conventions and how the feel itself was created through the use of speech ...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms5vv8AEbyU

Animatic for prelim task 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M2VST0mlzg

Prelim task  

Here is a link for  my groups preliminary task which was posted on youtube :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDKvMINEJQ4

I personally felt that this task was carried out successfully on a whole mainly due to the fact that we managed to include all the necessary requirements  ( such as a variation of shot types) in order to meet the the marking criteria. 
I felt that we were able to act fairly naturally in front of the camera due to the fact that our story was based in a classroom which was a setting that we were all familiar with therefore we all felt more relaxed than if we had put ourselves in a scenario which was different to what we are used to.
I found the editing part of the project to be particularly laborious mainly due to the fact that we had make sure that everything flowed   as well as incorporating various shot types that were required and if this was not the case, we had to go and re-shoot which was fairly tiresome because the longer we spent re-filming, the less time we had to actually edit and construct the production which meant that things would eventually have to be left out which means that we would lose vital marks for time management 


If I was given the opportunity to re-create this task, I would  keep everything the same but I would make sure that  more care and organisation goes into preparing to shoot the film so we can shoot once and not have to think about coming back to re-shoot more scenes when we are half way through the editing process so by doing this, we lose less marks for time management and it would be easier for us to work with the scenes that we have taken due to the fact that we know that they have been correctly shot and are 100% ready to be used.

Film genres and openings 
After conducting my research using various online sources, i have found many pieces of information specific to my genre of film here is an extract of a piece of information i have found using slidshare which defines both the general definition of a horror film and their typical audience " Horror• Films designed to frighten, panic and cause alarm for the audience with supernatural characters. Usually for an older audience – 15+ Iconography – a haunted house, symbols of death, binary opposites of good and evil Example films: The Exorcist (1973), Saw (2004) The audience will expect to be frightened with a sense of excitement – ‘what will happen next? the overall definition is described as "is a film genre seeking to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's primal fears. Horror films often feature scenes that startle the viewer; the macabre and the supernatural are frequent themes. Thus they may overlap with the fantasy, supernatural , and thriller genres.

As far as horror film openings are concerned, I have looked over my previous classwork and I have found the general opening horror film sequence which is as followed:
Film institutions (e.g. Warner Bros) 
( usually two institutions are mentioned in order to evenly spread the cost)
Establishing shots 
sets the tone of the movie
Opening credits/film titles 
shows the films genre,the leading actors and the films writer
Music
This usually sets the tone of the film and may even be accompanied by a voiceover which helps the audience to gain an idea of the plot and build a relationship with the characters which can either be strengthened or weakened during the course of the film

sound
I have chosen to focus more on sound due to the fact that  it  is often a convention that is overlooked due to the fact that it is something that cannot be seen and only heard. Many horror movies such as "the sound of music" ( hyperlinked below) chose to use instruments to dictate the feeling of the audience they may also chose to single out and magnify the sound of a particular instrument just before a key event in order to foreshadow  a significant event and increase the sense of vulnerability within the audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2PsNnj1ftQ

Research regarding audiences

When conducting my research, I decided to only focus on facts and statistics regarding horror movie audiences due to the fact that it was the genre which was most relevant to my project and would assist our chosen  film distributor when they release the film because they will gain a specific understanding of vital information for example, the people who are most likely to go and pay to see a horror film  ( in the form of gender and age groups)  this will aid both parties because the audience will be able to see the movie that they wish and us,the producers and cast will profit from the revenue generated.
When conducting my research, I primarily used the site 'Val Morgan cinema network' because I could tell that it was a trusted site having researched the company and their site contained, simple relevant information. Here is an example of some of the research that I have found :  

Blog: Jelly baby storyboard 

 For the opening scene, we decided to have a female protagonist in order to subvert the general idea that all lead roles in horror movies were big, strong, dominant males. We chose the yellow coloured jelly baby because the colour yellow has strong connotations with intellect ( a common stereotype of the average female ) as well as cowardice which we felt that we could use to our advantage during the course of the horror movie.
As you can see, we decided to go with a very cliché horror movie setting ( in terms of the woods and the darkness) but decided to shake things up a bit and steer away from the general horror movie storyline when our character arrives in the actual setting in which  most of the movie takes place in.

 We decided to set our horror movie in a seemingly in normal setting in the form of a hospital we chose this setting because it plays a part in everyday life and many people have the assumption that hospitals restore patients to full health when in actual fact, in this movie, the hospital is the place where the patients deteriorate.
This is the main reason why we decided to have a female protagonist because they are stereotyped to have a very strong maternal instinct therefore they have more of an instinct to protect those who are around them and in this instance, this particular scene is very mentally debilitating because the female has the instinct to protect the sick but she later discovers that there is nothing she can do so like the other characters, the protagonist herself begins to show signs of deterioration and this is significant because before this event, various point of view shots will be used so the audience themselves feel that they themselves are part of the scene and have been put into the position of the protagonist and therefore a bond between the two forms and the fourth wall is broken this relationship is then swiftly shattered when the protagonist deteriorates which makes the audience also feel that they are also showing the same signs of decline which we hope will create a very unsetting effect because the viewers will be emotionally scarred and they will carry that feeling throughout the rest of the movie.

 For the third scene, we decided to show the character continuing her dissent through the hospital floor and at this point, after experiencing all the pain and emotion, she is now just a shell of her former self and at this point, the audience will be hopefully speculating as to what has suddenly caused her frantic, erratic behaviour and may choose to go for the common horror movie idea that she has been possessed or taken over by some form of extra terrestrial life form when in actual fact, her anguish is in her mind and these sorts of feeling could effect anyone which bring a sense of realism to the movie which sets in apart from any long winded horror movie ( such as resident evil) which magically transforms human beings into unidentifiable life-forms such as the classic 'zombie'

For this particular scene, we decided to use a long shot to show the characters leaving the hospital in unison with the female protagonist leading the way through the dark forest  we felt that a long shot would be appropriate because it would show the size of the task that the protagonist has undertaken  and signifies the  long, dark journey that these characters must endure before returning to full mental and physical health.

question 3

Q3 what kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why ?

We are aware of the fact that our film is certainly in no position to compete with the likes of many productions of a similar genre which are churned out of Hollywood on an annual basis however, we would like our film to reach these heights therefore, in order to achieve this, we would like to air our film in various independent film festivals such as the ‘raindance ‘ festival and similar events simply due to the fact that it is low budget and averages a very high attendance rate which increases the likelihood of a great deal of people recognising our film.

Once our film has gained the recognition that it deserves, we would like to sell it to major film companies such as Netflix who- have approximately 29 million subscribers  would help distribute our film across the globe and dramatically increase our revenue.

Everybody involved in production strongly believes that our film is being overshadowed in favour of  films such as ‘Halloween’  who have less special effects,  fairly basic and revolve around  storyline which has been used a countless amount of times but get the coverage simply due to the fact that they have been distributed and co-produced by the Warner Brothers  company.

Our production company ' bullet proof productions' preferably seeks to employ a London based independent film distributor such as Universal pictures UK because we feel as if they best suit our preferable target audience due to the fact that a high percentage of Londoners have gone on record saying that Horror films are in fact there favourite genre of film.

I challenge the most experienced of movie professionals to scour the internet to find a horror movie as sick ,  as well written and as mentally debilitating as our own. Our target market will soon realise this fact and will be rushing into their nearest VUE or ODEON to see this fantastic production which is guaranteed to be a success.

We also feel that our film would be a success because we believe that it is a perfect blend of arguably two of the highest grossing horror films in recent memory in the form of ' The ring ' - due to the presence of the young female and the 'blair witch project' due to the utilisation of the hand-held, found footage camera skills 

After researching similar independent films ( such as afflicted, stage fright and mile marker 7 ) we have discovered that they are all due to be screened within a short period of time are at the stage where we strongly believe that our film should be in order for it to reach its full potential.

In order to ensure that our film is seen by as many people as possible, we could attach it to websites such as : 

http://www.youtube.com - High amount of users- cheap viral advertising 

http://www.shortfilmdepot.com- Free publicity , wide range of movie fans