The Creative Process: Production...

Half way through our Media Production day, we began to work on short openings to films in which we had to stick to the conventions of a specific genre. Here's our creative process...

We first went about making a start on storyboarding what kind of shots we wanted to include to build upon the script and create something visual from it. This simply began by brainstorming ideas together of our visions of how the script could be interpreted and went from their. We primarily made creative desicions in the shape of the locations for certain scenes or pieces of dialogue, implenting features of the action genre as we went. Later during filming, these conventions were tested and improved upon based on the quality of the shots we got from following our original storyboard exactly.
Following the storyboarding desicions, we made pratical ones such as how would play each of our leads, what the leads would look like and act like in order to fit with our genre and where we should film to get the best possible outcome. We had to think realistically here, as well as considering the way in which these choices would effect the style in our opening.
One of the final desicions we made that day was that of what shots to film first. Ultimately, we decided upon our introductory tracking shots of walking up the stairs, as the weather did not fit with what we wanted (rain and general gloom!) at the time and they were shots that were relatively short and would allow us to get to grips with the equipment.
Creativly thinking before acting overall gave us an advantage when it came to recording at later dates, as most of the desicions had already been sensibly made, with influence from all of the techniques we had learnt that day.

"Action Scene" -Filming Diary [ongoing]

Our preliminary task is to create a short opening of a film, using match-on-action and continuity. To do this, we were provided with the skills and knowledge needed to create the shots, storyboard and to control the equipment and also the script...

Production day
Shots- 2
Our first diary of principal shooting. After obtaining the script, we drafted a storyboard for all the style shots that we wanted. This took a lot longer than expected as we all had a wide variety of ideas that we wanted to incorporate into our opening to greater reflect the conventions of the action film genre. Because of this extra time taken on perfecting the storyboard, we were behind schedual and only began filming our first few shots in the later stages of the day. These turned out pretty much as we had envisioned them, and a lot of time was taken up just familiarizing ourselves with the equipment, in particular the steady cam.

Filming hour No. 2
Shots- 2
Again, everything took far longer than we expected as we were rather paticular about getting the right angles and feel from the shot. Whilst this benefits the overall outcome, it meant that we only captured two shots in one hour. Here, we also implemented the use of techinal filming terms that we learnt from the production day, which helped to organise us and get things done. I particularly liked the outcome of one of our shots, in which we kept the camera still and low to the ground to get a passing close up shot of the villains footsteps. I think the soft focus and colours here really help to create an ominous yet mysterious feel to the shot -  advantageous for the characters introduction.

Filming hour No. 3
Shots- 5
This was the first time that I felt we actually achieved a considerable ammount in the time that we had. The weather conditions were exactly what we had hoped for and so we took the oppurtunity when we could. A difficulty we had here was having two group members with the camera up in the room to get a shot through the window and the remaining two were outside in the rain. Of course, this caused issues in communication and this resulted in us creating signs to hold up to symbolise when the camera was rolling and when the actor in the frame was ready. We also started to the consider genre convections far more  in the later shots we took on this day, especially in including shaky cam and low angle shots.

Filming hour No. 4
Shots- 5/6
Another good day in terms of what we got done. The weather was again good for the type of shots that we needed however, for this session we remained inside. We took a close up shot of the ticking hands of a clock to place in the opening when we need tension to build. Mostly we got many of the crucially parts of dialogue filmed too, which aleveated a lot of the pressure to be quick in completing the opening. A few of these shots proved quite troublesome and we had to repeat their filming a few times - the largest ammount being 5 takes. Despite that this put us back a little further on our time schedual, we felt that it was crucial to get them exactly how we envisioned and therefore spent that little extra time perfecting them.

Filming hour No. 5
Shots- 3
Again, all crucial shots for our piece. The main problem we had here was continuity as the room we had previously used to film in was not avaliable and one of our leads did not have the same clothes to wear. However, we managed to find a similar room and adapt it to match the other in a vague way and adapted a few camera angles to make it believable. We also impusively filmed a few shots for a flashback sequence, which will definitely add to the feel of action and suspence in the opening. Continuity wise, in these scenes we added a new external location to the shots and we must make sure that if we film here again, certain noticable aspects cannot be changed.

Filming hour No. 6
Shots- 4
In this session, we only had two members of our production group present, yet were still able to tie up the dialogue for one main character and work on some linking shots ready to film the protaganist when we next shoot. The hardest shot to get right was a close up, side-on shot of the villain firing the gun as we wanted to jerk the camera just as the shot was fired to give the action more impact especially as replacating some of the features of the action genre is one of our goals with this piece) and this proved hard to time exactly.

Filming hour No.7
Shots-8
After beginning the editing process, we realised we needed many other small shots mostly to fill continuity gaps. So in this hour, we worked quickly and productively to produce the shots that we needed. We also finished up our main protaganists dialogue, capturing various scenes from different angles to hopefully creating a quick editing pace later in post production, a convention of the action genre.

Representation: Appearance and Female Musicians

Often, in the media and in particular, the music industry, the way a person looks highly influences what we expect of them and how we see them. Many artists and acts alike have people on their team to deal with their 'image' along with how they appear in the media, which makes most of our decisions as viewers or listeners somewhat dictated by those who model the stars. Talent shows, to give one example, are a common place to see how people with talent are immediately judged by an audience.
By listing what we think of when we consider certain celebrities, we came to the conclusion that often, the media can influence what we belive to be true. This is such a list:

• Avril Lavigne- Rock chick, rebellious.

A good example of how appearance influences peoples views and likes is that of my favourite artist and inspiration, Taylor Swift.

For many years, the country superstar was the very essence of the american 'girl next door' - curled, gold locks, polite, clean lyrics and mannerisms. For this reason, many people, especially music critics, made snap judgements about her music and criticised it, even though she has now one six grammys and is a highly successful songwriter with a lot of talent. In fact, still today, a lot of fans of artists such as Lady Gaga and Rihanna still maintain the usual comments: "She's so annoying and girly and innocent! Her songs to too young!"
With the release of Taylor's latest album, RED, she also adopted a new look, changing her iconic hairstyle and with it, some of her musical style.

From this...

...To this.


Interestingly, her latest single, 'We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together' has been her biggest hit to date, and many people have suddenly changed their opinions of her. Is it because she no longer embodies country music? Or maybe people would say they've only just discovered her.
Still, appearance obviously does impact us largely in in the media and perhaps this is starting to become more apparent in a society that is now more focused than ever on looks and appearance.