Weekly blog 1

This week we worked on generating three ideas for the final major project and then
developing the final chosen one. The first thing I did was make a mind map and briefly
outline my three initial ideas, this ensured that I could refer to them if need again and also
help me later on when picking the strongest one to carry on. The next thing I had to do was
write out a survey on my three ideas, this survey included a brief run down of the ideas and
asked for what was liked and disliked about the ideas and an overall favourite of the three,
as well as asking for their age and gender, this was to help me understand the demographic
I would be working towards. On Wednesday I worked on analysing my survey as well as
completing my proposal and production schedule, I used the production schedule the
college gave as a template and extended the weeks into days to be able to look back at it
with more of an understanding of what will need to be completed and when, I always
included information such as half terms and most importantly, my deadlines. On Thursday I
did my bibliography and the planning for issues in the sections that I could complete now,
this being theoretical problems and practical/technical issues. I also decided to use the rest
of the day to begin my research into finding a client/competition, this is where I
encountered some issues, I knew I wouldn’t be working for a client as I had already come up
with my final idea and knew the song I wanted to use meaning I wouldn’t be working with
an independent artist. Finding a competition was a lot more difficult than I had expected, it
turns out that not a lot of festivals have a music video category and it was only short films or
documentaries; there were a few times where I debated changing my brief and doing a
short film instead but I knew I really wanted to stick with the connection the song had to my
narrative, I kept looking around and found international festivals that could work however,
most of their deadlines were March/April time which wouldn’t allow me enough time to be
able to submit, even with the latest deadlines available. I finally stumbled across Brighton
and Hove filmpride and although not the tightest competition, the nature of it matched
perfectly with the theme and aims of my final piece on Friday I completed the brief for the
competition including competition information, why I feel like I could win, a brief description
of my idea, target audience and production schedule. I also added social context onto my
page, this is all about the message of my production and why I feel as though it should be
made. Although there was a lot of work this week, I felt I stayed on top of it pretty well and I
am on track, no other work needs to be completed until I get my feedback next week.
 Weekly Blog 2

This week I worked on the research aspect of my final major project. The main areas I was
tackling this week was topic research and target audience research. The first this I did was
create a small plan of everything I thought was important for me to include, this going for
the whole of my research tab. This included:

 Examples of LBGTQ+ music videos

 Queer artists
 Statistics on homelessness and queer youth
 Example of music videos with short separate narrative before/after
 Target Audience research (focus groups/ survey)
My topic research started off with me finding a lot of statistics about LGBTQ+ youth and
what acceptance looks like in numbers, primarily this was just to help me visualise the
amount of people who are struggling with acceptance within themselves and their
family/friends in order to get a clear understanding in my head what this would look like.
After receiving feedback on this, I was told to look into personal stories on people who had
been kicked out the house at a young age in order to understand how this feels and to see
life from the perspective of someone in this situation, reading through these anecdotes was
at times quite a hard thing to read through considering some peoples experiences but also
one hundred percent necessary as this is definitely going to help improve the standard of
my production and hopefully convey these hard hitting stories through screen.
For my Target audience research, I carried out a few questions on my Instagram in order to
ensure I was reaching the age range of my target audience and I knew that people were
more likely to answer questions directly on a Instagram story than if I sent out a link with a
survey. The questions I asked:

 age
 gender
 what music genres they like
 hobbies
 do they fall into any part of the LGBTQ+ community
I wanted to ask quite vague questions in order to get to know the audience slightly better
and be able to adapt my production to best fit their wants and preferences for media
consumption. I also wanted to (if they were comfortable with answering) ask if anyone fell
into the community as I felt these answers would benefit me the most when making a piece
within that genre. Surprisingly over half of my responses were from people who sad that
they were a part of the community in one way or the other, sometimes people being in
more than one area of it. This immediately felt like I was making a good choice with my
topic as at least over half of my target audience would be able to relate to my piece.
I carried out a focus group with a smaller group of friends to get more in-depth answers
about my piece as a whole. This focus group took a much more relaxed tone to it and I
decided this was for the best as I wanted the most honest answers out of everyone and
wanted everyone to feel comfortable and not pressured, which I think would be the
atmosphere if I took a more “professional” approach with it. The questions I asked in my
focus group were:

 What they like about it

 What areas they would change/ add improvement to
 What is the emotional value of the idea
 What locations they think I should use
I found the focus group extremely beneficial within the development of my idea, it was nice
to comfortably talk to people about my final idea and get their options on it and where they
thought I could take it, this helped me to visualise the final outcome better and gave me a
much more solid idea of where to take this piece and how to keep it within the target
audience.
 Weekly Blog 3

This week I worked on improving my research. On Monday I completed feedback from my

marking teacher on adding more detail into my topic research and when writing up how I
developed my ideas from this research, I highlighted in green where my research has
changed/adapted my final Idea. I worked quite slow this week, I felt as if I was struggling
quite a lot with my concentration and motivation so although staying on track is very
important, I decided to let myself take things slow this week, hopefully allowing myself to
get the motivation back to work efficiently next week. This week I decided to start on my
music video analysis. I decided I was going to analyse five different music videos to help me
understand thoroughly the codes and conventions needed to make this final production the
best standard it could possibly be. These five music videos each coming under a different
topic that would be beneficial for me to dig into, these topics being:

 The original music video for my chosen song

 A music video with the same theme as mine
 A music video within the same genre as mine
 A music video by an artist within the LGBTQ+ community
 A music video with the same narrative structure
These five topics all play a huge part into what will make up my final music video and as I
stated before, this allows me to dig into the codes and conventions of all these themes
individually and allows me to pick out the most important and necessary aspects in order to
get the message across, successfully identifying these and showing why they make the piece
better will help me understand where and why they need to be added into my own,
ensuring the standard of my music video is the highest it can possibly be and clearly being
visible to the audience what my aims of the piece were.
Where I got up to this week in this was analysing the original music video to “Hope For The
Underrated Youth” by Yungblud. It felt important to me to analyse the original video so I
could get a good understanding of what Yungblud himself had covered and where I can
make mine original and stand out differently. I also wanted to make my music video nod
strongly towards his own, possibly using some of the same/ very similar locations and
lighting techniques. I thought this would be something interesting to play with because
although the narratives are very different as mine is focussing in on one specific issue and
his covers a variety of youth related issues, the main theme of “Hope for the underrated
youth” clearly still remains and I would like to include some similarities there to fit in well
with his creative style as well as my own.
 Weekly Blog 4

This week I Finished off the analysis for the five music videos that I had picked out last week.
I felt as though researching the “Arctic Monkeys” music video for “Fluorescent Adolescent”
as part of my genre research was particularly helpful as it allowed me to take a deeper dive
into the “alternative scene” and see how this can be represented within cinematography
and narrative. This felt particularly important as the alternative genre itself has seem to be
made more mainstream within recent years however the genuine alternative way of things
is known as stepping as far away from what is considered normal, so seeing it almost
become a trend, especially within fashion recently, it is interesting to take a look at a music
video filmed in 2007 back when alternative really was being represented at the root of what
it stands for and this is something I want to be able to show within my production. I also felt
that analysing a music video with a similar narrative structure was very important, especially
when noting the fact, I have never produced a music video with a narrative section at the
beginning. When looking for music videos following this structure pattern, I struggled a lot
to get one that represented something that I was also looking to produce like, I realised I
had seen these narrative structure type music videos in other Yungblud songs but didn’t
want to analyse yet another music video from the same artist as I didn’t want too much
focus on his work as although I am producing to his song, I still want this to be my
production and focussing on my work and not just taking all my ideas from the original artist
( though I do think it is important to have some inspiration as it still has to fit within their
typical vibe as that is what the audience is used to.)

This week I also decided to do some test shoot of random little bits around my area so I can
edit them and play around with editing aesthetically to match the genre, this including LUT’s
probably including a small amount of grain/ old vhs style without being too over the top, I
want it to be subtle but still noticeable as well as playing around with the aspect ratio of my
videos and seeing what I think would work and fit the genre well enough.
 Weekly Blog 5

This week I went back to college for the first time since December lockdown, at the start of
this week I have focused on some of my feedback. This being further genre research, I
decided to put out another survey to get an idea of what the audience expected to see
within the genre at what their opinions of the typical alternative conventions are, this is
helpful to me as getting an insight into what my audience expect to see within the genre
and this tells me what I should focus on putting into my production to ensure the quality is
of a high standard and it is clear to the audience what genre my production falls within,
without it being explicitly said. A lot of the results I got reflected that of the typical
alternative atmosphere. This being more urban locations and more dimly lit scenes but
occasionally adding rural locations such as an open field with hints bright colours, this to me
would make the most sense towards the end of my production as the dimly lit scenes could
be used to reflect the inner emotion my character is feeling whereas towards the end when
they are finding acceptance within themselves, if they are in a more open/rural setting with
bright colours, this reflects the freedom and peacefulness that accepting yourself and
feeling comfortable would bring.
This week I also stated working on character and location research, I created a mind map
brainstorming the personality and background of my main character “Jet.” I felt this was
necessary to do because I want to know the ins and the outs of my character to ensure that
I am on the same level as them and when writing the script, I can put myself in their position
and understand how they would react and what they would say etc, this again will make
sure the overall standard of my production/script writing is the best it can be, because it
feels raw and real; this emotion can then be written and be shown through the screen and
hopefully the audience can feel how raw and real it is and in some cases people can relate, I
think that’s extremely important when making a production within such a sensitive and real
subject. I also compared “Jet” to another character more within mainstream media which a
very similar and well done representation, this being “Frank” from the 2020 film Uncle
Frank.
I started a small amount of research on my locations however, I will need to carry this into
the weekend and into next week where I will be giving a list of locations I intend of using
and then making location recces for them as part of my pre-production work, I would say
that I am fairly on track, I defiantly could be further along however, I am getting used to the
structure of being back at college in person.
 Weekly Blog 6

This week I worked towards finishing my research ready to start planning for the pitches
next week. The main things I focused on this week was location and props/mise-en-scene
research. This was important research to carry out as it helps me understand more
thoroughly into what I need to include into my production in order for it to fit into the right
genre. Location is also a huge part of a piece as not only does it help the audience figure out
the genre just from visuals, but it can really help set the overall tone of the piece and help
reflect the narrative on screen better. I knew one location that I would be using for the
beginning of my piece right from the start, I had an actor in mind that I could use for my
piece and once confirming they wanted to play the role of “Jet” I asked if it would be
possible to use their house for the family and house/ bedroom scenes, obviously due to
covid, I am not able to get load of different households mix into one, this lead to me asking
if my actors parents and sister would be willing to act in my piece for just the beginning
family narrative scene as this would help my actor feel more comfortable around the
narrative where strong auguring would take place and also staying as Covid safe as possible.
To me this house was a good location, not only was it very accessible to me and the family
(being in Henley) but it is very much the typical middle class house style I was looking for
when coming up with this music video.
I then decided to create a mood board of what location styles and vibe I wish to match
within my piece some of them being real places such as “Primrose Hill” and “South Bank
skatepark” other places just being similar to locations I wish to produce in that create an
atmosphere very similar to what I am looking to include.
As for Mise-en-scene, I felt that if I had any props that were hugely significant to my piece it
would take away from the atmosphere that I need to create and in some senses, distract the
audience from the true narrative, though in certain scenes such as the bedroom scene, the
mise-en-scene of the room is hugely important into showing “Jet” off as a person and for
the audience to understand further into the character without being told explicitly. One
significant “prop” I am going to have for the bedroom scene is a old stuffed animal bunny
rabbit as a comfort item for Jet. I think this is extremely important within the context of my
piece as it shows that Jet feels calmer in their own environment and can find comfort within
small things to the blind eye.
 Weekly Blog 7
This week was pitches week, we got told on Monday when our pitches would be and then
begun our work towards them. I got told my pitch was Friday morning at 9.am so this gave
me some time in Mondays lesson to work on my feedback, this was to add a final bit of
research to my page under the “narrative” title and explain the narrative structure to my
piece, this being whether it is linear or non linear following, I followed the overall response
from my survey I carried out a few weeks back and decided on a linear structure, although
the response back was very close to being 50 50, I made the decision to go ahead and follow
a linear structure as personally, I feel it would help portray the aim of my piece better. The
process of acceptance within oneself could be confusing in a non linear way and as it is
being created to try and help others, I want it to be as clear to understand as possible-
making it more relatable.
I then began work on my pitch, I started off by making the PowerPoint to be shown behind
me as I spoke and this was used to present key factors of information I wouldn’t necessarily
be spoken about explicitly. This included things such as screen shots from my surveys, any
infographics I made and clearly presented versions of my facts and statistics from research
as these were relevant to what I was talking about however, I didn’t want to just stand up
and put facts straight into people’s heads as my job is to sell my production, not inform
people of facts- although this be a part of why I am making my production, hence why on
the screen behind me as I spoke. Once the PowerPoint was made, I wrote notes down
physically in a notebook about what I wanted to say verbally and made myself a semi script
to follow off of as I had quite a bit to say and I wanted to make sure I didn’t forget any of it.
When actually doing my pitch, these notes were very helpful and kept me on track with
what I wanted to say, although at times I felt I was relying on the notebook a bit too much
and if I were to say something I would improve on next time, it would be to look and
interact with the audience a lot more and effectively that is who I am trying to sell my idea
to. Other than that, I feel my pitch went well and that I made all the best selling points I
could for my productions, I felt I was confident when answering any questions about my
idea and that I was able to show I knew my idea well and had backup plans in case
something were to go wrong.

I am slightly behind with my work as I have a few pieces on my research page that need
finishing up and slightly more detail added to them, as well as writing my script which I will
begin next week. As this takes priority, I think any research feedback will be completed in
half term when I have free days and when I am not filming, other than that I am fairly on
track with my work and just now need to focus on the main planning accepts of my
production next week before beginning to film, which I am very excited to start.
Weekly Blog 8: week before half term, only in college Monday and Tuesday, these days I
worked on finalising my script and sending it out to my actors, the rest of the week I used
as a break and therefore did not complete any other work.

Weekly Blog 9/10

I combined week 8 and 9 as this was from the 29th of April to the 16th. The first week I didn’t
do too much work as I was taking the week as a break to just relax and take some time for
myself, however the work I did do this week was to plan out my filming dates as I knew this
was something I would be aiming to complete the following week. I started by looking for
studio locations in London as I knew I would be filming there and I wanted to make sure my
actors had to travel the least amount. I eventually found a studio “Hone Studio” in
Westferry, London. I booked the studio to film in for 2 hours on Thursday the 15 th of April:

I had to double check with the studio that I would be able to use the equipment that I had
booked as the fog machine has potential to set fire alarms off. Once I had booked the
studio, I went to book equipment to make sure I could secure it in time for filming next
week.
I decided to use the fog machine and
lights as I was doing a music video, I
wanted to create a similar feel to a
concert as this is where community
within the music industry seems to
make a huge impact in a sense of
togetherness, as my music video is
about acceptance and community.
Having the music video tie into a lot of
Yungblud’s original music video
themes was something I was keen on
doing to keep a fluidity running, although this is all completely my own, I still wanted to add
hints towards his music and videos to show that I am taking inspiration from him as an artist
when creating mine, Yungblud talks a lot about how shows are super important to him as he
feels it brings the fandom closer together and unite as one for a few hours, this is why I felt
so strongly about having a section include a similar vibe and feel to a concert. The rest of the
week was making sure my actors could make the dates for the Thursday London shoot and
providing everyone with a timetable of the day and how the day would be running against a
schedule I made as I wanted everything to run as smooth as possible on the day to ensure
the best quality filming possible, as well as confirming dates and times with people this
week, I also did my final location searches, although I had a huge majority of the locations I
wanted to film in sorted, I still needed to find a location in London that would reflect the
alternative style of the genre, I knew that Camden and surrounding areas would tie into this
well so began my search on google, I quickly came across an area in Shoreditch that was
perfect for the tone I wanted and added it to the location part of the schedule I had made.

The filming days quickly rolled around and I used both Thursday and Friday to film my
production, though the studio said that all smoke alarms had been disabled, once the studio
started filling up with fog, the fire alarm was set off, I quickly contacted the owner and
resolved this issue as fast as we could- we ended up taping a rubber glove to the smoke
detector in order to stop the fog machine from setting it off, even though this was resolves
as quickly as possible, it still cut off a huge amount of our filming time and also meant the
fog wasn’t able to go to the thickness I had hoped for, however I got quite a few shots to
work with from the time that we had left and wrapped up the scene just before our two
hours ended.
There was a window located in
the roof of the studio that was
letting in a lot of light that wasn’t
wanted, we improved and
tapped a black sheet up against it
to block out the most amount of
light possible, however this was a
very sunny day and more light
than what I would have hoped
for, got let in; this is something I
am going to fix within the editing
stage as I would like the shot to
be more dark and gig like.
The rest of the filming this day went very well and upon looking back at my footage, I am
happy with the shots that I have got, the locations I picked work really well and I feel really
help to get across the genre.
 Weekly Blog 11
This week was the first week back after half term, although this was counted as a dedicated
“filming week,” as I had got my filming done in half term, I used this week to catch up on a
lot of my work that still needed completing, for example, uploading my auditions to my
website, finishing off and scanning in my storyboards, placing these in my pre-production
booklet, overall this week was used for tidying up work that needed to be done before the
editing process takes place. With the final deadline approaching closer and closer each
week, the pressure is really on to have everything fully completed before starting a new part
(such as the editing) however, this isn’t always capable, someone who auditioned for my
piece didn’t send me their audition until this week back, obviously I had already finished
filming by then and this was a huge disruption to my confidence in getting everything
completed, I felt the need to begin editing as soon as possible in case I caught something
that needed to be redone; the sooner I started editing, the sooner any issues would be
fixed, but wanting to wait to receive the audition tape first became a stressful decision I
needed to make before Friday.
Knowing I still had some feedback from my marking teacher to complete, I decided to leave
the audition tape and work till then so I could begin editing next week as that was a huge
priority, I knew it would not take me any longer than two weeks to finish my editing
therefore should be done with my final production by the 7th of May. This leaves me one
week before the deadline to complete all the feedback from weeks previous and upload the
auditions. Although I feel this was a setback, I know I still have time to get it done and again,
not sticking to my production schedule 100% accurately, I felt with so little time left and
quite a lot of content to cover, I have to take these risks with the order of my work and
prioritise certain aspects over others that I can get done at a later date.
As for where I am now, I will start editing next week, giving myself a strict deadline of two
weeks to get it finalised and finished. This is so important that I meet the two week deadline
in order to talk to my marking teacher on the week beginning the 10 th of May and discuss
everywhere from this whole FMP unit that needs adapting and editing/finalising in order for
me to produce the best quality work and maintain my distinction level grade.