Here is the weekly progress and plan for my documentary project.
Here's a plan my teacher made for us to keep track of where we should be.
| Week | Start Date | | Task | | Blogpost Title | Content | Deadline |
W1 | 30 September | Pre Production | Research | 1 | Brief | | |
| 2 | Team | | |
| 3 | Weekly Progress | | |
| 4 | Preliminary Research | Broad genre research | W3 |
W2 | 7 October | Research | 5 | Research: Industry | Who makes music videos? | W3 |
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W3 | 14 October | Research | 6 | Research: Genre | Codes and Conventions of your genre | W4 |
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W4 | 21 October | Plan | 7 | Statement of Intent | Your initial proposal | W5 |
| 8 | Theory of Stardom: Richard Dyer | A summary of the class, plus your example | W7 |
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W5 | 28 October | Plan | 9 | Moodboard | Your visual style | W7 |
| 10 | Lyric Sheet | Breakdown your song into scenes | W7 |
| 11 | Storyboard | Shot by shot plan | W7 |
W6 | 4 November | Plan | 12 | Song Research | Background of your song | W7 |
| 13 | Screen Test | star auditions | W7 |
| 14 | Classwork | How to: Camera, MeS, Sound, Edit | W7 |
W7 | 11 November | Plan | 15 | Location scout & Risk Assessment | | W7 |
| 16 | Filming Schedule | Film over the break? | W7 |
| | | W7 |
BREAK |
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| Week | Start Date | | Task | | Blogpost Title | Content | Deadline |
W8 | 6 January | Production | Shoot | | Mini-project: Lip Sync and Editing | How to edit | W10 |
| Behind-the-scenes | Images from your filming (all members) | W11 |
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W9 | 13 January | Shoot | | Social Media: Research & Development | The creative process for your stars | W15 |
| | social media page | |
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W10 | 20 January | Shoot | | Digipak: Research & Development | The creative process for your Digipak | W15 |
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W11 | 27 January | Production | Edit | | Editing | Your editing process, including | W16 |
| | screenshots | |
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W12 | 3 February | Edit | | | | |
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W13 | 10 February | Self Reflection | | Self Reflection | (1000-1500 words) | W16 |
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W14 | 17 February | Self Reflection | | Audience Feedback | Feedback from your target audience | W15 |
| | which you will use to make improvements | |
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W15 | 27 January | Self Reflection | | | | |
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W16 | 2 March | Finalise | | | | |
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W17 | 8 March | Finalise | | Final Promotional Package | | |
| Final Self Reflection | | |
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WEEK 1
- Introduced to the music video project
- Chose team
- Started research into the industry
Problems: 50% of my team members were absent
Solutions: Work together with the only other present team member to figure out key ideas to discuss with the other two.
To-Do: Continue researching the industry
This week was our introductory week. Honestly I'm a bit overwhelmed with what's to come and I know how quickly the weeks, months, and terms will roll by. I'm hoping that we will all be present in the coming week in order to get key ideas and work locked in. However, I'm hopeful that we will be able to work much more efficiently and quickly in order to get this daunting task over and done with. I'm not at all excited for this project so I'll just take everything as it comes.
WEEK 2
Problems: Wrapping my head around different terminologies
Solutions: Learnt them with the help of my teacher's powerpoints
To-Do: Continue my research
We didn't do much this week as we mainly focused on doing the research for our genre. I found this to be a long and laborious task so I've probably unwisely put it off til next week. I find it hard to get this part of the project done as its so boring and time consuming. I probably should get it done as soon as possible otherwise I'll probably suffer the consequences of not having it done.
WEEK 3
- Continued genre research with team
- Discussed different genres of music and which song to choose
Problems: Agreeing on a genre of music and a song
Solutions: Came to a consensus by discussing the pros and cons of each genre and proposed songs
To-Do: Continue my research
Sadly this week I decided to continue adding a little bit to my research. However, we did have the opportunity to discuss certain different genres of music for us to make our final decision and that was fun. Some of us wanted to do pop music while others suggested we play around with R&B. I'm fine with any because I don't know anything about either genre so I don't really care as long as we get work done. I found that to be fun. What I didn't find to be fun were the arguments thrown around over the "better genre". At least things were settled and we voted 3-1 for our song: Bruno Mars' Leave the Door Open.
WEEK 4
- Started and completed our Statement of Intent
- Learnt about the theory of stardom by Richard Dyer during class work and theory lessons
Problems: Coming up with ideas to put into the statement of intent; putting a persona on the star of the music video
Solutions: Referring back to previous work and ideas of our own to solve the issue of the statement of intent; looked more in detail about the star through some quick research
To-Do: Finish the research
This week was a bundle of fun as we learnt about another theory by Richard Dyer. I think it will help us to create a persona for our star when we cast him and give us a good idea of what we should be looking for in a star. Our statement of intent will also help us to keep within a set of guidelines so it'll help keep our minds trained on bringing a quality media product to our audience. This is fun as we were able to discuss different elements as well as divide the work amongst ourselves. I found it a bit difficult trying to think of ideas for the statement of intent so I left most of it to my friends. I contributed by talking about the audience which was pretty easy and simple.
WEEK 5
- Started screen test
- Started lyric sheet
- Started moodboard
- Started location scout and risk assessment
Problems: Finding people to be part of our screen test
Solutions: Casting everyone in our class in a screen test that we all did together as a class
To-Do: Complete all the unfinished work before deadline
This week was a bit of an exciting week as we were introduced to a whole lot of new stuff to do. The screen test thing was a bit different to what I'm used to doing in media studies as it was brand new to me. Same goes with the moodboard. I found that they'll help us keep within a certain guideline to make sure we stay focused on catering a media product that will be suitable to our audience. I found that working on these with my friends was both complicated but quick as we wanted to get this stuff out of the way as soon as possible and with minimal quarrel. I found it was easy to find ways of contributing what I know but I found it difficult with regard to trying to figure out a lot of the different terminologies that were new to me.
WEEK 6
- Started progress on the storyboard
- Started film schedule
- Completed screen test
- Completed lyric sheet
- Completed moodboard
- Completed location scout and risk assessment
- Learnt about camera, mise-en-scene, sounds, and edits through classwork and theory lessons
Problems: Finding time to do genre research
Solutions: Putting it off to next week
To-Do: Finishing the film schedule, storyboard, and genre research
I'm so happy that a lot of the unfinished work finally got done. I found that it was really hard to manage my time wisely as I've been lacking behind in other subjects like Psychology and its been really annoying having these tasks to complete. Unfortunately on my part I decided to put them off for too long. My fault. I found it quite fun to put together a location scout and risk assessment with my friend Kaka. I feel my ideas this week were really only limited to that section as I'm pretty useless with the other aspects. I found it pretty difficult to keep up with my other subjects and keeping up with the progress my friends have made on this project this week.
WEEK 7 - DEADLINE 1
- Completed storyboard
- Completed film schedule
- Completed genre research
Problems: Time management; media terminology usage
Solutions: Put off other assignments to prioritise this one
To-Do: Nothing
This has been an exhausting seven weeks. I'm very happy that I can bring this part of the project to a close as it's just been really annoying and laborious (especially the research). I'm so relieved that I don't need to worry about any of this until I get back from my holiday break. I used the checklist to make sure I had done everything according to the way I wanted it to be formatted so that everything would be so much easier to find. It also helped me organise myself and its something I learnt to do with the previous projects I did. It's useful that we've got the plan down pat and ready to go for when we come back from our break as it saves us a lot of time from having to do this all over again. Last project we made the mistake of planning after making the product. That was pretty dumb and it exhausted us then. Now I think we've learnt from our errors and we're making good progress. This will help us get stuff done quicker and efficiently. I think the things I found easy were putting these blogs together. One thing I found pretty annoying was the time it took us to discuss some things which should've been a five minute discussion. A lot of things came down to a vote in the group. I abstained from a lot of the votes so as to avoid a tie situation. I'm happy to go with the flow with stuff I'm less knowledgeable about. Hopefully this all helps. I'm definitely looking forward to just sleeping everything off and forgetting about all this until we come back after the break.
WEEK 8 - START OF A NEW TERM
- Started and completed a mini project
Problems: Nothing much, other than the fact that it was just extra work getting in the way
Solutions: Managing my time wisely to get it done on time
To-Do: Wait for my next assignment, film more scenes
This was quite easy actually, almost enjoyable. It was fun mucking around with the setting up and filming of this mini-project. Although, I did find that some aspects of editing are best left to the professionals (Giorgio) as it seems like there are a lot of different functions that I don't know of.
WEEK 9
- Started and completed Multicam Editing - A Tutorial
- Filmed a scene of the music video
Problems: No Giorgio to help show me how to edit videos
Solutions: Played around with it for a bit until I found out how to use it
To-Do: Continue unfinished blog work, learn how to better edit videos
This was quite fun actually as I have never really edited a video before with so many cuts. I learnt a lot about video editing this week alone. Though I'm not confident that it's good, I'm quite happy with how it turned out considering it was my first go. Again I wasn't able to wrap my head around the editing software so I had to fiddle with a bunch of buttons until something worked. Thankfully I was able to find what I was looking for. After that, it was a matter of time before I finished the task and submitted it.
WEEK 10
- Started research into branding and persona
- Started research into social media
- Started research into Digipak
- Discussed persona for artist
Problems: Time management, lack of prior knowledge in this topic or branding image
Solutions: Sorted tasks out into priorities, found information on the internet to boost my knowledge
To-Do: Continue research and developement
I'm not too keen on this week's newly assigned research topics as I know nothing about them. I've had to google each term and find information there. Persona was alright, we did a good job doing that. Although, Giorgio was not with us which meant that we were straying off the path. Luckily we were able to get back on the path and discuss relevant matters and issues pertaining to the persona of JMUSE.
WEEK 11
- Continued research into branding and persona
- Continued research into social media
- Continued research into Digipak
- Started Production - File Organisation Section
- Started Production - Behind the Scenes
- Started Post Production - Editing
Problems: Time management, more work to do more blogs to write, mock exams from other subjects
Solutions: Prioritised tasks in order of due date, finding spare time to complete these blog posts.
To-Do: Complete unfinished blog posts, film more scenes for the music video
We kind of put the branding research on hold for a second to do blog posts that were much easier to complete. Although, Giorgio hadn't yet completed his editing of the video so that couldn't be uploaded either way. My prioritising of tasks seemed to have been working as I was finding that I was getting jobs done faster. Writing the file organisation was pretty easy as that's what I'm usually good at doing at home with my own computer as it's usually clogged up with a lot of files.
WEEK 12
- Started audience feedback
- Completed Production - File Organisation Section
- Continued Production - Behind the Scenes
- Continued digipak research and development
- Continued social media research and development
- Continued branding research and development
Problems: Having not completed research into very essential parts of the project, time management, not much filming being done
Solutions: Avoiding the research and now turning my focus towards the audience feedback, prioritised tasks, scheduled to meet at film locations when free
To-Do: complete unfinished blogs, film more scenes for the music video
Each week seems to bring another blogpost which is starting to get on my nerves because I just want to get the research out of the way. I'm so tired of doing more and more blogs and I'm finding it difficult to juggle this with normal school work and mock exams. My grades in other subjects have suffered quite substantially because of this project taking up most of my time. What I did find easy though was writing this weekly progress report. The rest wasn't so much fun.
WEEK 13
- Completed audience feedback
- Continued Production - Behind the Scenes
- Continued digipak research and development
- Continued social media research and development
- Continued branding research and development
Problems: Having not completed research into very essential parts of the project, time management, not much filming being done
Solutions: Avoiding the research and now turning my focus towards the audience feedback, prioritised tasks, scheduled to meet at film locations when free
To-Do: complete unfinished blogs, film more scenes for the music video
Thankfully I was able to complete one more blog post which means I can now turn my attention to the remaining four blogposts. What I found easy this week was writing the blog for the audience feedback but what I found difficult was getting responses. Nobody wanted to answer the survey. I believe that this will help us stay on the right direction with our project.
WEEK 14
- Continued Production - Behind the Scenes
- Continued digipak research and development
- Continued social media research and development
- Continued branding research and development
Problems: Time management between mock exams and this project, getting everyone to work as a team to finish this on time.
Solutions: Put study of mock exams before this project (prioritising exams), assigning roles to each member of the team.
To-Do: Complete unfinished blogs
This week was more of a week where I continued where I left off with these four blogposts. That was good because I really needed to wrap my head around these blogs in order for my project to be completed. What I found easy was the behind the scenes blogpost. However, it came to my attention that no photos behind the scenes were actually taken by the person appointed to do that role. Great! Another week or two left to go until this needs to be submitted and we don't even have those pictures.
WEEK 15
- Continued Production - Behind the Scenes
- Continued digipak research and development
- Continued social media research and development
- Continued branding research and development
Problems: Time management between mock exams and this project, getting everyone to work as a team to finish this on time.
Solutions: Put study of mock exams before this project (prioritising exams), assigning roles to each member of the team.
To-Do: Complete unfinished blogs
Deadline week is coming up, and I've made myself a blog tracker on Google Sheets. I like it because it helps me track what blog is complete, who is credited for which blog, and makes it easier to find names and embed text to put on the blog. What I found easy was keeping track of all my blogs. What I didn't find easy was the actual research and analysis of everything. I've always disliked it and I still do. However, next week is deadline and I must get cracking otherwise I'll be jeopardising my grades for this project which is something I cannot afford. I can't wait until all this is over and I can return to doing normal school work again instead of trying to juggle mock exams and media studies project. What a nightmare it's been so far!
WEEK 16 - DEADLINE 2 (FINAL)
- Completed Production - Behind the Scenes
- Completed Digipak Research and Development
- Completed Social Media Research and Development
- Completed Branding Research and Development
- Completed Post Production - Editing
- Completed Critical Reflection
- Completed Final Promotional Product
Problems: Time management, no behind the scenes pictures, lack of feedback on different aspects
Solutions: Coped, did work during the night, took stuff to our teacher during class the day before submission for feedback, didn't bother recreating behind the scenes pictures
To-Do: Nothing
At last! The end of another media project. I did not enjoy doing this media project as I'm neither a consumer, producer, or fan of music videos so this was way out of my head. I had to refer to other people's blogs for inspiration a lot of the time because I didn't know where I was going with anything if I'm honest. Group work in this team was, to say the least, awful. If I had to do this again I think I would have chosen a different team of people to work with. Yes, this worked, but not as well as it could have or should have. Multiple attempts to split the group and take it off course in the middle of the project were made and that was certainly not helpful in moving towards our goal: finishing the project in a timely manner. What I'm really happy about is that it's over. I'll never have to do another media project ever again. I want to thank Giorgio for working especially hard and for putting up with us. He didn't have to do that. Teamwork I'd say was the most difficult part of this project, other than the research and analysis. What I found most interesting and easy was the development of the digipak as I like to do graphic design and can be very flexible with the way I design things. Would I do this again? Probably not.
