WEEKLY JOURNALS

This is where you think about your FMP learning journey and development.
Don’t simply describe what you did - consider what you have learnt and how this has benefitted
your project. What do you need to improve?

THIS IS JUST GUIDANCE THAT YOU NEED TO ADAPT TO YOUR OWN PROJECT. YOU HAVE CREATED YOUR
OWN PRODUCTION SCHEDULES AND YOUR WEEKLY BLOGS SHOULD REFELCT THAT.

THESE QUESTIONS SHOULD BE ADDRESSED IN THE WEEKS YOU COMPLETED THEM. DO NOT JUST SUBMIT THIS
FORM FILLED IN FOR YOUR WEEKLY BLOGS. THERE SHOULD BE 11 WEEKLY BLOG ENTRIES (INCLUDING
EASTER).

Week Two - Research

RESEARCH

What did you learn from your From my research I have learnt what keeps audiences engaged
research? in watching music videos, this has helped me to know what I
need to include in my music video to keep my target audience
engaged. I have also learnt how music video have adapted
over the years allowing people to access them in seconds on
platforms such as YouTube, things such as how the locations
music video are filmed in and how the angles are shot affected
how the audience view the music video and interpret it. I also
learnt that most US artists not only use music videos to promote
their themselves but also their wealth by using their expensive
cars and homes in the music videos to show how they live now,
whereas UK artists use music videos to not only promote
themselves, but also tend to include where they grew up and
their friends and family to show that they’re still in touch with their
roots. In music videos now artist use props to get their narrative
across to the audience, this helps to get the narrative across as it
makes the video look more realistic to the audience. Directors
also use various camera angles to capture the artist’s emotions
to get their emotion across to the audience. I also learnt the
reasons as to why people resort into ‘cutting’ themselves and
how they look at their scars to remind them of how they felt and
to keep them strong enough to not need to self-harm and to
allow them to move forward in life, this also helped to know how
to show this in my production. I also gathered feedback from
sending out a survey to ask ‘what makes a good music video?’
from the responses I received most of them said that good
visuals, camerawork and a string narrative make a music video
good, I will use this feedback to make sure that my music has a
strong narrative, camerawork and visuals

How has the research for your The research I have gathered has given me more insight on how
medium helped you improve your
ideas?
How has the research for your genre
helped you improve your ideas?
How has researching the conventions
of your chosen genre helped you
understand what is required from you
in order to meet a distinction grade?
How has including a variety of sources
(primary and secondary) helped with
your understanding of your medium /
genre?
What sources of information did you
look at that were different from your
proposed project?
How will this be useful to your
planning?
How has the research for your
content/topic helped you improve
your ideas?
to portray cutting and depression in my production and how by
using different lighting techniques can show how a
character/actor is feeling without looking at their facial
expressions. This helps the audience to visually see the emotion of
the characters without them having to say anything, it will also
be discoverable instantly from how the lighting has been used
and shown in the shot. Also by using colour grading and
changing the saturation, brightness and RGB curves to create
emotion and a sense of sadness and depression, this will also
change the emotion of a clip which creates an effect on the
audience. This will help me a lot in my production as it allows the
audience to understand the emotion of the characters just by
looking at the clip.
The research from my genre has helped me to improve my ideas
by knowing what camera angles would help my production to
capture the characters emotions close-up and from a distance.
It has also helped to improve how I can use lighting to change
the emotion of the characters without them saying anything and
be discoverable instantly from the audience’s point of view. From
the research I have gathered on my genre it has also helped me
to use hair and makeup to help make the music video more
realistic and help the visuals to keep the audience engaged and
invested into the music video.
By having a simple outfit but having a dramatic makeup look
helps make the character more interesting just by how they are
presented. The hair and makeup can help attract the audience
to either the characters outfit or hair and makeup. The costumes
are the main focus of the music video, the audience’s eyes will
straight away go to the characters outfit and how it relates to the
location and lyrics itself. It also makes the music video more
realistic and allows the audience to instantly see who the main
characters are in the music video and what the narrative of the
music video as a whole as well.
By using various research methods, it has helped me to gain
more knowledge into the genre and medium of my music video,
by sending out surveys to other peers I was able to gain more
feedback and opinions of other peers. By including artist videos,
it allowed me to analyse them in detail and helped me to find
what costumes, hair and makeup and camera angles would
work best in my production.
The sources of information I used was were book on depression
and camera shots which helped me with my medium and were
different from my proposed project.
This will be useful to my planning as it allowed me to gain more
knowledge on my medium and how to portray depression to my
characters in my production.
It has helped me to improve my ideas by gaining more
knowledge on what causes depression and self-harm and what
the signs are. This allowed me to gain more knowledge on how
to portray this through my actors in my production and how to
 relate it to the narrative.

How has the research into By researching artist/producers it allowed me to state what I liked
artists/producers helped you improve about their work and why and how I could use it in my
your ideas? production also why they have done this, what the effect is on
the target audience.

What work do you need to complete I need to add to my artist research, target audience and
outside of lessons to stay on track? platform research.

High Grade Tips

Research
● ‘Thorough research’ - include plenty of sources and detailed analysis of this information
● ‘relevant & coherent’ – make sure your research sources are not just the same as the Media
product you hope to make - and talk about how they inform your planning
● ‘sustained’ – continue your research throughout the eleven-week project and don’t just limit it to
the first two weeks
● ‘accomplished & considered’ – all of the above referred to in your daily/weekly reflections