To prepare for the main task of developing my own media text
for my advanced portfolio, as a group we have reconstructed an existing media
text. This task enabled us to understand what is required when we finally begin
our main work.
The video we had decided to do was ‘Sliver by Nirvana.’ The
reason being was because out of the choices available this video was the most
practical. Other choices were the music video ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved by
The Script’ and two film trailers that were ‘127 Hours’ and ‘The Lucky One.’
The reason our choice was the most practical is because it could have been done
in college hours and the requirements, such as setting and props, was easier to
reconstruct. Examples of why the other media texts were too difficult are, in
‘The Lucky One’ the opening scene is situated in a warzone, with bullets and
explosions happening. That would have been a struggle to recreate. As for ‘127
Hours’ although some shots would have been simple to shoot others such as
riding the bike through a dirt land would have been difficult to recreate,
especially with the high angle shot being so high up.
Before beginning filming, we needed to organise times in
which we were able to get to together and film, as well as in the meantime get
props. As it turned out, it was much easier to film within lesson time and use
props from around the college. Although they weren’t exact replicas of the
original music video, it is clear what we were trying to portray. There was never
any problem with attendance, maybe sometimes would be distracted and waste the
time we had organised for our production, however we got the best part of the
filming done in only a couple of days. However, after finishing filming and
preparing for editing, the camera had dated our videos wrongly making us
believe that the footage on the camera was two years old. Therefore thinking it
was not our footage, it got deleted. This now meant we had lost a little part
of our project and had to reorganise our time in order to save our music video.
This was done at a lunch time, but, yet again getting distracted we decided to
take the reconstruction to another level. This is when we created the
reconstruction of the Dairy Milk Advertisement.
In all fairness the advertisement was not a bad idea,
because we had to learn and adapt from the original to recreate the camera
shots, movements and sync it with the song. Since the footage we had taken was
for fun, the syncing was not perfect. Not bad, just not perfect. This required
me to edit a fair bit in order to make it look realistic and on time. Although
we were proud of what we had done, it was not what we had intentionally set out
to do; therefore we still needed to work on the original Nirvana piece.
Editing this was fairly simple. However when playing back
some of the footage we realise that there were objects in the way, ideas that
seemed good at the time were not when played back and the idea of the green
screen really didn’t seem to work out. The only positive thing I can say about
it is that the camera angles are not that bad. Lip syncing was fairly easy
considering you never really saw the mouth of the singer within the video and
when you did for a decent amount of time the only lyrics sang were “Grandma
take me home.” Harley who had decided on this song was willing to do the lip
sync; this made it a lot easier rather than making someone that doesn’t want to
do it have to sing a song they don’t know/like.
The green screen was meant to appear as a cluttered bedroom
in which the band were playing in, however, when using an image from the internet, all that seemed
to happen was that the room stayed still and the band floated around. This
obviously didn’t look very good. On top of that, the lighting was not great,
meaning when using the ‘chroma key’ effect to place the background it came up
fuzzy and affected the edge of the actors. Another flaw in our project.
As for costumes, no planning was put into it, except for the
monkey outfit. This was not a major problem in our production, but it would
have helped a little more in the reconstruction rather than just dressing as we
were. This is something I will have to think of when I am created my main
production piece.
After everything it turned out that our best work, and most
favourable, was the reconstruction of the dairy milk advertisement. We learnt a lot from both of the pieces such
as time management. Organisation and planning is key to making a good media
text. Since we filmed within college hours and put no time outside of lesson
into it, I believe it does show compared to other students work. On top of that, not gathered the necessary
props and requirements and finding a good enough location really shows as well.
Personally, I did not like what we were doing/did. I would not have chosen the
song it had been up to me and other group members would agree, which is
something else I have learnt. Working in a group although is fun, decisions
have to be made together and with something like this I believe it is better to
work with less people, if not alone.
When it comes to filming my trailer I now know I have to be
a lot more organised than I was now as well as doing something I enjoy. The
Dairy Milk advert was great and we enjoyed doing it, which is why afterwards
more time has been put into ‘perfecting it’ rather than somehow trying to
improve our original idea. Other aspects are getting together a cast that want
to be a part of the production. No-one from our group was particularly keen on
getting in front of the camera and acting. This is highly important when
creating a film trailer especially because the actor will have to speak in
front of the camera as well as act.
Luckily this was just practise, so when it does come to my
actual piece, I will be a lot more prepared.
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