Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

First of all, i will say that i'm not completely happy with this piece. Throughout this evaluative piece on my production as a whole, i will state areas that i'm not happy with in my A2 final production

The introduction
I used the switch sound effect and that influencing the change to the grey scale pallette to suggest that this was a moment of reflection and story telling for the main character and him influencing the change to grey was his attempt in trying to set his story as best he can.

This links to the common convention which uses a grey scale or a muted colour pallette to suggest a negative change in their life. Aside from Noir films, this technique is used in a variety of media platforms to suggest a negative swing of events; as if to suggest that all the colour has been ripped out of their life. This is shown in the video of "How to Save a Life" by The Fray.

Secondly, in the scene where our main starts to get out of bed, i was planning to have a small clip of the girlfriend appear out of nowhere and start to hug him. This idea fell through due to what went in to making the shot. From the way i was envisioning it, there would have to be a  hole in the bed so the actress could reach out and being the hugging scene. This would have involved a large cost and  greater planning however, so i decided to scrap it.

Rhythmic Editing
I decided to use a variety of rhythmic editing in this piece as it featured quite a few moments that benefited from matching the music to the video. This is seen through the series of short shots at 0:52- 0:59 of my piece.

Lip Sync
I decided to use elements of lip sync in both locations of my music video (the Dark hall with the piano and the bedroom) This is common place in many music videos to grant an extra link between the video and the song. However, my use of lip sync in both the piano and bedroom scenes show how the singer is deeply immersed in his recount of the story. a similar use of lip Sync is shown in Hoobastank's "the reason" video.

Fade and Overlay editing
I used a fair amount of overlay editing to create a disorientating mood for the viewer which links to the alcohol in the video and linking to the situation the main character finds himself in.

One area where i wish i had used an overlay track is the section marked by the lyrics "she takes you in with her crying eyes". Without the overlay, that section seems rather clunky as the clip of the girl his just simply placed in the middle of the main character drinking. I wish i had used better transitions aswell as many of them seem rather rushed

 Composition of shots
Many of my shots feature pretty standard staging, common in many different examples. My main source of composition theory was the rule of thirds, where the action of the picture is focused normally towards the sides of the screen rather than in the centre. This is challenged by my shot of the main falling onto the floor with a halo of pictures surrounding his head.

Conclusion
While i'm not completely happy with my piece overall; looking back on it, it is clear to see where my inspiration has appeared in my shots, composition and ideas leading  into the production.

Stop Motion With Live Action

Stop motion is a technique where lots of photos of an object or scene are taken where minute movements are made in the scene between shots. Typically, this technique is used with clay figures and scenes to make films and TV episodes such as Wallace and Grommit and Flushed Away. But stop motion has been used in live action. Popularly in scetches on youtube and in indie films to create an interesting effect in a scene.

This video illustrates how stop motion can be a cheap tool that can be used to create intriguing visuals that can compliment a song well, and also create visuals without the use of animation. Taking inspiration from some live action stop motion videos, i've decided to include a small scene of stop motion in my production. While it won't contain anywhere near the amount of frames as some other small scenes of stop motion as i want it to go with the rhythm of the song, it is still classed as stop motion.

Its interesting to me how well older stop motion videos hold up compared to newer ones. For example "sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel. What was a groundbreaking piece of media for the time can still be considered just as groundbreaking many years on.

I believe the reason that this video from the 1980's can still hold up to newer stop motion videos is down to the fact that the fundamentals and technique of stop motion haven't changed. While they have been refined over the years, as can be seen in the Wallace and Grommit films when comparing the first and latest films together, they are still all about taking a sequence of many shots and putting it together to form moving image.

Evaluation Questions- Startup and Research

Now that my Main Task music video is well underway, i need to start focusing my attention to the evaluation and ancillary texts. The evaluation section of my main task counts for 20 marks out of the total 100 for my coursework in media. This means that it carries significant swing in the end result and grading. My teacher, Mr Buckmaster, has provided an in depth powerpoint exploring the 4 questions and how best to go about answering them. In this document, he includes the questions that need to be answered, possible methods to best display a response and past pupils work so that we have some examples. The PowerPoint is linked below:

09 Media Studies - Evaluation by Ben court on Scribd

How Suspense is Built in Film

Over school holidays, i tend to find myself watching quite a few horrors and thrillers. There's something about the atmosphere and the tension created in both of these genre's that i can connect with very deeply. It was only until recently where i began to understand it after stumbling across a few interviews of Alfred Hitchcock where he define's the differences between suspense and mystery. To describe this, he used his famous analogy of the bomb, which is explained in the video below.

 While this is a very  good description of what suspense is, it doesn't describe how this can fit into a film. One scene from the recent film "the conjuring 2" carry's quite a lot of suspense using the pre-requisites of a suspenseful film.

Warning: this is a scary scene. Viewer discretion is advised 

This scene exhibits some elements that are common in suspenseful moments in cinema. Probably the most prolific in this particular sequence is the pacing, lighting and sound track. Suspense normally relies on the scene to be slow, but gradually gain momentum as it carries on. This is exhibited by the shadow walking towards the picture and the placement of the portrait in the background of most of the scene. This gives the audience a focal point of the scene- they know that what is going to happen will be related to that picture. This is aided by the music. Because there is virtually no music, or little sustained notes on the strings or something, it keeps the audiences attention purely on the visuals of the scene rather than overwhelming them. 

Learning about lighting

While i know its tricky, i was considering playing about with lighting in some areas of my video. Lighting is already going to be a large obstacle to overcome in this production due to the location and the mood of the video. I want to maintain a dark image without making the image grainy due to the light levels in the location. I know that i can darken it later on our editing software; but i have one idea for a scene that may require some thought about as regards to lighting. 

  This idea is that we are in the addicts perspective when he is sat on the floor. The guitarist walks out in front of him in the centre of his view. After a certain amount of time, he walks down the corridor that the addict is sat at the end of. At the other end of this corridor is a thick shadow (possibly some fog). I will hopefully accomplish this shadow with lighting.

Watching videos like the one below are incredibly useful as they give good tips on how to do complex techniques on a lower budget.