Tasks 3 and 8- Mind mapping initial ideas and final proposal

For my A2 coursework I have decided to do a music video rather than a short film, documentary or a game advert. I made this choice because I didn't feel confident enough with writing a script for a short film and I felt that all of the ideas for a short film I came up with in the planning stages of coursework were highly unrealistic in the short time frame we would have to film and edit. I also ruled out a documentary for similar reasons. I had thought of doing a documentary about how technology has affected children and their upbringing over the past decade but decided against this due to it taking too long to film and to find children and parents to interview. In addition to this there are a lot of safeguarding issues around filming children which I felt would be a problem too big to deal with when there were other options available. Finally, I don't have much of an interest in video games so I felt I didn't have enough of an understanding or interest in which i could produce a good overall product.

After researching and looking into the above options I decided upon making a music video. From the start it was the option that had intrigued me the most mainly because I enjoy listening to various types of music and i was interested in the making behind the videos I have watched in the past. 

Once I had decided upon a music video I began to research the different types of videos I could make, the different genres of music and different artists. Inside and Outside of class I began to look at AS and A2 students past work from a variety of schools, I compared their work to the original video to see the similarities and differences. I found this useful as I realized that I can change and interpret my video depending on what I like, which is useful as it has given me freedom to do as i like with the video from scratch. 

Here are some of the videos that i initially looked at when researching other students work: 

I had already decided from my earlier research that a performance and narrative based video would be the best for me, so when looking for existing products such as the above this was what I aimed to look for in my research. From looking at these videos and the originals I found that I needed to incorporate a number of different locations within my music video. In addition to this the students work allowed em to understand the different/most common camera angles used, the types of editing I could use and the narratives that i could choose from. All of this research helped me when I was story boarding and brainstorming my ideas for my video as you can see below:



After I had mind mapped a few of my idea's and did some additional research into Birdy and Phoebe Ryan I found that Phoebe Ryan's song 'Mine' would be the best song for my video. I came to this conclusion because Ryan's song is less well known and therefore easier to brand as i wish. Also the lyrics could be analysed in many different ways leaving room for a number of different narratives to be used depending on what I felt would be most suitable. Compared to 'Skinny Love', 'Mine' is a lot more upbeat which is what I felt would be best for my video, as many of the other A2 productions i looked at were a lot slower and I don't want to conform to this.

Once i had decided upon a song the narrative came very quickly. I didn't feel as though I had to storyboard any other ideas because myself and Darcy had very similar thoughts on the narrative and just talked it through, debating ideas rather than mind mapping or making a list. Our initial idea was just to have one actor- a female who had argued with a family member and was trying to get as far away from home as possible. We took some initial idea's from Ed Sheeran's 'The A Team' which has a similar plot. However, after we began our first storyboard we realized that we wanted our video to be more original an I felt like we were copying 'The A Team'. With this in mind we discussed the rest of our options and thought that a narrative of a couple arguing/splitting up would be more fitting with the lyrics. Since then we have added more detail into our story line as you can see from my storyboard. In addition to this we have decided to keep a few shots in our final product similar to some in 'The A Team' for example:

Finally, I have planned out the props,costumes and equipment  we will need when it comes to filming, this should make it easier on the day because we will have it all there ready.