Analysis of previous students’ a2 coursework

Mary Medrana

Chosen blog

I have chosen to analyse Amy’s A2 coursework by looking through her blog using the website, blogger. Blogger is the most effective way of demonstrating her A2 coursework as she is able to upload all of her work onto her blog and re-update her posts if there is any changes needed. Similarly to Amy, I will also be using Blogger to demonstrate my A2 coursework as it will allow me to also upload all of my work online. I decided to analyse Amy’s coursework because I initially saw her final product which was her music video and found it inspiring to use when it comes to creating my own video because of how professional and complex her use of techniques are. Analysing her coursework will allow me to see her progression through the lead up to creating the video and see how she has managed to make it look so successful. Her research and planning stage along with her construction process is what I will also be focusing on as I want to be able to see how she has demonstrated her work and how she has gained her level of understanding to creating such an effective music video.

Layout of blog Looking at the homepage of Amy’s blog, I was able to tell how

organised her work was. On the side of the blog, there were labels including: audience, evaluation, final, planning, production post, raw footage and research.

I noticed how there were more posts on some than others such as planning and the production stage. Whereas other posts such as the evaluation and raw footage had less posts. This will help me consider what section of my coursework should have more posts and which ones should have less, and thinking about which ones are the most important and should prioritise on the most. I also noticed her blog archive and looked at how many posts she had posted per month. This will give me an idea of how I should organise my work through the course and how many posts I should try to achieve by the end of each month.

Looking through her posts I saw that she had a range of ways to demonstrate her work. She had used presenting programmes such as slideshare, powerpoint, youtube, issuu etc. This range will help me to consider how I would want to demonstrate my coursework. Overall, the layout of her blog is well organised which makes it easy to direct to places and pieces of work.

Music video

FEATURES

SONG: spectrum ARTIST: Florence + the machine NUMBER OF ACTORS: 1 female LENGTH OF VIDEO: 3:38

PLOT I found that a common theme in Amy’s video was the artist

singing to the camera, then cuts to a narrative that flows along with the song. The singer of her video is singing the lyrics to the camera in many different locations and then the narrative of her dancing and the male dancing cut in and out of the miming. This helps to combine the two styles of a narrative-based video.

Amy decided to challenge the convention of having a significant narrative in her video as there is no definite, clear narrative demonstrated in her video. She created an episodic montage to allow the audience to try and devise their own storyline based on their interpretation of the entire video.

However, overall in my perspective, I interpreted the narrative of the video as a girl who dancing with a pretty girly dress that contrasts to her other side of her dancing but wearing male clothing. I saw this as the demonstration of the two personas that the actor has.

CAMERA

Amy has considered Andrew Goodwin’s theory throughout creating her music video. She has taken in the idea of his theory involving how the video should have a link between music and visuals. This is evidently considered in Amy’s video as regarding the pace of the video and how often cuts are made along with its speed. The pace that Amy has used varies throughout the video and on the slow parts and verses, longer cuts are shown to allow the audience to take in what is being shown and connect with the singer. The chorus and the faster parts of the song tend to have faster cuts so that the visuals don’t contradict with the beat of the song. Around 2:33, the song slows down so Amy uses a clip of slow motion as a transition between the fast and slow beats.

SETTING/lighting

There are several settings in Amy’s music video. The first location is set in what appears to be a block box room. The use of this room is effective due to the black background which gives the video a more sophisticated look. The lighting used in the room is also very effective as it shines on the actor making her stand out. I also really like the burring of the lights in the background that allows the audience to focus on the actor more but also have a fascinating background at the same time. The effect that the blurred lights give matches the sparkle in the actor’s dress which is significant.

Mis-en-scene

Amy’s music video follows the conventions of real media products in the sense of the use of theories such as Andrew Goodwin and his ideas that there is clear link between the lyrics and the visuals. This is demonstrated through the use of mis-en-scene. The iconic signs included that matches the lyrics of the song such as the use of fairy lights, candles in jars and sparklers.

HOW WILL THIS HELP ME FOR MY MUSIC VIDEO? I believe that analysing Amy’s video will help me when it comes to creating my own. This is because I have discovered her unique techniques that she has used to create her video with a significant message and narrative that makes the lyrics of the song match the visuals. These techniques include the different paces that she uses to match the rhythm of the song which I thought made a significant factor. I am planning to use these techniques as inspiration for my own music video.