Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.

My initial research into music videos conducted of watching various videos by artists of a similar genre. The key conventions I noticed were constant referance to the band/singer visually, and these were usually done in either close ups or long shots.Seeing as my music genre was a combination of acoustic and indie, I noticed that the mis en scene usually consisted of retro, beat-down simple locations, like a garage, or set in naturalistic areas with the make-up and costuming similar in the sense that they were of a minimalist and grungey design.

Therefore I planned to include the cliche shots and earthy feel through location, though with hints dropped in now and then to remind the audience that this was a city-based area, too. A rough sketch of the pattern of shots I wanted to use and organizing what locations to shoot in helped with the planning process.

I decided to include both of the conventions of indie rock. Throughout my video there is a constant switch between establishing city based shots and minimalist earthy locations, therefore thoroughly mixing the rock side and the perhaps more 'soft' side.

I found it increasingly difficult being the director and subjected to the cameras, though eventually discovered that I could have a twist with my music video that defected the status quo. Rather than performing the track played throughout with instruments or singing, I could switch the person in the video to the subject of the song. This meant that my plan of using normal conventions in this type of music in regards to shots, was totally switched up. I still bled the cliches into my video to connote to the target audience that this was the type of video that could accompany a type of music, however I had to include various other shots to tell the story of the lyrics. Because the telling of a story is what this ultimately became. The shots involved had to make it seem such that the audience was seeing the subject through the singers eyes.