Briefs.
The examination board has supplied thirteen possible briefs for our group to attempt. I have shortlisted three possible briefs including a music video, short film sequence and a trailer for a film, which I feel we are mostly likely to attempt. I believe each of these briefs are achieveable and will make use of our skills sets and resources available as a group.
A. A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two ancillaries.
This involves producing a music video to a song of choice. It must involve performance and narrative elements and come with two ancillaries that have been individually produced. There are a choice of three of these including a band website, a digipak or a magazine advertisement.
This is the brief I would like to do most, mainly due to the fact that I produced an A* GCSE music video in year 11 and therefore have more experience creating these. As well as this, songs have narrative and themes within them so it is easier to create a story and a performance. This means that we can focus on other important elements of production, rather than creationg a narrative and theme from scratch.
A disadvantage of this is that you lose creative control and are therefore fairly restricted in what you can do, for example, you cannot create a music video about love if the song is about death. As well as that, during the post-production stages you have to syncronise a character or band performing to an actual soundtrack which is quite difficult to do.
B. A promotion package for a new film, to include a trailer, together with two ancillaries.
Brief two includes creating a trailer for a new film. Again, this comes with a choice of three accompanying ancillaries. These include a website for the film, a film magazine front cover or a poster marketing the film.
This brief allows my group and I to create a complete narrative from scratch. This is probably my third choice out of the three shortlisted briefs as it involves creating a fairly complex story for an entire movie and then cutting it down into a trailer. This is made harder by the fact that a trailer normally involves segments from all over the film, showing a variety of scenes, which will make the planning and filming stages much longer than the other briefs.
However, the main advantage of choosing this brief is the fact that the ancillaries will be easiern to produce than other briefs. As well as this, it would be easier to edit as it does not have to flow aswell because there does not have to be a simple storyline, which you would do for a short film.
C. A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with two ancillaries.
Brief ten is a bit different from the above brief as it involves creating a short film in it's entirety, which is either live action or animated and it must be completed with two accompanying ancillaries out of the three following; a poster for the film, a radio trailer or a film magazine review page.
Out of the briefs available, this is my second choice as it allows me to have complete creative control and having very few restrictions on narrative. I enhoy the narrative side of projects more anyway so it would be interesting to create a piece completely from scratch.
However, the disadvantages of this is that although you have a lot of creative control, there is a very large workload. A complete narrative must be produced and it must appeal to the audience, which may be harder to do than a music video. You would also have to create sounds, which wouldn't be necessary in a music video and I do not think there is enough time to create an entire short film in the time period we have in which I would be happy with.
Brief choice
It is important that before we even decided on groups that we knew which briefs we would be willing to do. From the start I was more inclined to do a music video, as I have already created a successful A* one at GCSE and therefore I believe my experience from this will be very helpful. However, if I do do a music video it is important that I get in a group with at least someone that is good with audio as at GCSE I worked with one other peson who was good with the sound element as I believe it is probably my biggest weakness and therefore to create a successful piece it would be important tot find someone good in that area. Another factor that has persuaded me to do a music video is the amount of creative control you get. With music videos, the soundtrack will normally already have a theme or a rough narrative that you can use for the video, meaning less time can be spent on the planning stages and more can be spent elsewhere, improving the piece. My second choice would have been brief ten as it allows me to have a lot of creative control but I think the workload may be too much for the time frame offered by the exam board. I have chosen to create a music video for this project.