Big Project Blog 1 (research)

This Project lasted from December 15th 2025 to February 13th 2026. This gave me around 8 weeks to create the project. With a 2 week Christmas break in-between where I can work on my blog. But before I could start anything I had to first schedule my project to better organise my work so that I had enough time for each section of the production process. I scheduled my project using a website called Trello. It is here that I planned my research, pitch, pre production, production, and post production. This website works great as I can add more tasks at anytime to keep myself more organised. Here is an image of my schedule on week 1:

For this project I had the task of Creating either a Music video a Tittle sequence or an advert. Based around the theme of identity. I had done research on all 3 of these topics therefore I was aware of the different features and quality's included in each one. So instead of researching these methods I decided to take a deep extensive look into the theme of identity. At first I decided to investigate this theme from a philosophical perceptive. This way I could really understand the ins and outs of this theme and determine what kind of sub themes I could also research. After watching a few YouTube videos and reading a few articles I wrote down 8 sub themes I could link well to identity on a Miro board. These themes were gender, mental health, personality. age, ethnicity, nationality, online identity, and individuality/unison. Once I had noted these sub themes down I made mood boards on each one to try and inspire some ideas. This gave me my first few ideas so I expanded my research by looking into Tittle sequences, music videos, and adverts that linked to these sub themes. This worked really well as not only did it inspire me to create more ideas it also inspired different techniques and skills I could implement into my project. Once my general research was complete I had a list of ideas and technique's that I could use. All I had to do now was determine which ideas were worth using, and what techniques worked well alongside them. 

 

To shorten my list of ideas, I eliminated the ones I decided were too complicated or uninteresting to film. Along with the ideas I thought lacked potential. This left me with 3 ideas to get feedback on, from people in my class. The feedback is located on my Miro board, and encouraged me to list the positives and negative of each idea to help me come to to a conclusion on which one I wanted to pursue. Here are the lists of positives and negatives I made after I had done some research on each idea.

Negatives with idea 1 

• This would have to be shot in an art class room or somewhere artistic.
• I would need a canvas. 
• I would need an actor to film at a different location. 
• The ad isn't to engaging. 
• It doesn't have a strong meaning behind it. 
• The ad doesn't relate to the product well. 
• Ad may confuse audiences people may think its an ad for a custom shoe.
• Slogan is a bit generic. 
• I'm not sure if the college has any macro lens.
• Eyes reflect light which can make an unwanted glare. 
• If I am actually painting on a canvas the canvas will be dirty if I want to re-shoot. 
• If I'm filming in a different location it will be hard to get good lighting. 
• I don't have a lot of time to look for locations. 
• I'm not sure how to capture satisfying sounds.

Positives with idea 1 

• Its unique and has an interesting style.
• It does not use any copy righted music. 
• When testing out my skills in making music videos ads and tittle sequences I found that ads were. the most fun for me.
• It has good symbolism. 
• It would fit the 2 minutes well. 
• Finding costumes would not be to hard. 
• It would only need to be filmed in one location. 
• Finding an actor to do the scenes would be relatively easy since its nothing to hard.
• Explaining the idea in a pitch would be easy. 
• I could film the outdoor scenes around the college.

Negatives with idea 2 

• Its hard to understand. 
• It would have to be filmed at my house. 
• The performance from the actor would have to be really good.
• This idea is hard to see the link to identity.
• It was the hardest to story board. 
• Explain this to an actor would be difficult.
• Getting lighting at home would be hard. 
• Its not very technical. 
• I would need lots of sound effects.
• The idea doesn't seem very fun.
• The audience are going to feel overwhelmed.
• My home doesn't look very visually interesting.  
• Scenes may be rushed or not good due to how confusing the idea is. 
• I don't believe a client would be interested in this. 

Positives with idea 2

• There's not to many props. 
• It could be filmed in a day.
• There are lots of fast motion which I am quite good at. 
• I could use awkward shots and realistic camera movements. 
• I could have a mix of indoor and outdoor sets.
• The theme is deep and heavily.
• This idea has worked in films before. 
• Creating a morning montage is something I believe I would be good at.
• A mirror would be easy to find if I am filming at my house. 
• No need to bring props into college if I'm filming at home.
• wouldn't have to book the studio. 
• could work on project on any day due to it being shot at home.

Negatives of idea 3

• Its hard to story board. 
• Finding a song is a pain. 
• I do not have much creative freedom with audio. 
• It has to be filmed in a studio. 
• There are lots of props and sets. 
• Getting an actor to commit to something like this is hard. 
• I would have to bring a lot of things to college. 
• The idea hasn't been very well thought out. 
• I will need lots of costumes.
• I need to learn more about colour.
• I found my music video to be the worst out of my original test footage.
• Studio footage can look a little bland.
• Doesn't have a great link to identity.
• Doesn't have much structure. 

Positives of idea 3 

• I like the idea of cramming lots of detail into a set just like in the music videos I have researched.
• I believe that I can expand on this idea.
• I already know some of the props I could use. 
• I want to improve on my last music video.
• I could use some of the college equipment to create a set (For example I can use green screen stands to build a set).
• Music videos are the easiest to give a unique style to.
• I could turn this idea into a symbolic narrative. 
• I could use lots of transitions. 
• Working at college would allow me to get good lighting. 
• I would have access to dollies at college. 
• I had the most fun researching music videos and have produced the best research on them. 
• I could find more music videos as influence. 
• I could probably feature lots of techniques in a music video. 
• I do not need to go anywhere to take pictures of the location. 

Once I had weighed up the negatives and positives of each project. I decided to also rank them all on important features of production and creativity. To see which one would be the most fun, challenging but not to hard.  The Ranks are done from S to D with S being the best and D being the worse. 

Which is the easiest to produce 

Idea 3 is going to be the easiest to produce as it will be filmed at college. 

Which is the most creative 

I believe that idea 3 is the most creative as i can expand on it and add other creative elements and details to the music video.

Which is the most visually aesthetic 

I believe that idea 3 has the best aesthetic since it is a dreamy music video and music videos are often more artistic then ads and tittle sequences.

Which is the idea that links the best to identity 

Idea 1 has the best link to identity since the narrator would literally mention the theme in the voice over and would be based around art which is a theme that is often a way for people to express their identity identity. 

Which seems the most fun to make 

I found building a miniature set for my stock motion animation ad very fun so cleating a more large scale one would be even better.

Which would have the best cinematography  

Idea 3 would have the best cinematography since it would be shot in college where id have great access to lighting equipment, although idea 1 could also have good lighting since id be using natural light. However this relies a lot on the time of day and if I'm using actors outside of college this may not fit with their schedule. 

Which idea has the most potential 

I believe that idea 3 would have the most potential as I have not expanded on this idea much and it is still in development, but with the other ideas I don't feel as if there is anywhere else I can really take them. Id rather expand on an idea that's in development then spend ages trying to expand on ideas that I don't know where to take.

Which could be the most technical 

Idea 2 and 3 would be the most technical projects, I already have a reverse shot in mind for idea 2 and idea 3 is a music video so I would have more artistic freedom to use as many techniques as I can.

Which is going to be easiest to fit into a deadline 

Idea 2 would be the easiest to fit into the deadline since I would only need to film at my house and filming would only need to take about a day. While idea 3 would require me to set up sets and props. But idea 1 would mean that id have to find a location that works travel to it take pictures of it, organise an actor to travel to it then find a way to bring my props and equipment there.

Which is going to reach the best target audience 

Idea 1 would work best as it would reach a younger audience since it is a shoe ad. As well as an artistic audience since the ad is based around art.

My rankings clearly showed that idea 3 had the most potential. It scored A tier 6 times and barely went under B. You may argue that idea 1 would have worked best since it ranked S tier twice, but Idea 1 has much more lower rankings then higher. Along with this the most important thing I deducted from my rankings was that I have no motivation to expand on ideas 1 and 2. It was while trying to expand on these ideas that I found it difficult and exhausting to try and add anything to these 2 ideas. Instead I found it much easier to add more to the project I found had more potential. that being idea 3. So after this sudden epiphany, I finally came to the conclusion that idea 3 was my favourite. I have chosen this because it provides a challenge, while also not including problems that are too tedious to solve; Such as having to get actors to film at different locations. Instead I would much rather find a solution to bringing a set to college as this will be more fun and beneficial towards my future projects. As well as this I think I have found a nice way to expand upon this idea by incorporating a symbolic narrative to the music video. This idea was influenced to me by the music videos "My kind of woman" and "Teenage adolescents". I have decided to incorporate a symbolic narrative to my Project to solve the problems of my idea not having a good structure and link to identity. Along with this I will also do some research on colours and colour symbolism to visually enhance my project. The symbolic narrative itself will be a conversation between a singer and their suppressed identity through the lyrics of the song "you spin me right round" by the band dead or alive. With the songs chorus "you spin me right right baby right round like a record baby right round round round" being a metaphor for embracing identity. I will expand even more on this idea during my planning but for now I have resolved a few of the issues with idea 3.

Here is some YouTube videos I watched to understand colour.

Now that my idea was sorted it was time to move onto my pitch and planning. I did these two alongside each other adding parts of my planning to my pitch as I went on.