Evaluation of the Re/Deconstruction of the Media Text

When the task to reconstruct and deconstruct a media text began myself and five others joined as a team as we believed that we would work well together. After allocating the roles of each other we then decided on which media text we would be reconstructing, after going through each members storyboard we all came to the conclusion to reconstruct Missing Andy “Made In England.”  All six of us believed that this song would be a medium leveled video to reconstruct due to the usage of different shots within cinematography, elements of performance with the lip sync and the editing techniques such as the dissolve half way through the video.

Beginning to reconstruct the media text was difficult at first due to the rain, therefore the fifth shot was slightly rushed and the tracking shot wasn't steady as we tried to protect the JVC HD Everio video camera from the rain. Nevertheless we decided to re-shoot shots three six as the weather would have affected our final piece, as there were rain drops on the camera making the quality of the video look poor. Also when I filmed shot four I got confused and did a tilt up and zoomed out, whereas the actual clip was an extreme close up of a building with a slow zoom out and tilt down, therefore I had to re-shoot this shot with the help of the director.

As we continued to reconstruct the media text there were some difficulties within the group, one member wasn't here due to an illness although this didn't affect the filming; it did cut back on some of the editing as he was a chosen to be one of our editors, nevertheless we had already allocated two other editors within our group.  As friends we get along, however as a group I personally believe we struggled as we argued and became easily stressed over the smallest things; two editors were playing around with the shots and the music therefore this lost us time, towards the end of the week when we were getting closer to the deadline we had to work hard and the director had to basically stand over the editors to ensure they were doing their job properly. Another problem we had was our producer found it difficult to borrow an acoustic guitar due to a music student needing to use it, therefore we had to use an electric guitar which looked out of place due to the music having the sound of an acoustic, nevertheless we managed to cope fine and ensure the shots were correct.

From completing this task I have learnt that sometimes it is best not to work in groups, however if group work is needed then possibly work with people who are more reliable and don’t mess around, therefore working with people who I wouldn't normally work with could have been better. I have also learnt that when it comes to filming my own music video I need to get everything right first time, ensure that I have all the mise-en-scene I need and ensure the casting team are always on time and turn up. I think that as a group we realised the song itself was good however the music video wasn't as good, and very difficult to reconstruct.