Zach Bloom Media

As a young child, I liked to create short films. Initially, I used my iPod and iMovie to create stop animation movies using Lego figures to depict fun storylines set to music. As an older child, I became part of Henry Jenkins participatory culture; a prosumer, wanting to create content for my own YouTube channel. It was during the first lockdown, when my world shrunk and life went online, that I started creating short films. It combined my love of narrative with love of technology and helped me cope with the isolation. I experimented with various video editing software before settling on Premier Pro. I was self taught, watching YouTube tutorials first on the basics, then on specific skills, such as key framing or colour grading.

Music Video

For my A Level media project I had to create a music video and I chose the song Freaks, by Surf Curse. I started the planning by doing a location recce of Brighton, as Brighton has a lot of street art, wall murals and a strong urban identity. This fitted well with the indie rock codes and conventions for a music video. Filming the music video forced me to improve my cinematography skills and I feel that they did improve. I also learnt to use a gimbal which is a piece of equipment that I had very little experience of using before this project. Finally, the video editing allowed me to think about how to use thought beats whilst editing. I combined the lyrics with the footage and made sure that they linked up together so that as you hear the lyrics, you also see the associated scene.