Blog 15 - Digipack

For part of our coursework it is essential like when records are sold, that a digi pack is made, this consists of a gatefold (book-style) paperboard or card stock outer binding, with one or more plastic trays capable of holding a CD or DVD attached to the inside.

Examples of digi packs who are within the same genre as Kesha are below;

Katy Perry's - Teenage Dream This digipak symbolises the music and lyrics of the album as its a background of a cloud which can be related to dreams, she is also nude which may symbolise the change of hormones within teenagers.

Take That - For the record Although Take That are pop/rock, their music and lyrics are similar to Kesha. It could be mistaken that Katy Perry's digipak is a normal cd but Take That's could be mistaken for a DVD because of the different sizes.

Target audience: The majority of Ke$ha‟s fans are female teenagers/young adults, this is clear as she has featured on the cover of ELLE girl magazine and out of a total of 740,000 readers 587,000 of them are aged 15-44. (NRS) Young British females are targeted due to disposable income and high levels of interest in the media and also Ke$ha‟s lyrics and videos can be related to. Ke$ha targets the lower classes D/E as she is a new pop artist which is probable to be liked by the younger generations who are likely to still be in education or unemployed.

This is my first idea, it relates to Kesha with the lightening bolt as she often has a lightening bolt on her face for make up for videos or photos, this will allow the audience to relate the album to Kesha. Also the art on the digipack relates to the name of the album. However the image of Kesha isn't similar to her other albums, as the photo is a long shot showing her full body, I decided not to use this as creating the digi pack to look similar to her other albums.

The inside of the digipack is simple, just including a faded picture of Kesha behind where the CD is held, although on the reverse I will include the lyrics of the song we have chosen 'party at a rich dude's house', this would enable the listeners to interact more with the album, however I believe I could produce more work for the inside cover of the album.

For the second flat plan, I tried to create something that was different to Kesha's usual albums to stretch to a wider target audience, however I don't like the idea of using a bomb on the front cover of an album as this may come across the wrong way.

The inside of the cover would include a black simple background for behind the CD, and another close up of Kesha. This idea is once again very simple and I would like to produce the same level of work inside the digipack as the outside.

This is my final idea, I chose this because I believed the front cover image was very similar to her previous albums, and the name of the album is also similar to something she would name her album, as it is random but has a meaning.

The back of the digipack includes three other pictures of Kesha that I will use to create something similar to the pictures that are devloped in a photo booth alongside this will be the album song list.

The inside of the digipack will be an image that goes along both sides, this will be of Kesha on a stage with the crowd, however I will fade it to enable the lyrics of the song to be seen on top of the image. Here is my finished digipack;

I chose to use this layout as it was very simple and also a close up which both of these elements are what Kesha has used in her previous singles/albums and I believe this will help sales if the album were to be released. The font I chose for 'Spirit' was based around the word 'Spirit' as I believe the font looks quite spiritual and I used a similar font that Kesha always uses for her name.

The back of the digipack will have a list of the songs on the album and I chose to place them in that layout as it was a little different to a standard tracklist. Throughout the digipack I only chose to use 3 colours, as the image used already had vibrant colours so because I wanted to keep the digipack simple and so the colours didn't clash I stuck to gold, black and white.

Here is the inside of my digipack;

The inside of the digipack only contains the song lyrics of the video included, I found that when there are lyrics included in a cd case, that as a listener/fan you feel more valued as the producer has thought about you and that lyrics may be useful for you and an added extra. I kept the colours and decoration the same inside too, as I wanted to keep the style flowing throughout and didn't want use any other colours incase it was 'too much'.

During this task I developed my Photoshop skills from my previous coursework. The screenshots below show the stages of making my digipack;

This is the stage where I was testing out different effects to make the image look more bold and different like Kesha would.

This shows the use of the 'brush tool' to create the background effect of smoke.

After creating my digipack, I asked for some feedback from my target audience, this is what I receieved;

The feedback states that the use of colours are good and the writing fits in with Kesha's normal theme.

Blog 14 - Shooting diaries

When filming we had to remember that there was a chance things may not go to plan and we would need back up plans etc. We chose to film over a weekend as this left us plenty of time incase we had any problems such as the house being occupied by other people. Luckily we didn't encounter any major problems, we did worry about the lighting, this was because we filmed during the day and our video is placed at a party where normally its night time and dark. This meant we had to improvise with the lighting but also be aware that it wasn't too dark as that may make it difficult to see our actress when the video is editted. We didn't encounter any other problems as we made sure before we starting filming that the location was available and empty, and also that we had all our props etc. I felt the filming went well as we both put equal amount of effort into it which meant filming was quick but effective as well. We both took it in turns to be the camerawomen, and the director who told the actress where to position herself and also checked the shot was exactly what we had wanted. We made sure we kept up with our shooting script; writing notes on why we did or did not use the shot we had just filmed, this made it easy when it came to editing the video. Whilst shooting we had to use several effects such as 'blurring' and give the effect that our actress had taken drugs, therefore we made the actress hold the camera (handheld) so that it was from her point of view as well as wobbling the camera whilst moving to show that she had become dizzy and unsteady due to the drugs.

During the filming we used a shooting script, this is similar to a storyboard in the way that it contains still shots of the video and shows whats happening in the shot and the camera movements etc. It also enables us to comment why we didn't use certain takes, this helps with the editting process so we know which takes to remove from the footage.

Here is the first 6 shots of our shooting script;

Blog 13 - Shooting schedule

In order to allow my project to run smoothly I am creating a schedule to ensure dealines are met and the things that need to be done are done on time and properly. As our music video needs more time for editing rather than shooting it, we are going to leave a month for editing and shoot within the first week. The dates are as followed; Friday 21st January - Location recce Saturday 22nd & Sunday 23rd January - Filming

On the Saturday of the weekend, we proposed to film the shots that were similar such as smoking/dancing etc so we got it all done at one point. We chose to film over a weekend as then we would be able to capture all the footage in one go, enabling us more time to edit. In order for us to have a productive filming session we needed to create an equipment list so we had everything we needed, this included; Camera Camera mount (tripod) Tapes Lights Props - Make up, empty bottles, shot glasses, cigarettes, ashtray.

As well as preparing all these things, we made a call sheet so that if anything went wrong, we had all crew members telephone numbers and emails to contact them.

This is the call sheet below;

Blog 12 - Health and safety

As a requirement before filming, we needed to outline any health and safety precautions needed to ensure cast and crew are safe when we are filming.

This included;
Tripping over any loose/trailing cables - to overcome this we would gaffer tape any loose cables as well as have someone holding the trailing cables so its not possible to trip over them.
Confined space - may be difficult to move around in, therefore we would move any un needed items out of the way so there was more space to use.
Access requirements - Although a house is being used, we need to be aware that there may be other people in the house or may be certain days we can use it, therefore we would contact the owner with plenty of time to make sure its accessable and free of anyone else.

Luckily due to our location being inside a house, the list of health and safety regulations was minimal.

Blog 11 - Storyboard and animatics

Before we could begin filming our music video we had to produce a storyboard as this depict all of the shots included and includes notes about; The shot type: for example close up, long shot etc. Camera movement: Static or dynamic Description of action: What will happen in the shot Sound or audio: Opening of the song or prehaps certain lyrics of the song.

Below is the first 24 shots of my storyboard;

We decided to vary the angles and camera movements to create a dynamic video which will attract our target audience as it will be edgy and different, similar to a music video Kesha would be seen in.

We chose to produce the storyboard after filming the video, this is because we hadn't completely planned our video out shot by shot because we thought it would work better if it was spontainious shots.

Blog 10 - Mise-en-scene

The house we will be filming in will be used as the main part of the video for a 'house party', it will include the normal props that are symbolized with a house party, such as music from a stereo system, empty bottles of alcohol, lights, a possible smoke machine to produce smoke, this will create the effect when filming of a party.

For our video we plan to use a friends house and swimming pool, this is because the house is of a similar size to one we would imagine to be used in the video. The swimming pool is sheltered therefore the weather is not really a concern, but the fact that the pool is sheltered adds to the effect that the owner of the house is wealthy.











We will have around 15-20 people involved in the music video which will be extras in the background dancing and socialising. They will be dressed in a similar style to each other, casual but formal clothes such as dresses and heels with standard make-up or jeans and top for the males.
However the character we will use for Kesha will be in a similar style to Kesha, so outrageous clothes and colours, with big hair and make-up for example in this picture;


This will represent the genre that Kesha is from as it is outrageous, bright and different and would be something similar to what Kesha herself would include in her own videos.

The actions of Kesha will be along the lines of Kesha/Lady GaGa's themes, such as un rehearsed, random therefore adding more to the reality that it is a house party, this type of filming will appeal to the target audience as it will feel like they are included and directed at them.

Blog 9 - Pitch

As part of our coursework we had to deliver a pitch to our class and teacher, this created the feeling of what goes into and what has to be done when producing a music video. Below is the link to our presentation that we delivered, we were also filmed and this is also below.

Presentation:
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BxS1If16SbtVODRkMTdlZTEtZDZjOS00YzFmLTkwMjktNGIyNjliODMxOWI5&hl=en

Video:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxS1If16SbtVNDk3ZGEyODgtMGMzMS00NDI1LWE1ZDEtMThjZjNjODYxY2Ex&hl=en

We included information on our artist to increase the knowledge of the audience and to keep them interacted during our presentation, this pitch may also help the artist achieve popularity with a wider audience. The target audience was also inlcuded along with the socio-economic and demographics to fully establish the audience we are aiming our video to. The genre and the planning of our video was also included.

Blog 7 - Copying an existing music video

In another lesson within the Media Studies course, we are taught Media Production, our teacher is a music producer. He teaches us from using the camera to editing the production and putting it together. We have also worked in groups to produce our own version of the video 'Teenage Dirtbag' by Wheatus, by doing this we all have had a chance to work in the different roles e.g. director, camera man/women etc.

In the first lesson we were introduced to the camera we would be using to film the remake of the existing video and also our own music video later in the year. We learnt how to correctly set up the camera and the tri-pod, and the teacher also reminded us of the angles such as aerial and low angle shots, movements such as panning and tracking etc and depth of field and focus. We can use these to create the perfect shots.

We learnt how to create the right balance in colour in our shots too; this includes white balance and exposure.
White balancing the camera:
Automatic (AWB) - however this can be unreliable.
Indoor setting - a lightbulb picture on the camera
Outdoor setting - picture of a sun on the camera
Manual

Exposure:
Shutter speed - 1/12, 1/50 and 1/1000 (the higher the number, the faster the image.


We spent the next lesson working in groups to produce a couple of shots from the Wheatus video which we would then put together and edit. We were given a storyboard each which included the shot number, shot type, description, camera movement/angle, the location, info on props and costumes and description of the sound, we learnt the storyboard is very important in order to produce the exact shot needed. The roles in the groups alternated but included a main character and around 4 extras in the shot, doing this practically it meant we could better understand the equipment and how to use it and also have a hands on experience of filming a video.

After we filmed these shots in the next lesson, we were taught how to being editting the video on the computer using Final Cut PRO. In order to do this we learnt we had to;
Connect the camera to the computer using a cable called the Firewire.
Turn the camera on and set to VCR playback.
Choose the set up on the computer - which we discussed would be PAL as thats the european set up.
Next we had to set the scratch disk which is where the captured footage would be stored on the computer.
Then we had to capture back the video and learnt we could control the camera using the computer using device control. W
We experimented with timelapsing when editting a video, here is the clip;
http://bb.sdc.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_654_1%26url%3D

Now that we had our shots captured onto the computer we were then going to edit them to make the video flow, we did this first by distinguishing which shots we were to use (as there was many of each shot) we did this using the razor tool on this programme we could select the slot of time that was of good work, so this was moved onto another track- track 2 -seperate to that of the whole video, once all the good shots were seperate to the rest we were then able to delete the poor shots we had captured, this is the assembly edit.

Along with the technology of the camera, the organization of the set and filming is important, this includes the storyboard, clapperboard, shooting script and communication on set.
A storyboard and shooting script are similar in the way they are used to depict all the shots in the video which also have notes about the shot type, camera movement, description of action and the sound in the shot. The shooting script also has space for notes to be taken about each shot and why they weren't used.
The clapperboard logs each take on film, and makes it easier when editing if used alongside the shooting script.
The communication on set is important as it makes the shooting smoother and easier as everyone is aware of what they are doing.

Here is the video of 'Teenage Dirtbag' that we created as a group in class;
http://bb.sdc.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_654_1%26url%3D

Blog 8 - Initial ideas

In this blog I will brainstorm ideas for my video, such as setting, costumes, make up, props etc and also story lines.

The ideas we have symbolise with the lyrics of the song for example, we wish to use a friends indoor swimming pool to create the idea of a pool party as the lyrics state there is a swimming pool and add to the fact that the party is at a wealthy person's house.










Lights, music and alcohol will be used to produce the image of a house party as thats what the song states 'Party at a rich dude's house', this will relate to our target audience as the age range we have chosen are at the age where alcohol and parties are what they experience and appeal to.

We are using these ideas as we believe Kesha would use them in a production of her own as they are very similar to her old video 'Tik Tok' and fit in with her genre of music perfectly.

Blog 6 - Video Analysis

In this blog I will analyse two music videos by artists within the same genre this will allow us to compare the representation, narrative, audience and the meaning of the video to Kesha's.

One of the music video's is Lady GaGa - Just dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Abk1jAONjw&ob=av2e
This video contains a setting of the 'typical teenage house party' as there is alcohol, involved with lots of people and loud music.

The genre is the same as our chosen video which is pop and again although its within the pop genre, it isn't a traditional pop video, Lady GaGa's video is still very much outrageous and experimental.
Although the costumes and make up of the extras in the video are different to the 'norm', they are still being represented as traditional teenagers as being hungover, partying and drinking and also the traditional setting of a party, in an empty house that ends up looking ruined.
Much like any of Lady GaGa's songs there is no immediate story to follow so therefore there is no narrative, the events in the video are random and just relates to the genre.
It is obvious that the video/song is aimed to the younger generation that could relate and enjoy watching the video because they have experienced similar.


The other video we will be comparing is by Katy Perry - Teenage dream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98WtmW-lfeE&ob=av2e
Although this video is from within the same genre of pop, it has a twist that we'd like to follow this theme but with a slightly different video. It is focused around a teenage love between a girl and boy, this is often used within the pop genre because the target audience is once again teenagers that would 'dream' of the romance that is being portrayed in the video. The representation of teenage love is that teenagers fall for it too easily, however instead of showing heartbreak Katy Perry has just showed the representation of a fantisied teenage love affair.
The story of the video is following the couple with what they do and how they are around each other which also then fits in the with lyrics of the song.

Blog 5 - Target audience

Having looked through Kesha's fan base on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter it is clear to see that the target audience is female teenagers/young adults, as a high percentage of her fans on her web pages are female, it is also obvious within her lyrics and songs that she aims her music to females like herself.

I have done some research and found that Kesha has featured in many US magazines and also covered them, one example of this is ELLE Girl magazine, who have a target audience of mainly teenagers and obviously aim it to the female generation. In a recent survey done by http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html, out of the total number of readers of 740,000, 587,000 of them are aged 15-44, and 660,000 of the total are women, this clarifies that Kesha targets the younger female audience.
I have produced a chart to show the difference between younger and older generation purchasing the magazine she featured in;


She has also featured in an article in the Rolling Stones magazine, it has wide variety of target audiences, however the most popular is between the ages of 18 and 49, which was 10,292. http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html,
This sets a completely different range from Elle magazine, another difference is that the main readers are men.












There is a noticable contridiction of the target audience in both magazines, this can prove that Kesha has a wide yet varied audience of both men and females, and ages up to 49.

The target audience would be teenage/young adult british females, especially between the ages of 16-24 as this is a popular bracket to target as it is known to have disposable income and high levels of interest in the media, the audience could be from any location that is English as Kesha is known worldwide in America and also England.
Although there may be fans of all socio-economic classes, Kesha targets the lower classes such as D/E as she is a new pop artist which is most probable to be liked by the younger generations who are likely to still be in education/unemployed and those that are only semi skilled workers.

Kesha is an artist that likes to be outrageous and different than any other, so it is more than likely that her target audience will be individualists as they also like to stand out from the crowd, they could also be named "good-timers".

Blog 4 - Permission

As part of the allowence of us being able to create this video and use the song, I have written to the artists music label RCA to request permission, explaining why we would like to use the song.
It is important to gain permission because if you use a copyrighted work without the appropriate permission, you may be violating (usually called "infringing") the owner's rights to that work. Infringing someone else's copyright may subject you to legal action, including being forced to stop using the work or paying financial damages.

Blog 3 - Song choice

In this blog I will talk about my final song choice, why we chose it and also include any other song choices we considered and why we rejected them.

The song we chose is by Kesha called Party At A Rich Dude's House.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnG780EyeYQ&feature=fvst

Swimming pool limousines (come on let's do it)
Come on let's cause a scene (come on let's do it)
Cigar in the caviar (come on let's do it)
I'm pissin' in the Dom Pérignon (come on let's do it)
Now, come on lets do it
We're gonna do it now
Come on let's do it
Come on let's do this

(Chours:)
Woah oh oh
There's a party at a rich dude's house
Woah oh oh
There's a party at a rich dude's house
If ya wanna go
Then ya know oh
We're gonna fight til we do it right
So let's woah oh oh
Tonight

(Verse 2:)
No we're not on the list (come on let's do it)
No we don't give a shit (come on let's do it)
Dance til your pants come off (come on get naked)
Party til the break of dawn (come on let's do it)
Now, come on lets do it
Come on, come on, come on

(Chours:)
Woah oh oh
There's a party at a rich dude's house
Woah oh oh
There's a party at a rich dude's house
If ya wanna go then ya now oh
We're gonna fight till we do it right
So let's woah oh oh
Tonight

(Verse:)
I wake up in the front yard
(We don't care)
White stain on the sofa
(We don't care)
I threw up in the closet
And I don't care
Cause the sun is coming up
And oh my god I think I'm still fucked up
Get fucked up

(Chours:)
There's a party at a rich dude's house
There's a party at a rich dude's house

Woah oh oh
There's a party at a rich dude's house
Woah oh oh
There's a party at a rich dude's house
If you wanna go then you know
We're gonna fight til we do it right
So lets woah oh oh
Tonight

The reason we came to this song choice is because we wanted to aim our music video around the party scene and within the pop genre which this song both involves, we also chose this song as the lyrics relate to teenagers/young adults such as partying at random peoples house (party at a rich dude's house) who they generally don't know or socialise with, but was purely there as there was a party.


We decided against some other songs that we looked at, such as Katy Perry, Hummingbird heartbeat, this was because the song and lyrics sounded very summery and bouncy which would mean a video probably wouldn't be possible to create in flower covered fields as the recording will take place within wintery months.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdqRXqFGmmI


Another song we decided against was Lady Gaga, Teeth. We rejected this song because although Lady Gaga is seen as a singer within the pop genre, the song sounded very rock and not a song that would be played at a party which we are planning to base our video around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS3svP_16m4


Although we chose Kesha as our final song choice, there were songs we avoided such as Backstabber, this was purely because the song was about drugs and the lyrics are also very negative, we thought it would be deemed as inappropriate and also it isn't part of our lifestyle which is what we were aiming for our music video to be about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQCBDY_OGwo

Blog 2 - Exploring music video

This blog will include analysis of four different music video's which will vary in age, genre and representation etc, I have chosen these four music videos from a documentary shown to us in class, the documentary showed 50 of the greatest music videos.

I will analyse these four music videos:
- Sinead O'connor - Nothing compares to you
- Run DMC & Aerosmith - Walk this way
- Lady GaGa - Poker face
- The Prodigy - Firestarter

The first music video I will analyse is; Sinead O'connor - Nothing compares to you
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x346tm_sinead-o-connor-nothing-compares-to_music

The genre of this music is soft rock, which is a contemporary version of rock and roll, where its toned down and is an everyday life sound for listening. It is possible to see that the genre is soft rock as compared to normal rock revolving around electric guitars and drums, whereas soft rock uses acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody and harmonies.
This song was written shortly after Sinead O'conner's mother was killed in a car accident, although they had a troubled relationsip with physical abuse and seperations, Sinead's emotions were true and real in this video as she has admitted in interviews her tears weren't meant to be real but they were and chose to let them continue anyway.

Sinead chose to step outside the stereotype boxes as she used her bald look as a statement against the traditional view of women and has said she doesn't feel herself unless she is bald. As you can see in the still image below;This doesn't represent any social groups because during the time this video was made, it was very uncommon for women to be bald so therefore Sinead doesn't belong and doesn't represent any other social groups apart from the one she produced herself in this video.

This video hasn't got a target audience however the mood and emotions of the song are provided for those who share them, it has been classed as a 'break up song, number 1 in the heartbreakers chart' etc, which would mean this song can be portrayed however listeners would want to portray it.

Another video is Run DMC & Aerosmith - Walk this way
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhyro_aerosmith-feat-run-dmc-walk-this-w_music

The genre of this music is rap vs hard rock, Run DMC is the rap side of the music video and Aerosmith is the hard rock, you can tell apart the two genres as rap consists of spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics and hard rock typified by a heavy use of distorted electric guitars, bass guitar, drums, pianos, and keyboards.

The use of the two studios in the video to seperate the two bands and different genres, however towards the end Steve Tyler from Aerosmith breaks down the wall which then leads to the bands playing together on the same stage, providing the audience with the idea that two genres provide different sounds but can work together.

This video could represent two different social groups such as punk and emos or chavs and emos battling against each other and the ending of the video which involves the two different bands coming together, could be portrayed as punks and emos for example, not being so different and it is possible not to stereotype them.

The video doesn't instantly give off a target audience at the beginning, but throughout you start to pick up that it may be targetted to the younger generation as the bands are clashing and it would be linked to younger teenagers/adults doing the same.

The third video is The Prodigy - Firestarter
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17cnn_prodigy-firestarter_music

The genre of this music is big beat/techno/alternative, meaning the music is typically driven by heavy beats and synthesiser sounds similar to those used in techno which makes the genre easily noticable, the setting, clothing and makeup of the video can also relate to the genre as its very outrageous and abnormal.

I don't believe the music video tells a story, instead I think the band tried their hardest to come across as different and scary at times, this was taken into account through the lyrics and filming of the video, it lead to controversy in the UK because of their violent nature and also lead to some channels/radio stations banning it from being aired as it was too frightening for children. This can also show there is no representation of social groups as the band and the way the video is layed out that they are trying to break the boundries of stereotypes so they are no longer classed in a group of similar people.

It could be seen that this video is aimed at the male teenager gender as it is around that age that boys/teenagers tend to rebel and as the video is extremely different to normality so it could be linked that they chose to target that audience.

The final video is Lady GaGa - Poker face
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xa78m5_lady-gaga-pokerface_music

The genre of this music is electropop/pop, this music is again made by sounds of synthesisers often described as cold and robotic, often with simple, catchy hooks and dance beats. It is also very colourful, modern and slightly out of the ordinary but in a different way compared to the previous video.

This video isn't telling a story as such but the lyrics are linked to having a "poker face" for a male and there is a male included in the video where Lady GaGa is seen to be in control.

Although Lady GaGa isn't seen as an indie musician, she can still fall under the stereotype for being so outrageous with her make up and style choices, although this video isn't partically representing any social groups. However it does seem the video is aimed at teenagers preferably girls as it could be seen that the target audience also share the lyrics in the song.

Blog 1 - Introduction

For my task in A2 Media, I will aim to create a music video in a group and also design a cover for cd/dvd digipack and an advertisement for the digipack. This will all be shown in a portfolio which I will use this source to blog every step of the production of coursework and the final product, I will present my research, planning and evaluation in this blog.

This task will be a development of my skills from my AS task, which was producing the front cover, contents and double page spread of a music magazine. http://sdcmediaaslauracarnegie.blogspot.com/

Throughout this task I will aim to meet all deadlines and teachers will assess my work at certain 'checkpoints' to enable I am up to date and not behind workload.