Look Book

When creating or own Digipak, as a group, we created a look book using Padlet to help us get inspiration. To do this we looked at a variety of artists that were in the same music genre as us, we then took screenshots of the color pallets and patterns that were used. We also looked that social media pages and album covers that were also helpful for us to research. We noticed a connection between all of the artists work and displayed this on the Padlet below.

In conclusion, this particular task was very helpful as it has helped us to plan our own digipak. It has given us the chance to create our own designs. It has also given us an idea of what competition we are up against within the music industry of this genre. We noticed patterns of bright, bold colors to advertise the artist as well as their album. There are also patterns of this on their social media pages which help advertise themselves to their audience members. We need to keep all of this information in mind when designing and creating our own digipak and social media page, we also looked at how to make it unique to ourselves, to do this we were looking at ideas that has more of a warm tone color pallet .

Final Draft

Reflection

I think we worked well together as a group to create a great end product. Our final video is very close to what we had originally planned for it to look like. We spent a lot of time and money working on our MES and I think we pulled it off well. The bright colors of the costumes contrast nicely against the dark locations we decided to film in. We each too turns and practiced applying the ‘Day Of The Dead’ makeup to our modals multiple times to perfect the look and to work out which one of us applied it the most efficiently. Our narrative and performance portrays our song choice well and I think the purpose of our video is communicated well to our audience. We encountered some problems during the filming process of our video and we ended up having to do multiple shots in two different locations- The Underground Hospital and Grande Rocque Castel. It cost us £10 an hour to film in the UGH so we had to take this into consideration as a group.

We worked together to edit the video and we learnt many new skills during the process. We included a variety of transitions such as flashbacks and zoom-ins, and we spent time trying to perfect the color correction technique that was used. The editing process was a challenge as none of us were familiar with the software Premiere Pro. However, by working together we achieved the things we wanted to.

If we were to do this project again, I think we would have planned our timings better – in terms of the days we filmed on. This is because we ended up having to film on three different occasions which was unfair on our star image and was extremely time consuming. We should have ensured all of our equipment was working before we left for shooting and we should have made a clear plan between us all as to specific shots we were going to film.

Screencastify Of Teacher Feedback

In order to help us edit the rest of our music video, our teacher viewed our second draft of the video and created a screencastify containing feedback and tips for improvement. Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi wasn’t working so a screencastify couldn’t be created. However, we received a video recording of feedback with specific timecodes in so we could work out which part of our video was being spoken about.

In conclusion, our narrative was understood well and was noted as a positive of our video. Our introduction is also good and our use of jump cuts were noticed. During the chorus, the pace of the music picks up and we edited to the beat well. We created a fast montage of clips which works efficiently. However, we need ensure that the rest of our fast paced montages are up to this standard and cover the fast music towards the end of the video. In addition to this, some of the lip syncing is slightly out of time towards the end of the video and this needs to be adjusted. We were also suggested to p

Lastly, we need to spend some time thinking about the sequencing of our video. For example, we have a clip of our star walking down the corridor in full makeup and costume but then it jumps back to him being tied up in the chair with no makeup on.

Targets for development

• We need to play our video and work out when the individual beat drops are within our video and edit our clips perfectly to the beat. This also needs to be done with some parts of the lip syncing to ensure it is accurate.
• We need to make a decision as to weather or not we are going to rearrange our sequencing to be in chronological order or if we are going to edit certain clips to appear as flashbacks. This will help the logical progression of our narrative.
• Color correction is another aspect that we are going to look into. We are going to try this out to enhance our dark, grungy background and if we like the results, we will commit to changing every clip in our video to this.

Draft 3 of our Music Video

To insure we could improve our music video we asked for some feedback from our peers. We created a second draft and asked them what they thought went well and what we need to improve on. After receiving this feedback, we created a third draft which is below as well as a list of feedback.

Peer Feedback

Targets for improvement

• Color correction could really bring out the contrasting colors in our video so we need to give this technique a go.
• Using a variety of shots would also benefit our video so this is something we need to incorporate.
• We need to make sure our lip syncing is as good as possible by adjusting a few clips.
• We need to ensure all of our flashbacks are introduced correctly so that the narrative makes sense

What has changed

• With our flashbacks we’ve added more ‘black-in’s’ to make sure our audience know that these clips are flashbacks
• We have arranged clips that were out of time, to be in time so all the lip syncing works.
• We have included more ‘zoom-ins’ on some of the longer shots.
• Lastly, we completed another shoot at Grande Rocques Castle to ensure we have a variety of shots that we can use if we need.

Draft 2 of music video

After editing our first music video draft, we came to terms with the fact that we didn’t have enough footage at all. The clips we did have also weren’t the best they could have been. As a result of this, we set a new filming day and filmed everything all over again using a good quality iPhone and this worked very well. Draft 2 of our music video is embedded below…

What Went Well

• We spent time trying to edit to the beat of our song due to it starting slow then picking during the chorus, it was important that we edited accordingly and I think we did this well.
• Lastly, I think we have incorporated a good balance of narrative to performance throughout the video and we stuck to our plan of having the video portray the lyrics.
• The MES and colors in our music video stand out well in contrast to our dark background and this is something we felt was needed in our video. We have yet to play with color alteration, however, I think the colors work well without this being done.

Targets For Development

• In order to ensure our music video runs smoothly, we need to work on transitions between different clips and scenes, although we need to be careful not to add too many of these transitions.
• We also need to work on the sequence of our video as different clips show different stages of our performer’s makeup and then suddenly flashes back to him with no makeup on. We need to decide if we want to change this and arrange the clips in order or if we want to introduce flashbacks into our video and edit them accordingly. This could be done by introducing filters and color correction to create the effect its a flashback.
• At the end of our music video we need some improvements done as we ran out of footage and had to film in another location to insure we had enough footage for our next draft. We need to emphasize the start of a new beginning and a new scene for our star image.

We were lucky enough to have some of the Specsavers Creative Team come into school to help us out and give us some useful feedback to help with our music videos, they had a lot more knowledge using the programme and creating videos than us so it was very helpful to receive their feedback.

Here is some of the feedback they gave to us:

• Some of the feedback specsavers gave us was to make sure that we are always editing to the beat, as we start of editing to the beat but as the song goes on the video doesn’t match the beat as much, they showed us how to do this by zooming in on the video to insure we cut the clip at the exact right spot.
• Another aspect of our video we got feedback on was flashbacks as we had the idea to do flashback but weren’t sure on how to do this, the feedback we received was to fade in and out using a white fade to make it obvious as to what is happening, specsavers showed us how to do this using the tools we need, being the fade tool and changing the colors we fade in and out with.
• They also showed us how to do a black fade to mix the clips together so they transition smoothly.
• Another editing technique we were taught was how to change the colors and effects for a flashback, we would use this to show when a flash back is happening so that it can easily be determined.
• We were also given the advice to organize our clips more so we know what goes where and which clip we need, this will make finding the videos easier and quicker.
• Specsavers also gave us the idea that we could use the last part of the song as a chance to change location.

This was a very useful lesson to have as it showed us some possible adjustments and new effects to add in to make our music video look more professional. It was also nice to have someone else’s opinion on our video, who also has knowledge about the process themselves, I learnt lots in this experience especially about the tools that will come in handy when editing, for example the color changing and the transitions.

Reflection of Shoot 2

During our second shoot day for filming our narrative we had a few issues on the day of the shoot and we had to rearrange some things, some of these being that our original star image- Naffy as not available on this day as we had originally thought and planed, meaning we made the quick and last minute decision to re cast and for this role we had Hendry! He quickly learnt the words to our song and had a clear understanding of our the narrative as he was also present on the day of our first shoot meaning he knew his role and the character he had to become in this music video. In addition to this, our second kidnapper ( Jess ) was also not able to attend the second shoot so Annabelle stepped in as her replacement.

Although this was not what we had originally planned, it well benefit us in the long-run as Annabelle and Hendry are available more often than our previous two cast members. This makes it easier for us to plan re-shoots and group meetings with no issues.

Conclusion

In conclusion, our second shoot ran much smoother than our first shoot, our narrative is closely linked with our performance, it was much easier to film scenes with all 3 of our actors together who knew their individual role and what was needed for this. We also discovered that our new star image is much more confident at lip-syncing and acting than our original due to his preforming background as he was a drama student. This has helped us to convey our storyline much better as our new star shows clear emotions when he is on camera and knows how to act.

Although we ran into many problems during all these shoots we have managed to pick ourselves up and are now back on target, we now feel much more confident in our actors and within ourselves when it comes to filming them, we are also much better at communicating in a group. Our knowledge of using the camera, tripod and lights has improved and we are becoming quicker at applying the makeup to our actors. We thought a lot about mise-en-scene and we used this to create meaning in many ways, some examples being costume, and makeup, when getting our actors ready we made sure everything they were wearing was part of their costume and character, we insured that the makeup was as similar as we could get it to insure the message that they were a team was easily passed onto the audience with no confusion.

Targets

• It is essential we are in agreement with our actors about when we are meeting and who needs to be there for every shoot. This will help us to avoid previous problems we have run into.
• We also need to check all of the equipment before we leave school for our shoots as our camera ran out of charge halfway through shoot 2.

Narrative Sheet

We have filmed the performance part of our music video meaning we now need to film the narrative side to it, this meant we needed a lot of preparation and planning. Firstly, we filled out a sheet below with all the information regarding the narrative. This included the type of narrative we are filming and the structure to it- Disruption, Resolution and the New Equipmentilibrium. We also discussed the key themes for our narrative and gave a brief outline of the storyline.

Reflection

This task was very helpful due to the fact we used it during our shoot to remind and prepare our selves of our goals and targets as well as what our aims were and what was needed. It also ensured that we knew the type of narrative we were doing as well as knowing the themes so we knew how we were going to portray it.

Todorov’s Theory is something we looked back on when planning our narrative, to insure the build up of climax up to the event and that it results in restoration and the problem solved. This shows we have a beginning, middle and end to our narrative which is what we needed. Most music videos will have an amplified narrative, meaning it includes illustrative and disjunctive aspects. A lot of narratives are also non-linear, meaning they do not run in chronological order.

Embedded Video- 1 min of lip synced performance

Self Assessment

Our first music video draft is very brief and rough, this is because we decided focus on the performance aspect in our first shoot, this didn’t help us when editing as we only had a certain amount of footage and was hard to edit as the performance is often tied in with the narrative. Although, what we did manage to film was up to our standard and expectations as all the footage was in focus and filmed from the correct angles to communicate what we intended we used many different camera angles and techniques such as close ups as well as filming the same shots from different angles so we could choose which we can use when editing. Another aspect that went to plan was the lip-syncing, as it was in time and showed the emotion we were hoping to for example our star images body language, emotions are expressed. However something we could have improved on is that we need to work on our editing more to make sure the video is at its full potential. This includes colour alteration, transitions, zoom in’s, zoom out’s, slow-mo’s and more.

Targets for improvement

• Transitions and editing between the different video clips. This will ensure our video runs much smoother and links nicely together.
• Filming skills in some areas- A variety of angles and using a variety of shots. This will give us lots of different types of footage to play with and work on.

For us to be able to prepare for our narrative shoot, we thought about the different shots we wanted to shoot. We split the narrative up into 4 scenes and created detailed shot sheets embedded below. This includes specific shots and descriptions of angles, movement and framing.

This is helpful for us as these shot sheets have a detailed plan of what we want to achieve on the day and that we can stick to our original plan, insuring that we don’t waste time or lose time taking unnecessary shots we may not need. This also makes sure that we understand what we want to portray with our narrative as well as ensuring we have coverage, a variety of shots and enough footage to be able to convey the narrative. Video narratives are made to be amplified, meaning that the narrative is to do with the story of the songs lyrics, and we swill try and include this in our video and our story boards will help with this greatly.