Preliminary Video Tasks

Test Shoots

annabellegontier

Before staring the process of creating our music videos, we needed to see how well our star image is able to lip-sync the lyrics to our song choice. It was important that Naffy could do this as he’s going to be a huge part of our video meaning we need him to be able to lip sync, he also needs to be able to get emotion and meaning across while he lip-syncs the lyrics. As this was only a test shoot we chose 20 seconds of our song and directed and filmed Naffy performing them. This was also a good opportunity for my team and I to have some practice directing our star image, filming and editing. Our test lip-sync is imbedded below…

Once we filmed and edited our short clip together we asked other students in our class to watch it and give us feedback, these are some example of what they said.

What went well-

  • They said that the Pan across Naffy’s face was a good idea but that is could have been done better if the camera was more sturdy and less wobbly.
  • Camera angles was another aspect they likes as we used many different angles and they likes the contrast between them.
  • They also enjoyed the Walking transition from Naffy walking towards the camera to the camera walking away from Naffy, but they did say that we could have improved this by taking it all in one shot making the cut in the clips less choppy and more smooth.
  • Camera movement was something else they said we used well in this clip and we insure the camera wasn’t always still and that there was some movement in it.

Even better if-

  • One thing they feel we could have improved on was Better performance, for example a more exiting and more movement in the performance.
  • More enthusiastic lip-syncing was another aspect they felt we cold improve and by this they mean that our star image, Naffy should have moved his mouth more making it wider so it looked more like he was the one singing.
  • Use a tripod was another piece of feedback they gave us and this was just so the camera would be more still therefore making the video better.
  • Smoother transitions/cuts was the last piece of advice we got given and for this we just need to experiment with transitions and cuts to widen our skills.

Prelim Task Mood Montage

annabellegontier

Our task was to film a montage of short clips, and we were giving prompts to help decide a theme, and our montage was supposed to convey these themes to our audience. My groups theme was strength. We created an initial storyboard which was where we brainstormed our ideas such as what we wanted to film in the clips, the angles we would use and what order they would be in as well as why and the difference they would make.

My group and I worked well together, all three of us had similar ideas as well as being able to communicate well and agree on the MES we used, this meant when it came to filming we all knew our role and what our aim was.

What went well:

  • We incorporated the use of transitions for the montage to work better, therefore making it look smoother.
  • Using a variety of shot distances and making sure each shot was steadily filmed using a tripod.

Weaknesses:

  • In some of the clips the lighting was too dark.
  • A few of the clips were blurred.
  • Some of the shots could have been better positioned.

Overall, this task helped me to put a lot of thought into which clips I knew I wanted to film and if they were necessary and would help convey the theme and the narrative and this skill will be very helpful in planning and shooting my music video when it comes to it. I will also have a better understanding of which types of shot help to set different types of scenes how they work, for example a cut to close up shot allows the audience to see the facial expression of the character and it will help portray the emotion of the character.