Category: Video Preliminary Tasks

For this task we went out and recorded a test shoot and lip sync of just to familiarise ourselves with our equipment, song and ideas. We also revised and portrayed in an extremely basic manner the star image we intend on portraying to out target audience. We tested a variety of shots, long shots, close-ups, moving shots & wide shots to see which best represent our star image. As well as this it is good for us to practice our use of cinematography. This was probably the most important thing from this shoot as it was hard to display our star image due to a poor location and very limited MES availability due to being at school.

Being able to practice and utilise different shots has allowed us to see what will be best for when recording our actual performance shoot and for the music video shoot they may be really effected in portraying the narrative, so we can also use these shots and practice them then for our narrative shoot.

After looking back at the shoot we as a group decided that in this shoot the long shot worked well, in particular when we walked towards the camera and it slowly became more of a close up shot. Next time we need to improve the high angle shot by making the camera is better secured as well as positioned in the most ideal spot, however that should be easier when we have better mise-en-scene to display and a much better location that should help portray the message intended for our narrative or star image.

https://youtu.be/nlluGoX9Ch8

Above is my planning montage for a quick 30 second montage video, which is as you can see followed by my montage video. For this we were separated into groups of 3 or 4, for me it was 4, however once we got all the footage we split up into 2 2’s. For the structure we combined all scenes and put each scene is chronological order. This means we had scene 1 of each idea together, then scene 2 and so on. We did this using a software called ‘Premiere Pro’. The aim was to create a montage using a variety of camera angles and Mise en Scene to convey a narrative of ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ which was randomly determined for us to do so we had very limited planning time and pre-planning ideas.

Strengths:

• Great clear use of the varied camera angles used within the clip.
• A clear narrative, which is easily understandable for the audience watching.
• Every shot taken was in focus, allowing the montage to be of high standard quality.
• Everyone involved had a part to play within the montage.
• Varied use of editing techniques.

Weaknesses:

• Our montage didn’t include a transition.
• Use of different locations.
• Mise en Scene – boring (school uniform)

Over the course of this mini 30 second video and throughout the project I have learnt how to use a new piece of software, I have also developed my planning skills and even more so my directing skills, as this is the first time I have had to direct a ‘scene’ instead of a photoshoot. Furthermore I have also developed my camera skills, as this is the first time I’ve had to record with a real/professional camera, therefore I have had to use a variety of shots already whether these be static, moving, close up and longshots.