In our final draft for our music video, we changed the colour correction so that our narrative section was black and white, to distinguish it from the performance section further. We also did some final tweaks and ironed out unwanted audio and unwanted sections where models broke character.
There are further changes we could make if we had the time or budget, but our biggest issue is that we need more closeups of the vocalist/bassist, and this is not possible as we no longer have access to our model so we cannot do any more shoots with him.
Overall I am very happy with how this video turned out, I think it very accurately represents the conventions of the genre and shows a range of cinematography and editing techniques.
This is the third draft of our music video. We sent it out to some people for feedback. Here is what they said:
Pros:
Lighting and visual effects such as the layering
Overall lighting works well in connoting to the audience how and what the performance is meant to portray (anger/desperation)
lip-syncing and overall editing phase works well with the sing and narrative
performance and narrative is strong and works well with the song
Good use editing
Good variety of camera angles
Good performance
Some great uses of transitions throughout the video to change between shots.
About 45 seconds into the video, I really like the drum fill and how every time the drummer hits a different drum, the Guitarist changes position. I think that works really well.
The Guitarist moving around the container shows that they are stuck and trapped, and I think this is good.
They are some great close-ups of the band performing especially in the guitar solo.
I really liked when you had 2 of the guitarists at the end of the song in the container.
Improvements to make:
Maybe too many different effects going on
Some clips are very long
Don’t use Snapchat (maybe messages)
There seems to be an accidental jump cut at the end of the video after G lies back down
G laughs at the end of the video after lying down, could just cut the video a second beforehand
not so much about what to fix but a suggestion of lighting and colour gradient the lighting choice in the container
changed contrast of the phone scene where G is messaging Jane as when the hook comes around it is timed with Jane screenshotting the chat, which took a closer look to notice
drums aren’t always in sync, but there is not much you can do about that since G was in time
I like the idea of the fade-in of the narrative at the start of the video. However, I don’t know if those colours go well with it, as it’s a lot harder to see the actual narrative shots.
I don’t think the grain used on your guitarist needs to be there. By putting this in the video, how does it affect the audience and what they see from it?
It takes quite a long time before the narrative side of the video comes in.
I think that the looped shots of the guitarist on the bed at around 2 minutes could be changed as I don’t understand what meaning they add to the song.
The colour correction filter doesn’t work.
We will use this feedback to try to perfect our final draft.
Recently we had the creative department from Specsavers in to give us advice on our videos. One of the people watched our music video and spent half an hour giving us editing advice.
Our new targets are as follows:
Edit more to the beat
Increase the pace of edit to add energy
Spend more time on transitions to make them smoother
This is the second draft of our music video. We sent it to our teacher to get feedback (above).
Some things that went well:
Great shots in the bass solo
Good jump cuts and editing to the beat
Good ending with a fast pace of edit and various angles and distances
This is a video created by a previous year, and by looking at what made it so good and successful we can improve our own video. The cinematography in this video is great, with many different angles and distances, and good use of the tripod to keep shots stable. Their editing is also great, jumping between shots at a fast pace to keep the viewer interested and excited. The effects are also effective and relevant. The mis-en-scene is also great, especially the costumes (and makeup) which almost perfectly match the genre and star image that they needed to achieve. The set is also good, as it is low budget but works very well to achieve the desired effect combined with the costumes.
With this information, we can see how our video is successful, and more importantly what we need to improve. For example, we also have a good fast pace of edit, but we could definitely do with adding some more varied shots in.
Our targets for improvement include:
Clearer narrative – reasons for the man to not be able to sleep
More close-ups to establish audience connection with the performers
More shots of the drums from different angles and distances
Fill in the gaps/add variety to break up very long shots
Our narrative shoot went decently well. We went to the school drama studio, shut out all-natural light and shone directional lights so only the bed was lit. We did not suffer most of the issues that we did on our first shoot and we had some very good shots.
For the future, we could have planned more shots so we wasted less time deciding what to do next.
Things that went well:
Good shots from different angles
Good acting
Good mis en scene
Things that went wrong/targets for improvement:
Lack of planning (shoot was on short notice)
Sometimes the blinds swung so natural light leaked in
For our narrative shoot, I made a storyboard detailing some of the shots we planned to get, as well as a basic floor plan for the set.
We will be taking some of the following shots
High angles to show his small, helpless state
Close-ups to show his emotions, especially sadness, frustration, and anger
Canted camera to show the movement of the bed when it is flipped, showing him in his full angry self – also switching from high angle to a lower angle, showing the shift from helpless to angry
Shot of him throwing the phone, with a close-up and a mid shot to show his anger, and a close up of the phone spinning through the air and eventually hitting something to show the impact of his anger
Various shots of him collapsing onto the bed to show his exhaustion and defeat
Our set will be a large, dimly lit room with a mattress in the middle. This will show his isolation and bad quality of life.
This storyboard will help us in our shoot, as we will have a better idea of the shots we want and need for our video, making us more efficient in our shoot.
Before our second shoot, we made a risk assessment so we could manage risks and make sure that nothing went wrong on our shoot that would cause injury or harm to us or the model.
Before our narrative shoot, I decided to make a performance meeting agenda for the shoot. I planned the costumes, directions and what equipment we would need. This will help the shoot as we will be more organised and can focus all our effort on making sure the shoot goes well.
This is the extended step outline for the narrative portion of our video. Our binary oppositions include happiness vs sadness, loneliness vs friendship, sleep vs awake and stress vs calm. I have outlined the narrative structure, as well as explaining the character, the themes and conflict, and the different parts of the narrative including the equilibrium, the disruption and the new equilibrium.
Making this will help with what shots we need to get in the shoot, and will also help us to edit it in a way that works.
Due to technical issues and human error, we were unable to get as many shots as we would have liked, so we had to rely on good editing to still create a good music video. Other than that, I think the shoot went relatively well and most of the shots we got are very good.
Things that went well:
The mis en scene worked very well, especially the costume of the bassist.
The editing in the bass solo was very successful in my opinion, even making an unusable shot usable.
Good shots from varied angles
I think that we can offset the lack of shots with a more successful narrative shoot. For the narrative shoot, we will have to remember to bring more SD cards so we do not run out of storage, and make sure we do not have any “unwanted props” in our shots.
