September 28

Music Video Draft 4

This is Draft 4 of my music video:

Things we changed:

  • made our flashback more successful and obvious by using the swirl effect
  • added the echo effect on the walking for continuity
  • added some more close ups of arms closing and shoving the pastel girls
  • added some more of the pulse effect for consistancy on the beats of the music and the strong words
  • added the strobe/inverted effect in more places for consistancy
  • included a cross dissolve for the aerial shots of the flowers being added into the bath to make the flow better
  • added a darker effect on the goth emerging from the bath to imply she has ‘gone to the dark side’ and changed
  • included more split screens
  • added a tint onto the fist clenching to emphasize the ‘governments’ anger and to show something is going to go wrong
  • edited the dragging pace of edit to the beat of the music and the words in the lyrics

Comments from peers and audience:

Overall, Zoe loved our music video and thought that it was effective. She understood our narrative and the message that we were trying to get across. However she also gave us some feedback to improve on which we will use as targets for our final draft:

  • experiment with the inverted strobe effect and change the colours so there is some colour added to the music video
  • when the goth section of the narrative comes in, experiment with changing the colour/tint on the performance videos to link with the rest of the video
  • the CU of the mouth shot – try and make it more clear what it is saying – maybe film it again and Eve move her mouth more
  • add a fade out at the end of the video as it doesn’t go completely to black after the rotating effect
September 28

Music Video Draft 3

Draft 3 of my music video:

What has changed:

  • We have added more edits
  • We have made everything in chronological order
  • played  with effects and transitions to create more interest on screen
  • included more close up and extreme close up shots to create intensity
  • moved the star so that she isn’t in the centre of the screen the whole time
  • used close ups of hands and arms to distract from the out of time dancing
  • more cuts between shots – some shots were too long
  • use effects 3 times
  • created jump cuts for interest
  • added in more effects and ensure that they are in at least 3 times for the comfort of the audience
  • used more shots and angles – some are too long and the interest is lost
  • included more close up shots of hand movements and include movement through the frame
  • included some more obvious jump cuts
  • adapted the pace of edit to fit the tension in the frame

Five youtube comments from peers:

Targets:

  • colour correction
  • make flowers pop
  • get rid of some effects too overcrowded
  • fix inside shapes
  • shaky shots fix
  • make the storyline more clear
September 26

Teacher Feedback – screen castify

Summary:

  • play with effects and transitions to create more interest on screen
  • include more close up and extreme close up shots to create intensity
  • move the star so that she isn’t in the centre of the screen the whole time
  • use close ups of hands and arms to distract from the out of time dancing
  • more cuts between shots  some shots are too long
  • use effects 3 times
  • make sure sequencing is chronological – some doesn’t make sense
  • create jump cuts for interest

Targets:

  • add in more effects and ensure that they are in at least 3 times for the comfort of the audience
  • use more shots and angles – some are too long and the interest is lost
  • include more close up shots of hand movements and include movement through the frame
  • include some more obvious jump cuts
  • adapt the pace of edit to fit the tension in the frame
September 26

Specsavers Feedback

We had two people from Specsavers come in and watch our music video to give us improvements to make, this is what they said:

  • try to edit to the beat more
  • zoom in on some more clips to create some interest and change of shot
  • use effects to your advantage – you can always take things out but you’ll never know if you don’t try

They gave us some tips on how to do some interesting effects. One of the main ones they taught us was how to change the anchor point of a rotation. This was extremely useful as it allowed us to merge different shots in the background of the rotation as well as creating some interest in the shot.

We also had some experts from Digital Greenhouse come in and they also gave us some feedback on our video:

  • have a good variety of shots and angles
  • the narrative is obvious – the target audience will understand it
  • try to work in some more effects and don’t forget the rule of 3
  • include more close ups and extreme close ups to create intensity – e.g. zoom in on glasses, as it wasn’t obvious that there was someone dancing in them
  • don’t be afraid to have close ups of body parts or certain movements

They also taught us how to use colour correction throughout the whole piece. They said to find your darkest and lightest shots and adjust them to suit the rest of the video. Then apply an adjustment layer over the whole video to fix the whites and the shadows to get the correct levels of contrast, light and exposure. This is incredibly useful as it will save a lot of time, due to the fact that it will be one adjustment layer compared to one layer per shot, and it means that we don’t have to worry about getting the same levels and the perfect correction on every single clip.

September 26

Music Video Draft 2 (Includes shoot 2 footage )

Here is the second draft for my music video:

What went well:

  • We filmed many different complex shots
  • We put all the clips together
  • The clips were too the beat of the music
  • We added special effects to the clips

Even better if:

  • We made sure we dressed our star in the same things all the time
  • We added more transitions
  • We added more effects to the clips
  • We could add more snappy fitting clips

Targets:

  • edit more
  • more fast paced edits
  • transitions between clips
  • more effects
September 21

Shoot 2 + 3 Reflection (Narrative)

Here are some of the photos of me filming and editing the performance:

Reflection:

The shoot went well in my opinion, we worked fast and crafty trying out different angles and ideas any time we could. We aimed to film the whole music video with the dancers and body guards on the Sunday at vale castle, we also filmed more narrative on Tuesday in the bath which creates the change in our narrative. On the day of our first shoot, it was very hot and our dancers and bodyguards were complaining in the heat since the men had to wear all back and hoodies. This impacted on how much we could do outside in our desired location. Despite this we managed to get a range of shots outside as well as up at the top of the castle. These included: close ups, mid shots, dolly shots, long shots, canted angles, low angles and Ariel shots. Overall the shoot was successful and I think that our Mise En Scene and camera techniques were all effective and worked well, we got so many shots so when we were editing we ended up having to cut a lot of the shots down.

For the bath scene shoot it went really well, great weather great lighting. Everything went as planned. It was perfect. It took a long time but it was worth it. We got loads for shots and ended up not using them all.

What went well:

  • Our Mise-en-scene was effective to show that our star was in the right attire comparison to our narrative, as well as creating a sense of being ordinary and reachable for our audience as the clothes were quite ordinary
  • Our decision for our star to be barefoot and in chunky boots was effective as it showed that she was down to earth and humble
  • We got a variety of shots and used good techniques
  • All of our shots were in focus

Even better if:

  • We got more original shots to portray the individuality of the song
  • We held the camera more steady since the first dolly we took was all over the place
  • We need to start editing to the beat of our music to create a more professional look
  • We need to make sure that our star knows the lyrics so we can re-record the lines she didn’t know

Targets:

  • Get some more shots that vary the angles of the shots
  • Get some more steady dolly shots – the ones we got were jolty
  • Edit to the beat in our editing
  • Use different paces of edit in our editing
  • More close ups
September 18

Design Skills 2

These are some of the skills I learn’t while creating and experimenting with the first draft of my music video:

Firstly, before I get into what I achieved I will talk about Lenny and Elliot who came in from Specsavers and taught the class how to create different effects. They provided us with a video before they came:

This was helpful because it taught us to organise our material and keep it in a controlled environment. My group and I did this immediately to help keep everything in folders and to help us when looking for a certain clip.

The first skill I have learn’t is how to change the opacity of your image and make it spin. First I had to click on the clip and clip the opacity button. When the opacity button is selected firstly you can change what shape you have over your image. For example I chose a circle then you can then change the mask feather which can blend the background in with the image.

To get the image t0o spin I created a frame at the begging of the clip where the clip was in its original position and another frame at the end with the clip in the ending position I wanted. I also chose what speed I wanted the image to move.

This helped with our genre since we wanted her to look alternative and catch the audience out.

Next I would like to talk about how to replicate the clips. This was very easy since all I had to do was click on the clip and chose the replicate option in effect controls. I then chose to replicate the image by 4.

This helped with the star image because our artist wants her views to be heard so there are multiple of her to enforce that.

Then I am going to talk about how to change the brightness and contrast of your clip. Here I had to select my clip again and put a brightness and contrast effect on it. When the effect was on I got to choose how much brightness I wanted and could play with different levels.

This helped our genre since it looked edgy and helped move the narrative in the music video along.

The last effect I would like to talk about is when we placed the opacity circle from before into another clip to look like a reflection in the glasses. We did the same as before with the opacity but changed it so it had less opacity. This way the image would look like it was in the glasses.

This helped with our star image since she felt like she was being watched all the time.