Music Video Draft 4

Below is our final draft for the music video we have created.. 

Reflection

Me and the rest of the group are really happy with the finished project of the music video. From the third to fourth draft we have changed a few thing’s but I knew it would be lots of the final tweaking.  However one thing I notice was it was really difficult to make the decision on when to stop editing. I felt like I could have kept changing things for hours but at a certain point you have to call it a day and be happy with what you have got and I am still happy with what are finishing product is .This is sums up really well from a quote by George Lucas “I would like to say that films are never finished, they’re are only abandoned”  We have all worked really hard for the last few months to create the best piece of work together. From undergoing this task I have learn’t lots from filming techniques, editing techniques and how to work and use the equipment. These skills that hopefully I can carry on with me into the future.

Music Video Draft 3

Student feedback

Below is some of the feedback that I got from some of my fellow students from what they thought about the video.

What worked well

What has changed since are second draft?

• We have got rid some of the singing at the the start because we realised it wasn’t just one person
• We have synced in more of the performance with the song so everything is in time. We Also add some wider verity of shots of the band in the first half of the video.
• Got rid of some of the grain shots because they did not make much sense and didn’t add anything to the video
• We introduced the boy and girl more at the start of the video for the audience  to understand better
• We pushed back the first stabbing so it gave us more time to set the scene and show more of the band

Specsavers Feedback

Once we had upload are second draft of the music video we got visit from some of the Specsavers editing/ creative team. They watched are video and gave us some handy and helpful tips and information on how we can improve our video and also gave us information on how to work with the software a lot easier like short cuts getting a round certain problems. Some of the specific techniques that they taught us were simple short cuts of how to make sequences and make new drafts of the video that were easy to access within premier pro.

Some things they said we had done well from are second draft were…

1. The performance side of the video is really good
2. It easy to understand the narrative part of the video and the link between the doll and the main singer

Some of the things that they mentioned we could improve were…

1. We could have some more close up shots of the doll
2. Some more connections between the doll and the main singer at the start
3. Different shots of the performance throughout the video
4. Show the doll stabbing scenes slightly later into the song
5. Slower reveal of the story line of the narrative between the girl and boy
6. Show more of the girls background

Conclusion

This information has been very helpful for us as a group. It has been to get another set of eyes to watch the video but also someone who edits videos all of the time and knows lots about the software we are using. We can know take these tips and information and work with it on are video to improve it for our next draft.

Teacher Feedback - screencastify

Above is the screencastify from my teacher of some feedback on the second draft. Click on the photo to view the video .

 Summary of feedback

From watching the feedback there are lots of information that we as a group that we have taken in. This is both good and bad things but all with the idea of making the video better. Some of the good things that my teacher liked in video were. It has a nice fast paced start to the video which links well and in time with the music. The performance of the video has been done very well, but could be made even better by having more cuts between the band and instruments. Some things that my teacher thinks could be better for the video were. Have more introduction of the girl at the start of the video to show the audience who she is and where she has come from. End the song with the really fast paced edit like it was at the start of the doll the guy and the girl.

The main points improve the video for are next draft would be….

1. More shots and cuts of the bands performance from different angles.
2. Some great effects in the video but placed at the wrong points and need to be changed
3. Slightly alter the arrangements of the clips when the stabbing happen to convey the meaning of pain more.
4. We need to show more of the girl at the start of the video and also have things like her face, where she is, the knife, the doll, her fingers and closes ups of her hands, the walls of the bunker and shots of her body and movements.
5. Some jump cuts of the performance.
6. Don’t use the grain shots that we have in the video as they don’t suit it.

Music Video Draft 2

I am really happy in the improvement we have made from the first and second drafts of our music video. The group has worked really well as a team with sharing responsibilities in doing the work. To help improve are video even more the group have looked and watched some past videos to get some ideas and see what they did well. We will then review are video again after and see how we could use some of the ideas they have used in our video.

Some things that the past video does well is…

1. It has a good visual effects throughout the video of both the band and girl
2. Has a wide variety of distances through out the song
3. The lighting of the band works well to convey the message that they are trying to show of anger

Some things that we can improve for are next draft is…

1. Make sure that they is no blank spots left in the video
2. To improve some the really windy shots at the end of the video
3. To make sure the audience understand the message we are trying to show through the narrative by moving around some of the clips of the boy and girl at the start of the video to make more sense
4. To try and have some more shots of the narrative in different places and not to show repetitive shots. The impact of this is to show a different verity throughout the video and not lots of the same shots.
5. To make sure all of the narrative scenes are in black and white so the audience completely understands the difference between the narrative and performance in the video

Shoot 2 reflection - Narrative

This image is show the main character in the narrative receiving the affects of the pain from Abby (the girl) physically

This shot is showing the main character looking towards the bunker which he has been led to

And this is the reverse of the last shot of the main characters point of view looking at the bunker

Again in this image is the main character getting in more pain after trying to find Abby

Above are some of the shots that we got from our second shoot…

This shoot was a lot different  from the first one for many reasons. For the shoot we went to Pleinmont headland around the fairy rings and also around the bunkers at the top as this is where the music video finishes. The two main problems we had when were were shooting was the weather and and the camera. The day we went it was very windy so in lots of our shots you can see the camera moving around on the tripod. The weather is evident in the photos of the shoot above. The second problem we had was with the cameras brightness. For over half of the shoot the brightness on the camera was really dark effecting lots of the shots that we got.

Some things that went well were ….

• We got some good angles and transitions from scenes
• We followed the plan for how the narrative would go
• We got lots of actual  footage its just quite a lot of it wasn’t up to standard
• The location of the bunker is a good place to finish off the video

Some things that didn’t go to plan were…

• The weather conditions and the shakiness of the camera
• The brightness of the shots for the first half
• Not enough close up shots of the narrative
• We didn’t get full shots of the full narrative as we are missing a girl for part of it.

In conclusion, there are lots we lean’t from this shoot. I would say that it wasn’t successful in the shots we got but as a group we gained a lot. We need to prepare are selfs more before the shoot for example just getting the equipment is not good enough we need to make sure that it is all working and in order. If we did this we wouldn’t have had as many problems with the camera. However are second problem of the weather conditions is something we couldn’t have changed and is what it is. Next time we should look into it before we go as its in big open area. Now we know this are group is  more prepared for future shoots.

Risk Assessment for Shoot 2 Narrative

After doing are first shoot we realised we needed to do a second shoot for the narrative side of the video. After planning this second shoot we also needed to do the risk assessment  for it. This is below… 

I think that it is important that our group does this risk assessment for the second shoot. This because we as a group know what risk might come up when filming and also how to prevent any accidents from happening and preventing them. Without filling in this risk assessment are group would not have been able to film in the location that we went to. The use of filming here also means it will make the music video good.

Production Meeting for Shoot 2 Narrative

After doing are first shoot for the performance side of the music video which went very successfully. We still need to get the narrative side in so we are going to do a second shoot to get these shots. Below is the planning document for the narrative side of the video.

Again like the first one it is a really important document that our group needs for the shoot. We as a group now know exactly what everyone needs and and what everyone is doing a at certain time. Without this information being written down we would have no organisation as a group and things could easily go wrong. These skills are are useful to have and will help me with planning other things in the future.

Narrative Storyboard

The idea of this task was for us to plan out each of our narrative shots in detail by breaking them down into A4 story boards. Once we had drawn the shots we had to annotate each one with specific shot descriptions, angles, movements and frames. To make sure we would get lots of coverage and a verity of shots to convey the narrative to our target audience.

Below is our narrative story board sheets…

Storyboard of me walking into the bunker in one of the final scenes

Storyboard of me walking towards the bunker and picking up the guitar

Storyboard – establishing long shot of the bunker towards the end of the video

Storyboard – all of the groups ideas around the voodoo doll

Conclusion

From doing this task are group now have a more in-depth view on how we are going to structure and film each scene of the narrative side of are song. As well as making sure we get all of the key information for theses shots down too. It has broken key scenes down from movement to movement knowing the exact key angles, movements and framing we need. By drawing and breaking down these scenes we were also able to annotate them with the key techniques that are going to be used.

These drawings have help the group really think of what message we are trying to convey to are target audience / genre and why we have things in a certain way and what meaning this has to the overall video. It has helped us and now I feel more prepared to shoot the scenes. Some of these are very important in order for the audience to understand the narrative so it has helped planing them so we can’t get them wrong when filming .

Narrative development

Click on the image to view the document. 

Above is are narrative development sheet for the music video. Before filling this out me and the rest of the group were quite uncertain still about the the layout and meaning of the narrative side of the video. However from filling this out we are all a lot more confident with what it it going to look like. Being able to plan out each scene in lots of detail have been very helpful to us as a group. Also having what themes we want to convey is good and we filled this in first then filled in the story line of it. Now that we have filled out this form if we get stuck in the editing or filming side of the narrative we have this too look back and at try and stay on track and follow what we originally look to do.

In conclusion I now feel more confident going into the narrative shoot coming up. As a group we are happy and have all imputed into this sheet giving are ideas of what the themes, conflict and disruption we could try and do to link the songs lyrics with the performance and narrative to show meaning. I think we need to convey a message through our narrative but not tell the full story use things like  episodic and anachronic too slightly confuse the audience when watching the video to watch it more times and work out a storyline. This could very from person to person and thoughts about the video  Without doing this task I feel the group would all have different  ideas on what to do where as now we have come together and talked about them all it we have agreed and disagreed on stuff we know what to do.