After uploading our fourth draft of the music video we invited some fellow media students to watch our most recent draft and they kindly agreed to be filmed. We positioned them with the video and asked them to comment on they liked and what they thought could be improved throughout, we also prompted them with questions along the way. You can view the feedback below.

What went well:

• There is wide variety of shots and a fast edit in the opening skit.
• The door slam sound effect is powerful.
• The number of close-ups on instruments is important for the genre.
• The pace fits the genre of music.
• The mise-en-scene is effective and reflective.
• The animations are dazzling and ‘cool’ drawing positive attention from the audience.
• The actors are full of energy in the performance and suit the star image.
• The narrative is seen to come to an expected ending and the music and narrative wind down nicely in time with the fade reducing the pace.

Targets:

• It was found they did not have enough time to read the blue text at the beginning.
• They also found that they didn’t have enough time to read the news reel text, however it was decided that this wasn’t crucial to the contextual understanding of the text.
• If we have enough time, it would be interesting to perhaps get one or two more animations into the middle of the song where they lack in comparison to the start and end.
• Some of the transitions between shots could be more interesting.

Below you can view the fourth draft of our music video, brimming with animations and a new, fast paced to the beat edit.

As a group we sought to gain feedback from our classmates and peers through the use of a questionnaire to see what works and what doesn’t for our music video. Below are the forms we collected.

What went well:

• Jack enjoyed the political themes in our video finding the narrative to be thought-provoking and unpredictable. He also thought the setting was appropriate.
• Sally believed some shaky camera shots actually work well for our narrative and performance. She also made positive references to our title design and she thinks our stylized shot transitions work well with the song and the genre.
• Tom thought that our video is fun and is full of energy which is aided by our use of quick whip pans in the opening instrumental of the song.
• Louis thought that the level of editing done in after effects supplemented both the narrative and the performance very well.

Targets:

• Allow a longer time for the newsreel to be read both at the start and on the celebrity vanity sequence.
• Fix lip-syncing in some areas.
• Add more animations similar to the lips and the musical notes to heighten the performance side of the video.

After receiving extensive feedback on our second draft we have committed many hours to completing the final order of our music video with all the necessary clips as well as integrating transitions. We have even begun work on the animations which underpin our narrative and the passion of Ska. Our third draft can be viewed below.

After completing our second draft we delved into gaining valuable insight from our teachers and classmates on how to ever-improve our music video. We filmed this video interviewing people on what they liked as well as offering alternatives to problems they identified. The video can be viewed below.

Targets:

• Re-shoot clips which are out of focus
• include more narrative shots to make it less confusing for the audience, this will also improve the videos continuity
• Some lip-synicng still needs to be improved
• The opening clips need to  an increased pace to get to the bass to make it match up with the song
• Add special effects to emphasise the instrumental parts of the song such as musical notes and an animated kiss
• Improve the energy of singing at the beginning of the song

After consolidating on our highly informative feedback we returned to the editing suite to fine tune our lip syncing and address many of the problems highlighted by our peers and teachers. We also were able to incorporate new footage we obtained from our second performance shoot as well as the beginnings of our narrative scenes which we filmed the preliminary shots for. Below you can view the second draft of our music video.

Over the course of constructing our music video we have relied on Adobe After Effects in order to create animations that aide our narrative and performance to give it a comic book feel and highlight the political themes of the genre.

Newspaper/Masking & Key Frames:

To create the newspaper at the star of our video we used masking to layer shapes over other videos. This allowed us to place our newspaper front cover over the video and we created the spinning in effect through the use of key frames in the position and scale sliders to make the paper appear as if it is spinning in towards the camera.

Lips/Pathing:

To make objects and images move around in the frame we created paths for our objects to follow, this was used in all the lip scenes where colorful, romantic lips fly through and out of frame. we also used this for the musical note scenes since we could modified the pace at which the images moved allowed for a quick kiss or a slow and long note drifting through the frame.

BBC News/Venetian Blinds:

In order to create the ‘found footage’ aesthetic we used the Venetian blinds tool which created a grainy texture for the footage with jagged bars splitting up and dominating the frame reflecting the low camera resolution of a smart phone and to suggest the spontaneity of the filming.

US Election/Feathering:

To create soft edges to blend in to the frame below we used the feathering tool in order to make dainty videos of the two candidates in the US election to suggest the political divide of our society into left and right ideologies.

The narrative is an important half of any music video and we took to our school bathrooms to add to our already comprehensive portfolio of performance shots. It is typical of the ska genre to use the performers in the narrative since the star image that is constructed is often self-deprecating and reflects the band making a social or political statement.

What went well:

• Ample time to film since the performers and crew were ready to go twenty minutes prior to the allocated shoot time.
• Only had a small number of shots to acquire which allowed us to be more creative and experimental with shots.
• All correct mise-en-scene was brought to the film shoot ensuring continuity.

What went wrong:

• The enclosed space was very cramped and we found it hard to get multiple shots at once without accidentally catching another camera in shot.
• Our location demanded we close off the school toilets which caused inconvenience for some toilet-desperate individuals.

To effectively delegate responsibility to maximize organisation in our team we created a production meeting agenda for our the narrative shoot of our music video. This helped to ensure nothing from mise-en-scene to who was shooting was forgotten smoothing out the filming process. Our document can be viewed by clicking on the images below.

Side 1:                                                      Side 2:

 

In order to keep track of what shots we wanted for the narrative side of our music video we constructed a detailed storyboard of specific scenes which we wanted to capture. We have some interesting ideas for shots we can get in a bathroom at school which involves our performers putting on their makeup and washing their face in the toilets. We are also considering throwing a mirror out of a window and showing it smash to reflect the illusion of the media and vanity being destroyed at the hands of the band members. You can view our storyboards by navigating the slide share below.