Category: Music video

Below is our draft 4 for our music video. At this point we have we have finished most elements of the music video such as the story line and good variety of shots, however we would still like to correct and re film a couple of clips plus add some more effects to our clips.

When talking within our group, to our peers and teacher we where given feedback on our draft four of our music video so we know what has worked well within our filming and what we can correct or change to improve the music video.

What went well:

• Start of music video works well, clear shot of Aimee at her therapists.
• Good editing to the beat near beginning of video.
• The three different clips of Lukash sat in the chair on the hill create attentiveness for the audience.
• Good storyline of Lukash and Aimee before things go wrong.
• Good shots of Lukash packing up the suitcase and good variety of shots within this scene.
• Large variety of shots to show the arguing between the two and Aimee’s anger towards Lukash leaving.
• Good close up of zip being done up on suitcase.
• Great sequence of Lukash packing the suitcase, works well for the storyline.
• Variety of shots of Aimee at the window and walking away draws attention to the fact she is upset and unsure in what to do next.
• Clean mid shot of Aimee falling onto the bed to show her sadness.
• A lot of good editing to the beat throughout the entire of the music video, keeps the audience engaged.
• Engaging end mid shot, ties the storyline together.

Targets for improvement:

• Clip of Aimee looking distressed, which then looks at millie writing notes about what is happening could be finished off with an extra clip looking back at Aimee. This will create continuity and a cut between the two of them to show more of a relationship and understanding.
• Shot of Lukash and Aimee in the distance (long shot) random and unnecessary, needs to be changed.
• Clips of the performance, both the mid shot and the profile close up need to cut between the two of them to create interest.
• Scale in on performance mid shot and profile close up to draw in the audience.
•  Very quick swap from the lovely and happy memories to something going wrong with their relationship. To improve this change the colour correction to symbolise the difference in moods and show the different feel, plus different time.
• Cut between Aimee throwing the clothes in the long shot to the clothes coming towards the camera, get a good dynamic.
• When cutting back to Aimee throwing scale in the shot, shows differences in shot distances.
• Mid shot of therapist is a very long nodding scene and needs to be cut down.
• Scale in on performance pan.
• Pan of Aimee curled up on the bed doesn’t work well as not a lot is been shown in the pan, pans to the wall.
• Scale in on performance mid shot where Lukash is sat in the flowers, too much greenery which isn’t very nice.
• Narrative shots of Lukash running across the zebra crossing the Aimee running across don’t make sense as within the next clip Aimee is no where to be seen. Sequence the clips differently, have Lukash walking across then Lukash from Aimees point of view, then Aimee running.
• Scale in on Aimee in therapy rocking back and forth.

Summarising the feedback given:

Overall we have quite a few clips which need improving, however they are just little adjustments which will allow our music video to be more engaging for the audience and allow the storyline to flow more. We need to improve by add some continuity sequencing now and again throughout the video, however editing to the beat works well through the whole of the video and performance shots are well shot and thought about.

Here is our music video draft three. This has improved a lot since our draft two and we have been able to get a lot more detail of our narrative and we now have a lot more lip sync included and all the performance in the same location. Our draft three has definitely improved however once uploading it we have realised it didn’t save correctly and some of the end clips are out of sync. Therefore we need to go back and make sure these clips get put into the correct places so the clips finish on the beat of the song.

Self assessment:

• We have a huge variety of clips in both our narrative and performance.
• Our narrative has been portrayed well throughout the video and makes a lot more sense.
• Our models have portrayed the narrative well and you are able to see good emotions and facial expressions.

Targets for improvement:

• We now need to go back through and make sure the final clips are in sync with the music.
• We would also like to cut some of the music out as we feel the song is too long.
• We would like to get some final therapist clips to show how emotional Aimee really is and to fill up more of the narrative.

For our shoot five we decided to film in a house to show the narrative of Lukash getting ready to leave and packing up all his stuff. This shoot allowed our narrative to improve and we where able to get lots of different angles. We where able to portray Aimee as depressed and not accepting the fact Lukash is going and we where able to show how Lukash didn’t have much emotion about the situation and was ready to leave. We also got some good clips of them arguing about the situation and during this their acting was very good.

Focusing forward we need to put this into our music video to make a draft three then we think we might want to do one more shoot to get some more therapist clips. After that we are going to edit all of our clips so they are a lot more sharper and clear and we may also cut a bit of the song as it is very long.

What went well:

• When shooting one clip we made sure to do that clip multiple times over in different angles.
• We portrayed both Aimee’s emotions and Lukash’s emotions well.
• We all contributed with our own ideas of more shots we would like to include and we could expand on this from each idea as a team.

What we could fix:

• Some of the shots the lighting wasn’t the best as we only had natural light to work with and no studio lights, however we are going to try fix this whilst editing.

For our shoot four we decided to go to two locations so we where able to film some more of our narrative and re film our performance in the same location as last. For our narrative we decided to go to the ferry departures so we could film Lukash leaving Aimee and moving away from home. This narrative shoot I feel went well, however we could have got more of a variety of shots to portray the narrative better. However before shooting we made sure a shot list and storyboard was completed to help us with the shoot and this gave us more idea once we where at the locations. The shots we got worked well and we where able to portray the narrative of Lukash leaving by using a suitcase as a prop, this helped a lot in showing that he was leaving. We also used makeup to smudge down Aimees face to portray the emotion of her crying and getting upset of how he is leaving her.

Our location for our performance was out at Pleinmont on the motor cross track as we’d already shot some good clips there and felt all of our performance should be there to allow our performance to be more exciting. This part of the shoot went very well, Lukash had learnt the words to the song before shooting so we where able to do the performance a lot easier. We also got a variety of shots during this, for example side on, close up, pan, etc.

Focusing forward we now need to do a final shoot of Lukash packing up all his belongings and Aimee finding out he is leaving. By doing this shoot it will allow our narrative to make a lot more sense and allow people to see that Lukash and Aimee are falling out because he is leaving her.

What went well:

• Our performance and lip sync has improved as we prepared by making sure Lukash knew the words.
• Our narrative is making more sense and we have made sure to get good detailed shots of our performance.
• The lighting within our performance shots are better than our last performance shoot due to the weather.

What we need to fix:

• Although the lighting is better in our performance clips theres a few we would like to edit to make sharper.
• We now need to do one more shot for our narrative and make sure we are getting very detailed shots.
• We need to always make sure we are filming clips two or three times to allow them to be exactly how we want them.

For our shoot three we decided to do more narrative clips to get more of a story within our music video and allow for us to get more of a variety of angles. Our shoot took place in a room within school which had the feel of a therapist room, this was perfect for our shoot as we wanted to get clips of Aimee in therapy complaining to a therapist how she misses Lukash and wants the good days with him back. I feel this shoot went well as we designed a storyboard with all the shots we needed and our therapist was portrayed well with the clothes she wore. Furthermore we also got her props such as a clipboard, high heels and some glasses.

Focusing forward we now need to do another shoot for our performance as we want to improve our lip syncing and allow for this to take place outside rather than in a room with led lights as we felt this was quite boring for our genre. We would also like to do more narrative of Lukash leaving Aimee to allow the story to make more sense and allow us to add more detail into the music video. As we are aware we want to do more narrative and performance shoots we have already started to prepare shot lists and storyboards of what clips and angles we need.

What went well:

• We got a good variety of shots.
• The good acting of Aimee being upset allowed for the narrative to flow better and make more sense.
• We used good props and a good setting to film in to help portray the narrative, our lighting was also very good.

What we could fix:

• We would like to film more therapist clips to fill out our music video and allow for these to show how truly emotional Aimee is.
• Some of our shots where unfocused or jolted, therefore we where unable to use them. In the future we need to make sure this doesn’t happen by filming the same clip multiple times and checking the focus.
• Next time we could find little details to add into our filming, for example get clips of the tissue box before the therapist gives Aimee the tissue.

Here is a screen castify addressing what has worked well in our music video and other things we need to improve on or change, it will also help us in what we are missing and what would help make our next draft of our music video better.

What went well: 

• The beginning of the music video works well, it is a good mid shot which breaks the forth rule and shows our performer coming out of character.
• The first tilt of the therapist performs well however it jolts and needs to be stabled.
• There is a good variety of shots including close ups, mid shot, long shots, low angles and extreme close ups.
• The angle of Aimee in the mirror shows off her emotions well and you cannot see the reflection of the camera.
• Our editing on beat is done effectively and shows a good energy towards the music.
• Our recent performance shots of the two performers together have improved from our last shoot and shows a good relationship between the two.
• There is good cutting back and forth between the scenes in therapy and the scenes of the two together.
• Our close ups are working well as the audience can now see emotion through them.

Targets for improvement:

• We need to do more shots where we break the forth rule to show are performer coming out of character.
• More close ups in the therapy session to show the grief Aimee is experiencing  and the emotion.
• We have to re do our performance shots as the ones we have done in a room with led lights aren’t exciting enough and you can see light coming through the window. We would like to do more of our lip sync at the abandoned bus as they will be more thrilling for the audience to watch and will make our music video more interesting.
• With our long shot of Lukash lip syncing on a hill sat on a chair we need to crop it down to get rid of the bushes and maybe colour change the sky to a white or blue.
• We need to become better at stabilising our shots and always make sure they are focused.
• When shooting our performance we need to get Lukash in interesting positions to show more of a variation and not just him stuck in the middle.
• Play with angles and framing to make it more exciting.

Below is our draft 2 for our music video:

Here is previous students work which I am going to analyses and figure out specific and  measurable features which make a good music video. Below is a music video called You know you like it.

3 things that have been done well within this music video:

• Throughout the entirety of the video the camera is focused and stabilised, this helped in conveying the correct narrative and allowing a good performance.
• There is a variety of shots that have been used, I felt this kept me engaged with the music video.
• The narrative of the music video reflected well on the genre that was chosen and showed a clear meaning of what was happening in the mist en scene.

Our teacher is now going to do a screen castify of our second draft so we know what to work on next. This draft does have a few gaps in it, we are going to complete another shoot with more lip syncing from Lukash and narrative of the two teenagers together.

Targets for improvement:

• Re do performance shoot- get more angles of the lip syncing and a more interesting place to film.
• Film more narrative- we would like to do more stories of the friendship within the music video.
• Try new editing techniques for different clips to keep the audience engaged.
•  Re do some clips that jolt.
• Colour correct clips that have bad colouring.

During our filing process for our music video we where lucky enough to have Specsavers come in and help us on making sure our music video is working to the best of our abilities and show us little details we can add in from Premiere Pro to allow this.

What we have learnt from talking to Specsavers:

• Curves– Curves on Premiere Pro is an editing technique which will allow us to blend colour into different shots. We could use this in our clips where the girl is reminiscing on how their friendship used to be, this would help our audience understand the narrative more.
• Photoshop– Photoshop can be used  to create different drawings onto of our Premiere Pro footage. For example by using the opacity layer we will be able to create our own filter by exporting our photoshop drawing into Premiere Pro.
• Key frame– Key frame allows our image from photoshop to cut in and out of our clips. By making key frame ‘hard’ this will allow us to show a red dot in the corner of the screen flashing as if its a cam recorder. This makes our clips look more realistic and as if they are from the past.
• Colour– Colour can change the filter on clips which have been selected, we can then use this filter and copy and paste it onto other shots at the same time. This will make it easier to distinguish the difference between performance and narrative clips.
• Adjustment layer– We can use this to apply the same effect to multiple clips on the timeline. Effects applied to the adjustment layer will then be applied to all clips below.

Targets for improvement:

• Organization– Create a general shot this before going out to film. For example the basic shots for lip syncing such as close up, mid shots and long shots, then if we have extra time get some more detailed shots of the singing. It will also help us to create a story board so we not only know what angles we need but also what is going on in the clip, this will make sure we don’t waste time.
• Confusion of narrative– We where told that our narrative isn’t always clear therefore we need to create mini stories within our narrative to extenuate the point their friendship used to be so strong.
• Get a variety of shots and more transitions – by making a storyboard and shot list this will help us.

Below are some videos for us to look back on – 

Our narrative shoot took place in various places to show off the two teenagers friendship. For example we filmed in places such as in a field, in a garden and on the cliffs. We felt these where good places to film to show the two had a good connection together. During this we collectively decided what we would like to film and brought our ideas together to get the best clips we could, although we have realized after filming we haven’t been able to get enough angles and that on our next shoot we need to make that a priority and get angles such as close ups.    This will allow us to make sure our narrative makes complete sense to our target audience.

Focusing forward we all know what mistakes we have made and what we can do to fix them. We know that we need to make sure to get a lot more angles and clips to allow the narrative to flow. We also need to make sure were adding a lot more detail to our narrative to make it fun and exciting for the audience to watch. Furthermore we need to make sure to plan ahead of schedule, our shoots have become rushed and therefore aren’t working as well as we’d like to. We have worked on this already by organizing a third shoot with a list of various shots we would like to take, because of this we will be prepared in getting the right shots to allow our narrative to make perfect sense.

What went well:

• We were able to combine our ideas to enable better shots.
• We were prepared with costume and location.
• We could work together to understand what wasn’t working for us and what would help in making our shoot better.

What we could fix:

• As a group we need to make sure we fix the issue of being unorganised with when our shoot is and what clips we would like to film.
• We need to make sure were getting all the angles we can such as high angle, low angle, close ups and mid shots to make sure our audience feel connected to the music video.
• Finally we have to be able to re film some performance clips to show clear pronunciation of the lyrics.

Here is our rough cut of our shoot for our music video. For this draft we combined clips from our shoot one and two as we felt majority of our clips from shoot one weren’t what we wanted, therefore we did a second shoot to add into this draft. Our shoot locations where a great place for us to shoot so we are going to make sure to go back and get lots of different angles.

Self assessment:

• When editing we could all agree on what clips we liked and where to place them in our rough cut.
• When filming together we came up with good ideas and we made sure everyone had a go at using the camera and contributing what clips we would like to film.
• Our model had good facial expressions and knew how to act in front of the camera.
• We where able to shoot a lot of clips for the chorus in different locations.

Targets for improvement:

• We have come to the conclusion that we need to be a lot more organised when it comes to shooting.
• We need to make sure were we are getting all the correct shots, our narrative story board will help us do this in the future.
• Next time filming we will make sure our model knows all the correct words so the filming process is a lot smoother.