After receiving some more feedback from conversations with our peers and our teacher. We made a few additional changes to our music video.

WHAT WE CHANGED:

• We felt that our wipe transitions were a bit harsh and we wanted to make these a bit smoother and a bit more fluent. To learn how to do this we watched a youtube video, attached below, on how to create a feather wipe. We did this by adding in a video effect of a linear wipe and then elongating our second clip. We could then make this as feathered as we wanted. We felt that this made a smoother transition and it was more fluid. This worked well and we were happy with the way that it looked compared to our previous edit.

SELF ASSESSMENT:

• Our teacher also suggested feathering the split screen, however we felt that the harsh wipe was more impactful as it showed a greater contrast and juxtaposition between the star and the ordinary people.
• Paige and I were really happy with this edit. We felt that we had improved it as much as possible and had responded well to feedback that we had been given by our peers, teachers and people in the industry. We worked hard to make our video as successful as possible, and we now feel that both our performance and narrative segments are powerful and meaningful. Overall we are really happy and proud of what we have achieved.

Here is our draft 5 of our music video…

Here is our 4th draft of our music video. Paige and I are very happy with this draft, and we think that it has gone really well.

In this draft we changed:

• COLOUR: we used the adjustment layer tool to add filters onto our footage. We wanted to create an Instagram filter effect, so that it represented the idea of the people feeling acceptable to post themselves on social media when they had make up on. This was very effective and worked well.
• KEY FRAMES: we used key frames throughout the video to slowly increase/decrease the filters that we applied. This allowed us to either remove the filter with the makeup, or add to it as the artist changes. Whilst this was time consuming, the end product worked really well and we felt it conveyed our message even more.
• TRANSITIONS: we added in some more transitions such as the wipe transition, this was meant to symbolize the idea of the makeup being wiped off which we felt worked well. We also added in a few more cross dissolve transitions.

WHAT WENT WELL:

• I think the juxtaposition between the complete Instagram filtered look and the authentic look works well and conveys the message well to the audience of what we are trying to achieve. I think this worked well in the wipe of the messages.
• I think that the whole video has come together well, our peers agreed with us and understood the narrative in the video.

THINGS TO IMPROVE ON:

• Make the wipe transitions softer, or feathered so that they are less harsh and the videos blend more into one another.

Here is a video of our peers watching our video and giving us feedback at the end. We asked them if they understood our narrative and if they felt that there was any areas that we needed  to improve.

Here is the 3rd draft of our music video, in this draft we made some changes from Feedback that we received from our teacher.

What changes have we made?

• Made the true taking off of make up and hair later- this added more emphasis on how the stars were unhappy being in this position, and meant that we could use more of these shots from our shoot to really emphasis their unhappiness and the extremes to the makeup. We moved this to around half way through rather than about a quarter of the way through. This slowed down the pace of the whole video, and made it flow more nicely, it also meant that the narrative lined up more with the performance and the that the reverse of what is happening to Tegan is happening at around the same time.
• We added in transitions between the shots. We used different ones in different areas e.g. the wipe so that it reflects her wiping the make up off, the cross dissolve to fluently dissolve the shots from one to another as the star begins to get made up for her performance. These were successful in continuing to exaggerate our narrative, they added more effect and as a whole made the whole video more exciting, it makes the video less repetitive and adds something new to the different segments.
• Switched the clips at the beginning so it starts with a close up of the star, this added a better dynamic and introduction to the beginning of our video. Even though this was only a small change, I feel that it sets the video off to a better start and is much more effective.
• Removed the lens flare near the end as it was not necessary and did not really fit our theme or the rest of the video.
• Made the ending longer to drag out the emotion. As she closes her eye, we wanted to slow it down to add more emotion and more feeling into the piece.

What is next and how can we improve? 

• Next we want to look into adding colouring changes, filters and adjustment layers into our video. We want to experiment with what Lenny from Specsavers taught us. I think that this will add even more impact into our work, and can help us to make our message even stronger. We will do this by adding adjustment layers and key marks to change the opacity of the effects at different points. This means that for the star the filter will becoming stronger enhancing this idea of perfection. However for the narrative the filter will be decreasing to nothing, showing how they do not need this filter to be beautiful.
• I think that we could add in some more transitions to really emphasis the message and make our video exciting. it would also make some of the transitions a little bit more fluent. However we do not want to add too many otherwise it would become too much.
• I also think that we could make a few changes to the basics like the exposure just to make sure all of our shots are as good as they can be. These slight improvements will do a lot for the video as a whole.
• Could we feather the wipe transition to make it a bit softer and less harsh.
• Maybe make the divide between the split screen a bit smoother as well so it is less harsh.

Peer Feedback

We asked some of our peers to watch our music video and to comment their thoughts on it. In their opinion what went well and where could we improve? I t was very helpful and interesting to see what different people liked and disliked and also the way that they interpreted our message behind our music video. As a media producer, it is important to seek feedback and try to get impartial audience comments, this way we can improve our music video further and make it more impactful for the audience. We used impartial viewers for our comments, who had not see it or had no connection or knowledge of the message, therefore we could see their understanding and how well it is portrayed to the audience.

Tegan West

Rhiannon Dowinton

Jake Bradley

Sylvie Rouget

Our teacher completed a screencastify after watching our music video with some suggestions for us on how to improve but also what he liked and he thought worked well.

What went well:

• Good footage in focus and well lit
• Lip Sync is perfect
• The narrative is clear
• Great make up/hair and use of mirror as props
• Lovely close up angles e.g. high angle and ECU of eyes
• Editing to the beat with blinking works well
• Great sequence of them taking make up off and letting hair down
• Like the comparisons towards the end
• Good use of black and white
• Like the split screen

He also gave us some ways that he felt that we could improve. These were even more important as it helped us to make specific areas and the video as a whole even better. We valued his feedback and wanted to improve our music video as much as we could.

Improvements:

• Possibly make the true taking off of make up and hair later- this happens quite towards the start, you could include even more shots of your stars with the make up before they take it off.
• Switch the clips at the beginning so it starts with a close up of the star.
• Possibly make some of the shots a bit quicker to add slightly more variety.
• Switch the sequence of Anya at 2:16 to a mid shot going into a close up.
• The lens flare near the end is a bit bright and random.
• Lovely ending but maybe make it longer to drag out the emotion.

Overall I agree with his feedback. I think that by making these changes we can make our narrative and reflection of star image stronger overall. This will make the meaning even more clear for the audience and will impact on the viewer.

Here is the second draft of our music video, this is where we began to add in our narrative shots. It worked well, and we were happy with how this draft went, but we still feel that we have much more to achieve and grow with.

Self assessment

• I felt that our narrative links well with our performance shoot, I think that they work well together and that it is fluent.
• I think that our narrative idea works well, and that is it clear and easy for the audience to understand and follow.
• I think that our editing so far e.g. shot length etc all work well and is successful.
• Our lip sync worked well and was very in time.

Targets for Improvement

• I think that we can use the skills that we learnt from Lenny to improve our video even more, we can use more techniques to suggest our narrative even more and influence the way that the audience sees it so that it is even more clear.
• By adding more complex levels to our editing I think that we can elaborate and give our video an even deeper meaning which in turn will give the audience a more meaningful response.
• I think that we can colour correct some of our shots for even more impact.

Overall thoughts

Overall I am really happy with the video that me and Paige have produced. I think that we still have many areas that we can focus on in the editing to make our video even better. But at the moment I am really happy with how well we have done. we ar eon track with where we need ot be, and have plenty of time to experiment with editing and colour before completing our final draft for our music video.

We had some members of the Specsavers creative and digital team come in and give us feedback on what we had done so far with our music videos, and they spent some time teaching us skills that could help us. Lenny, who works with Adobe Premier Pro and is professionally trained in this software gave us feedback on our video and he helped us a lot. He was very positive about what we had done so far and he liked our idea and edit so far.

He taught us many things, here are an example of some of them that have been most useful to us in our editing.

• ADJUSTMENT LAYERS- we learnt about how to use an adjustment layer to apply edits to colouring etc to a selection of clips not just working one at a time.
• GRADIENT OPACITY- he also showed us how to use key frames to bring the filter that we had made onto our videos gradually so that there is a subtle change across the whole video developing the star into this perfected image.
• CURVES- he also showed us how to use curves to edit our colouring to create a Instagram filter effect. We used this by adding more blue into the shadows of our shots.
• NESTING- he also taught us about nesting and how we can use this to add in multiple adjustment layers to our work.

Overall his feedback and the skills that he taught us were invaluable to us as we continue to develop our video and add more complexity in the editing. Here are some YouTube videos about what Lenny explained to us that we have re watched for reference.

Overall I felt that our narrative shoot went really well. I was really happy with the way that it went. My team worked well as a group and we got all of the shots that we felt that we needed. We had planned our shoot well and had everything that we needed for our shoot to be successful. I think that the makeup look that we did worked really well to go with our narrative.  I also think that the costuming and hair worked well too.

What could we have improved on?

• Some of our shots were slightly out of focus- however we filmed plenty of footage so we have a lot to work with.
• Some of our handheld shots were a bit shaky

What went well?

• The make up and hair went really well.
• Our angling- we managed to get some really interesting angles in our footage.
• We filmed a lot and have plenty of footage to work with.
• Our lighting was very strong as we used the soft boxes.

Here is the risk assessment for our shoot. We looked at all the potential risks that could come with our shoot, and how adequately the risks were.

Here is the production meeting for our narrative shoot. We met as a team to arrange our shoot. When would it be? What would we need? Who is bringing what? We answered all of these questions in the Production Meeting Agenda and ensured our group was organised.

We planned out our shoot by making these scene story boards. We looked at each scene or stage of our music video, and what we were trying to achieve in this shoot. We established the message in the shoot, and therefore what shots we would need to make this happen. We looked into the impact that not only the shots but the message would have on people. The shots needed to intimate and close, we wanted to demonstrate the person feeling uncomfortable. This close up, awkward, unwanted angle would help to exaggerate this feeling of not wanting to be filmed. They feel uncomfortable, exposed and judged when they have no makeup on, even though they want to be seen like their true self, society and the media teaches them that this is wrong. The filming and shots captured are very personal to the individual, it is their true self, the way that they see themselves every morning when the wake up. It highlights how society/the media ha taught that this is wrong and made it feel wrong. For the audience, in a music video they are used to seeing all of the people highly made up. Therefore this is unusual and different. It isn’t following the conventions of any music video. This highlights how the media and the concept of star image has a big effect on people. We outlines this in the shots that we were going to use such as close ups.