The feedback given by one of my peers on our 3rd draft of our music video

This feedback really helped my group to gain an insight into what we were achieving in our music video and what needed to be worked upon, there was acknowledgement of the repetitiveness of the day to day life and many other aspects that we were aiming to convey were portrayed efficiently. The feedback we have got to work on was similar to some of the things our group had previously discussed which was beneficial as this feedback made it obvious that we could improve it further. We booked another performance shoot and shot at various angles to get more life into our music video and we also made the clips shorter to make it more interesting and less dreary. Overall this exercise highlighted how our group could improve some finishing touches into our music video.

Music Video

What’s new? –

We included clips of a photo album to mimic her reminiscing over her marriage

We also included some more transitions to blend the two different styles of performance together

One technique that we used which turned out to be highly effective was the use of the transition fading her head position form one clip into another clip. This transition made the two sections of performance blend into each other very well and it complimented the use of the different angles.

Our Mission statement for our brand 

We did this exercise to gather a personality, values and beliefs for our star to give her aims and objectives in her life and through her music. Through doing this it gave us a sense of who our star was and who she wanted to be for her audience.

 

The final draft of our music video

During the production of our last draft for our music video we added in the useful feedback from our peers. We included transitions for our cuts to allow them to blend together more effectively. In our music video we included Barthes’ Semic code in the form of a pie, this was as a main prop to signify, De Saussure, the oppressive and bleak lifestyle that the wife lives. We used MES to create the affect of the 1950’s and we did this through the Stars hair, makeup and costume choices. We chose to put her in a spotted, flowing dress and for her to wear minimalist makeup, this included a small winged eyeliner and red lipstick. To create the illusion of the 1950’s even further we added a grained texture and a black and white filter in our editing process. It is not conventional of the Indie genre to have a narrative only performance however we wanted to portray two different sides in our video to add excitement, a change in pace and different perspectives so we included narrative and performance. It is conventional of the Indie genre to include colour, we portrayed this through the performance aspect of our music video with pops of colour in her outfits. We also chose to have binary oppositions, Levi Strauss, in the forms of an abusive husband who is in control of his wife who lives a dreary life at home. However, we chose to limit the times the audience saw the husbands face, we did this through camera angles. The purpose of this was to represent the emotionless side of him and this was extremely effective as it emphasised the story line we were portraying. The result of the music video was as we had envisaged and the techniques that we learnt along the way became extremely useful in producing our finished product.

This is a detailed analysis of art, posts and political ideology that are similar to our genre and that we want to convey in our star image and album cover.

Below is a Screencastify made by Mr Gregson on feedback for our Music Video

Summary of our feedback –

• Give an emotion time, add in really short clips of Emma to show her reaction
• Get more of a variety of shots for performance (close ups, long shots, mid shots, canted), remove the line on the right side of Emma
• Re order our Narrative Sequence so that it makes more sense (potentially re shoot some reaction shots)
• Make the pie a more central theme throughout, using images of the pie three times instead of two

Targets –

• Colour correct the performance
• shoot some more performance footage
• split up the performance shots into parts of the narrative video
• Give an emotion time, add in really short clips of Emma to show her reaction
• Get more of a variety of shots for performance (close ups, long shots, mid shots, canted), remove the line on the right side of Emma
• Re order our Narrative Sequence so that it makes more sense (potentially re shoot some reaction shots)
• Make the pie a more central theme throughout, using images of the pie three times instead of two

The Professional Feedback

Feedback from Specsavers on our Music Video –

• Colour correct the performance aspect of our music video as well as enhancing the black and white
• Add an old TV grain onto the narrative parts of the music video
• Cut up the performance clips and spread them around the music video instead of having them in one long video as it is slows the pace of the video and makes it less interesting

The video above is a youtube clip of a tutorial on how to colour correct parts of your video using the lumetri effect, this can brighten, enhance or saturate the colour as well as change it completely.

Draft three : Music Video

What we have worked upon :

Since draft two we have filmed and edited in the performance aspect of our Music video. We have decided not to add the black and white filter effect to the footage because we instead used it in the mise-en-scene and this sets apart the performance from the narrative. A second thing that we have done is add in the vignette and grain effect, this has made a huge difference in the obvious time frame of the music video and it is now clear that from using the mise-en-scene that we did, as well as the black and white effect and the addition of the grain that the video is set around the 1950’s. We have decided as a group that the performance clips look better and portray more meaning without being in the frames and mirrors so therefore we wont put them in, the last thing we have done is add a title page between the first and second clips to introduce our Music Video and to fill the gap that we had between the introductory breath and the introduction to the first sequence.

What we will work on :

• We need to add in more reaction shots of Emma, especially towards the end of the Music Video as it is the most shocking bit.
• A second improvement is to add in transitions, such as zooming in onto Emma when she is performing as it adds an extra movement to the camera and Video and it doesn’t leave the video being stagnant and slow in its pace, which inevitably would end up with our Video being boring and dull.

Draft Two : Music Video 

Assessment Criteria – 

What went well –

• The composition of our narrative story line has come together well and is in an order that makes sense and flows into each other as well as into the performance gaps which we have made for when we add in the performance clips.
• The end sequence of clips is a clear depiction of the story, by using the pan down showing ‘happily ever after’ at the start it juxtaposes the fact that she has killed her husband, however it is a last reminder of the fact that she’ll be happier without a loveless and abusive marriage. I think this ending was thought through very well and was conveyed extremely well due to the sequencing.

Targets for Improvement –

• To improve, we could add in the grained texture/vignette to the narrative clips to give the sense of the 1950’s and the vintage/retro feel. This would add some extra meaning to our video not just the meaning that has been represented through the use of the camera. We could also use the Vignette to smooth out the bad lighting in some of the clips and make the bright light compared to the black and white theme unnoticeable.
• Another way we could improve the Music Video would be to add our performance clips in, these will tie the Video together as a whole and improve the video all together as every performance and narrative clip will be together. To do this we will have to cut the performance clips to fit with the gaps in the narrative however we will have to make them fit in smoothly and not cut between clips otherwise the video will not be smoothly edited together.
• Another way in which we could improve our Music Video would be to add some effects or transitions in to further speed up the sequences and add something different to our video as some of our clips can be quite slow.

Moving on we need to decide whether we will put our filmed clips of the performance in photo frames, like our original idea, or whether we will leave the clips as they are with some colour correcting and enhancement and some transitions.

Our first Draft of our Music Video:

Our first draft of our Music Video includes only the Narrative, this is as a result of our narrative already being polished and being more complex then the performance which meant we therefore started from the narrative instead if the performance which has worked in our favour as now all that is left is to film and cut in the performance around our narrative.

Self Assessment

• From the primary edit you can see that we have made clear the unloving attitude of the husband and the house wife’s routine whilst the husband is at work. We made sure to get a range of shots which we have edited and cut in well as it is a clear and repetitive story line throughout. We have decided to increase the speed of the narrative clips going forward and this it to emphasise the repeating lifestyle and the weary life of the housewife. We have also made sure we know where the performance aspect of our music video is going to be edited in, this is to ensure no confusion when trying to piece all of the videos together.
• Through completing this draft it has not only represented the things that we have done well but it has also aided us greatly into seeing what works, what doesn’t work and what we can do to improve on our editing and filming in the future of the production of this Music Video. All together this draft has been extremely helpful in enabling us to learn how to create our Music Video as best we can.
• By using Adobe Premiere to make this Music Video I have learnt how to edit clips to set apart which bit we would like to use, how to put the chosen clips in without the sound, how to speed clips up/slow them down and many more effects and tools. An example of where we have used a certain tool is where we have sped up the sequencing of day to day life as the narrative goes on, we used this effect to represent the mundane lifestyle however we did not want to make the Music video itself to become slow and boring. In theme with the effects going forward we may look into adding a grain effect onto our narrative clips, by doing this it would emphasise the retro vibe we are trying to convey in our video.