Author: andrewguille

Here is my draft 4 for my music video, which will be the final draft before my finished product.

What’s new?:

• Added more images to the gif overlay in order to diversify the longer segments of the band in the black room.
• Made every No Recess bigger, with some of them also changing positionings.
• Faded out to white at the end of the song to further solidify it as the ending, as well as to show the exit as a place greater than where he is now.
• Flipped some of the images so that they make more sense within the narrative

Thinking forward, I’ll make sure to properly prepare my drafts for any future media works so that they can all culminate in a final product that shares the same vision as the original idea, whilst expanding upon it further with each draft.

Here is a screencastify from my teacher to give my group some advice on what we did well and how to improve from our 3rd drafts.

What could be improved:

• Text for No Recess should be bigger and take up majority of the screen
• Change the gif graphic so it feels less repetitive
• Flip some of the scenes horizontally to help with continuity within the narrative
• Add a fade to white at the end
• Lengthen the two shot
• Try to alter the vertical hold for the band on the instrumental

In future I’ll look back at this feedback when creating my 4th draft in order to improve the quality of my video as well as also going to other people for advice on what to improve later on in future media projects that I do, both within and out of school.

Here is my third draft for my music video. In this draft we mainly focused on perfecting the sequencing and then using after effects to better portray the genre of grunge and punk rock.

What’s Changed:

• Colour corrected different shots to make them look cleaner or convey meaning (e.g the monochrome scenes are done to try and make them look lifeless and dull)
• Altered some of the placement for scenes to better fit the narrative
• Added overlays to the scenes of the band in the dark room in order to help portray the genre better and to make them less static and boring
• Added the text ‘NO RECESS’ everytime they say no recess to add emphasis to the song
• Added a camera blur and motion at the start of the song as if the cameras are focusing

 

For our lesson today, some people from Specsavers came in to give us some feedback and advice on our music videos. For ours we were struggling with two problems: to include any overlay effects and to add movement to the static shots of the band. For our first issue, we were shown how to put images into premiere pro, shorten them down from around 1-3 frames long, how to nest them together and then how to edit the opacity and overlay them onto the video to create a video effect / gif if repeated. This added an effect over the video similar to the effects in the music video shown below:

The second struggle we had was fixed by going into the effects menu on premiere pro, and then using video effects to add some movement to the frame. This movement then made it seem like some kind of old film, which was an effect we thought was quite fitting with the static on the screen.

In future, I will try to ask others around me for feedback or advice if there are any other effects or tricks that I’m unsure of, in order to both learn from my failures as well as to make my project fit my original intention for it.

Here is the second draft of my music video. This is the first complete draft as it contains shots from both my performance shoot, as well as my narrative shoot. For this we had a few issues when sequencing the shots as we had accidentally missed out on some for the reshoots, however we used other shots resourcefully in order to help fill out these gaps.

Below is a sheet that details some of the assessment criteria. Based on this I’ve rewatched my music video and evaluated it based upon these criteria.

Here are some of the things I believe I have done well in this draft:

• The camera was steady in basically every shot as we used a tripod for every shot, with movement only being used when necessary, for example, the movement between rooms to signify the song moving over from just the band to a mix of the band and the narrative.
• The shots have been made at a variety of distances and angles to help provide depth to the edit. One example of this is showing the drummer from a front angle, a side angle and from an angle over the cymbal.
• The edit makes sense of the narrative by sequencing it with a clear beginning, middle and end
• The MES used reflects the Grunge genre as well as also fitting the school setting

For my next draft here are some things I believe I need to do to improve upon this draft:

• Start to add more video effects via premiere pro. This includes things such as colour correction, graphics and transitions.
• Try to match the pace of the edit to the pace of the music. Parts such as the instrumental starting at 1:20 are edited fairly slowly despite the song speeding up then.
• Certain parts of the edit are strange and slightly break the continuity such as the main character walking from one hallway into a different hallway, just to end up back in the first hallway to slam the locker shut.

Thinking forward I will take all of the issues I have found with my music video and work on them to improve my video as a whole in order to make the video to the best of my ability.

For our shoot 2 we stayed at the school to shoot through different rooms and corridors. We did this as it was the most convient school for us to shoot in. Below is one of the shots that I made for my video, where we show my blazer dropping to the floor and then me walking off and kicking it out of the way. This close up and low positioning helps to convey that the main character is too cool for school and thinks that it’s beneath him.

Overall, I believe that the shoot was a success, however it wasn’t without it’s flaws. These can be found below:

What Went Well:

• Still shots were done with high quality, being stable and in focus.
• Variety of shots from different angles, distances that occasionally use different movements such as pans and tracks for example, there’s a low angle on the main character walking up the stairs in the link, showing how he’s now in control of himself.
• The shots done fit into our original plan, meaning there were no sudden, major changes to the story or sequencing of the narrative.

Even Better If:

• Our original drummer and main character were unavailable so we had to replace them and for the main character we had to reshoot the shots we did with him.
• Moving the band’s equipment was hard and time consuming, which meant we weren’t able to do it as much as we had planned.
• Due to different shots needing reshooting, certain errors in continuity were made.
• Some shots had fairly poor lighting which needed to be fixed through premiere pro itself.

In future, I will learn from the mistakes I made during my music video and try to be more organised with the planning of my music videos in order to further meet my original vision and to avoid any sudden changes that could disrupt my work in any way.

For my second shoot (the narrative shoot), I’ve made a production meeting agenda to outline the different areas of the shoot that we’ll need to know beforehand in order to gain a greater understanding of what the final product will look like. Some of these aspects of the recording include the Location, Models and Costumes. We’ve also taken the oppourtunity to add the numbers of our teachers in case something goes wrong and considered potential issues regarding the shoot due to it being set within a school.

In future, I will make sure to use production meeting agendas to collect ideas with my group in order to gain a greater understanding on what to do on my shoot to try and meet the original vision of the project.

Below is a shot list that I’ve made in preparation for my second shoot. This was made so we can have a reference for all of the shots that we are going to take so we can visualize what they’ll look like and how the shot will play out.

For each different location, we have come up with a few different shots we can take in order to both get enough shot variety for the music video, as well as enough shots to tell the story without leaving any major gaps in the plot.

In future I will make sure to make a visual shot list for any shoots I’ll take in order to try and visualize what my shots will look like as well as to try and meet my original intention for the video I will be creating.

 

Here is the rough cut draft of my music video. This only contains shots from the first shoot I did and I’ll make a full draft later on that will include shots from the second shoot.

What Went Well:

• The music is synced to the beat fairly well, with only brief parts being out of place, such as the Bass shot at 0:26
• Start of the narrative has been shot, meaning we can spend more time on our narrative shoot trying to perfect the story
• Variety of angles were shot which are used throughout the edit to help keep it feeling fresh and new.
• The costumes of the characters is in line with both the setting and the genre, meaning the immersion isn’t broken because of a bad costume choice.

Targets for Improvement:

• Finish off the narrative shoot and then add that into the edit in the areas that haven’t got any footage in yet.
• Reshoot shots of the band that are out of focus / aren’t performed to the beat to help the video seem more genuine and realistic.
• Some shots went on for too long, such as the shot of the guitarist at 1:45 where he looks like he’s awkwardly standing around, instead of putting his heart into singing the song.
• Reactions to the music are off beat such as the Bass shot at 0:26 where it looks like the Bassist is waiting for a musical cue that’s already happened.

In future I will look back at these points to help improve upon my second draft when I come around to making it so I can end up with a music video that was made to the best of my ability that can reach the potential that I’m capable of reaching.