Here is our final draft for our music video ‘Melodrama’ by Annabelle Anduga.

I am very happy with the final product and the changes we have made such as changing the colour of some of the clips to black and white, in order to emphasise their dullness before the outfit change. We were conventional and followed Lacey’s repertoire of elements, which can be seen through the mise-en-scene of our star. For example, in the individual clips of her at the beginning of the video, her outfit is very grunge and she has big punk hair and gothic makeup. We edited to the beat to the song as it engages the audience and creates excitement.

During our research we found that most indie synth pop music videos tend to be performance based however we decided to challenge these conventions by including both performance and narrative clips. This is not something that conforms to Altman’s theory about different genre’s offering audiences different pleasures. Despite this we were confident that including both would still attain to Altman’s theory because having the opportunity to express conventions through both allows us to clearly represent the expectations of our genre to our target audience. Challenging conventions is important because we found that in the music industry producers make the same old material and in order to stand out, you should break norms. Overall, I feel as though we have corrected expressed the indie synth pop genre through this music video.

pls click on link to view pdf version

Here is the feedback which we recieved from another member of our media class. It is important to have someone else look at the work we’ve done so far as it allows us to have an alternative perspective and make changes that we may not have recognised by assessing the music video ourselves. This feedback is helpful because going forward we are going to look at including more special effects and also adding some extreme close ups.

Here is draft 4 of our music video, this draft is unique to any of our previous ones because we added in the feedback that our teacher has given us. Some of the changes we made include, changing the placement of the clip of the close up lips. We also added vibrant and funky colours to make the change from boring to punk more exciting. Another big change that we made is shortening some of the more lengthy clips. We still have a few changes we need to make, for example rendering.

Above is a screen castify of our teacher giving us feed back on draft 3 of our music video.

The feedback:

• We should include reverse shots of the pair reading
• Cut the clip of the pair lying down together to them dancing
• Reverse shots of the pair reading
• Begin with single shot of them holding up the newspapers
• Add effects when the pair change costumes
• The shots should appear modern and jazzy using different colours
• Edit the sequencing of the reveal of costumes with magazine
• Close up of the lips should be moved to another part of the video
• The jump cut needs to be edited, it looks weird

Focusing forward, now that we have this advice I will make sure to shorten some of the clips so that they appear more exciting. I will also focus on perfecting the narrative, because the performance areas of the video seem to be pretty good and don’t need that much work on.

This week, we were lucky enough to have people from the Specsavers creative team visit our class and give us some feedback on our music videos. They have lots of experience in this field so hearing their constructive criticism was very helpful.

Draft 2 Specsavers feedback:

• Our narrative was too long, we need to cut the performance shoot more often
• Create a very clear transition between before and after they change outfits. Make it extremely obvious that they have changed from dull office wear into indie grudge outfits
• We should make the footage from before the change of clothes black and white or less saturated.

They also showed us the colour preset feature on premier pro, which we used to test out their advice on changing the colours before the change of clothes to black and white.

Above is our second draft for the music video. In order, to make some improvements we filled out a self assessment and received some good feedback from our teacher.

Self Assessment 

What went well:

• The mise en scene used in both shoots clearly coveys the genre of indie grunge, through our stars dark clothing, makeup and excessive amount of jewellery
• The editing at the beginning of the music video is fast past and highlights our stars importance by implying that she is newly famous and getting used to this kind of lifestyle
• Microphone used as a prop helps to emphasise that our star is being interviewed on the red carpet as she is getting bombarded with paparazzi.
• The footage that we have is all exquisite and we have enough of it to convey our narrative

What to improve on in the future:

• I don’t think we got enough close ups in the narrative. Close ups are important especially in boy girl music videos because they help to create affection between the pair.
• The editing is not to the beat, which is something that will take a while but we will ensure to include in the future
• We do not have any special effects included in our video so far. This is important and something we need to look at when we come to do our next drafts if we want to achieve the best grade possible.
• The narrative appears as though it has no proper storyline behind it. We need to make sure that we edit our narrative footage to show that their is a storyline behind it

Teacher Feedback:

• Erase the head-bopping- it looks unnatural.
• Narrative footage is too long
• Include more close ups, and a variety of different shots and angles

We shot our narrative on the grounds at saumarez park. In the performance shoot I was the only person who was featured, however for this shoot we had another person.

What went well:

• The scenery was perfect and helped us to reinforce the mes, as well as highlighting the storyline.
• We got some really good, detailed shots from a variety of different angles
• We got a variety of different scenes and all of the footage is in focus so there is no need to reshoot, like we had to do with the performance
• The outfits that the stars both wore were good and help to convey their transition from plain to punk

What could be improved:

• In one particular scene when I removed the magazine from my face to reveal my outfit change I didn’t completely remove the magazine from the shot so you can’t see my full outfit
• In the background of one of the shots you could see our bags and clothes which isn’t very appealing
• The storyline, is slightly unclear and we need to work on our story

Pls click image for pdf.

In order to prevent any complications for our shoot it is very important to have a specific agenda with everything from timing and locations to mes en scene planned out. This agenda is helpful because it is our groups check list to create the right representative for our star image and also allows our teacher to understand what we are trying to achieve.