Here is Draft 4 of our music video.

Summarised feedback from Mrs Cobb

• Come in with first shot sooner
• Fill in black screen at the start
• Add guitar close up sooner
• Band shots bright and cheerful flash backs need to be down and de stressing
• Stabilise or remove room shot
• get rid of shot where I look into camera it breaks the forth wall
• Stabilise bedroom shot, scale in and scale out the shot
• Stabilise close up of Brandon
• use different shot as its out of focus
• It needs close up intimate shots
• They both need to meet at bus stop
• sequence on sofa in threes; high five, cheers, another jump cut
• shot reverse shots in the sequence
• no repeats
• scale in shot of me on the top of the bunker
• Ending needs work, theres a better place to cut it
• use shots of me and Brandon forming the band.
• Graphic match between the boys meeting and playing as the band
• cut into drum sticks hitting drum
• cut into foot tapping
• show a connection between both boys
• use colour correction
• Make the music stop in the right place
• Meeting scene at the bus stop
• More close ups!

Here is draft 3 of our music video which has been peer assessed by a former student in another media class.

Peer review pros summarised

• We had good MES as the background suited the genre very well
• This shot is really well executed
• Tracking  is good in the bus stop shot
• we had a good variety of angles and shots in our music video
• The narrative in the music video is clear
• Good realistic performance

Peer review cons summarised

• work on editing the lip syncing on beat
• Get rid of blank bits as the narrative needs a conclusion
• To many shaky shots don’t add them or fix them
• Shot of the xbox doesn’t need to be there

Two of the people from the media department of Specsavers came in and showed my class some tips and tricks in the world of editing, this opportunity allowed us to get their opinions of our work and help us improve our music videos for later drafts.

• One of the things they suggested would improve our music video is the space between shots for example balancing the narrative and the performance to give the viewer a better understanding of the continuity in our music video.
• For our upcoming shoot we asked them what they would advise us to do to make the shoot better than the previous ones and they came up with using more closeup shots and add more movement to our video by using a device called a Gimble.

• They also advised us to adjust the colour gradient and change the white Balance as well as tell us that for our genre we need shots that are easy to transition like physical transitions that add more natural and realism to our video.

• Having Specsavers come in was extremely helpful as we got a very professional and very useful opinion on our work by people who devil in this as their job. They gave us good advice and it will definitely help us with our next shoot as we plan to use a gimble try out easy transitions and use fun and interesting close up shots.

Here is summarised feedback for draft 2 of our music video from our media teacher.

• We have some good shots for example the close up shots in the intro
• We need to work on the continuity of the shots with the props and the shots without
• Work on order of shots and which way round you put them
• We need to introduce Brandons character earlier in the video.
• Add more transitions
• Add an establishing shot for the cards
• don’t use zoom in and zoom out shots.
• add shots of Brandon
• and add group shots
• We need more close ups towards the end

This is our video for draft 2, In general I think the shots are good but I don’t think they are used in the right order or convey any narrative.

Technical Skills

• It is in sync most of the way through but not all scenes are edited on beat which shows the rhythm of movement.
• We have used a tripod too get good close up shots towards the start of the video
• Im very happy with the quality of the shots as we have good depth of field, but we needed more close up shots.
• We didn’t add any transitions in post production but when filming we did try and make some but they were out of focus and blurry so we couldn’t use any of them. We tried using an effect at the end but it didn’t really work.
• We also had shots where Brandon is in the reflection of the bus shots.

Media conventions

• The shots in the narrative don’t add up to anything and theres no story line in this draft.
• We have good costume design and natural lighting and great scenery which fits our genre of indie/alternative.
• Acting skills are good in the performance and less good in the narrative.

Having evaluated my music video under the PSW assessment criteria,

I now know;

• We need to shoot our shots with understanding of rules of thirds so that our shots look framed and well presented.
• Our group needs to edit every shot on beat
• We need to add in more narrative as there isn’t enough story line in our video, Our group also needs to understand that we need to use more close up shots and a variety of different angles

Having looked at someone else’s music video of a similar style to my music video I can no see what they have done well.

• They have used a tripod through out and used relevant camera movement and it adds meaning and fits well for the genre.
• Most shots are visually pleasing and they have used rules of thirds in most shots
• They have used depth of field in some shots.
• Good variety of shots from close ups to long shots and mid shots, as well as good and different angle uses
• The video cuts to significant close ups well in performance and narrative
• Minimum video effects used but that’s what the genre needs anyway.
• Editing is done really well use of band sequences and montages as well as the use of 180 rule.
• Mise en scene represents genre well with lighting and costume design as well as location and displays clear meaning in the narrative.
• Editing and lip sync makes sense and works with narrative
• Good transition shots between narrative and performance
• Pace of edit is a bit inconsistent in some parts of the video.

This will help me as I now know how to make my music video better by annotating and looking  at someone elses music video.

In this shoot we decided that the character portrayed by me would sit, stand and wait around the school bus stop in different places and on different days, we showed this by switching clothes in each shot to make the appearance that this happened multiple days apart. By doing this we can cut between each shot to create a waiting scene. We wanted to show the audience how boring and sufferable waiting can be. We then moved up to my working partners house and took some shots there. We filmed me looking bored on the sofa in different angles as well as my character playing cards and watching tv. This was to portray how alone and isolated my character is feeling.

What went well

• We have a great way to be able to cut all the scenes together
• We got a variety of different shots (mid shots ect)
• We had good time management, nothing was rushed we took our time.

What didn’t go well

• Brandon is in the reflection on some of the shots
• I didn’t feel in the sofa shots my body language portrayed enough boredom.
• we needed more close up shots for a facial reaction.

Here is the risk assessment for shoot 2 it shows us the dangers that might come up in getting to the location to the shoot and at the shoot and we know what to be careful of and avoid.

This is the production meeting agenda for shoot 2 and it shows whats going to happen in our next shoot.

Our aims for the next shoot our to portray the right costume design, lighting and MES and  acting skills to fit the genre of an indie/alternative music video.

In this post you can see that me and my group went down to St Pierre Du Bois (L’Eree Beach) to film our performance shoot for our music video starting again. We shot in the bunker and on top of the bunker, we got some good shots overall and I was happy with the takes I got. One of the challenges I faced throughout the shoot was that it took quite a few attempts for me to perfect the lip syncing. Props we used consisted of an amp, a guitar and a drum kit and the costume design was heavily inspired by the boy next door look (the indie boy look.)

Things that went well

• The shots we took help to represent our star as my have close up shots, two shots, high angle and low angle shots, medium close up shots and mid shots.
• we had a lot of fun filming and acting in the video
• the weather was really nice
• we managed our time very well as we had two different locations next to each other
• we used good MES and good props like the instruments that we had
• we also had good costume design

Things that didn’t go so well

• We had a few shots out of focus
• It was just a pain that we had to keep moving all the equipment but thats what happens when you have a drum kit as a prop
• We maybe could have got a few more fancy transitions in the shoot.

This all the information for the stuff we need for our shoot.