Before I can jump right into making a music video, I had to learn how to plan, film and edit a sequence. To do this I created a storyboard and then filmed and edited a short sequence on ‘painting nails’ so that I could develop my skills in these areas.

I struggled to make the storyboard as the narrative for the sequence seemed boring and felt like we couldn’t do much with it. In future storyboards I will make note of all camera angles that I know so that I can make sure when I’m planning that I have included a variety of shots; this will make my planning much more detailed and easy to follow.

It was important when making the sequence to have a steady use of the tripod, to shoot with continuity in mind and to follow shooting rules such as

• Rule of thirds
• Lead Space
• Framing
• Depth of field
• Pull focus

This is the film we made:

I think that we followed the brief well; our sequence shows us painting nails but I think that next time I will give myself much more time for the filming as I don’t feel this meets the success criteria.

SHOOTING PROCESS

Firstly, shooting for continuity is difficult when filming this narrative as we had to be decisive about what shots to use and how we wanted to film everything because once a nail was painted, we couldn’t go back and shoot it twice. Due to this, we couldn’t shoot everything a few times from a variety of angles.

We did manage to have a variety of shots, for example, it starts with a low angle and a long shot of the walking action, followed by a close-up and then a mid-shot of me sitting down. We also used a point of view shot at one point and an overhead shot but some clips are shaky and unsteady or slightly out of focus. With more time and care these mistakes can be avoided.

The sequence doesn’t include a reaction shot or a close-up of an expression upon completion of the task. Had it included these things the clip would be more captivating and portray the narrative better. We did do lots of match on action shots and we used a tripod for almost all shots.

EDITING

Whilst editing we realised the potential in our minimal footage and the power that editing has to change the atmosphere of the video. We made sure to include a cut to a closeup and to edit for narrative sense. We slowed down a couple of clips of opening the nail varnish to elongate the final sequence and to draw attention to the narrative of painting nails.

Additionally, I think adding music gave me an important skill for the music video process and we chose a song that reflects the narrative. I also learned how to add text to footage on Adobe Premier Cut Pro and two different ways of editing that will be hugely useful in the future.

 

In summary, I think that the creation of this sequence has been a very important learning curve in terms of teaching me how to shoot and edit footage – two skills I didn’t have before. This sequence is not my best work but it highlights what I need to do better next time such as paying more attention to the success criteria.