Final draft of the music video

Our music video challenges the genre in that our location for the narrative is in a park, but I feel this was a good choice because the tree-lined park landscapes help our star and the male actor stand out as quirky and socially reclusive character which is a convention of our genre – Indie synth pop. Under MES, the costume across the whole music video is highly conventional, helping to further represent our star as and indie synth star as other stars of the genre dress in gothic, ripped and torn dresses, lace, and 80s inspired clothing.

We succeed in communicating our star is a fairly new star at the start of our music video where we recreated a red carpet paparazzi moment. although unconventional this use of a convention challenge helped build up our stars personality in the spotlight giving some context to her as a character and that she can be both ordinary and extraordinary as a star (Dyer).

An issue with our narrative is that it is too predictable in that they “lived happily ever after” walking off screen holding hands at the end but I felt this was made up for through the interesting and uncommon introverted love story we told.

We used the jump cut frequently in the edit and tried to make our jump cuts on to the beat a convention across all music videos, not just indie synth pop. Our shots are steady and we manage to cut to close with the shot of the magazines and the lip sync in the performance but you can see our lip syncing is weak at times as Annabelle needed to really pronounce the lyrics which she didn’t manage to do throughout, but as a first go at a music video we decided we were happy with its overall quality.

Overall, the repertoire of elements in our music video successfully follows the conventions of our genre in the costume, storyline and shot types and the points where we challenged the conventions I feel didn’t end up looking too out of place in the constraints of our music video (Altman and Lacey).

Getting peers opinions

Peer 1 feedback;

Peer 2 feedback;

Having two other sets of eyes look at our music video from a different class to ours, we are able to see the areas that need retouching that we might not have before. This peer assessment task proved itself to be productive as we have already taken into account the fact that we don’t come in closer than a normal close up for the whole music video and need to use the push in in post tool to achieve those tight closeups we were missing before. Specifically, we will ensure that our edits to the beat are concise to the beat, there is no point spending time cutting up footage if it isn’t going to be exactly to the beat.

Working on the final draft after teacher input

here is the teacher feedback Screencastify on our draft 3 music video

The feedback we received:

• Close up of the lips to go somewhere else 
• For jumpcut – in the foreground, in the middle, nearly there, or else it looks weird. 
• Reverse shots of them reading. 
• Start with the single shot of them holding magazines. 
• Sequencing of up and down with newspapers needs sorting. 
• Efx when they change. 
• Cut laying down into the dancing part.
• Make the shots appear to be more modern and funky with colour and effects

Next draft I will look at cutting actions that don’t need to be long or really shown. Cutting out or cutting down the unnecessary parts will cause the exciting areas to stand out further and it will ensure there are more of them. With the knowledge on how I can start perfecting the actual narrative in the video and where I should be cutting to the performance or the narrative I can now dive into adding some quirky special effects and transitions.

Industry professional feedback

We were recently payed a visit by two members of the Specsavers creative team. They came to see our music videos and comment on them as their experience allows them to know what works and what doesn’t. They were able to give us constructive criticism and show us ways we can uplift our footage in the edit to create a better music video.

One feature we were shown in particular was the colour preset feature. We played around with the black and white presets to see if we could just edit every clip before they change clothes into black and white for our next draft.

The comments we received were were very clear and we felt the changes they suggested were a good help in shaping up our music video.

• We were told our narrative went on too long without cutting to a performance shot. This in order to maintain the attention of the viewer.
• We were told we need to have a clear transition between before they change outfit and afterwards.
• That we also needed to cut to the performance between the magazine shots.
• They suggested we have it black and white/ less saturated before the change of clothes.

Draft 2 reflection

Here is the second draft of our music video. As we are ploughing forward getting more stuck in to editing and finalising both the performance and narrative footage, we gathered together a draft 2 containing some fx, filling half of the song’s four minute run time. (ignore after the 2:11 mark).

I completed a self assessment to evaluate both my progress and my feelings towards the music video as of yet. Comparing my work so far to the assessment criteria acted like a checklist and all areas that aren’t proficient or excellent need retouching and looking at.

Self assessment

What went well

• The quick paced editing at the beginning I feel really helps to convey that our star has entered fame and is getting used to it. The quick flashes and cuts act like a kind of montage. The microphone is there to make it appear as if our star performer is being interviewed on the red carpet whilst being bombarded with paparazzi and I feel this was very successful and fulfilled our aim.
• I like how the narrative is introduced, tying in perfectly with the lyrics in the song
  “Coming up behind you
  Always coming and you’d never have a clue
  I never look behind all the time
  I will wait forever
  Always looking straight
  Thinking, counting all the hours you wait”. Because although she doesn’t know it yet, the girl on the bench is waiting for a partner.
• like the effect we used where the performance clip fades out to become completely opaque and the bright contrasting narrative clip fades in over it nicely to create a smooth blending transition between our two different shoots performance to narrative.
• The mise en scene in the both shoots worked great to communicate the genre of indie grunge. Our star represents the genre through her dark tone of clothing, the use of layering in her outfits and dark makeup and jewellery.

What needs work, targets on feedback 

• When editing we need to be cautious on how long each clip plays for without being cut. As one of the Specsavers creative professionals so rightly said to us, “A shot goes without a cut in a movie or tv show for a reason, most commonly to create tension and suspense”. We realised that some shots didn’t need to play for as long as they were, that what we were trying to communicate could be communicated in far less time. We came to the understanding that we had some serious rethinking to do in terms of pacing and transitions to build energy behind the music video utilising clips from both the narrative and performance shoots.
• I have some feelings that the setting appears too basic. Wether this needs to be addressed in the edit or a reshoot it will definitely be considered that the setting could use uplifting. Maybe by adding more sfx, or maybe more props.
• I’m worried that we didn’t get enough close ups of the pair in the narrative shoot. The close up is a very intimate shot and the intimacy between the two during the narrative may not be conveyed because of this.
• Another problem is that we aren’t using the beat to our best ability. I feel we should be using as many beats as possible to cut on. Although this will take time, I feel as if it will be worth it for the final result.

Teacher feedback

• Remove weird head bopping.
• Narrative drags on too much
• Use the close up shots more to have a range of angles and shot sizes.

Focusing forward

I see a good future for our music video. Our progress, although we haven’t made it as far by this point as I anticipated is strong. The music video has a definite story. It now is just required that we use our feedback to improve the weak areas whilst retaining our other goals of tying our music video in with genre accurately as well as also creating an entertaining piece of media for an audience to watch.

Looking back

Upon having decided to shoot our narrative at Saumarez park with plenty of space, greenery and apparatus to work with, we needed to figure out how we would set it up like two random individuals on their lunch hour would cross paths.

We saw the plain fields and masses of space as a blank canvas in a sense, where we could plant our actors and tell a story of to unsuspecting individuals finding themselves in the park.

Evaluating

Six areas that went well

• The broad and spacious location I feel we used as a canvas plopping our eccentric characters into.
• Our costume was successful and especially the transition between the first, to the bolder, more intense second.
• The use of different magazine’s and having the performers read them adds that layer of believability. I say this because we sort of come to understand they both love reading, and share this in common with one another.
• The shots where they framed each other dancing are by far my favourite two.  The frame is created with their head and arms covering either side of the screen and I love how it turned out.
• I pre shoot activity we did that helped things run so smooth was develop a shot lost. This meant that all we had to do when we got there was set up our mise-en-scene and tripod and start rolling. I don’t think our shoot would have gone nearly as well without having completed a shot list.
• I really liked that both performers has predominantly dark features, this choice of casting helped us relate far more to the indie synth grunge genre because dressing them in dark tones of bold statement clothing looked far more natural.

Six areas that need work

• I think the magazine lifting shots, which is probably the most technical sequence in the whole sequence needed a much larger break down. I feel like we knew going in which shots we needed but continuity and pacing was not considered nearly enough and this will just create more of a pain for us in the edit.
• The use of props was very under utilised.  What would have been fun to involve would be a blow up guitar or an actual keyboard she could be playing in the middle of a field with the wire trailing out of shot so the audience believe that it’s plugged in.
• What needed some work was the the storyline, and how their relationship actually grew more intimate. I had the idea of having a shot of a magazine with basic illustrations of characters based on the two performers and having their speech bubbles contain narrative information.
• The reveal of the two new characters is hardly noticeable. A lot more work either in a reshoot or in the edit needs to be done to alter this issue.
• Too long. We came to realise the narrative sequence drags on longer than it should. The solution is to cut things like someone walking over to a table right down so both the edit flows better and the fast pacing is upheld throughout.
• Looking at the camera. In multiple cases my star performers give a glance or a flick of their eye-line to the camera as usually, I was stood behind it. These instances of course cannot appear in the final cut.

Risk assessment attached below

A media shoot cannot be done without a risk assessment. Serving the purpose of spotting any dangers and warding off any safety hazards, risk assessments are are the key component in the late planning stages of a project.

PMA

Homing in on the representation of our models for the shoot was a key component to why our second shoot was successful and we found ourselves not having to go out for reshoots.

The production meeting agenda acts as both a task list and a checklist also helping to give your teacher an idea of what vibe you are trying to achieve.