Monthly Archives: September 2022

This week we had digital designers and other creative industry visitors attend our class and give us feedback on our videos so far and mark out our next step to having a successful high mark music video.

Some of the pointers they gave us were as follows:

• They showed us how to put in keyframes when editing for us to be able to slow down a clip easier and zoom in to edit in a bigger and easier way 
• Organisation of our folders and footage for example specsavers showed us that when they do a music video like ours for a company they separate out the storyline (narrative) from the performance. They do this by putting them on different tracks and colour coordinate them in order to have them neat and tidy as well as them being easily establishable. 
• How to add more special effects for example having a split screen of each instrument to make the clip we have already used unique and stand out 
• Zooming in while adding an effect can be helpful as it means you have variety of shots in a small clip 
• They also helped us by showing us different ways we can add our vision of making the animals in our music videos animated which adds a new and improved element to our music video 
• Creating masks and mask paths for our animation to make it easier to cut the animals out

It was very interesting, helpful and definitely rewarding having a new face look at our music video and give us fresh ideas for how we can edit it to the best of our ability. This will help us in our post production stage as we can easily adapt these targets and helpful tips to the next elements of the course. 

our targets are to:

• Use some studio shots to have more of a variety in atmosphere and setting 
• They also agreed with us that we don’t have enough close up so we may have to either re-film a few closeups of the animals or zoom in and add an effect to give the element of close up but also not have the image blurry.
• Create a more interesting feel to the music video by adding special effects and different transitions

During the summer my group prioritised filming for our music video as we saw this as our target for summer and a  very important thing to do for our future selves in order for us to not fall behind. We filmed  in various locations and costumes as well as filming in an array of times in the day to best suit everyone in our group and our actors. The first week back at school we have worked hard to produce a 2nd draft of our music video making sure our work over the summer complies with our chosen genre, goals and target audience. Our group made sure we had a good song to edit to the beat too and although there is some work to be done in some places in order to get it to the standards we want it to be, we are proud of what we have produced in the summer and the first week back.

Self assess criteria checklist

Once we had completed our second draft we had to mark our own work against the criteria in order to create a successful music video and obtain a higher grade.

From doing this activity personally I can see that our group has a the following targets to improve and add in various spots:

Improvements

• Improve our tripod skills making sure to reshoot multiple times in order to create multiple videos of high quality
• Making sure we have all of the shot distances and angles as in some areas you are watching expecting it to cut to a POV or a framing shot and we didn’t film it in this way
• We are wanting to add more video transitions and effects into our music video however this week was just about getting a overall narrative and performance draft of our music video
• Making sure on shoots we are always obtaining the 180 rule and the depth of field etc

What went well:

• We filmed loads of footage over summer so have a choice of what to use 
• We had planned our shoots by completing risk assessments etc
• We only had one opportunity to shoot with our costumes and a short period of time however our footage is still a good standard
• Both the performance and narrative shoots work well together 
• We edited on the beat effectively 
• We have tried and started to experiment with the effects on the software 

By taking a step back and assessing what went well and what we need to improve we now have clear objectives of what we need to improve and change. This will be helpful for when we go back to editing our 3rd draft and final draft.

From our second draft we got feedback from our media teacher her feedback is as follows:

• Change a cut to edit so the beat drops on the cut to clip 
• Make sure all videos are lined up in the correct sequence 
• Do more close ups 
• Add in some more exposure and brightness in some areas as shots are too exposed or not exposed enough 
• Sharpen some clips in order to get the blur out

Our group found that our music video shoot suddenly was dawning upon us; however we had already done most of the preparations needed by completing a production meeting agenda as well as a risk assessment. Both of these essential planning documents helped our shoot become stress free and easy to accomplish with plenty of time to gather extra shots needed including a location change. We had also as a group collected a narrative story board on slides which helped us plan and think about what best shots would convey our narrative as well as making sure we had every type of shot we needed.

Photos from the shoot:

What went well:

• Everybody had brought the correct props and outfits 
• We sticked to our storyboard with shots to make sure we gained every shot needed
• The camera was maintained on a tripod for the majority of our shoot to make the shots as steady as possible 
• All models and actors arrived eager and happy to take part in our video 
• Due to us doing it in the morning we had natural lighting 
• We got plenty of footage 

Targets for our next shoot include:

• We forgot our tripod for the office shoot howere with quick thinking and teamwork we were able to create a make-shift tripod which worked effectively.
• We have a lot of stiff shots and would like to add some movement shots into our music video to make it less stiff and boring 
•  Although we planned effectively wwe could’ve been more exact with the shots as we were a bit stuck for ideas on the shoot
• Due to us being outside the lighting may need slight adjusting in editing mode 
• Plan and make sure as everyone is aware what is happening and where to avoid confusion or difficulty in the shoot.

Upon reflection our shoot was very successful. We gained shots we wanted as well as shots we didn’t need, however we can include in spaces that may be blank or empty. We worked effectively as a team. We would all agree planning effectively gave us a huge advantage especially due to us filming in the holidays where we all had a long break from using this equipment.