Skills Development - Editing

As our group had roughly split the responsibilities of producing and editing our music video, we had established that one of my main responsibilities were to edit the music video along with Denise. 

I had quickly learnt many new skills on how to use Final Cut Pro to my advantage. To begin with, I'd learnt that when editing a music video, I first have to mark the song on the beat, which is where I should cut. After all, you should always cut on the beat! 

I've also learnt the different types of transitions and effects that were available for me to use. One of the transitions I used most frequently is the cross dissolve, I used this between two shots that overlapped each other. 

Speaking of overlapping, I had learnt that to make it apparent to see two different shots at one time, I have to set the opacity (opacity 61) to however how opaque or full I wanted to see the second shot. 

Another skill I'd learnt on Final Cut Pro was the use of changing the speed. A shortcut for this on the Mac Computer is by pressing the 'command' key and the 'J' key at the same time. I was then able to set the speed however fast of slow I'd like it. Of which  we had chosen to speed up our cutaway shots as it made it look more exciting and effective. As well as reversing our shots too. 

Overall, I'm quite thrilled with the amount of skills I've learnt through this short period of time. Although sometimes it could be rather challenging and frustrating, having to render files all the time, but I've enjoyed the long process and I'm happy with the outcome. 

Images Pending...

Post music video completetion

We were very happy to complete our music video ahead of schedule and to be the second group in the class to complete the work! It shows that even through all the difficulties we endured, we worked very hard and stuck together to finish off our work, which is a great feeling!

Ticking Off List After Finishing

Filming at Jubilee Bridge

This location was very lively and exuberant, including lots of bright lights which matched the fast pace and upbeat tempo of our song.

We were able to capture quite a few cutaway shots at this location, such as London Traffic and a moving train. We felt these cutaway shots would be relevant to our song and fitting to our video as some of the lyrics are, 'travelling at wind speed'. These lyrics could be metaphoric, which is why we'd decided to film things that could resemble 'travelling at wind speed'.
Walking along the jubilee bridge, we generated new ideas of locations; one of which a lift that was on the bridge.

 We automatically felt that a lift is extremely urban, as in most urban areas, lifts are featured in people's everyday lives, and housing generically stimulated with lifts are council estates and deprived areas. This seemed extremely relevant as it reflects Dee Banks' background and where he had lived, as well as our lift having graffiti scratched in its windows. We felt using a lift shot for the artist Dee Banks will be effective in showing our target audience who he was and what social class he was from.

Finishing The Editing !

Rough Cut Feedback - Tamara

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Skills development

I've acquired a fair bit of knowledge and new editing skills during this editing/production time. Notably, the first would be how to lip-sync or footage, with the song. It was something we were taught instantly, as soon as we started A2 Media in fact. But of course, we only improved with practice and found it quite simple to do. Another skill I learnt was how to add certain effect/transitions. Of course there's the basic fade in/out, which I already knew of. What I didn't know of was effects such as bad T.V. Which is actually quite effective if used correctly. Putting in markers was also something new to me, and that was quite a challenge. As we had to accurately place the markers on our track to be able to lip-sync, we had quite a few attempts at putting our markers down. Sometimes we were too fast and not going with the beat, or the exact opposite. Overall, I've learnt quite a lot more about editing and how to portray our singers through certain shots. Also about how certain transitions and colour filters can be used to maybe patch up a bit of dodgy filming, or even make the video much more colourful/interesting.

An example of bad TV effect.

Rough Cut Feedback - Tobi

Rough Cut Feedback - Michelle

Rough Cut Feedback - Elisha

Settings and Locations

We ended going to the Jubilee Bridge and Southwark/Waterloo as we planned from before to get our last minute shots for the music video. The scenery was perfect as well as the lighting.

Last Day of Filming

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Skills Development - Production

I have approached the planning of this production than my AS thriller production in two completely different ways. 

To begin with, as my AS work was a thriller opening to a film, its codes and conventions are different in terms of camerawork, and editing. 

To plan for our music video, we had to firstly find a song we were going to use, claim copyright clearance, find locations and request permission to film there, get performers, create a filming schedule, costume, lights, risk assessment and leave enough time to re-film if necessary. We also had to plan in advance whether we wanted our video to have slow motion or a fast speed so we can prepare to have the song itself sped up or slowed down for our performer to sing to. Thankfully we didn't have to. 

In terms of  planning this production, we had to do a detailed storyboard so we knew what shot types, angles and locations to film once we had got there. 

Planning is 100% essential before going out to film a music video, otherwise, once we had gotten to our location, we'd have no idea what to film or whether or not the space was available or not. We also had to plan carefully around the weather as this time of year in London, the rain could have mad an appearance. 

Final Day Of Filming

Shots/Framing:

Locations:







Costume:

Last Day Of Filming VLOG

Last Filming Session - 28th November

Feedback analysis

Having shown off our rough cut and looked/listened to all the feedback from others, we've set on using that to improve our video. We received praise for the way we had structured our video and that was fantastic to hear, after all the problems we had throughout our filming process, problems which we overcame thankfully. However one criticism of our video so far was the lack of close ups, a problem we had already noticed and set on improving, as soon as possible. Another problem that we also spotted was the lack of lighting in some shots and again already set on improving it. Overall, we're pleased with the progression we've made with all the problems that we've overcome and it was very nice to hear such great feedback, having feared the worst at one point!

Feedback From Rough-Cut

I believe the feedback from our rough cut is very good because it gives me and my group a chance to see what the audience think of our music video at its beggining stages, during class time i managed to borrow some of my classmates to ask them what they thought about our music video and we managed to find out many things that we didnt actually see in our music video ourself.

Getting feedback from the target audeience is a good way of improving the appeal of a music video because at the end of the day it is other people which will be judjing the music video.

Duration Of Filming - Ups and Downs

Throughout the filming process we have overcome many hurdles and have been made to reconsider our planning as a group, we managed to film some footage on the first day we went out to film however i believe that the first day of filming was a way of us seeing how the footage would come out once put onto the macs. This then gave us a very good overview of how to improve our filming next time we went out.

Day 2 of filming was a successful day because we managed to film a very good amount of footage which we can now also improve on at the 3rd day of filming, this will now be our final day of filming because we as a group know what shot types and how much of a variety is in our current time line.

Also we had a chance to use the music departments piano for the opening shots of our music video seeing as it corresponds well with our music video. We managed to shoot a variety of different angles of both the performers face and also some close-ups of both her hands and the piano. In addition we also were able to use the projector to add some effect and more colour to our music video, this was a easy and simple way of getting a different location and what i considered to be 'something different'.

Overall, we now need to film for a final time and hopefully we can finalise all the footage we have and start editing fully without have the worry of having to go out and film again.

Feedback on Rough Cut

After showing our incomplete Rough Cut to the class we also got some helpful feedback. We were told that some of our framing were quite bad as well as a few of the shots were out of focus. However we also got told that after a minute into the music video, that some people lost interest as there was a change in the music/beat so that we had to either change the beat the the shots wore cut at add more shots into the music. We was also told that one of our artist was hard to recognize in the two types of costumes as her hair was up and down so it you couldn't tell straight away that it was the same artist until a while after. So we have to try and keep the consistency in that area. In addition we was also told that when introducing new settings that we have to gradually introduce it other than having the one shot then none of the same setting until a while.

On the other hand, even though we got some helpful critical feedback, there was also some good feedback. Such as one of our settings were nice and the projections for our artist D-Banks, As it introduces a new theme/style into the music video. As well as the piano shots of Delilah playing in the beginning. However we was told that the first shot was not too great to introduce her on as it is not a strong shot.

From this feedback, we figured out that we need many more close up of both artists and that we had to keep the video consistent, so we plan to get more shots outside as well as in front of the projection.

Feedback after Rough Cut

FINAL ROUGH CUT

EDITING PHOTOS

Music influences

Another song that could be credited as an influence is Earthquake by Labrinth featuring Tinie Tempah. I've already analysed Earthquake earlier in my blogs, however I've decided to look at the technical side of it and it's usage of special effects. We obviously coulnd't possibly be able to pull off some of the technical and special effects used, as we don't have the tools or equipment to do so. It would also come at a hefty price to be able to find a way to include such fancy technology. However again we can look at the shots and how they use the green screen. There's also plenty of little transitions used such as scratches, something we've already expressed an interest in using.

Usage of green screen/ideas of how to use it

We decided to use the green screen and add a bit of special effects to our work. As it was something we didn't plan on doing, I decided to have a look at some music videos that use green screen and/or special effects. I'll also be analysing them.

An example of a music video with the use of a green screen, is the song Blaze 'Um by Fabius. I don't personally know them and judging by it's 7k views, they're not particulary famous. However, this video implemented a good use of the green screen, as well as showing us perhaps how to frame the shots. There's a variety of shots, from midshots to extreme close ups. But it was the close ups I took a note of, as it's something we lacked of from our overall filming.

Skills Development From As Thriller

Wretch 32's Promotion

Wretch 32 uses various ways to promote both him and his music. One of these ways is by him creating his own website which gives the fans a chance to be connected to him by giving them information regarding, info on gigs, release dates of all his mixtapes and albums etc.

Wretch also is connected to social network sites such as Twitter. This allows his fans to have direct access to him and are allowed to ask questions as well as speak to him, Twitter also gives Wretch a chance to also promote hit songs further and also gives the fans a chance to see what hes up to in his day to day life.

This is a very inspirational video by Wretch 32 which allows us as the audience to get a little insight into his life and by this i believe it lets you relate to his life and maybe his songs.

He also mentions things as audience feedback and how it effected him and how he interacts with his fans.

Piano Room Filming Feedback

Day 2 - Filming

NEED PHOTOS

First Day of Editing

On the first day of editing we imported all of the base tracks into final cut pro and aligned them all up so they were in sync. So when it came to cutting the music video we wouldn't need to aligned them again all we had to worry about was marking and cutting.

Through out the process there were a few problems such as the base tracks wasn't in sync. Overall the lesson was productive as we got most of out base tracks on.

Reflection V-Log after filming

This is our reflection V-Log after doing some filming.

V-Log on set

This is a little V-Log on set, showing the filming in progress and a little detail about the scenery and roles of the group!

Pictures on set

Scenery pictures

A few pictures of our scenery, showing the city landscape at night.

First Day Filming