PRODUCTION: Pros and Cons while working on my Music Video (GENERAL)

In this blog post i will be talking about the things i liked and was not particularly fond of.


Pros:
Media Department
- the ability to have take out the cameras whenever wanted
- the availability of the workshops
- the tremendous amount of support given when needed

Filming/Editing
- The freedom to be as creative as possible because of music videos not having to make sense - 'disjuncture'
- Bringing in many editing techniques and creating a motif to talk about throughout my A2 Project

Cons:
Slightly different editing styles within our group

PRODUCTION: Skills Development

I have learned a few new editing techniques while editing my video, mainly the use of filters which i did not include so much in my AS work. Filters were essential in the music video, its almost electronic make up, however it also makes it look professional.

We also used 'smooth cam' to clear any rough clips and tidy them up, this process took over an hour to render but it was worth it and you can really see the change, this i did not use in AS and i wish i knew about it before.

As my thriller was cross cutting between two continuous scenes i did have many static shots and did not have to use the stop/start effect which is present in my music video, but i believe learning this reverse clip technique can help me with many productions as its very simple yet so effective when trying to find a link between the clip and the beat of the song.

I have developed my slow motion skills further, by not only using the slow motion but syncing it well so that it was visually attractive and used at the right time, and also not overused.

--pictures to be added

Production of Music Video: Progress Review Blog

Over the research, planning and construction stages of the music video, I feel like I have blogged about vital details throughout, and these details have aided my progress throughout this section of the course. However, I do think that the posts could have been more frequent and perhaps on the day rather than waiting a few days before posting. Despite this, I was still able to look back on my blog posts and think about what to improve, whether that be on the posts itself or the subject I was blogging about. Therefore, I am quite happy with how my blogging work has developed so far, and in relation to the targets I have set myself, I have accomplished my targets to include a greater range of digital technology and blog in more detail. For the Ancillary blogs I hope to improve further by blogging more consistently and  a higher standard of digital technology. I also thought more creatively about extra blogs that I could write about that was of value to this project.

PRODUCTION: The checking off, a show by Can Arslan

Ticking off a piece of paper has never felt this good!

After stressful periods during filming, i am happy that we have finished our production and i am pleased with it.

PRODUCTION: Rough cut reflection

Our rough cut is pretty different from our final production(phew).

Main feedback from rough cut

- Basetrack too long
- Use filters
- More effects such as overdrive(which was used)
- let the artist finish a word before cutting to the next clip\

We addressed all these issues and they helped our final production become much stronger, especially the 'letting the artist finish a word' which we then realised had a major effect on the strong audience connection and breaking the fourth wall

Production of Music Video: Progress Review Blog

Overall I feel that I’ve blogged well as I’ve posted in detail about all the essentials stages in which it took to make this project come to life. Though I feel I’ve completed my blogs thus far at a decent level, I do think I’d have been better if I’d blogged more frequently and also in the correct order, therefore making it easier to go back and re-read my work in order to make sense of it when reflecting on my progress.

Although I feel I’ve begun to reach my previous target of using more media technology when blogging, I still feel I have to use more in order for my blogs to be a little more interesting. I hope to achieve these goals when blogging about my Ancillary Project. 

Production of Music Video: Skills Development

In terms of our approach to this project, I feel that my group and I took time out and planned the concept of our music video in detail, compared to my group last year when making our thriller opening were we'd been extremely ambition and inconsiderate of timing and our facilities. As a result, we were more successful in achieving our long term goals.

As we went through the procedure of creating our music video, we all contributed by sharing our ideas and discussing them thoroughly, remembering to consider our target audience and the genre of our music video as we did so. Doing this allowed us to really take charge and be independent learners as we worked our way through all our shortcomings, finding solutions as a group.

Production of Music Video: Skills Development Progression from AS

This year I feel I have progressed further in terms of my editing skills when aiming to piece together our music video. A way in which I believe I've achieved this is the fact that I for one, picked up on a technique which allowed me to add and adjust filters to several clips simultaneously, whereas in AS, I had done each clip individually which proved to be time consuming. Within the process of exploring this method, I also learnt how to use a range of new features such as Desaturation, Sooth Cam and _________, all which helped bring the video to life along with making it look more professional.

PRODUCTION: Editing of music video!

I personally did not have a large role within editing our music video as the times my group were free to edit i had lesson, which was a major change for me working with four people because in my AS year i only worked with one person and i was in charge of the whole editing process, however i made it to most of the editing sessions to give in my input and ensure i have a say within our final production. Never the less, i managed to learn some new editing skills which will be presented in a separate blog.

In this blog i will be showcasing our timeline and various effects used.

The screenshot below demonstrates two clips being reversed and then put in normal order and multiplied a few times in order to get a stop/start effect, but when this is used effectively with good content, which in our case was the smashing of glass. It ensured that the target audience was still engaged as it was repeated a few times at fast paced, as a result of the repetition instead of one single break, the audience could also see the glass pieces.
The grey clips before the below ones show the transition we used in order to get into these clips, transitions are effective because it makes the sequence look much smoother rather than skip from clip to clip with no real indication to indicate the next clip is something different.

The clip below demonstrates the stop and start effect we used consistently throughout, however we did not use it too little or too much, i believe it has been used sufficiently. This edit of ours is a motif within our productions and i believe i can use this to my advantage when creating my ancillary products.(which is a secret until ancillary blogging begins!)

The screenshot below portrays our base tracks and how they have been positioned to sync when the artist(me:) says the word 'take' doing this was essential and the best way to make sure it stays in sync throughout.

 This screenshot below shows us adding video filters, in this clip we used the desaturation filter to give us a distorted effect and remove some of the bright colours present, this can once again be used to my advantage when making my ancillary products, this distorted feel seems to be the theme that i will be going with.

When you apply the desaturation effect, you alter the settings which is on the left to what satisfy your needs, and we found the perfect settings which matched our vision.

Here is a small amount of the markers used, i believe the use of markers was good in terms of short term (5 minutes) but after coming back onto the editing sometimes you forget what the marker was there for. i was not a fan of using markers in this term but my group went ahead with it.

 Colour correction after blacking out the rest of the clip and only allowing a certain shade of red/purple
Doing this effect via video filters helps us sync the lyric 'never should of listened to the serpent' with the clip of the serpent, and the video filter ensures the target audience concentrates on this.

 The clip below once again shows use of the stop and start effect, however this time used rapidly as you can see from the amount and length of the clips.

 The clips below and and above represent a transition which we was really proud of, the clip below has a distorted filter to it, and as its towards the end of the base track and we wanted the kill the base track with a bang, we used the filter 'overdrive' on the clip below to give the clip a shake, as if the camera was being shoved away when being pushed away. The dark devilish red also helps portray a sense of ending

Production for Music Video: Skills Development (New Editing Skills)

Editing the Music Video has taught me new editing skills and techniques that either produce effects that I could not produce in AS, or create the same desired effect but in a less time consuming way. For example, the image below shows how I used the controls in the motion section to desaturate the low tones in order to enhance the overall filter. In AS I was new to these features, therefore if I was to add an effect I would have probably gone for softer effects instead of the harsher ones so that I did not have to adjusted them to a great extent and risk ruining the project. Also, I realised that using the controls over the clips was the easiest way to adjust the clips.

The image below is another example of how I enhanced my editing skills by finding faster methods of editing, but achieving the same result. I learned this year how to add an adjusted filter to multiple clips at the same time, instead of adding the effect to each clip individually and then adjusting each clip to the same percentage. This allowed me to desaturate all the narrative footage to 74% at the same time, which then meant I had time to focus on effects that require more attention and detail, like the Gausian Blur at the beginning of the video.

I also experimented with effects such as SmoothCam. As the beginning of our video starts with the camera trailing up a graffitied wall, we tried to use SmoothCam to make this movement as smooth as possible. Even though we were advised not to use SmoothCam in the end because our footage did not need it, I still think this was valuable because I learnt about what more of the filters could do to the footage. Therefore next time I use Final Cut Pro, I will have a better idea of what each filter can do and thus can plan what possible filters to use from the very beginning.

Production for Music Video: Skills Development ( My Approach to A2 Planning)

Highlights of Group 22's and my personal approach to  the A2 planning process:


I think that experiencing the planning process in AS helped gear up my group and I with the knowledge we needed to create a plan for our Music Video. Whereas in AS, we needed a lot more guidance into what to base our planning on, in A2 we were able to work more independently with the resources we were given, as well as find our own resources. I found that I was able to do more of my own independent research, such as the audience research, which allowed me to plan our methods of reaching the target audience more precisely. I also feel that in AS we had more general ideas that were only made concise after the production of the project, however in A2 I have a better understanding of the importance of being specific. For example, in AS we would have an idea of the area we would want to film in, for example "a room in college", but we would not carefully select the room based on lighting and mise-en-scene. In A2 we narrowed our location choices from just "Shoreditch" to specific streets such as Scrutton and St Pauls street, because of the shadowed lighting effects we could create against the dark graffiti backgrounds and the warehouse effects in the background.

Further Improvements?

I do however think that we underestimated the time period we had to produce our Music Video. For example, instead of carefully following our production schedule or changing our production schedule every time something didn't go to plan, to estimate how we could maximise our time left, we left some things for the last minute. Although we still managed to produce our Music video to a good standard well before the deadline, our short comings in the planning stage meant we put a lot more pressure on ourselves that was not necessary, had we put more effort into our time management. Having said that, from the first stages of planning, we knew that our video needed more advanced editing than in the Thriller work in AS, so I already predicted that in the last stages of the editing, most of my free time would be spent in the editing suite. Therefore overall, in regards to planning, I have truly learnt the importance of time management and constantly referring back to the production schedule. I also think this skill is one that is transferable to other situations, because I had to make sure I managed my time between production of the Music Video and my other commitments.

Production of Music Video: First draft and Plan of Evaluation Question One

In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Below is a Prezi with my ideas and notes so far for Question One.

Production for Music Video: Comments on Final Day of Editing

Below are the last features we added to our video before labelling it as our final edit.

The feeling when you realise all your hard work has been a success!

Production of Music Video: WE HAVE FINISHED OUR FINAL EDIT !!!!!

We have finally finished our Final edit of our music video... woo hoo !

Here some pics of us making our statement that we have finished completely before the final deadline.

Production of Music Video: Skills Development

How did I approach planning this production differently to your AS production work?

Planning this production was more detailed and professional than AS. I had more time to plan out the whole conception of the music video with my group. This included really incorporating important aspects such as accommodating our target audience, risk assessment and etc. I approach filming differently with this production from doing extra filming outside of college time  getting various of camera shots and extra clips if we needed them or had footage that wasn't good enough to use. 

The new skills I've learnt during the editing of my music video!

Ive learnt different skills whilst editing such as slow and fast motion, adding filters to make the video fit certain moods or atmospheres trying to be enforced and reversing shots and other editing techniques. I think my editing has improved greatly from AS.

Production of Music Video: Feedback form Teachers on Final Edit of Music Video

Before we were 100% sure that our final edit was complete, we asked our two media teachers to watch our video and give us feedback on our improvements. 

Rebecca (our media teacher) commented on the lighting and how it was perfect for the dark theme of our video. The desaturated filter we used adds  to his gloomy feel of our video and she really liked this. She liked the way we took on board her criticisms from our rough cut edit and improved further, by adding transitions, editing to the beat and also new base tracks. 

Here is feedback from our other teacher Marisa.  

Production of Music Video: Independent Audience Research (Feedback for Final Music Video)

This is feedback for our final edit...

Production for Music Video: Continuing Editing on the Rough Cut

Production for Music Video: Our Progress so Far

PRODUCTION: Synergy into my three productions

Brief description: Images to be added soon.

I will have a constant theme between all my productions, within our music video we have plenty of graffiti and a slight dark feel to it, as off 27/11/13 i will be following this style as it has already been produced and going against this convention already made it will defy and ruin the synergy between my products.

My digipak will feature the main artist (Can Arslan) aka BL4KE with graffiti and abstract work, making him look superior but the effects will be distorted to match the lyrics of breaking up with someone.

My magazine advert will have the character looking slightly cleaner, possibly looking directly at the audience to break the fourth wall and engage with the audience. once again it will have a distorted feel about it

Rough Cut Feedback from Target Audience.

Production: Weather

The weather itself in terms of snow/rain/sun did not really effect us, our filming times were predominantly from 4pm-8pm, meaning we had to be perfect on timing to get the natural dusk lighting as we only had a brief amount of time to film base tracks and walking scenes between about 4pm and 5pm.

personal problems we encountered with the weather, when we usually filmed on a tuesday was the freezing cold. Holding and manoeuvring the camera was an issue at times and as the main artist wearing just a shirt/thin jacket at the time was hard to cope with, however after the first and second shots i finally managed to ignore the cold and focus on my acting.

All of our shots are similar, in terms of that they all have a dry weather pattern. For example, one doesnt have rain and the other does. Having a dry weather pattern helps us show that its all occurred within a night and not splattered over several nights

PRODUCTION: Poor Lighting

Due to the dolly light being very unpredictable and dying on us early, and the top light constantly flickering, we had to film in lighter areas than first expected. Some of our footage had completely different lighting to different clips in the same scene, meaning we had to cut some shots out in favour of others.

To overcome this problem in our next filming session, we brought two extra batteries but unfortunately the heavy batteries only last about 15 minutes on strong light as told by treveor, even more unfortunately the batteries were not fully charged, meaning we had 10 minutes of strong light between two dolly batteries.

PRODUCTION: Notes and Ideas for evaluation question 1

In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

what to cover: focus on forms and conventions of music videos - look back on your blogs on vernalis and goodwin. identify which of their main ideas you've followed in your video. Which videos were you influenced by and why? what aspect of the video influenced you - was it th eediting, use of camerawork, or perhaps the same other aspect of its visual style. did you decide to challenge the conventions of the genre of video for some reason?

include - links to youtube videos that have influenced/ideally embed them
screenshots from influenced material and own video.

PLANNING: Examine website for original artist

School computers didn't load the website will carry on annotation at home

PRODUCTION: Reflection Summary

Reflection:

We had to re shoot several key scenes due to lighting issues and also had to shoot base tracks.


The lights would either flicker or run out of juice, meaning that we had to be efficient with our lighting and timing. The first base track failed due to it being my first time on camera in a public place and attempting to sync very similar stanzas of lyrics.

However second time round, confidence was high and lyrics were perfect, this made me look professional and not like a cardboard box. We also forgot SD cards while going to film during rush hour, this deducted us not only valuable time in cold weather but the weathers lighting itself, meaning we had to sacrifice a scene or two so that we could ensure our main scenes were shot well.

PRODUCTION: Skills Development

In my first year of media in AS, i was very much an amateur with what was going on and at the rapid speed that we had to get things done.

In the thriller, the cameras were allowed to be static, which made everything much more easier as you did not have to worry about getting the movement right, however by abiding to the laws of the music video, we had to make sure our camera was moving, but not only moving, moving with precision and meaning. 

The tripod was probably used only a few times throughout the course of the music video, the fig rig was our best friend. 

However, in my thriller in AS, we was cross cutting between two scenes, this helped me develop skills to use in my music video. As music videos can have a 'disjuncture' genre to it, where nothing really makes sense so you can crosscut between many shots. This helped us incorporate different shot types and make sure we included as many as we could so our video was creative and attractive, ensuring the audience did not get bored.

Production for Music Video: Blooper Reel :)

Production of Music Video: Reflection on Rough Cut

Process of Editing till the Final Deadline

When editing today our initial idea was to accomplish a layered clip of three images at once in which we ran into complications. The video will explain further.

Feedback from our Rough Cut Video

We hadn't difficulties meeting our deadline for the rough cut to be viewed however two days later we finished our rough cut and was able to hear feedback from our teacher. Heres briefly what she explained we needed to do to get our music video intact and have that professional look...

We also have to take out some scenes because they either broke the 180 degree rule or the camera shots was too shaky to use. Our teacher also stressed we fixed the fast and slow motion at the beginning of our video as it didn't really make much sense.

Rough Cut of Music Video

Group 22's Rough Cut of our Music Video...

Production of Music Video: My Reflection on the Filming of our Music Video

During the process of our filming we captured some great shots of our artist, many base tracks we could flip back and forth to and some nice city shots. we had think about different shot angles and movement of camera in which we tried to avoid having static shots. All of us had a chance to film using the camera even the artist from the point of view shots we wanted to incorporate and so everyone was doing something in our group. Whether it be filming, directing the artist or taking photos of the locations.

Generally i think the filming process was great however there were some downfalls during this period. Our initial idea was to follow the time production of filming which we had difficulty of following due to distractions of bad weather and team members cancelling on filming dates. We did however get this together and got back on track with our filming schedule which was a highlight. 

Overall our filming for our music video was real great.   

Production for Music Video: Influence for Digipack

Whilst in the editing stage, I am constantly thinking of ways to incorporate synergy into the video that can be used in for the Digipack. However, I came across the artwork for Kanye West for his album Yeezus. Kanye decided not to use any artwork on his album "because at this point in his career, he needs nothing additional to lend or boost his credibility as an artist to further his sales. " He was also quoted to say “We ain’t have no big NBA campaign or nothing like that
We ain’t even got no cover
We just made some real music"

Therefore, by not releasing artwork with his new album, Kanye West was trying to convey that "real" music should not be about the glamorous or "commercial" side, it should be solely about the music itself. However, this in itself is a massive publicity stunt, which would have undoubtedly increased his album sales, because it was thought of to be a controversial stunt and people like things that are "non-conformist".


This will influence the planning of my Digipack and the editing of the music video, because I have started thinking that perhaps subtle details such by woven into the editing features that can be made into the basis for the Digipack artwork. For example, we have many images that flash across the screen in time with the fast paced  melody, thus we could use that as an opportunity to flash some of the more controversial graffiti that we filmed, and then use that as the album artwork.

Production of Music Video: Reflection on Location

REFLECTION ON SIGNIFICANT LOCATION CHOICES



  In terms of location, we managed to film in most of the locations that we found in various places around Shoreditch during the research and planning stage of our coursework. The most important being Scrutton and Paul street, home to this iconic piece of graffiti, which we included in our research into locations in one of our earlier blog posts.

Spotted the difference?

It should be noted that these two images are slightly different because graffiti is constantly repainted and renewed around Shoreditch as part of the London Graffiti trail. This is a bonus in terms of making our music video, because it shows that we have filmed in places that are "current" and constantly being observed by different groups of people, which widens the amount of audience members that can relate to the locations we have used.

Production of Music Video: Reflection on Filming so far

Below is a short animation my reflection of my groups footage and camerawork so far.

Media review video by missyvm on GoAnimate

Transcript

“The filming? Oh, it was good. We managed to get a wide range of locations that matched our urban look. Umm, but having said that, when we looked at the footage, I found that there were some shots that did not look as high quality as the others and needed to be redone.”

“It’s not all bad. We may have to film some scenes again, but this is all part of the production process. It is also part of our skills development. It also means we have room to record more base tracks and keep the quality of our clips to a good standard. In some cases, new clips can assist the creativity of the editing. For example, a new base track could mean that we can make our cuts quicker, as we have more footage to cut between, that are not overly repetitive.”

“However, there are problems with filming so close to the Rough Cut Deadline. The first is that we have to make sure that there are no errors in the continuity of the footage. For example, Rebecca’s hair has changed from the first footage we filmed in half term. Therefore to solve this, we are just going to re-shoot all of her scenes. (Which are short scenes and should be completed in a day.)”

“So far we have begun editing the beginning clips. So filming on Tuesday means we won’t waste time, because we know exactly how to make the footage fit in with what we have already.”

“Hopefully after editing our video we will get a variety of reactions when watched by other people. After all, the videos that get the best or worst reactions are more memorable. Goodbye now my dear, I’m going to join these lot and watch the première of the music video. You’ll just have to wait until it’s on Vimeo. Ha-ha”

Production of Music Video: Our Editing Process

Our editing is coming together smoothly even through it was rocky at the beginning due to not using clips we intending on. However along the process of our editing we are all considering and inputing each others ideas and editing techniques into our music video. Slow and fast motion and jump cuts are editing we've incorporated so far but we will have other different and difficult editing styles after the  rough cut  copy of our video.Working fast whilst editing appropriately is the main aim in order to meet our rough copy deadline on Wednesday 20th November 2013. Here are a few screen shots of our editing process...

Production of Music Video: 5th and 6th day of filming

Day 5 we filmed in Can's house where we filmed our Glass Breaking scene. We had difficulties at first because of the camera but we got through it as u can see in the two videos ...

Day 6 we filmed in the Shorditch market where there is lots of creative and attractive graffiti  and broken down buses.  Here we filmed one of BL4KE's base tracks against a dark graffitied wall.

Production for Music Video: Planning for Filming