RS + SP - Marking a past A2 Blog - Jonny Hughes

Today we got set the task of marking a past A2 music video blog. For this task I chose to evaluate Jonny Hughes music video blog, who created the music video for Joy Division - Disorder. Jonny worked with Joel Colborne and Callum Moreman on this task. The group created a joint blog which can be found here.

For this task I worked along side Sam Pollock!

Research and Planning:

Is there excellent research into similar products and a potential target audience:

Excellent. There is a lot of research into the genre such as doing case studies and further research out of the lessons. Evidence into researching bands from a similar genre as well as completely different genres to cover a wide range of material and investigate all the different audiences from all the products. A fine example can be seen here from a different range of genres.

Is there excellent organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props: 

Excellent. There are several examples throughout the blog and even a mention in the evaluation questions with an interesting image to accompany.  Overall the level of organisation is high and there are multiple posts on all of the above over a good consistent time period to show time management skills. The groups treatment is a perfectly organised document with all the relevant information above to help them secure high marks.

Is there excellent work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting or storyboarding:

Excellent. There is obvious detail in storyboarding and scripting for this music video because the end product is of such a high quality. They even posted storyboards and scripts on their blogs to show their planning process. Overall the quality of all of the above are excellent and display exactly what should be happening and gives the audience a good understanding before seeing the final product.

Is time management excellent:                                                                                

Excellent. There was a consistent feed of blog posts throughout both of the years providing all the relevant information and posts needed for the music video. The consistent stream of posts keeps the audience updated and knowing what they have done and what they are hoping to do next lesson etc which shows good time management, also the final product was completed on time.

Is there an excellent level of care in the presentation of research and planning:

Excellent. Yet again the level of care is excellent like the rest of the blog. Images, hyperlinks and embedded videos are aparent throughout the research and planning and paragraphing has been used keeping the presentation in tip top condition and very easy for the audience to read whilst giving all the relevant information.

Is there an excellent skill in the use of digital technology or ICT in the presentation:

Excellent. There is an excellent post on how they made the artwork which had been created for the digipak which shows high skills in ICT. Embedding from Scribd has been used on multiple posts and the Treatment once again shows excellent use of ICT skills like everything else on the blog.

Are there excellent communication skills:

Excellent. Once again top marks due to the ease of use on the blog, the use of links lists, blog archive and hyperlinks within the blog make it simple to navigate around for the user which is very helpful and keeps them on the webpage.

Overall I would give the blog a mark of 20 out of 20. I couldn't find any faults with the blog, everything was there and to a very high standard and because of the navigation around the blog it made it simple to locate everything, simply perfect!

RS - The Co-operative Film Festival (Part 2)

Colour correction in FinalCut Pro

After the screenings at the film festival we then attended an "Editing Masterclass" workshop in which we used FinalCut Pro to try out some professional editing skills. I found this workshop extreamely helpful as we learnt skills I have always wanted to know how to do such as using a green screen and adding a background behind it like a professional sci-fi film!


At first it was quite challenging but seeing as we were familiar with FinalCut Express, Pro was not that much different and we soon became efficient in our editing and was able to keep up to speed with the teacher there.

Erasing the Green screen from the background

Richard Mclachlan and I worked together for this short workshop in the afternoon and we both found it really fun to do whilst being very informative!

We used a wide range of editing skills such as chroma keys and colour correction to name a couple. Some of the techniques are very complex and interesting however for my coursework I cannot see us using it however it was very fun to learn and could benefit us in other projects in the future! 


Overall it was a fantastic experience and I hope to use these techniques on my coursework and in the future after that. I also hope our cousework gets into the film festival again next year so we can experience the whole thing over again!

Editing the sound

RS - The Co-operative Film Festival (Part 1)

Oliver and James Phelps (The Weasley Twins)

Today we attended the Co-operative Film Festival for the second year in a row at the National Media Museum in Bradford. This year there were a total of five of Ilkley Grammar Schools videos being screened. Three of them were for the AS coursework which were all shown in screening one:

Wrenched - Sam Pollock, Asa Newmarch and Myself
Waxed - Sophie Dixon, Emily Moore and Mel Abraham
Sleep Tight - Becky Wholley and Hannah Ferreira

There were also two A2 music videos being screened, ("WATO" was shown in screening one whilst Joy Divison was shown in screening four) they were:

We are the Ocean - Confessions - Lucy Mannall
Joy Division - Disorder - Callum Moreman

The article within the Ilkley Gazette

The films were first all shown within the screening and then once they had all finished the creators of the film all walked up onto the stage to recieve awards whilst also getting a photograph. My dad was kind enough to film our group walking up onto the stage which can be seen below!

The Phelps twins signing items and photographs

This years Bradford Film Festival saw two familiar faces from the biggest film franchise of all time Harry Potter! The Weasley twins, also known as Oliver and James Phelps both attended the festival to open the doors whilst also having a meet and greet with fans of the franchise, they signed anything from A5 pieces of paper to the festivals programme along with having photos taken for the fans! The brothers also did a Q+A session in the same screening as the short films in which a fellow media student George Gamble got his question read out to the twins "Why are you not ginger in real life?" which followed a few chuckles and a brief explanation about them dying their hair and eyebrows for the films!.

Second row seats for the Q+A with the Phelps Twins!

Within the screening we were able to see a wide range of short films from the comedy all the way to the slasher genre which was really entertaining and great fun! It also had a great atmosphere and was good to see everyone sharing their creations and enjoying it all together! What more can you want? 


After the screening we then took part in a short interview which was to explain what our film was about and then also highlight some tips on what to tell people thinking of entering their films into the festival for next year.

Here is the listing for Screening 1 within the Festival Programme

My dad also filmed footage of the short promo (containing a short montage of footage from our film along with others) which was before our film was screened along with our whole film being screening in the theater which can both be seen below! (It is filmed on a phone so its not the best quality!)

RS - Practice Music Video Finished!

Today Will Spivey and I finished our edit of our classes practice music video for Martin Solveig's "Hello". It was a great way to get back into using FinalCut Express whilst getting us to explore the features we haven't seen in it before to help us in the future with our coursework. It was also useful because if we made any mistakes on this it wouldn't matter to much as it is just a practice! We need to learn from our mistakes to make sure we don't make them in the coursework.

Here is our edit of the practice music video:

RS - Deconstruction - Sean Kingston - Party All Night (Sleep All Day)

Artist: Sean Kingston
Song Title: Party All Night (Sleep All Day)
Year: 2010
Genre: Pop
Audience: 15-24

An example of cut shot to make it more interesting

There is a serious lack of shot variation in this music video however in an attempt to make it more interesting a series of cut away shots have been put into the video. There are also shots that have been repeated over and over 2 or 3 times which fits to the beat of the song, this can be done on FinalCut by just copy and pasting a clip which is simple.
 

Photoshop effects have been added to a layer above the lip syncing

As you can see on the right there is a "glow" effect over Sean. This has been created on Photoshop and then simply imported into FinalCut (or some other editing software) and then added to another layer so it shows above the background. This is perfectly achieveable for us, as we have Photoshop on the Macs at school.

Lack of shot variation, mainly CU's or MS's

There is a serious lack of shot variation in the music video which we want to avoid at all costs in our coursework. The reason for this (I am guessing!) is that he is a fairly "large" man and he doesn't want his lower body to be shown in the video because of his weight. This can be seen as the binary opposite of 50 Cent who's selling point is his body! See this for an example!

Lip syncing has been used in the music video

There are performance aspects to the music video, most notably by the lip syncing by singer Sean Kingston, there are also scenes of dancing in the music video which can be seen as performance, dancing is also very typical of the genre of the song therefore it follows the typical codes and conventions of a "pop" genre song.

Multi-layering has been used here

There are numerous vfx used in the music video such as multi-layering which you can see to the right. The phone has been filmed and then in the editing software the text has been added in, and the different sentences have been added to different layers for a 3D type effect coming out of the phone. This would be possible using FinalCut express however i'm sure it would take a few attempts before it worked properly and we were happy with the results.

SFX being used in the music video

 A "cartoon style" font has been used in the music video which is perfectly achievable in FinalCut, the editing software we are using. It does sort of add a comedic or silly effect to the video which I don't really want in my coursework however if I did it would just take some time to get the effect and text to work together properly.

Slow motion track, similar to the "matrix" effect

Tracking shots have been used in the music video when there are shots of the people dancing in the party, the shots are in slow mo which I expect is a reference to the famous sequence in "The Matrix" which can be seen at 0:50 in the video here. This could signify that the video is fairly high budget because of using professional curved track + dolly which we will not have available.

RS - Deconstruction - Read All About it - Professor Green feat. Emeli Sandé

Artist: Professor Green feat. Emeli Sandé

Song Title: Read All About It

Year: 2011

Genre: Rap

Audience: 15-24

On 10 September 2010, Professor Green joined Lily Allen on stage at Wembley Stadium whilst supporting Muse, to perform her number one hit 'Smile', and 'Just Be Good To Green'.

Lip syncing from the "Prof"!!

This music video is a hybrid between two of Goodwin's three music video types. The main aspect of the video is a narrative however it does contain performance footage of the two vocalists looking right into the camera, aiming at their audience. Some aspects of the music video could be replicated by us in our coursework however some could not just as the location being very large, its not impossible for us to find but its not as likely as the Sean Kingston music video. This large location and crane shots used in the music video denote that the budget is fairly high.

A large hangar location has been chosen for the video

The location for the music video is very large which would not seem to available to us. First of all we would need to find a location so large but also permission to use the location which makes it less likely to be able to replicate a location such as the one in the video. The location is also fairly dark which could be seen as not very typical of the genre and could be seen as it challenging the typical codes and conventions within the genre. However the lens flare brightens it up for the codes and conventions of the genre.

Lens flare has been used multiple times in the video

Lens flare has been used multiple times within the music video which acts as a transition but it also lights up the camera vastly in the dark, large hangar location. The editing in the music video is fairly straight forward and could be very achievable on FinalCut Express on the Macs.

The narrative side to the video

The narrative has been cross cut with the performance footage which is very typical of a music video and is the most common of the hybrid types from Goodwin. Quite alot of the shots are hand held which could show it is low budget, it also shows it is like a social realist film with the shakey camera work which could be done by us.

Performance footage from Emeli

Both artist use lip syncing in the music video which is a typical code and convention of a music video. The lip syncing is also the performance side of the music video which is cross cut in between the narrative.



There is alot of shot variation in this music video which constrasts to the Sean Kingston music video I deconstructed before. The reason for this is to keep the audience interested. However there is a larger variety on Professor Green's performance footage than there is on Emeli's footage which lacks variation and is similar to Sean Kingstons with the majority being MS/CU's.

RS - Research into Muse music videos

Over their career they have used a very wide range of music videos from entirely performance to only narrative and some examples of concept videos. They have worked with multiple directors such as Joseph Kahn. Goodwin's 3 types of music video are very apparent however a few of the music videos are hybrids of two types such as a narrative/performance or a concept/performance music video.

Below I have embedded some key examples from each of Goodwin's different types from the Muse Videography. I have also given a very brief summary of the music video and how they can be defined as "performance" "narrative" or "concept".

The Resistance (2009)

For the "Performance" example I have embedded "Resistance" From the 2009 album "The Resistance" This music video is pretty much all performance bar the little synth intro which contains slow motion clips of queues and people running to the front of the stage at a gig. The pace is much faster than a typical live DVD due to it being a music video. It has had to adapt to the music video format by quicker takes otherwise the audience would easily get bored. Typical of a performance video it contains lip syncing however it is just live footage that has been muted not just lip syncing to a camera like a typical video. It also contains the band playing instruments from a live set which has been muted like the lip syncing. Yet again the embedding rights have been disabled so I have had to embed a poorer quaility version.

Absolution (2003)

For the "Narrative" example I have embedded "Sing for Absolution" from the 2003 album "Absolution". This video is set some time in the future and tells the story of three astronaughts (played by the band members) travelling in their spaceship to a different planet which turns out to be Earth however not looking too healthy! The video is a hybrid video as it does have lip syncing by frontman Matt Bellamy but that is the only aspect of a performance which is why it is mostly a narrative. Yet again the embedding rights have been disabled so I have had to embed a poorer quaility version.

Black Holes and Revelations (2006)

And finally for the "Concept" example I have embedded "Supermassive Black Hole" from the 2006 album "Black Holes and Revelations" This music video is very strange, odd and random. It has the band members all wearing masks of their own faces or mirrors along with dancers and a man dressed in a body suit of an owl! what more could you want?! The video does yet again have aspects of a performance video due to the lip syncing by frontman Bellamy but this time it does have other band members Chris and Dom playing their instruments. Yet again the embedding rights have been disabled however their is no other version found on youtube so you are going to have to click on the link here to see the music video.

RS - Using the "Sin City" Effect in FinalCut

Here is a screenshot of the effect in the video

After watching a video on Youtube a few weeks ago they used a special effect which made every colour except one change to black and white making the colour that stayed stand right out. In this case it is the guitar which is red and really stands out and gives a great effect! After seeing this video I instantly wanted to use it in my coursework.




Firstly I had no idea how they had done this so I thought I would look through all the comments on the video itself. I noticed that the uploader had replied to someone asking the same question I was trying to answer and he said it was called "colour saturation". However he did say he did the effect on Sony Vegas which we do not have on the Macs at school. After seeing this I instantly googled it to find out if it was possible in FinalCut, sucess! I found a video tutorial showing exactly what to do to get this effect which was extreamly helpful.



Using this effect will add character to my music video, although I don't know which shot/s to put it over but when filming commences I am sure I will think of one. If I do get a live band to lip sync the song I could use it on the bands instruments similar to the orginal video which could be a great effect.

RS - DIY Dolly

After watching the music video for Sean Kingston's "Party All Night (Sleep all day)" I noticed that there was multiple use of a track and dolly in the video showing that aspects from films have been brought to music videos. With this in mind I looked if it was possible to create my own track + dolly using fairly easily available materials such as the one for the SnorriCam.

A curved track for a dolly to move on

After further research on Google and Youtube I found a video showing how to make your own on a limited budget, obviously the track and dolly would not be as long as a professional kit but for the few shots I am going to use it for in my coursework idea it should work a treat! Professional tracks could even have curves in like the Sean Kingston music video but with our tight budget it does not seem practicle and it would be harder to transport between different locations and in transport etc..

It might take some getting used to the technique of the dolly however some practice after I have created the track and dolly and before the actual filming will be benefitical and should provide us with fantastic smooth tracking shots like a tracking shot in a professional movie.

RS - Pitch Idea

The Band Logo since their first EP (1998)

Artist: Muse
Song Title: Bliss
Year: 2001
Album: Origin of Symmetry
Genre: Space Rock/New Prog



Muse are a Grammy Award winning Alternative Rock band from Teignmouth Devon. Muse are well known for putting on amazing live performances and are often voted as "best live band". Muse consists of three members; Matt Bellamy: Guitarist, Pianist, and lead Vocalist. Dominic Howard: Drums, Percussion and human bones. And Christopher Wolstenholme: Bassist, Guitars, Keyboards, Backing Vocals and Harmonica.  Most of Muse's songs are driven by the bass-line with guitar effects layered over the top, such as Hysteria and Time is Running Out for example. They have a fusion of different genres ranging from Space Rock, Prog Rock to Heavy Metal and Classical or even Electronica. They have seen huge sucess world wide selling over 10 million records worldwide, selling Wembley Stadium four times in under an hour and headling Glastonbury twice, a large list of events for a career which only started in 1994. They even plan to be the first band to play in Space! (after pursuading Sir Richard Branson for help).

Muse after winning their first Grammy Award (2011)

Muse at Wembley Stadium (2007)

Muse are big innovators of new media and have made use of brand new technology, most notably when they used new high tech 360 degree cameras at there gigs at Wembley Stadium last year. You can see the 360 degree cameras in action here. These cameras are "the future of concerts" and give the audience the ability to move the camera by clicking on the screen and dragging it around with their mouse. The band released two 360 recorded songs from Wembley as a Christmas present to their fans on their website. The same 360 degree cameras were also seen at this years R+L Festivals and fans are expecting another Xmas present this year!

The band also created the worlds first Augmented Reality Tour Programme. This Programme is the future and has technology called augmented reality built into it, when you hold certain pages of the programme up to a webcam, the book projects an image out and in 3D onto your webcam image and also provides interviews within the augmented reality.

Origin of Symmetry (Second Album - 2001)

Origin of Symmetry which is the album Bliss is on just celebrated its 10th birthday. Because of this the band played two "special" gigs at this years Reading and Leeds Festivals in which they adapted the stage to look like the album cover, they also played the whole album from start to finish in order which they had never done before! They also had to relearn a few songs which had been dropped from the set list over the years since the release of the album. Because of this 10th year anniversary I believe it is a great idea to create my own version of the Bliss music video and introduce it to a new audience. There is already a music video for Bliss but it is older than 10 years due to the 10th birthday of the album so it now fits into the criteria of choosing a track for a music video. I believe it could be re-branded now and what a perfect oppotunity to do it!

Matt Bellamy - Muse's Frontman

My idea for the Bliss music video is a hybrid between a performance and a narrative music video (Goodwin's theory). The narrative side of the video will be based on the songs lyrics, the protagonist is unsettled with himself and is envious of another person who is settled with himself. The protagonist wants to take away this persons perfection so that he doesn't feel envious. There will be shots of the protagonist using high angles to show his weakness and low angles on the other person to show his power. For the protagonist to be envious I want it to show him doing poor in his exams whilst the other character does better, he gets a girlfriend the the "pro" doesnt, he recieves awards in assembly whilst the "pro" doesnt and the class clap/cheer for his sucess whilst he is jealous of his sucess. I want to use a SnorriCam in the music video for CU's of the protagonist to show his emotions when he keeps seeing this person he is envious of. This is only my initial thoughts and are based around the lyrics so don't expect it to keep the same, however I would very much love to do a Muse music video and especially from this album as it is celebrating 10 years and could be a way to re-brand the album!

The performance side of the music video will be down to the lip syncing by the characters within the narrative. There is also the ability to have the characters writting the lyrics in a lesson or the lyrics being written on a whiteboard in lesson. They could also be used in a text on a phone etc. There is also an option to find a local band and ask them if they will be willing to feature in the music video to perform the whole song, that way we could get lots of shots of them performing them and then cross cut them into the narrative. It would be hard because it would take more than one filming session but it is achieveable. I have been to see Muse live before and when I saw them last year I did some live recording however the quality is not great and the camera is shakey! however I have come up with a plan of just having it being played in the background of the narrative such as being played on a computer screen/tv screen similar to "Can I play with madness" by Iron Maiden, or on someones phone screen so that the quality would not be so obvious.

Chris Wolstenholme - Bassist of Muse

The main location for the music video will be in our school along with shots of the two main characters walking to and from school and also the protagonists bedroom/house. Costumes for the music video would most likely be our schools uniform however that does mean (because we are in sixth form) we would have to raid our wardrobes to find our old uniforms! which could run into problems, however we could have the actors wearing casual clothes like our sixth form.

The length of song is 4:13 which could be seen as an issue as it would take a vast ammount of shots however the first 15 secs of the song is played on a keyboard and is like a little intro which could be seen as a chance to get lots of establishing shots and slower pace editing which could save alot of time and effort.

Dom Howard - Drummer of Muse

For the editing I have thought of using extensive use of the multi layering technique to show the two main characters at the same time to show the emotion of the protagonist seeing the other character (man with no name!). I also want to use the "Sin City" effect where you isolate one colour on a shot so that it makes everything black and white other than the colour you choose to keep the same. Currently I am not sure of what shot I will use this effect on but it's only the early stages at the moment. I also want to create my own track dolly to give a smooth shot when I am tracking a character. It will be a budget version of the hollywood Dolly constructed by myself.

Here is the stage at this years Reading Festival, replicating the "OOS" album cover from 2001 (10 year anniversary)

Here is the official music video for Muse's Bliss. Sorry for the Spanish subtitles, the offical music video has been disabled from being embedded.



Here is an example of some footage I recorded last year. Bare in mind the clip will be muted so its only the visuals that are important. I did record multiple tracks so any could be used!

RS - SnorriCam

What a professional SnorriCam looks like

A SnorriCam (also chestcam, bodymount camera, bodycam or bodymount) is a camera device used in filmmaking that is rigged to the body of the actor, facing the actor directly, so when they walk, they do not appear to move, but everything around them does. A SnorriCam presents a dynamic point of view from the actor's perspective, providing an unusual sense of vertigo for the viewer.

Source: Wikipedia

From research online I have found tutorials on how to create a SnorriCam on a small (ish!) budget and replicate the results from a professional music video into my own. Personally I love the effect it has and I think it is extreamely unique and worth the effort! Next week I hope to do some futher research online and to look for places to gather all the materials to make the SnorriCam. I am then going to start constructing the product as I really want to encorporate it into my main coursework task. It will take effort and time to find materials and make it but it will be a nice little side project, will be fun and also rewarding in the final music video.

SnorriCams have been used within music videos which I have looked at such as System of a Down's Chop Suey. This is an example of it being used on a professional level however as you will see below there is another end to the spectrum with similar results if not even better! 0:57 and 1:10 are examples of the SnorriCam being used in this music video. In this music video you can even see the harness that holds the SnorriCam to the band member which is something I want to avoid! So having clothing covering it or having the camera zoomed in closer to the actor will be vital! I can learn from what they have done and make sure I don't do the same thing.

What the image looks like

They have also been used by media students from the year above in their coursework which shows that with a small budget you can build one yourself and get similar results to a professional SnorriCam which could cost hundreds of pounds. 0:52 and 1:04 are examples of the SnorriCam being used in this music video and I hope I can get similar results when I create my own. A post from one of the creators of this music video highlights him creating a SnorriCam and photographing the stages in the creation. The SnorriCam works really well with the narrative of their music video as it follows a mans addiction to drugs and with the SnorriCam it can give a really clear CU whilst slightly blurring the background when movement occurs (connoting the drug taking in the narrative)

RS - 2010-11 A2 Video Deconstruction

Artist: BackStreet Boys

Song Title: As long as you love me

Year: 1997

Genre: Pop

Audience: 15-24

Yesterday we got set the task of deconstructing a music video created by last years students who left earlier this year,  we then had to use a mark scheme to grade the coursework which would ultimately help us as we would be more familiar as to what the examiners will be looking for in our product.  We each got assigned a video to deconstuct and I got Megan Claydon and Emmie Bryett's version of "As long as you love me" by the Backstreet Boys.

For this task we had to:

1: go through each of the video product criteria (either copy/paste in, or use single words such as framing, variety, steady etc) + award either an E,P,B or M (exc, prof't, basic, min)

2: note 1 specific (with time in video) detail you think justified this choice

3: come up with an overall mark out of 40

4: what possible improvements could you make (even the best had scope to be better still!)

5: what tips/pointers/insights have you picked up from assessing this vid and applying the marking criteria?

You will find it worthwhile to look through their blogs too, an exercise we'll tackle shortly

Steady Shots (where appropriate) - Excellent. Overall excellent but let down by one or two shots where the tri-pod/camera has been nudged otherwise no faults at all. 1:20 is a perfect example of a steady ELS showing the whole band playing basketball together.

Framing a shot - Excellent. 3:16 great shot of the boy band all walking up over the bridge. Some very good framed shots of looking through the fence in the tennis courts, very good use of foreground out of focus and background in focus.

Shot Variety - Excellent. A large variety of different shot distances, ranging from ELS all the way to CU's. 3:15 is a very good shots of the band lip syncing and dancing on top of the bridge along with them in the tennis courts. Along with CU's of the characters to show their emotions showing lots of variety. 

Material appropriate to task - Excellent. The use of slow motion on the CU's of the two characters perfectly shows that the material is appropriate. 1:02 is a good example of them using slow motion when they look at each other.

Mise en scene (including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting) -Proficient. Great use of the Cow and Calf rocks within the video. Some shots get let down by having the shots lighting a bit too dark however it is only a small proportion of the shots. 1:46 is a good use of the scenery within the music video.

Editing so that meaning is appropriate to the viewer - Excellent. The video is very easy to follow as it uses black and white effects to signify that that footage is from the past which makes it easy to figure out which bits are past or present. 1:31 is an example of the slow motion also with multi layering used to show the two characters at once.

Shot transitions, captions, other effects - Proficient. 2:03 is a fantastic example! Lots of multi layering usage to show the two characters, along with use of Black and white effects and also fuzzy effects over the screen later in the video.

Overall for the music video I would award 34/40 marks which would be marked as Excellent.

To improve the music video I think they should have used more special effects from within FinalCut, they do use a few multi-layered shots but ultimatley they could be used a bit more. Overall I was really impressed with the video hence why I marked it high!

Here are links to the blogs of the people who created the music video:

Megan Claydon

Emmie Bryett

Here is the music video

RS - Editing the Practice Music Video!

Today Will Spivey and myself got put into the same group for editing the practice music video which we finished filming yesterday. We will be editing the footage on FinalCut Express as practice for our coursework which we will be starting in the next week or two. Learning from our mistakes of the filming process we hope to learn from the editing process too so that we don't make the same mistakes when we start our proper coursework.

Although today we didn't have time to start editing (because the footage needed to be uploaded to 5 Macs in the room and the footage takes 20 mins to upload to one alone!) we will begin editing next week and hopefully finish by Tuesday then we can get onto the finishing touches for our coursework pitches.

RS - Lessons learnt from the Practice Music video

For the practice Music video filming yesterday we did come up with several problems, they were that

When we began filming our very basic planning made us suffer and we were extremely unorganised. We did not have a clear leader and people did not know what they were doing most of the time and people were running around like headless chickens!. People did not bring their complete costumes (missing dresses etc or the whole costume) and we did not know what we were supposed to be filming as we did not create a proper call sheet or storyboards. Finally, no one checked if the tennis court nets were up...which they were not! We had to run around the whole school looking for a P.E teacher to get them up for us but by that time with everything else going wrong we decided to change the filming date and plan it all again.

We learnt from this problem and elected a leader to organise the whole group and tell the actors and cinematographers what they needed to be doing and when. We made a group on Facebook so that we could all contact each other at home and make sure no one forgot their costumes! (new media allowed us to do this). 


Todays filming was a great deal more successful and we filmed everything we needed to film. Learning from Tuesday's mess up we all pulled together and got the work done. Doing this practice music video was vital because if we messed up like that on the actual coursework it would be really bad and put the group behind, however with it being on the practice it didn't matter as much and we could learn from our mistakes!

RS - Practice Music Video

This week we have been planning our remake for the music video "Hello" by Martin Solveig. The class all voted for this music video to be created on Friday of last week and I have made a post about it here. So far we have just gone through what is going to be in the music video and we all decided it should be a remake of the video instead of a dance track. Everyone knows what they are doing in the music video due to the planning process and we all know what we need to bring for tomorrows filming period. We expect to finish filming all the tennis shots in first period tomorrow and then in break time we can film everyone coming into the tennis courts (because it will be break) and use that footage as people in the crowd. The filming should all be done tomorrow which leaves us the rest of the week including frees to edit and then work on our coursework pitches which will be this Friday, if not then early next week.We started planning on Monday and made a basic call sheet of what we were going to film the next day. We are planning to start filming tomorrow (Tuesday).
 

The roles we decided for the music video are:

Me: A Tennis Player (I will be wearing a wig and a Tutu!)

Sam Pollock: A Tennis Player

Will Spivey: A Ball Boy and Tom's love interest

Kyle Meeson: The Umpire  

Gina Maunsell: A Tennis Player
Jess Thorne: A Fan and the Director
Ben Hudson: The Cameraman and the Director

Melodie Abraham: A Fan, a Ball Girl and Choreographer
Harry Knight: A Tennis player

Ellie Fry: A Fan

Tom Wardman: A Ball Boy and the HE who is my love interest in the music video. Tom is also dressed as a girl.

RS - Class Practice Music Video

Last week we were told to prepare a pitch to be presented to the class on Friday. For this pitch we needed to think of a music video idea and present it to the class in 90 seconds. The aim is to have everyone feature in the music video and get everyone involved and create their own edits so we get familiar with FinalCut once again after the Summer Holidays.

Once everyone in the class had done their pitch everyone voted for their favourite music video idea. Our class went with Tom Wardman's idea for the track "Hello" by Martin Solveig. I pitched A-ha's "Take on Me" but did not get a high enough vote for us to create my idea.

For my idea I thought we could get everyone to be dancing with each other and lip syncing to the camera. There wasn't really a story behind it as it was just a performance based music video but it was not chosen.

Here is the whole list of the music videos our class pitched:

13A saw the following pitched:

• Tony Christie's Amarillo (Mel, also Harry)
• Wheatus' Teenage Dirtbag (Ben)
• Nickleback's Rock Star (Gina, also Will)
• Gorillaz' Kids With Guns (Kyle)
• Sum41's In Too Deep (SamP)
• A-ha's Take On Me (Rob)
• Village People's YMCA (Jess)
• Martin Solveig's Hello (Tom)

Tomorrow we start filming the music video for "Hello" in which we will be filming a tennis match similar to that of the original music video along with crowd members and a few of us dressed in wigs! We hope to film it all tomorrow and then to edit it by the end of the week and to hopefully pitch our main coursework ideas next week and possibly form into groups for the coursework.

Tom Wardman's choice (winner) Martin Solveig's "Hello" -

Here is my choice with A-ha's "Take on me" -

RS - Practice Music Video Pitch

For this task we had a short period to plan an idea for a music video. We could choose any music video from any genre and we then had to pitch our short idea to the class and had a class vote to decide on which pitch/idea was the most reasonable to film + would be the most beneficial for us to practice. I chose A-ha's "Take on Me" which I had recently deconstructed and so I thought I had a reasonable understanding of it. My basic idea was just a performance based music video which contained the whole class featuring in it either by lip syncing some of the lyrics or by dancing to the tune.

RS - Vodcast - Muse + Tyler The Creator

This week we got set the task of being put into pairs and looking at two different music videos from two different genres and discussing the different techniques and key codes and conventions that are used in each video. With them being different genres there was lots of differences but still they had similarities.

Tom Wardman and myself worked together for this task and Tom chose Tyler the Creator - Yonkers. I chose Muse - Knights of Cydonia. We had to choose a music video we had already deconstructed so we knew what the video was about and the key aspects, we just had to inform and show the other group member.

Here is my deconstuction of Muse - Knights of Cydonia

And here is Tom's deconstruction of Tyler the Creator - Yonkers