Prelim Evaluation: Question 4

4. How do you think your workshop experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?
I think will impact greatly on our final coursework, from choosing actors, filming and editing. From the prelim we realised how important it is to choose the right people for the band/artist, as the lipsynching is so important. No matter how impressive a music video may look, ultimately if the lipsynching is bad, the whole thing will look bad.
As mentioned above, we learnt that there are many difficulties which come up along the way during shooting, so when doing our final coursework project, we will always give ourselves more time and be dedicated and prepared for whole 12 hour day shoots.
This workshop has also taught us about how many different shots and cuts are needed to create a choppy video, so next term when we choose a song and create a storyboard, we will also have to keep all this in mind. The fact that quite a few set ups are needed to create an effective music video will also help us when deciding what we want in our final video: it will limit our ideas as this workshop has shown us that effective music videos can be made just by keeping it simple, as just a few set ups is a lot of hard work.
But most importantly, I think that this workshop has really just shown us all how tiring the job is, and will make us all make sure to have a good nights sleep the night before (or just drink a lot of coffee in the morning!)

Prelim Evaluation: Question 3

3. Are you pleased with the footage and your edit? Is it how you expected it to look?

I am extremely pleased with the footage; the cameras we used were so high tech and the footage created was so sharp and high quality. It created a really proffessional look, especially with the lens flares, rivaling a 'JLS video' as many of our classmates had said on the shoot day.
I am also really pleased with our edit, as it matches the song and reflects the joyful excited mood very well. We stuck to the general order of the original 5ive video, but did not stick to the exact same cuts and shots as we had done previously in our re-edit task. Instead, we found the best parts from all our shots and cut it in a way that made sense and looked good. I particularly like the cutaways at the beginning of our video, the crowd shots, the confetti shots and the tracking shots of the band. All these shots looked really nice when placed into the video, and are very similar to the original music video too. My favourite part of our edit is the end, with the band walking off on the last beat of the song. We changed the ending from the original video, but I think this works really well; it shows our band to have a bit of attitude and shows it's the end of the song and video.
The colour grading was a tough job, but I think we did it to a good standard. We made the shots slightly blue and less yellow (the original shots were very orangey yellow due to the strong lighting) so that it still reflected the 5ive video - which is very blue - but didn't make it too cold so it could still show the happy, excited feel.
So although it is not exactly a remake of the 5ive video, I think we did a really good job and it totally exceeded all my expectations (especially because the cameras used created such beautiful shots!)

Prelim Evaluation: Question 2

2. What did you learn from participating in the workshop?
Apart from learning that dancing for 10 hours in three inch heels and opening party cannons can be a lot of hard tiring work, I gained a lot from the workshop. The first thing I learnt was that music video shoots are very long and tiring, and are usually 12 hour days. Our call sheet had originally said that our shoot would be from 8am till 6pm, but were warned that we may have to run over till 8pm due to difficulties and disruptions.

We found out very early on in the day that difficulties and disruptions were very common on shoots, for example we only started shooting our first shots an hour late, due to technical problems with the camera. Later on we also had a bad curtain encounter, but this was fixed later on the day. So from these two hiccups very early in the morning, we realised that shoots never completely go to plan, so it is always necessary to give extra time when planning a shoot schedule in case.

Secondly, I learnt a lot about the different types of equipment, and got a look at the high tech cameras and lighting used. It was really interesting and great to see how cameras could be connected to monitors, connected to a jib and placed onto a track. All the proffesionnal equipment used really gave me an outlook on how it is to be part of the media industry.

Finally, although I was acting for most of the day (as I was part of the band) I got to see all the different roles needed for a music video shoot. From cable bashers to stand ins, there are so many people needed to make a shoot successful, and each person plays a key role.

Prelim Evaluation: Question 1

1. Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?
The workshop day completely lived up to my expectations; it was so much fun, and what's better than singing and dancing along with some of your best friends? Being one of the band members - which was a delightful surprise as I thought the band members had to be male - was really great, and allowed me to act and have fun with the role. My favourite part of being in the band was when we were on stage, behind the curtains. We were all standing there behind the curtains getting ready for our performance, so we didn't even prepare for the other performances by the other members of our year. When the curtains drew open and we started singing the first few lines, I didn't realise that the rest of our year were going to get up and dance along too (all previous takes were just of the band). It felt amazing seeing that they were dancing and throwing their papers in the air just like the video: it was just as we had pictured it to be!

 

Another favourite part of the day was just looking at the cameras and the setting in the great hall - it was almost perfect. I loved seeing how our hall had been transformed into the 5ive hall, with the pulsing lights hanging on the stage. The cameras used were also incredible, so seeing how the footage looked on the monitors was not only an amazing but gratifying experience; especially when it made you look flawless and airbrushed! Even the still photography cameras we used behind the scenes were incredible, and it was a great experience to be allowed to use those too. I loved taking action shots of my classmates breakdancing and freestyling; not only because it looked like they were having such a fun time, but because I could also capture that enjoyment in beautiful high definition!

Prelim 5ive Video Remake

Task 3: Re-Editting the Music Video for Everybody Get Up

For the re-edit task we had to work with someone who we hadn't worked with before, so for this reason I worked with Sam. The task required us to look at the original music video and then using the different footage, edit the clips back together. The task was actually quite hard in some cases and much more time consuming that expected. This was because we would put the clips in and think they are right, but then later looking frame by frame, we would see quite a few clips were one or two frames out. This then meant that we had to shift and cut some clips by a few frames each time, which took a long time.

From this task we realised that editing is one of the main parts of making a music video, and the most important. There were actually only a few shots, but so many cuts, each shot lasting for only a few seconds.
That was the most important thing I learnt from this task I think; how there are so many cuts needed to make a choppy, fast paced music video to match a song.
From the video above we can see that the majority of the video comprises of the backwards tracking shot, where Abs is rapping straight into the camera. This shot is referred back to almost every other shot, as this shows the artists and creates an artist identity. As Jake Wynne told us before, a music video acts as an advert, advertising the artist and their music, so creating an artist identity is extremely important. This use of this shot multiple times also shows repetition, another key convention used in music videos.

Another thing I learnt from this task was the fact that all continuity rules used in film and tv and broken. Many of these shots are cut from a LS to a CU or a VLS to a MS. This editing would look strange and uneasy on the eye if it was in film, but looks and feels right for a music video, as this is a typical music video convention. This jumping in and out by the camera creates excitement, reflecting the song being played.

However, as we can see from the second chorus, this rule of jumping in and out is broken again, as all shots here are very similar. All the shots are VLS's, just changing slightly from different angles. Although jumpcuts should look strange, I think it works in this case. It shows the whole crowd in every shot, showing how everybody is 'getting up' and dancing, reflecting the lyrics and meaning of the song. So although it is a convention to cut from contrasting shots, I learnt that in some cases it is also fine to edit from similar shots.

Finally I learnt that it is useful to use cutaways in a music video, as in many music videos, there is a lot going on. Using cutaways does not only act as a break or pause from the main action, but also shows how other scenarios are also going on, adding extra layers and interest into a video.

Task 2: Group 2's Lipsync - Everybody Get Up

Reflecting on the task:
To practice our lipsyncing before our final workshop, we had to get into groups and do a practice lipsync of the song. For this task, I worked with Jess and Charley.
Being the type of person who naturally sings along and dances along to music, I thoroughly enjoyed this task, and am really happy with our outcome.
The task itself consisted of us learning the lyrics, performing the song, filming eachother and editing the song together. The hardest part of the task in my view was learning the lyrics and then performing them - it's quite hard to learn and rap a song - especially one originally sung by males!
The performance was really fun, but much more tiring than I thought it would be! Lipsinging is much easier and makes it easier to perform, but as we learnt from Jake Wynne, we had to properly sing out loud to make it look believable. This made the task much more exhausting, and we found ourselves taking a lot more breaks and breaths than we first thought we would!
I also really liked editing our footage together, and it showed me how music videos have to be cut: from long shots to close ups, from different angles all the time. I especially like the beginning of our video, with the two shots cross cutting in a quick, choppy style, to match the beat of the song and reflect a generic music video.
When viewing the final video altogether, it looks as though all three of our lipsyncing is actually pretty good and believable (despite the male voices). There are parts of the song which we may have messed up, e.g. where we forgot the lyrics, but that can definitely be improved on in the future. Plus, as Jake taught us that we should film the whole song from different set ups, it meant that if we got the lyrics wrong in one shot, we could easily get footage from another shot instead.

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Audition:
From this task I realised I really enjoy performing and lipsyncing the song, and I would like to be a girl who has a few dance routines. To be honest it doesn't really matter who I am cast as, as the video itself is mainly of the band members of Five and everyone is a part of the big dance number, but it would be nice if I could be someone such as 'the girl in black', as I can easily find some black clothes in my wardrobe!