Rough Cut & Feedback

Positives:
-The walking backwards/reversed shots looked really good.
-Lip syncing is very good and some nice camera angles.
-Lighting was good and good ideas (especially the cat)
-Good settings and extras
-Transition to shot of Scott on roof from Matt in corridor looks professional

Areas for improvement:
-Vary the shots
-Shaky camera looks bad even if the tilt was intentional, perhaps a cut to the tilt would look more professional.
-Timing is out on some shots.
-Matt stops strumming while the guitar is still playing in the song.
-When Matt is in the window the light is behind so, Matt looks dark.
-Cant see the lip syncing in some of the window shots.
-Camera tilt looks unprofessional.
-Possibly use camera effects.
-Go back to the original idea of having some of the singing sped up then slowed down to make it seem slow.

Editing - Part One - BAM!

During our editing we have decided that we probably have enough footage and will not need to film anymore. We have had a small problem with our editing, whenever we moved ANYTHING we had to render the whole video, start to finish. this gets annoying because we want to watch the video through every now and again. It takes about 10 mins to render the video each time =@.

We have decided not to use any slow motion shots because we are not sure if it will fit with the video and we also believe that we have enough suitable footage already.

Thus, we are abandoning our roughcut plan to use slowmotion while still lipsynched, and instead will be using footage that is only at normal speed.

While we have been editing we have tried to have lots of cuts in the video. Because the song is so upbeat, we have decided to mirror this and use many cuts and shot changes, along with zooms, to allow the pacing to fit the music.

Jason Who?

Jason Mraz

So he was born on June 23 1977, he was raised in Mechanicsville, Virginia.
He released his first album in July 2004 titled "Waiting for my rocket to come"
On July 26th 2005 he released his second album titled "Mr A-Z"
In November 2005 he opened for The Rolling Stones on 5 occasions.
Mraz's single "I'm Yours" has been #1 on AAA radio charts in the US for 3 weeks as of 6/15/08.

Studio albums

* Waiting for My Rocket to Come (2002) #55 U.S. (Platinum)
* Mr. A-Z (2005) #5 U.S.
* We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.[11] (2008) #3 U.S. #110 UK

Awards and nominations
Year Award Result
2002 San Diego Music Awards - Best Acoustic Win
2003 San Diego Music Awards - Artist of the Year Win
2003 San Diego Music Awards - Song of the Year Win
2005 Grammy Award - Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for Mr. A-Z Nominated

Jason is a 'raw foodist' which means that he eats all his food raw and does not eat anything which has been cooked or processed. [10].

Jason currently lives in San Diego, CA, with his cat Holmes.

Myspace/Facebook

We previously sent Jason Mraz a message on both Myspace and Facebook and have still not had a reply.
It would have been really helpful to get a comment back from him so we could have some ideas on what he wanted the video to look like.
Nevertheless, we will link Mraz our final video.

Shooting =)

We have now finished shooting for our video.

We had a rather eventful time whilst we were filming. The first event happened when we were setting up for our first shot of the video, we were on limekiln hill and had the camera in the back of my car (so it wouldn't get wet). Then out of nowhere we heard a voice saying hello, both Scott and i turned around to see a police officer standing at the side of my car. "What are you doing then lads" he asked, so we explained to him that we were simply filming for our A2 media music video project. He said " Well that seems like an honest answer seeing as you have a camera in the car". He then went on to explain that there has been a history of drug misuse in the layby where we had parked. We told him he had nothing to worry because we had nothing of the sort on the car, at which point he left us to carry on filming.
The second, more traumatic event happened on the second day of filming. Scott and i decided we would film in Cambridge, it had been pouring with rain all day so i had to drive with my lights on, this weather was perfect for the video but not so great because nobody wants a wet camera. We therefore decided that the best place to park would be in the grand arcade car park. So we parked, took the equipment out of the car and went into town. 3 hours later we came back to the car, happy with how filming had gone. I put the key on the drivers side door and went to unlock the car, my door unlocked but none of the others did. We thought nothing of it so, we loaded up the car. I put the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing. The car wasn't starting. I glanced at the switch for the headlights, it was in the on position. I had left the headlights on for the past 3 hours and guess who had a flat battery. ME! What do we do now? we tried to push start the car but because there was a slight incline in the car park i we couldnt get the car moving fast enough to get it started. Luckily the nicest man in the world drove past and had jump leads. What a hero.

So overall our filming went really well but, there where some eventful moments!

Editing Ideas

Editing in the music video is almost as essential as the shooting. Unlike normal film-making, editing is what creates the rhythm and feel. Accents in the music need to be represented visually, with sharp cuts and eye catching images. Choosing what to place where is what helps gives the video a personality parallel to the music.

In this video, the song begins with just a low beat. In the video the editing is very slow and steady, showing the setting and the people. When the song begins to pick up and intensify, the video starts editing very quickly in between the setting. Toward the end of the song, there is a low quiet breakdown in which the motion in editing becomes a lot slower, making the returning chorus a lot more effective.


These video focus a lot more on the performance aspect of the video. The first video is rhythmically very odd, and usually one shot will be reveresed and played forward in rapid succession to create the unease of the music. When the rhythm becomes more straight-forward, the editing stays with just one shot and becomes steadier. Toward the end, the huge distorted wall of bass comes in. This is where juxtaposition of a slow motion shot helps to create an odd contrast in the song.



This video has simply one setting and a number of performers. The simplicity of the video is really what gives it its charm, and the rhythm in the performance is what emphasizes the song.


This helps us to understand that performance in the video can be just as important as the editing.

Editing, however, is going to be a big part of making our video. As we have had a very accelarated shooting schedule, it is difficult to focus on any smaller aspects of performance. I imagine shooting will be simply performing the song in one whole take at each time, which means that cutting these together will be key to creating the best video possible.

Costume - Matt

Locations Part II

This is a picture of some punts in Cambridge.
For one of our shots we were thinking it would look good to have me playing the guitar while standing in one of these.






















This is a picture of the windmill in Fulbourn. In one of our shots i will be standing in this field singing the song. We think this is a good location because it fits in with the song.

This is a picture of the lion statues outside the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge. For one of our shots i will be sitting on the lion to the left. I will be playing my guitar and singing the song.

Message To Jason Mraz

Click to enlarge

We have messaged Jason on Myspace about our video. Hopefully he will reply and if not, we will message him on Facebook or email his 'People'.

Feedback on Blog

Overall our feedback was largely positive. We were given a 21 out of 30 for our 'overall assesment'. The main points re-enforced our current targets with our blog, and have motivated us to add more posts and resarch we have done.

The main points were:

Location shots
More Posts
Conventions
Shotlist

We will now attack these and will have completed our research and planning phase before the rough cut deadline.

Aims for the blog

After gathering feedback from the other groups regarding the quality of our blog, we have come up with 3 targets as a means to improve our blog.

1. We intend to include more technical detail. Much of the feedback talked about the lack of emphasis on the technical design of our project, as in not including enough shots in our planning, or how we were going to achieve the motion effects. In the production and post production process, we shall hopefully discuss these more emphatically.

2. We will make the visual element of the video clearer to see. What we have missed from much of the blog is talk of props, costumes, locations in favour of examining other music video and Jason Mraz websites. Hopefully, it should read by the end of the project as instructions on how to make the video exactly the same.

3. We will keep a continuity to our posts. There is an element of drifting from focus in the blog. For example, a post about locations could be followed by a post about our visual influences. If more frequent, concise posts focusing on our progress are published, then we should paint a better picture of how the video will be.

Props

In our sequence we will require few, if any props. Hopefully the locations that we choose to shoot at will create much of the visual feel for us. We will, however, need some props to help propel the mood of the song, and obviously give something for the star of the video to interact with. We have some concepts and ideas we may wish to use in our final piece.

Props-

-Camera
-Umbrella (If it raining, this will help us to get the watery/light effect we desire but we obviously do not want the camera to get wet, so this essential)
-Guitar (Potentially important to represent the musical elements of the song visually.One shot we were hoping to get was a slow motion shot of a guitar being smashed, but this type of shot would only be achievable out of the luck of finding a guitar which we can use, as they can be very expensive.)

Most of the aesthetic should come from the more organic elements of the surroundings. As long as we shoot plenty of footage which may simply show the surroundings and the environment, the trick of getting the video right will be in the editing