After seeing our video on the big screen at the Cambridge Picture House, we can finally call our video complete.
Unfortunately, our video had a few issues! The reversed sections were really stuttery, which of course, ruined that element of our video.
Secondly, the actual music sounded very flat and lifeless. This really damaged the mood of the video, and was especially strange as three other songs by the same artist sounded good.
Nevertheless, we received a strong applause and also, members of our group were complimented multiple times by people that had seen it.
We were told that we had good locations, such as when i was sitting by the lion.
There were some impressive shots as well, such the zoom in when Scott was on top of the car park.
Most of our video involved lip syncing and the feedback said that our lip syncing was solid.
At the end of the video you see me (Matt) strum the last chord on the guitar and then walk past. The camera then slides past and the screen goes to white. We were told that this was a good way to end the video and it was liked by everyone.
The song is fairly fast paced and we edited the video to go with the pace of the song. Towards the end of the song we increased the pace of the editing. The feedback said that this was really good and fits well with the video.
Our constructive criticism was that Scott was a little bit random in the video. Some people could not understand why he was included in the video. Perhaps if we hadn't had shots of us singing together it would have been more understood.
Overall we are happy with the feedback we have received because it was mainly positive.
After watching the final edits of each group in our class, we have seen a few techniques we could have applied in our own work. The majority of effects that were different to the ones we used were spooky and eerie effects. Thus we would not use them. Still, a few videos did manage to incorporate effects we either did not have enough time or footage to implement appropriately.
The main effects we would like to have been able to utilise are:
Slowmotion - As seen in group 47's video for 'Texas'
Breaking things - As seen in group 48's video for 'Lewis Parker'
Also, we feel we could have used some more striking motion effects to better create a dynamic visual assembley of colour and shape, which could better grab an audiences interest
Here is our final project file, with our entire timeline in view. We used nine video tracks in total, and two for audio (Left channel and Right channel).
We ensured we colour corrected every single clip to allow for the effective and attention grabbing effect we detailed in our original plans.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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
This video is going to be a strong influence on our own. Through watching this we have anchored the idea to use lots of motion in our camerawork. We will also use slowmotion and lots of cuts and shots, almost at random to best tell our story and make our visual stimulus the strongest it can be.
Jason 's Myspace is mostly cream in colour, featuring a minimalist aestetic and simple design. The page shows drawing and a 'sketchbook' feel which fits well with Mraz's acoustic sound.
Mraz has a large number of tour dates up, along with a sizeable number of page views. This shows that he is a popular artist. The myspace layout compliments this by being easy to use and simple to find information you might be looking for. Jason also has a music video of his on his myspace, which we will analyise to further develop our own ideas.
Scott has used a video as a potential example of how we would like to edit and pace our own video. This video is his friend Teg's latest Parkour video, the parts in question in paticular are the opening and first song in general.
This is the Bridge Of Sighs in Cambridge. we think that its archaic architecture and rustic quality would make it a good setting for parts of the video, possibly with whoever will be miming on the bridge, but shot away from the bridge.
This is the exterior of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Similiarly, this has a very natural, relaxed feel yet has a modern quality. We feel that this will make for a good contrast to the bridge.
This is the whale skeleton at the Zoology museum. This setting will look visually very different from the others, completely differing from the bright, vibrant settings of the other two.
Bridge Of Sighs - St. John's College
Fitzwilliam Museum Trumpington St Cambridge, CB2 1RB
We have now uploaded our animatic for the first minute of our video "On love, In sadness" by Jason Mraz.
We then analysed 'Wonderwall' by Oasis to see how many cuts and shots are in a professional final music video. In the Oasis video in the first 55 seconds (the same length as our anamatic).
16 individual shots 26 cuts
When we first watched our animatic back we realised it doesn't look like a proper music video. It doesn't seem as if there is enough happening but now we have done some research we have found that all we have to do is add more cuts and a few more shots.
Our original anamatic had 10 shots and 10 cuts, no reusing any shots.
To rectify this we have re-edited our anamatic with a few more visual effects and repeated shots, just like how in our video we will be re-using angles in different parts of the song, just like a professional video would.
To film this we may record the ENTIRE song for a majority of our shots, so we have complete freedom for editing, this may cause problems; however, as we may have TOO much and difficulty editing to a concise and concentrated piece.
Here is our revised anamatic.
Shots 10 Cuts 14
While 4 extra cuts may not seem like a lot, the pacing of the anamatic is remarkably better and the production feels much higher quality.
Now we have re-edited and with the use of motion and more cuts and repeated shots we have made a more dynamic anamatic which can better reflect what we wish to accomplish with our final piece.
Slowmotion: After undertaking our water droplet test, we deliberated and analysed what we could plausible do with the cameras. Unfortunately, our cameras cannot shoot fast enough to capture the slowmotion footage in a format that would be suitable for us, thus we are forced to abandon this idea. We still hope to utilise similiar principles yet without such striking time effects.
Reverse: We also planned to use a thematic from the Pharcydes 'Drop' video, in which the song is learnt and the video recorded backwards, then when the footage is reversed, the artists appear to be singing in normal time, with the rest of the world in reverse. We reversed the song yet found it to be too warbled to attempt to learn in reverse, so instead we will use the idea and peform reversed shots, just without lip synching. We can then use these shots either in instrumental parts of the song, or over lyrics and then simply have only certian shots with lip sync, as it is not mandatory to lip sync every shot.
