Audience feedback on rough cut - Facebook

From this feedback I think it would be a good idea for us to shoot some extra footage that are more concept based to make the genre of the music video more obvious. I think by doing this it will make the ideas of the video more obvious to the audience also, making the video more interesting instead of the majority of it being made up by the girl in the music video. By doing this I also feel it will allow us to achieve the codes and conventions of the music video genre.

Rough Cut Feedback

After having shown our rough cut to our peers www have seen that our music video's genre is not as clear as we thought it would be, on the other hand the narrative theories that we chose - Levi Strauss and Vernalis are obvious to the audience. This is important because we want the audience to read it in the way we want the audience to read our music video, and interpret it in the way we want them to interpret it in.
Furthermore we have found that the editing aspects are the ones that people thought were the most creative aspects of the rough cut such as the slow motion, layering clips together, props were also something that the audience thought were creative such as the rose petals.
There are also things that we need to improve such as locations, and the framing of shots.

Rough cut 1

Technical Issues

While filming, we could encounter a plethora of technical issues.

Firstly, we could have issues with the cameras themselves. Battery life is always a worrying factor while filming and due to my previous experience while filming, it would be worthwhile to make sure we have a spare battery available to avoid losing any footage or wasting time.

We will also have to make sure the SD card in the camera is constantly free of enough storage allowing us to film in big chunks. Previously, we have run out of storage space while filming without realising, meaning we spent extra time filming scenes however they weren't being saved, meaning we had to reshoot said scenes. Also, due to us using multiple cameras at the same time to get different shots, we will have to be aware of both cameras running out of storage as well as battery space.

We are editing on the iMacs provided to us by the school, the program we're using is called Final Cut Pro. We will have to make sure we back up our work to make sure we don't encounter any problems while editing resulting in us losing our work.

Final Cut Pro is not the most reliable editing software. It is known to crash as well as not save your work. We will have to be aware of this and make sure that we constantly save our work as well as back up our files to negate any chance of this happening to us.

Case study of iconic directors

Nabil Elderkin is a professional photographer, film director and music video director. He is of both American and Iranian origins and he is now based in Los Angeles.
Nabil has done a plethora of music videos for extremely well renowned artists as well as young and upcoming ones. He has directed videos for Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, Frank Ocean, Artic monkeys, John Legend, Bruno Mars and many others. Nail turns down 90% of songs he receives. The main part of his huge success is that he only works on videos for songs he likes and if he thinks he's the right man for the job. This is a rare trait as this industry is extremely competitive and most videographers will grasp at any opportunity coming their way which leads to rushed, sub-par productions. This is why Nabil is head and shoulders above the competition.


Nail's style is one of a kind. He focuses on beautiful cinematic aesthetic and cinematography. As Nabil has experience directing feature length films, he usually prefers to direct music videos in a narrative structure. This can be seen in the Artic Monkeys song "Why'd you only call me when you're high?"  and John Legend's "All of me" Nabil also uses the concept of magical realism. This is where realism is intertwined with fantasy. This is showcased in "Why'd you only call me when you're high" Nearly every shot cuts back and forth between realism and fantasy without making much sense. This style is deliberate as he said this in an interview, "I don't like to be too definitive on what something means, I like to let people see their imagination"

Nabil has come an extremely long way in a short amount of time. Sensing an opportunity, he bought the domain "kanyewest.com" after a short while, representatives of Kanye came calling. He gave them an ultimatum, he would give them the domain if they gave him a chance to become his photographer. The rest is history, he has become an extremely well renowned videographer/photographer in the industry ever since.

Analysis of existing A2 music videos

Editing schedule

Timeglider of storyboard

Editing Schedules

Costume, hair, makeup, location and prop ideas using Pixlr

Props - We have chosen to use fairy lights and candles as we feel that they are very girly and would add a more feminine touch to the music video, also creating a visually pleasing affect to the video whilst being used as different lighting source. The roses we will use in the music video symbolize love, in our music video we want to get across the girl is or was in love and the red symbolizes the romance that the girl once had while the colour red also symbolises pain. The guitar will be used as in the music of the lyrics there is an acoustic guitar being played.

We have chosen 2 contrasting locations for the music video, the dark room to symbolise the pain and the suffering of the girl and how she isn't coming to terms with the changes in her life while the bright out door location, represents the hope and the realisation of the girl that she can more on and continue to live her lifer with out her boyfriend.

We have chosen quite casual clothing for the girl in the music video as she is young and in her late teenage years, the clothing represents what most young girls wear and through using this clothing it will allow the younger girls to connect with the music video on a more persona level.

Like the clothing, the hair and makeup will be very natural we want to achieve this look to show the youth and purity of the girl that is beneath the hard faced front she is showing to the world.

Peer feedback on test footage Part 2

Peer feedback on test footage

Animatic

Health snd Safety risks

In the current stage of our planning process, we don't have that many health and safety risks that cause serious concern. The potential risks are shown above, some more likely than others.

The main cause for concern would be that we are using candles, which if tipped over, could cause the curtain surrounding our actor to go up in flames. We will also be a fan to make small pieces of paper to fly around our actress which could potentially knock our candles over or catch fire themselves.

We will also be filming in quite remote locations so we need to make sure we take the proper safety measures in these areas as we have limited connection to call for help if something goes wrong.

We may also be filming in Guildford, which is a busy area meaning we need to make sure we are clear to film and be careful of our surroundings.

test footage

Work In Progress - Changes to Storyboard

Over the past week we have come up with a more solid concept of he video being based around the idea of how the main actress is feeling in the present, with some things triggering flashbacks such as pictures scattered around the room. The idea focuses around different concepts that relate to the lyrics in the song. We are hoping that by having the different concepts to focus sound it will take away the narrative aspect that www think could come through, within the music video. Hopefully by having lots of different concepts it will turn the music video into a more concept music video not narrative.

9 Frame Analysis of A-Level Projects

Editing Practice

Using the footage that we shot following the concept of the ribbon representing the love that was lost between a boy and a girl, we were given the task to recreate the editing style used in the A-Level Studies music video shown above.
In order to do so we used layering and colour isolation to put the emphasis on the pink ribbon. Furthermore I used a distortion effect to create a further sense of layering within the images, this works because it links with the effect of layering videos with different movements in them such as the dancing.

Filming - Work in progress

This is some of our rough footage. We did this so that we could get an idea of what would work in the music video and what we defiantly will not do. We were hoping to use some of this footage in the final video but due to the fact the camera is continuousy wobbling throughout we will not be using any of this footage. However, we will be taking some of the ideas from this footage and using the ideas and concepts. We liked the idea of having the focus of the camera changing, we also liked the locations of the river and where the girl was sitting by the river and under the bridge, but we also feel that if we were to use these shots they would need to be re filmed and with more interesting shots as at the moment they are dull and boring.

Work In Progress Filming

These are some pictures of behind the scenes, we were filming a shot from a high angle which emphasised the fact that she was vulnerable.

Our Record Label - RCM Records

We have decided to go with this logo because it gives a Brooklyn grunge feel, which links to the more laid back look which links to the song and the way we want to portray the artist.

This is an image of me and Charlie filming for the music video, we had Holly on the ground with a high angle shot to emphasise her vulnerability. This links to the idea that she is unable to move on and can not come to terms with what is going on around her. The camera was set up further away from Holly and zoomed in again to show her vulnerability through the use of tight framing.