Post Production

Logging Sheet

Treatment

First Person View:
All of the party scenes, which will make up half of the video, will be filmed as if it it was through the eyes of a person walking around a party, looking and interacting with things, taking narcotics, going to the toilet and eventually getting beaten up. This should be engaging and interesting to our target audience. These shots will be all continuous although they will be broken up by performance shots. It will be filmed and made to look like a real house party.

The People At The Party:
The party scene will be interesting largely because of the people featuring in it. These people will be jumping around, headbanging and doing some surreal stuff such as dressing up as a banana and jumping down the stairs. They will be interacting with the camera as if he was a friend at a party, giving him drinks and partying with him. It will be filmed and editet to look very faced paced so it works in time with the music.

Performance:
The other half of this video will be shots of the band performing. These will be filmed with all the instruments and microphones in a small room. They will most likely be filmed from fixed positions although some movement might be added to the clips. The band will be jumping around, playing the song and really getting into it as if they were a real band, the band will also dress to fit the codes and conventions of the punk genre.

Synopsis

The music video we are creating will be about 3 minutes long. It will feature shots of a man walking round a party, looking at crowds and taking various narcotics and witnessing surreal things going on, this will be filmed in a house in colchester. The video will also feature shots of the band together performing the song in a small room, filmed at my house. These performance shots will have a video of a nuclear bomb detonating superimposed over the top of them. Throughout the video the things that man witnesses will get more and more surreal until at the end he is knocked out, he will then wake up next to a toilet, walk outside, look at the sky and the video will fade to white.

Pre-Production

Story Board's

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Shooting order.

Contact Information:

Production title: Big Stink Music Video
Shoot Date: 27th November
Crew: Jack Barrett-Evans
cast: Extra's, Friends, 'rent a mob'
Location: 42 Lisle Road, Colchester
Calltimes: 6:00pm - 11:00am
Equipment: camera

Production schedule:
time: 6:00pm
Scene: 1
Cast: rent-a-mob
Time:11:00am
Scene 14
Cast: rent-a-mob

Nearest emergency services:
Hospital: Colchester
police: colchester


Production title: Big stink Music Video
Crew: Jack Barrett-Evans, George Caley, Matthew Bulkeley
Cast: Jack Barrett-Evans, George Caley, Matthew Bulkeley
Location: 76 Swallow road, Ipswich
Contact: Jack Barrett-Evans (07507257183)
Calltimes: 4:00pm-7:00pm
Equipment: camera

Production schedule:
Time: 4:00pm
scene: 1
Cast: Band
Props: Instruments
Time: 7:00pm
Scene: 14
Cast: band
Props: Instruments

Emergency services: Ipswich Hospital - Ipswich Police.

Evaluation

Our task was to write and record our own song and then film an effective music video for that song, taking into regard the genre, audience and many other factors of the song.

During the making of our music video me, Matt and George, although working together and contributing to our work as a group, took on our own various responsibilities. For instance, the first thing we did production wise was film the house party scene. As I knew a place that we could use I took responsibility for the organisation of this scene. Confirming times of availability and inviting people to come along and take part in the video. As the only day we could film was the Friday and George and Matt both couldn’t make it that day I took responsibility for the filming and direction done that day, as well as taking responsibility for the camera that night and over the weekend. The week after we filmed the performance parts at my house, so I took responsibility for the set and the props we used during filming.

I think that my contribution to the project largely helped it become as good as it is. Without my contribution we possibly wouldn’t have had any of the party scenes and the performance scenes would have been different and possibly not as effective as they are. Without my contribution the song would have been different as well as I wrote the guitar tracks and some of the lyrics, as well as making the drum tracks on a program named beatcraft. I think that my organisational contribution could have been better, if I planned ahead I could have got even more people to turn up to the party, and those scenes would have looked even more effective.

I learnt many things during the production and the editing of this video. The first thing I learnt before filming was how effective correct lighting is. We had a workshop with the lights before filming started to demonstrate how light could dramatically change the mood and atmosphere of the piece as well as how it looks. I also learnt about various camera movements and how positioning the camera in certain ways can be very effective. During the filming I learnt about the capabilities of the camera and what it can and cannot do well, for instance in certain parts of the video it is a bit out of focus and this is because the focus was set on automatic, if the camera was on manual I could have made sure that these parts were in perfect focus, however after receiving feedback it turns out that these out of focus shots help to strengthen the illusion that we are looking through the eyes of a person, slightly out of it, walking around a house party. I learnt alot about the editing software whilst we were editing the video. As well as the basic stuff such as cutting the clip, overlapping and syncing sound and changing the speed of a clip, I learnt about colour correction, desaturation and overlapping two video to play over the top of each other. All of these were useful as we wanted the performance shots to be in black and white but we also didn’t want there to be too much of a change between the performance shots and the party shots, so we desaturated the clips but enough that some colour was still showing, and then used colour correction on the party clips to darken some of the parts that were too light. We also wanted clips of a nuclear bomb going off to be superimposed over the top of the performance shots. The program allowed us to do this by cutting the clips into place, decreasing the opacity and rendering it. This also gave a red tinge to the performance shots which made it look even more interesting.

I think the overall technical quality of my finished video is very good. The editing really makes the video fit in with the tempo and feel of the song, there are no blatant mistakes editing wise and I think the whole thing looks very professionally edited. I think the lighting on the video is good although if I was to re-film I would have made some of the outside and hallway shots alot lighter as they come across as very dark on the video. I would also change the focus setting. I think the camerawork on the video is done of a high quality and really gives the impression that you are watching through the eyes of someone. The camera work is also of a high quality on the performance scenes, with some interesting positioning, movements and lighting work.

I think the video successfully represent’s the genre and will appeal to the audience. The editing is very fast paced and frantic, as is the music and the usual sort of movement to this music is fast moshing and jumping around, the cinematography is rather rough, unprofessional out of focus, jumpy and harsh, which fits well with the punk music and lifestyle. Everything on screen also represents punk culture well, people jumping about and head banging, narcotics, and violence, as well as some abstract stuff such as a man in a banana suit, although the sound of the siren played over this and the way he moves makes the scene look like something out of a horror movie.

I think our original ideas, although not completely fulfilled, were actively portrayed in the finished product. Our original idea was for someone to be walking around a party, enter various rooms and see people appear and disappear and be replaced by the band performing the song. As neither George or Sam were available we couldn’t do this idea, so we filmed the party scenes as planned, with the boy walking around the house with loads of stuff going on, just without the band appearing in these rooms, we filmed the band parts separately at my house and edited them in. Even though this wasn’t our original intention I think it still worked well. We also planned on having alot more people in the house party scenes, I invited around 30 people but on the day only 6 turned up, which obviously was a disappointment, but I still think that the way filmed it made it look fairly full and it still looks as if alot is going on. If I was to re-film it I would plan ahead and invite people a long time before we film so they have enough time to arrange lifts and that sort of thing. I still think that the video stays true to the original story board minus a few details. I still think that the video appeals to our planned target audience and it still gives off the same message.

When we did a screening of our video to multiple people the feedback was largely positive. They thought that the first person view really engulfed you in the video and it really looked as if it was a house party, they found that they could really relate to this. They thought that the colour fits well in giving off a dark murky feel, and the colour during the performance bits was really effective, as is the image of the bomb super imposed over it. They thought that the editing looks professional and they thought that the pace and the style of the editing fits in and works well with the song and they also liked the way that the surreal banana stuff, not only gave a change of scene, separated up the fast part of the song with the slower part and didn’t make the change too drastic. The negative feedback we received mentioned that the band should be in the video from the moment that the vocals start, and that the ending shot of the man walking out of the building was too long as there was no music playing over it.

I think that when compared to other videos of the same style and genre it doesn’t look as professional or as well produced, but it still looks good and could easily pass as a video for an amateur or lesser known band.

Overall I think my video does a good job of portraying and appealing to the fans of the genre of our song, as well as being interesting enough for fans of other genres to watch it. I was happy with the way the filming and the editing went and I think that the final product is one very close to what we were aiming for.

One Day Lip-Sync Project

For this task I had to record and edit a video of me and 2 other people lip syncing along to a song. The purpose of this task was to make sure we could effectively film for our own music video, and that we knew how to use the editing software and could edit film and audio together in sync with each other.

We started off with a short brief, so that we knew exactly what it was that we had to do and how long we had to do it. We were then given our song; the song our group received was ‘Ice Ice Baby’ by the rapper Vanilla Ice. As we didn’t have the equipment needed to put the mp3 file straight onto a phone or an mp3 player we recorded it from a computer onto a mobile phone so we had a track to play along to. We then printed off the lyrics to the song from a website so we could learn the words and could mime along.

We then went about filming for our music video. As the song was a rap track we thought we should find a run down and urban area to start filming. We went behind an old abandoned ice cream factory located near the college. This area featured a lot of graffiti and run down looking buildings, we thought this image would work well and fit in with the song. We then decided who would mime along to each part. George decided to mime along to the first verse so we filmed his part first. We set the camera up on a tri-pod pointing towards a wall with graffiti on it and we then stood so George was standing closer to the camera with the phone hidden in his pocket, miming along to the track with me and matt standing behind him on either side dancing to the track. When the chorus kicked in we all stayed in the same positions but we all joined in and sang along. We then set up the camera so it was pointing at a different wall with graffiti and filmed Matts verse with me and George dancing behind him. We then set up the camera so it was looking at a rundown building with some broken windows and I stood in front and did my verse with George and Matt dancing behind me.

After returning to the college to charge up the camera’s battery we went to the nearby park to film some more. We all filmed our parts again near a bench, and again but walking around with the camera following us around. We filmed our parts multiple times to make sure that we had plenty of shots to choose from when it comes to editing them all together. We also filmed some bits together for the ‘ice ice baby’ part, and the ‘word to your mother’ part. We also filmed ourselves walking around the park so we had some footage to fill in the instrumental parts of the song.

We then returned to the college and uploaded our footage onto final cut pro and went about editing it. First of all we put the original mp3 of the vanilla ice song onto the sound timeline and then muted the sound of the footage we filmed. We then started editing the footage together. Adding the clips of us singing or dancing during certain parts of the song, then cutting the clip and moving it so the clip is in sync with the song. We decided to edit our own verses ourselves so we all had experience with the software and got equal editing time. We added various effects to different clips such as changing the speed of certain clips and changing the colour set up of different clips. Once we had finished the initial editing we re-watched it to make sure it was all the clips were in sync with the music track and after some final tweaking we had our finished product.
Here is our lip sync project -

Overall I am happy with how the filming and the editing went as we didn't run into any real problems and the entire process went pretty smoothly. I am also happy with how the video turned out and I think that we made a high quality video given the time we had to film and edit it.

Task 1 - Purpose Of Music Videos

Music videos are a form of advertisement, used to promote the song and the band featured within the video. These videos can feature the band themselves. These are known as ‘performance’ music videos. These usually feature the band playing along with the song. This can be in a live environment, a studio environment or somewhere usually related with the song being played or the band in question. Another type of music video is a ‘narrative’ video. These follow some sort of plot and storyline that usually relate to the lyrics in the song being played. The other sort of music video is a called a ‘concept’ video. These are usually completely unrelated to the song and are usually more imaginative and over the top than the other sort of videos.

Music videos roots can be traced back to the 1920's when sound films were first introduced and many short musical films were made. When bands such as The Beatles and The Monkees started to make films and tv shows featuring the bands music the idea of a musical video started to take a whole more promotional route. In 1965 The Beatles started to make promotional clips for there songs so they could be promoted without the band touring. Throughout the 60's and the 70's music videos grew in promotional significance and importance. The 70's saw an introduction to music television with various shows showing music videos and live performances. In the 80's the very first music tv channel, MTV, was launched and music videos became alot more commercial and mainstream, with artists such as Micheal Jackson releasing much more expensive and elaborate music videos such as the 'Thriller' video. As music videos got more popular as did the directors that were making them, with people like Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze getting alot more recognition. To the present day music videos have became more and more popular and now with the internet and sites such as you tube any music video can be watched on demand by anyone at anytime and they are seen now as a very effective form of promotion for a artist or a song.

If a music video is going to be really effective it has to be rememberable, when people watch it must stick out from the other music videos and stick in people’s minds. The videos that are the most effective at this are the ones that have some sort of bizarre or over the top theme or concept to it. These are videos such as Fatboy Slims ‘Weapon of Choice’ which features the actor Christopher Walken dancing and flying around to the song.

As music videos are adverts and used to promote bands and songs, a really good music video can make an average song sell a lot more copies and can even make an old song that has stopped selling so well to start selling well again. This is why film makers and artist alike are spending a lot more money and putting a lot more effort into making music videos now than they ever have.