Scouting For Girls Music Video: Post Production (Digital Technology)

The editing suite what I used to edit my music video was Adobe Premier Pro. I have used the program numerous of times for both Film and Media Studies so I already had basic knowledge of what the program entailed and how it worked. Some of the features I already had knowledge of were; how to link and unlink real backgrounds to the clips and dubbing the voices with the sounds or music that we want, how to upload and find the clips from the camera on the computer and how to shorten or speed up them up so that it fit in with our clips.

I found it useful to speed up the clips, using the razor tool to shorten the clips so that it ran smoothly throughout the video. However these tools I already knew of and had experience of them from Film Studies. By doing this second video I was able to fully explore the features that the program had to offer and discovered brand new effects such as blend, blur, TV credits, four colour gradient and strobe light. These I believe will provide my music video with a new edge that the others haven't and make it unique without going to overboard.

Overall I was surprised at the ease of using the tools on Adobe Premier Pro as I thought that it would take much longer than it did to edit all of our video, especially with all of the new effects that I discovered.

At the end of editing my music video I believe that the remake went well. The lip syncing matched the music lyrics and I believe that the newly discovered editing features on Adobe Premier Pro provided my music video with something extra, fitting in with the band's target market (young post materialists, hedonists) and I think that the video worked well with the Indie Pop genre which the band is.

Due to the fact that we filmed the scenes in one day I think that some of the scenes were a little rushed so some of the timings and voices didn't match slightly and therefore could be improved by spending more time on them, as I feel that they could have been better quality. During my A2 Media song choice I will take care in the scenes that we film and how long it will take. I also need to be more aware of the time keeping on shooting day and if all the shots need to be completed by the one day make sure the frames are of the highest quality.

Below is the final version of my Scouting For Girls 'Famous' remake;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Ip3prgvgM

Scouting For Girls Music Video: Production (Digital Technology)

I filmed the scenes for the music video on Tuesday 6th July, all of which took one full day to complete (or around about four hours in total). I tried to film the scene in chronological order so that once it came to uploading the scenes to the computer it would be easier to see the order in which the video should follow. By completing the filming in one day it left me ample time to edit the video, successfully lip synch the singing to the real music and use Adobe Premier Pro for the editing later on.

As mentioned earlier I am already familiar with the software (cameras, editing suites and social networking sites including Facebook and Youtube), having used them before in my Film Studies class so I already had some knowledge on how everything worked. However this time because we filmed all the scenes in one day I was able to spend more time on the editing and uploading of this music video so I was able to fully explore the range of features that the technology had to offer for example using video transitions including paintbrush and fold in and effects such as blend, replicate and four colour gradient.

As mention earlier social networking sites such as Facebook, Youtube and Blogger are important pieces of software that are used frequently during both AS and A2 Media Studies. By uploading our video to Facebook and Youtube we were able to get an unbiased opinion of the quality of our music video and by using blogger I was able to keep a detailed track of what is going on at any one time during the video making process.

Here is an example of the number of hits we have received on Youtube since we uploaded our video only three hours ago;




By completing this second music video I believe that my skills on Adobe Premier Pro have vastly improved. I have learnt to have more control over the clips that I use (e.g. by lengthening or shortening them as and when) whilst also being able to avoiding any unnecessary lip synching errors by using the same clips twice as an overlay. An example of this is 1.43 of the video on Youtube.

I also believe that I have further advanced my control over the effects of the editing suite including adding video transitions and more advanced effects including replicate, blend and four colour gradient. This I believe will be of great help over the next number of projects what I complete over the coming A2 year and will provide me with a number of new skills that I will able to utilise within my own music video project.

Scouting For Girls Music Video: Research and Planning

After completing our preliminary task of the Busted remake of their classic video 'That's What I Go To School For.' I decided to further improve my skills by completing a remake of the new Scouting For Girls song 'Famous', from their album Everybody Wants To Be On TV which was their second studio album and released on the 12th July 2010. After I completed basic background research on the band I found that they were an Indie Pop band and that many of their videos were simple storylines yet also effective. This appealed to their target audience of hedonists, post modernists and post materalists.



Below is the real video for the song 'Famous';

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0mQ0MvyP-c

The first thing that I had to complete was the casting. After much deliberation I decided to be the director and camerawoman whilst Jess and Holly would be the main singers and the assorted extras would be Lucy, Leah and John. The next step was to complete a storyboard of the scenes that I wished to be included in the video remake. This was important part of the process as it enabled me to see what sort of shots, cast, costumes etc. were needed at each part of the process whilst also allowing me to keep track of the song and it's timing so that I did not get lost throughout the filming.

An example of four of our storyboards is below;

The next step in the process was to make a shot list, similarly like the one detailed below with the Busted video. These detailed which shots (type, location, props, characters, costumes etc.) that I would be filming each day, allowing me to keep track of which shots needed to be filmed so that when it came to edit the video there were no continuity edits or missing footage like there was on the Busted video. This was a critical part of the process as it allowed me to keep a simple yet effective schedule to the filming, which was very helpful as I only had limited time and the number of people involved would have made it difficult to organise them all together without the shot list.

An example of my shot list is shown below;

With this part of the project I found that completing the storyboard was the most effective and useful. I believe that this was because I only needed one shooting script as I would only be filming during the one day whilst also because of some of the complex camera edits that would come later, I had to pay a closer attention to the storyboard and the timings to the music.

This I believe would be more like what I would be facing when I complete the music video for my A2 Media Coursework next year.

Digital Technology: Post Production (Busted Music Video)

Abode Premier Pro, the software that we used to edit our video, I found fairly easy to use. As I have mentioned earlier we use this program in Film Studies so I already had basic knowledge of the program including how to link and unlink real backgrounds to the clips and dubbing the voices with the sounds or music that we want. I also knew how to upload and find the clips from the camera on the computer and how to shorten or speed up them up so that it fit in with our clips.

I found it useful to speed up the clips and using the razor tool to shorten the clips so that it ran smoothly throughout the video. I was surprised at the ease of using the tools on Adobe Premier Pro as I thought that it would take much longer than it did to edit all of our video.

Screen Shot of Adobe Premier Pro;

I thought that overall our Busted music video went well. The lip syncing exercise went well and I believed that it matched with the music that we added after. I think that we could have improved our video by spending more time on the certain scenes as I feel that they could have been better quality and even longer as some seemed shorter than expected. I believe that we should have used the remaining extra time more wisely as some of the last scenes were slightly rushed considering the time that we had afterwards.

However overall I believe that our media task went well and I feel confident that I will be able to use the software and my time wisely to produce, film and direct a music video for my A2 Media coursework next year.

Below is the final version of our Busted opening scenes remake;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG3WNQVbSaY

Production: Digital Technology (Busted music video)

In total we filmed all of the shots in around three lessons or just under four hours. We tried to film the scene in chronological order so that once it came to uploading the scene to the computer it would be easier to see the order in which the video should follow. Therefore it left us with the next four lessons to edit the video and successfully lip synch the singing to the real music.

I had used the cameras, editing suites and social networking sites including Facebook and Youtube before in my Film Studies class so I already had some knowledge on how everything worked. However we were able to spend more time on the editing and uploading of this music video so I was able to explore the range of features that the technology had to offer for example speeding up one of the first scenes in our video so that it matched with the original.

The use of social networking sites such as Facebook, Youtube and Blogger similarly had their advantages. By uploading our video to Facebook and Youtube we were able to get an unbiased opinion of the quality of our music video and how well it matched with the original.

Here is an example of the comments of our peers and the number of hits we have received on Youtube since we uploaded our video on the 28th June.

During this production task I have learnt how to better prepare and organise a script and storyboard for the shoot and now realise just how much work will be involved in the final making, directing and editing of our full music video next year. I have developed my skills on Adobe Premier Pro and other such editing software and have also helped to improve on the creative aspect of planning and producing a music video, including what shots go where and how certain effects like high or skewed angles can be achieved.

During the A2 Media Studies coursework next year I will aim to further improve my skills behind the camera, working towards learning how to develop certain scenes and shots to provoke an emotive response from the audience. Similarly I would like to further develop my skills on editing software as will be imperative that I learn and familiarise my knowledge of the software ready for September so that our music video will run smoothly, professionally and effectively.

Busted Music Video - Research and Planning

After completing our Bon Jovi lip syncing exercise the whole class was then asked to work together to create our own version of the opening scenes of either Britney Spears - Oops I Did It Again or Busted - That's What I Go To School For. Our class choose to Busted - That's What I Go To School For with Millie offering to be the Director, Leah as her assistant and Sophie as the camera woman, filming the scenes.

For the first part of this task we spilt up into small groups of two or three and completed a storyboard (using screen grabs when necessary) of the opening scenes of the real Busted video.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2q0rt_busted-what-i-go-to-school-for_music

This was important part of the process as it enabled us to see what sort of scenes the original makers used and, as we were trying to produce our video as near to the original as possible, made our video more authentic.To further authenticate our video we made sure that we knew the exact timings the original video used; we noted this, the props, locations, costumes and characters used in each shot as well as screen grabbing some examples.

An example of four of our storyboards is below;

Next the same pairs or small groups made shot lists detailing which shots (type, location, props, characters, costumes etc.) that we will be filming each day. This allowed us to divide the shots that we needed to film to certain days, keeping us on time with shooting as we could always refer back to the shot list. This was a critical part of the process as it allowed us to keep a simple yet effective schedule to our filming as we only had limited time (each lesson either being an hour or an hour and 20 minutes long) and the number of people involved would have made it difficult to organise without the shot lists.

An example of our one of our shot lists is shown below;

The planning task that I found most useful was the shooting script. It helped us to keep track of what we needed to do at anyone time with just enough detail so that we could quickly scan read it and gather the information that we need e.g. if a cast member asked what props that they needed to bring on Wednesday we could quickly look on the shooting script to tell them the answer.

I would have liked to do more work on the storyboard as towards the end it seemed slightly rushed and some of our scenes for our Busted video suffered as a result e.g. at the very last scene Iuaen didn't walk forward and swing his arms towards the camera like in the real video. This therefore slightly devalued the authenticity of our video.

For A2 Media I would expect to complete a more detailed storyboard and shooting script as well as maybe further research into the band or artists themselves to see what style of music video would suit their music the best and in connection with that a more in-depth look into the location, props, actors and costumes etc. so that the style of our video matched the style of the song, its genre and its target audience.

A2 Media Introduction

For my A2 Media Studies coursework I will be asked to plan, shoot and edit a music video. To help me learn and develop the techniques needed for this project our first task was to learn how to lip synch to the words of a song, whilst dubbing the voice of the person singing with the song choice.

For this me, Sophie and Faye sung the first verse and chorus of the Bon Jovi song, Living On A Prayer whilst being recorded on camera. Once this was achieved we then had to both import and edit the film footage so that the timing of the singing would be in time and match that of the words in the song.

For this we used Adobe Premier Pro, a video editing software. By taking A2 Film Studies alongside A2 Media I already had basic knowledge of how the system works. Firstly we had to unlink our voices, (to do this we had to right click on the part of the sound that we didn't want and select unlink. We then had to click away from the sound before returning to it and pressing delete), before importing the Bon Jovi song Living On A Prayer onto the video.

After this we had to shorten the song so that we only had the first verse and chorus of the song and that it therefore matched in time with our singing.

By completing this process I improved my established skills of using Adobe Premier Pro and further learnt how to complete such process as unlinking our voices and being able to successfully match our lip syncing with the actual music. This will provide me with a starting point on which I can continue with hopefully improving on my skills in further music video projects.

The link below is of our final completed take on lip syncing to Bon Jovi's Living On A Prayer;

http://www.youtube.com/user/SophieGriff91#p/a/u/2/HjRxSRl1tJs