Skills development throughout the A2 year:

This year I found my skills in editing and camera work improved drastically, I found I often directed the group throughout the filming sessions and found myself taking an active role to ensure that filming went well, and that the shots we got were of high quality. My ability to think about mise en scene, shot types and consider lighting dramatically bettered through practice and also generally through taking the subject more seriously this year, as well as having far more enthusiasm for it. I found I contributed creatively to this project a lot more than I did last year, and came up with ideas which would represent our group the way we intended to. 
With the camera my skills improved well, I took framing in to careful consideration and also moved away from autofocus when we shot the rubber ducks being held close up, I found working with the camera more made it easier to use and by the end using it came naturally to all the group.
Whilst editing I think I improved my skills in Final Cut Pro dramatically, this year I used many editing techniques that I had not the year before, such as cutting from base tracks, speeding clips up, reversing clips and (although we did not include it in the film) I learnt how to split the screen to have multiple film shots on at once. 
I found this year was a lot about trying different things out, we lay out a simple basic version (a rough, rough cut), once we had finished most of the filming, really quickly. Once this was down we were able to edit in more and more clips and try out different things to edit the clips and just keep on exploring the features that Final Cut Pro had to offer, and by doing so we really managed to improve our film a lot and make the most out of the footage we had! 

Skills development during A2

This year I've had a much more hands on role with filming and editing. When we went out to film I would help arrange where the camera was going to film so it looked good when we uploaded it to the macs. I now know how to use the camera even better then I did. I can turn it on, set it up with the memory card in so it records to the right place and hit record and were ready to rumble. Last year I didn't do as much towards filming so this year I feel much more confident with the camera.

During the editing stages I came in to work by myself like all of our group did, so we all did contribute indiviually as well as in a group. When we'd finished filming and we were beginning to edit I made sure I was always watching how those in my group and teachers around me were using their experience to make their music video enjoyable yet different. I am proud of what I've learnt this year with filming and editing. It was a lot of fun and I am very happy with the final product.

During our final lesson to edit in...

All systems were go, we added, changed and added again until our video was actually jam packed with jump cuts, fun and colour!


We had to break up a lot of the base tracks towards the end of the film as due to the lack of clapping and fast paced music which was present in the first half we had shied away from sticking jump cuts ect in,
We decided to add a few more shots to the film which added to the amplification style we were going for, such as where the song says : 'wherever you go there'll be love, love, love' we added an outtake where I make Emily laugh on camera,

Emily Chuckling.

and part of the match cut where Aykut and I are walking down some stairs, to the 'floating garden',

Aykut and I

This was and especially good choice of ours as it meant we had more than just two short shots of us in that area so made the video's locations a little more consistant, 


we also thought it would break up the base track and keep the video from getting boring and repetitive. By making a few more changes like this and putting in more and more little snippets throughout the video we completely changed it from being boring at the end to having 'fun fun fun' all the way through...


Aykut and I also did a bit extra before the lesson which involved speeding up clips by 200 and even 400 % to make them look really fun. The clips were ones we had been disappointed with (due to the incredibly slow nature of the zip wire thing we were on!) and didn't think they'd work sped up, low and behold trying was actually the best thing we did with them as it really looked great (okay well really crazy, but thats the kind of thing we're looking for in our video) to have Aykut madly running alongside the moving camera, and quickly jumping out of the way as I was incoming on the zip wire...

Aykut running along like a mad man.

So, by the end of the lesson after Mary had watched our video approximately a billion times she agreed that we were indeed done! My group kindly let me tick us off of the 'finished' board and it was a great great moment :D ! 

Feed Back From Mary About Rough Cut

Mary really liked our music video and believed it was nice that a group was doing a happy and silly music video for a change. She really enjoyed the scene where me and Claire where sitting on the bunny status and it cut to us changing our positions to the beat, she said that worked very well. However she said that there needed to be more base cracks as well as them being close ups. Plus she thought it would be better if I had a separate change of clothing. So when we went filming for the final time, I made sure I changed outfits into something different but still kept it to our bands genre. The result in a Red and black checkered shirt shirt, black t-shirt, jeans and Black trainers.   

What our video has taken from other videos

As a continuation of my "Influential Music Video(s)" post, I have looked into what similarities there are between our influential videos and our final product. Below our video is shown and then the parts of other videos we have been influenced by.

How we converted our music video to mp4, using MPEG steamclip

Final Music Video!

Stop motion ducks

This week on tuesday we went out filming and while we were filming we decided to make a stop motion clip to put in the music video. Stop motion is several still images one after another which can make things seem like they're moving normally if you speed them up all in one sequence. Stop motion is quite easy to do, its just slow to make. On the camera we used to film we realised there was a "snap shot" button which is what we used to make the stop motion. We lined the ducks up and then every time we took a snap shot we would move the ducks on a bit. Eventually we had several still images of the ducks walking along so we got back to college and uploaded the photos to our video drive where we save all of our filmed work. We placed the photos together on final cut pro and now the stop motion is one of our favourites parts of the video because it is so unique, yet simple

Here are some example of people who have made stop motion videos on youtube

What we have done to improve our video

In light of the feedback we received from our teacher, we have changed and added many things. As a first we have gone out and filmed again and have shot more base tracks from different angles at the bandstand location. We have also added more fun scenes such as the short stop motion with the ducks, we decided to do a short stop motion as our teacher had said that the ducks were needed more in the video and we thought that a stop motion would be very fitting. We have also made sure to cut between base tracks so that the video is kept interesting and have also shot scenes where we have all 3 people singing and generally doing "fun" things. As a whole the feedback we received has been very helpful to us and it has been important to get another's perspective.

The ducks during the stop motion

Second to last day of editing!

Come in early to edit and upload ROUGH CUT 2!

We have made some slight improvements and changes from the first rough cut. We hope to be finished by the end of out lesson today. We still haven't added any effects but not sure we need any yet! 

Rough cut Feedback...

Loads of the feedback we got was really positive, such as great jump cuts, lovely shots and exciting creative ideas such as the use of good locations,
However understandably there were several criticisms given for our rough cut:


Advice: The rubber ducks we included at two points in the film (beginning and end) need to be spread throughout for some consistency and the remind the audience they are there 


What we did about it this week: Went to the band stand on Tuesday and tried out a little stop motion feature with the ducks, loads of people who watched our cut which included this stop motion said they really liked it! 


Advice: The Mise En Scene flicks in the last third to have a less urban kind of feeling about it. 
(I also felt the last third was really boring because we changed the pace to quite a slow one then)


What we did about it this week: shot more base tracks and tried to make them fun, ie: Emily and I sticking our heads out to shout lyrics whilst standing behind lead singer Aykut.


Advice: The match cut is out of place after the jump cuts...


What we did about it this week: We took the match cut out and started playing around with different bits of film there, I just had an idea to do some more jump cuts around there so that the piece of film used would not be rendered useless! 


Advice: We need more close ups and to mix up the base tracks throughout 


What we did about it this week: we have tons of base tracks they just seem to huddle together at the end of the song as the beat isn't so strong or lively, we have been working on spreading the base tracks throughout so the film is more rounded. 

Everyone who watches our videos goes all crazy about....

The duck stop motion bit! The first time we were filming at the band stand Emily bought along the ducks and in passing we were all like oo yea some stop motion of them going around could be cool, well we ended up doing it finally on Tuesday, I popped all the pictures on the time line and then had to zoom in like mad to cut them all to split seconds so that the ducks would wiggle about perfectly,
I absolutely love the stills of the ducks together because of the leaves in the background adding to the cuteness of it, the colours look so lovely together with the bright ducks and muted autumn leaves, the shadow of Aykut's hand is visible during it and even one of his fingers (for a split second) however we agreed that this simply adds to the cute and quirky nature of the video. 

Ducks, + Autumnal leaves.

All of us editing

Just got back from filming

Our group just got back from the final time we will be filming, this time we took lots of still shots which are already uploaded and i have created a GIF for. My group are uploading the film we took and putting in into the rest of the blog. The filming we did today is going to be towards the end of the video because currently all we have is Aykut singing, which is really boring compared to the first minute and a half of the video. I am really looking forward to our finished music video.

How I created GIF's

GIF's

Stills from last day of filming

Rough cut feedback

I showed lots of members of my family our rough cut music video and they gave me some response as to what's good about it and what could be better. The positives were that the first part of the video was visually very capturing, because a lot is going on in the park which is fun and relates to the music, the way we edited it to the music on the bunnies etc and having the film match what the song is talking about. Advice to make the music video better: maybe should have made it look like it was 5 years in time, so our video matched to songs title, make the end less boring by adding more footage instead of Aykut singing. Make the beginning when we all swap places playing the ukulele more accurate.

Being a extra singer

Seeing as I didn't feature much in the video I thought i'd make a tutorial about being a extra/back-up singer. I've found example of current videos where the backing singers help the lead singer by playing instruments, humming along and emphasizing sounds sometimes. Back up singers are usually just important as the main band member.

Noah and the whale - L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N
These photos represent how the back up singers are helping the lead singer. They might be in the same shot while singing to reinforce the vocals. Sometimes they will be on camera alone to show that there are others singing.

Mumford and Sons - Little Lion Man
In this video there are 3 men who sing along with the main singer. They way the men are displayed it seems like they are very well known because they are all shown so much. The main singer will always be shown more.

Rough cut feedback

We have received feedback from our teacher on our rough cut. The feedback she gave was that we did not have a variety of base tracks of the main singer singing. She suggested that we film some more singing from different locations and angles. She also thought that the one match cut used in the video did not fit since our song suits jump cuts better. The other suggestion was that we add more scenes of having fun etc to fill up the section where it is mostly lip syncing. She also suggested having more scenes with the ducks and she suggested that they could be used as the cover for our digipak. We will take this feedback and improve our video.

Feedback from rough cut

Yesterday we got feedback from Annabelle and Mary our teachers for AS media. They both really enjoyed watching our rough cut and thought it was very fun and exciting, the way we had put the clips we had filmed together. The first piece of advice we got was that we needed more base tracks because the one we filmed first at spitalfields first was good but Aykut wasn't too sure on the lyrics at that point so the lip sync wouldn't have worked. Then we filmed another base track from the front and side of Aykut singing but Mary said she didn't like the background as it looked like we were by a forest, although I thought it fit in with the video. So we still need another base track that we can put throughout the video. Mary also said we needed close-ups in the video which we didn't have.

The next advice we given was that if we were going to use the ducks then they should be a more main feature throughout the video, which shows some more consistency and then the audience isn't confused about why the ducks are in the video.

I thought the feedback we received was very positive and we still have much more to do because the last minute and a half of the video is basically Aykut singing which needs to be improved. The first half of the video is intriguing and exciting but the second half hardly has any footage in it. I cannot wait for the final product!!

The rough cut.

Minor Speed Bump

Whilst editing for our rough cut we realised that we dont have enough bass tracks and fillers for our film, while we were editing last week thursday, we took out the filming equipment and headed to the garden area in college for a couple more bass tracks. We were kinda lucky due to the greenery and sitting stones going with the theme of our music video.

The Difference In Filming Between AS and A2

Filming my thriller in AS was a more difficult task, due to the fact that it was our first time going out and filming. Though we had story boards and anamatics planing out what we where doing shot by shot. Once we actually began filming we forgot all about our anamatic and just filmed random things and other shots that we had not originally planned. Also I think because we didn't have any previous experience filming we were all self conscious which was partly why there wasnt any enthusiasm in any of our performances. We also didn't look back at any of our clips after shooting them before we went to edit, so mistakes like the camera shaking or too much space above a persons head had to be re shot whilst we were editing. 


However I found in A2 we have been using a more variety of shots and most importantly stuck to our plan. But we also shot additional shots that weren't part of our plan, but still fitted the theme of our music video. We also looked back at every shot after we shot a clip. To make sure we keep them separate form shots we were going to use when it came to the editing.      

Research for Album cover

Looking at album covers form Indie bands their album covers tend to be brightly coloured and tend to have abstract art. This could possibly resemble what the band stand for, not following the norms of the main stream music industry. How they have a colourful care free attitude towards life. There album art can resemble the hippy movements of the 1960's.

Difference in editing in AS and A2

I believe that my editing skills have developed quite abit from AS to A2. 

In AS i was learning where everything was and all the basic ins and outs of Final Cut Pro. I made the rookie mistake of not cutting clips down to bits were things actually took place. Which left my thriller clip looking not so thrilling.

In A2 after learning all the tools, effects and transitions Final Cut Pro has to offer I believe I have become more creative in editing clips. Marking out points in song were the beat changes and cutting clips down to match the beat. I have also learnt to cut out bits in the clip where nothing happens and just cut straight to the action.