Editing

In this lesson my group and I carried on editing the clips that already had been used. This is because although we had clips in our music video we had not yet used effects on many of them and since music videos use lots of effects we decided to put some effects on. One effect we decided to use was the colour corrector. This is because we wanted to juxtapose the music video constantly throughout the music video to break conventions of the Ska genre of black and white. We did this at the beginning by instantly changing from the black and white squares to the clips being played. However, this time, the lead singer of the band being portrayed would change colour as she sings. However, we did not want this as a clip on its own so we used super imposition to do this. We placed two different clips of the singer singing from different angles to create the illusion that a variety of clips had been used.

Editing

This time I edited in my free period by myself. I got a lot done as I focused on the second verse of the music video. I started by putting the first part of the verse into an order that I thought would suit the pace and lyrics of the music, which is essential to allow the music video to flow. I then carried on using some more effects on Final Cut such as the mirror effect. I used this for the line 'off the fight with next doors school'. This proved effective as the mirror effect on a clip of some one's shadow kicking, made it appear as if the shadow was fighting itself. This proved effective as it related to the lyrics at that moment in the music video, and was fairly humorous. This humour fitted with our original idea to make the music video humorous at moments.

Editing

When we edited this time on our music video, our work had been moved back off the local server and onto our classes server. Unfortunately, this lost the work that I did after school. However, this benefited me because it allowed me to play around with the effects more. This time when I used the flash effect on the same clip for the natural transition, I played around with the settings and made it so that the clip starts really bright, but then as the blinds opened, the colour of the light becomes a light blue. The light also took the shape similar to snowflakes. This made the natural transition look unnatural but made the sequence of shots appear more effective than what I had previously done.

Editing

After school had ended I stayed behind and continued editing for another hour. In this time I decided to edit the first verse as I wanted to see that verse completed before the end of the week. The first part was already finished and it was only the end that needed work. Therefore, I used a few shots and just put them in an order that I believed to create an effective chronological sequence that suited both the lyrics and the tone of the music. The only effect that I used from Final Cut was the flash effect. This is because it could then create aid the natural transition that was creating from the opening of the blind to the next shot. This natural transition proved effective and allowed the music video the flow through the entire of the first verse smoothly.

Editing

In this lesson my group and I continued editing our music videos. This time we worked on the second repeat of the chorus. This is because the chorus requires more work as we never had a definite idea for the chorus. For this chorus we decided to use the moment with the shadows. By this I mean we changed the scale of four different clips so that one clip would take up a quarter of the screen and the portions were intended to be equal. However, this alone appeared to be a boring shot, so we added to it by removing one clip in the upper right quadrant and altered the opacity of one clip to get an overlay of two clips in the upper right quadrant. This effect proved effective and made the chorus a better shot as it had more things going on in the shot, it included more interesting mise-en-scene.

Edting

After our return from the half term break, the computer problem that we have all been having was still not resolved as the computers continued to drop frames during playback of our music video. However, the media technician created a new idea for the computers to work without dropping the frames. His idea was to move all the music videos and the clips onto the local server. Doing this would allow the computers to run smoothly until the initial problem can be fixed. With the problem out of the way. Editing the music video can now continue with the understanding that the editing process will be easier with the computers in working condition.

Editing

Waited 2 hours for project to be transferred onto a desktop away from the server to allow for easy editing and to avoid constant problems appearing whilst editing our music videos.

Filming the instruments being played

My group and I stayed after school to film some shots of the band playing the instruments. This is because it is a common feature of music video to show the artists at work, and therefore is a vital component that needs to be included in our music video. some o the shots we did were close ups of the buttons pressed on the saxophone and of the chords being played on the guitar as ell as the guitar being strummed.

These were effective shots because close ups are often used in a music video because they are composed excellently as they remove unnecessary background from the shot. Therefore these shots would be great examples of how we have composed our shots efficiently for the music video.

We also filmed some long shots so that we could have Stacy playing both the guitar and saxophone at the same time. THis would be more difficult to edit using Final Cut as we would have to crop some of the shot, but it would make the music video have an edge of abnormality, that we have already created throughout the music video.

Uploading re-shoot in the recording studio

In this lesson we spent the whole time uploading the footage of our re-shoot into our music video. This is because we needed the footage soon so that we could continue editing our music video so that the work we had done was more substantial and so that we could begin experimenting with effects in our music video.

Re-shoot in the recording studio

We completed a re-shoot in the recording studio because the work we had prior to this in the recording studio had unsuitable shots as w could not see the lead singers face for the most part. This is not good for a music video because a music video is supposed to promote the music of he band as well as the band itself.If we can not see who their artists are then the audience for the music video have not been reached and the music video has not met its criteria to publicize the band.

We also felt that the singer could be animated more because the shots, despite more effective angles (high an low) and shot distances (close and long), were lacking excitement and flair. Therefore, whilst we filmed we had the lead singer dance more effectively as well as appearing as though she is enjoying singing the song. This was effective as it made these shot sin the music video appear more realist as t made the artist appear passionate about the music.

Filming: Chroma Key

We filmed a section that we wanted to include into our music video by filming someone running in front of a white wall so that I could Chroma Key out the white wall and have the person running through all the other clips at specific moments in the music video. We filmed this in a long shot so that the person running is small and can easily be used at the bottom of clips, rather than having to use Final Cut to resize the image and risk losing the ratio of the clip. We encountered difficulties such as not being able to see the whole of the body of the person that was running. However, we countered it by filming on a smaller room deciding that we could crop the sides of to show the plain white wall.

Third Edit

In our third edit of the music video we re-constructed what we had completed in the last lesson before saving it. Afetr this we did not get more done as we encountered further problems such as slow speed on the computers.

Second Edit

In this edit my group and I decided to edit the beginning again by keeping to the conventions of the Ska genre by using black and white checkered squares. We decided that this would be a good way to start the shot before they fade away to reveal the next shot. To do this we used super composition again. However, our efforts were in vain as the computer would not allow us to save our progress and our work that lesson became obsolete.

First Edit

In the first edit of our music video I began editing the first verse. I used super composition to show four bits of footage at the same time. I then made them appear at calculated moments in the video before disappearing in order to reveal the next shot. This was not only an interesting shot for the video, but also an interesting transition for the next shot.

Editing- Uploading

At this point we decided to upload all of our footage onto Final Cut so that we could see how much footage we had and how much more we needed.

Filming- 'Sits alone and bends his cane'

For this part of the music video we decided to film the actor playing the headteacher lounging around in a room eating sweets and breaking the conventions of what a headteacher would be expected to do in his office or when he is working. We decided that this would be a good idea as it breaks social conventions of headteachers as well as being juxtaposed to the lyrics of the song, creating more variety in the music video.

Filming- 'Naughty Boys in Nasty Schools'

We filmed the shots of the wheelie chairs again, but this time we had the required costumes for the shot and used them to film what needed to film. However, this time around we focused on using the fig rig more because we understood that the better shots were created using the fig rig. However, we did also use the other cameras because we knew that in a music video you need a variety of shot types and therefore filmed the events from different angles such as over the shoulder and high angle.

Filming- Practiced filming 'Naughty Boys in Nasty Schools'

At this point we did not have our costumes for this verse. However, instead of failing to utilise the time we had, we decided to practice filming for this verse. We decided that practicing filming on the wheelie chairs and using the fig rig along with other cameras would be an excellent opportunity to discover what angles and shot types would be suitable to use in our music video, in order to add variety to it. Some of the angles that worked were over the shoulder shots, but we found that the best shots that worked was when using the fig rig facing towards to person on the wheelie chair. We found that this showed the actual facial expressions of the actors as they went on the chair, rather than acted ones. This would give the music video an edge of reality.

Filming- 'Lunch time bell will ring again'

For this section of the verse for our music video, we filmed an extreme close up of Sherice's eye because she is the lead singer for our band. We decided to use an extreme close up of her eye because we wanted to show the eye looking towards a bell as it rings and we knew that an extreme close up would embellish her eye movement's making them easier to notice on camera when played at high speeds. However, we encountered difficultites with filming this as after importing onto Final Cut and viewing that particular clip, we realised that in the reflection of Sherice's eye, the camera could be seen filming her. Therefore we will have to reshoot the shot or discard it and use something else to fill in the time.

Filming- 'Sits alone and bends his cane'

In this verse of the song, we decided to film in Mr. Hume's office. This was our desired location because he has one of the more tidy offices along with shutter blinds, which we knew could be used to create interesting shadows. We used establishing shots of his office to reveal more about the character of the headteacher, without revealing his identity. In his office we placed four notices on his wall to create the impression of the headteacher that would create humour. The notices said things like, 'How to Cane?' and 'People to Cane'. These were also created to illustrate humour in our music video.

Filming-'Smashing up the woodwork tools'

When we filmed this section of the music video, we filmed in the latest construction room of the new building. For this part we decided that we were going to vary our shot types and ideas by using a mid shot to film. However, we felt that this was a tedious shot type on its own, so we developed the shot by filming the tool (hammer) using stop motion. We felt that this would be an intersting shot type as we could then have the hammer moving on its own.

Filming: Playground and Establishing Shot

When we decided to film this time, we filmed the part of the song where we had the ball bounce across the screen. This was challenging as it limited the shot types that we could produce. So we came up with the idea of the ball bouncing over the camera, but this itself created many problems, mainly of not being in the shot properly as well as having the person who is throwing the ball in shot as well.

At the end we filmed and establishing shot of the sign of the school as we intend of changing the words to another school name to make the video see more original. This would be done on the Mac computers.

Filming: Recording Studio

In the recording studio we continued to film, but this time we filmed the technical equipment and a few shots of Sheriece and Stacy singing. The main focus this time was to record the two of them singing so that we could use their voice as the lead singer and break conventions of the genre by having a female band member, who is the vocalist.

Filming: Recording Studio

We decided to begin filming our video in the recording studio. We had to ask for assistance from Mr Winters as we could not gain entry to the studio, but once we were in, we filmed Sheriece and Stacey singing from three different shots, as well as using a handheld camera to get a panning shot like there are in all music videos.

Other shots that we used where high angle shots, close-ups, long shots and over the shoulder shots. The reason we chose a variety of shots to film whilst the artists performed, was because it would mean when it came to editing we would have more shots to cut from and introduce a pace or tempo to the video that would suit the music.

The shot types that worked were the close-ups and high angle shots as they gave status and power to the singers, which is important in establishing a relationship between the audience and the artists. On the other hand, the over the shoulder shot did not work because we could not see the artists face during the recording and therefore did not help establish the relationship between the audience and artists.

Planning: Shooting Schedule

I created the shooting schedule where we planned to film on particular days based on hen people were free and that locations were available for use. Flexibility was the key issue to remember.

Shooting Schedule.doc‎ (42 KB‎)

Planning-Location Shots

I took some photos of locations where we could film the music video. This proved to be a helpful process as when it came to the shooting schedule we knew what we wanted to film and where due to the planning of what some locations would look like on camera with natural lighting.

Planning: Storyboarding

My group and I completely finished the storyboards after we finished the timing and edit for each frame. We finished the timing for each frame by listening to the song and reading what happened in each frame and using that to determine the length of each frame in comparison to the timing of the song.

Planning: Storyboarding

We carried on colouring and drawing before finsihing the storybaord. Once we had done that we continued to write the timing of the song and the edit for each frame.

Planning: Storyboarding

We carried on storyboarding but we only had to finish the drawings and colour in so we split the the work having two members colour the drawings that had been done, and the other two drawing for the frames that did not have any drawings.

Planning: Storyboarding

For one section of the storyboard where the chrous was, we had not come up with an idea for it. So we came up with the idea of filming the band playing in a recording studio as it is a typical convention for music videos. We also finished storyboadring all the frames ideas and shot types, along with most of the pictures for the frames and some colouring done.

Planning: Storyboarding

We carried on editing our storyboards passing the designated 50 frames. However, We had not finished all the frames as we still had to colour and finsih all the drawings for the storybaord. This was along with the edit and timing for all the frames.

Planning: Storyboarding

We continued storyboarding by writing and drawing the ideas we came up with. A new idea that we came up with was for part of the chorus. The idea was that there would be a jigsaw that was being out together by the lead singer, and once the puzzle was complete, the camera would then track in and create a transition to the image of the band that was created, showing the band from that moment playing live.

Planning: Storyboarding

We started storyboarding our ideas and found that during the intro, before the lyrcis begin, that we could show an establishing shot of the school to set the location for the music video. We also came up with the idea that since the the song was 2 tone Ska, we decided to contrast the black and white during the intro with the colours throughout the rest of the video.

Planning: Lyrics Annotation

For the last verse of the song we decided to create a collage of footage based on what the particular line said. However, the shots would come very quickly to match the tempo of the song much like Bordwell and Thomposn's theory (rythmic). For example for the line 'Playing football after dark would be short footage of some children playing football at night.

Planning: Lyrics Annotation

Having annotated the choruses of our song, we decided to annotate the second verse. We felt that this would be appropriate as we may be able to create ideas for the second verse that could come from a natural transition of an idea from earlier in the song. One of the ideas that we came up with for the second verse was for the line 'Sits alone and bends his cane'. The idea for this line was that the teacher would be filmed sitting in his chair facing the television. The camera would be positioned behind the televisions, before panning around to show an over the shoulder shot of the television. However, the screen would be blurred out and the camera would then track towards a tape next to the television that would say something similar to 'How to cane?'. this would reinforce the idea of humour in our music video.

Planning: Lyrics Annotation

We continued to annotate the lyrics for our music video and song, Baggy Trousers. This time we looked at the chorus of the song and decided that for the chorus we would show the band playing in different ways. This is because the chorus gave us no opportunity to use Goodwin's theory of illustration. Therefore, we decided on using the band as bands and songs are most famous for their choruses. One of the ideas we came up with, was to not actually use the band for one of the choruses. This is because we liked the idea of Ska being a strange and peculiar genre of music. Therefore we wanted to represent this in our video by having the instruments playing themselves.

Planning: Lyrics Annotation

I printed out the lyrics of the song Baggy Trousers so that my group and I could annotate the lyrics in order to create ideas for our music video, using the lyrics and Goodwin's theory of illustration as a foundation for our video. One of the ideas we came up with was for the first verse. This is because the line 'Naughty boys in nasty schools', gave us an oppurtunity to create humour, which Ska music videos use frequentley. Therefore, we came up with the idea of students in wheely chairs racing down the corridor of the school, before the headteacher joins in for the next line. We felt that this would be suitable because no headteacher would join in, in an event like that, which would create the humour.

Research and Planning the target audeince

The target audience we decided to chose came from the research into the genre and the song we were going to use. We decided that our target audience would be female teenagers aged 13-14. The reason for this was because having seen Ska music videos and bands, none of them consisted of all female members. Therefore, we knew that using an all female band would attract younger teenagers especially females, very similar to the pop genre. Having chose this genre we knew we would have to accommodate for this audience within the music video as well and decided that colour and humour would be the best tools.

Research: Image of a Ska Band

I researched the image of a Ska band so that my group and I had an idication of how to dress the actors in our music video along with the way they style their hair. From the research I knew the way Ska bands dressed and understood that there is not a concurrent fashion trend within the genre, meaning that each band have their own image or style.

This research also gave me a more solid understanding of the target audience for our band instead of a band for the genre. This is because each band has their own style which will also have their own target audeince, meaning our band will have to target a different audience in comparison to other Ska bands.

Research: Ska music videos analysis

In this table I have analysed three music vdeios from the Ska genre. In the analysis I looked at different things that the video contained to deduce what the conventions are of a Ska music video so that I could porduce, along with my group, a music video for Baggy Trousers that fits the Ska genre.

Research: Analysis of Ska music videos

This video is a music video that I analysed as research for my music video.

Planning: Permission

I emailed the record label Stiff Records in an attempt to gain permission to use the song baggy trousers in my music video. Here is the email sent

Research: Chosen Song

My group and I chose a song to create a music video for. We decided on the genre of Ska. This was because the questionnaires we had created showed us that the most popular genre in our group was Pop music and Indie music. Therefore we decided to go with a mix of the two, by choosing Ska music. This then led us to chose the Madness song of Baggy Trousers. We felt that this would a suitable song for a music video as we could follow Goodwin's theory of illustration. We also decided to break the conventions of the genre by using a lead female vocalist. This was done to make our video and band more unique and different.

Research: Music Video Analysis

This table shows the analysis of nine different music videos from three different genres of Rock, Indie and Metal. I did this to see what each genre of music contained in their music videos.

Research: Music Video Analysis

This is a music video that I analysed as part of my research for my music video.

Research: Music Video Analysis

This is a music video that I analysed as part of my research for my music video.

Research: Music Video Analysis

This is a music video by The Killers that I analysed as part of my research for my music video.

Research: Music Video Theories Applied

As part of the research for the music video we had to apply the music video theories we learnt about to a song by a particular artist. I was given a song by Jamiroquai to apply thes theoris to. My analysis is in the form of a powerpoint.