Music Video
Skills Audit
Demo Work
Demo Work
Demo Work
Contents
Demo Work
Contents
> Theoretical exploration of the purpose
and application of research
> Secondary research into
music video genres, codes, conventions,
techniques, and theories
> Primary research with the
client to inform ideas development
> Focus group presentation of ideas for
feedback and review via questionnaire
survey
Moving Demo
Specific Journal Requirements
Evaluate and compare the range of the research tools, methods, and skills you have used (Unit 02 LO1 1.1)
I feel my research was quite thorough. I started by doing research on research itself. Discovering the different ways of research, such as secondary, primary, quantitative and qualitative. This allowed me the knowledge to know how to execute my own research accurately and thoroughly. I additionally researched into the research skills and tools that I could use when conducting my own research.
When it came to my own research I used several different tools. These included; surveys and sources of information. The skills I used incorporated; seeing the value in research; timekeeping and gathering and presenting data.
All this research was incredibly useful, and lots of the skills and tools that I used culminated into my group's final Research Presentation.
If I was to do my research again, I think I would try to use more in person skills and tools, such as interviews. I feel this would improve the styles of answers I received, and would help me to better fully understand the people we would be questioning.
Evaluate and compare the importance of the primary and secondary research sources you have used to inform your ideas (Unit 02 LO2 2.1)
When conducting my secondary research, I used a range of sources that allowed me to get a vast understanding of the research I was looking into. The vast amount of sources also allowed me to be exposed to lots of different possibilities or routes I could take. Additionally, finding examples for the research I had discovered allowed me to better visualize what I was researching.
When going through our primary research, we decided to use a survey as the easiest way to gather primary data. We drafted two different surveys, one for our band and one for students. We then held a practice pitch for the students and gathered the data using the survey afterwards. Unfortunately, after this happened, the band dropped out. This meant we were unable to gather any primary data from them. Luckily, we already had the data from the students, but losing the band was a big hit and hindered our primary research a little bit.
If we were to go through this research again, I would’ve liked to get more primary research, preparing just in case we lost the band and gathering more student data would’ve helped to improve our primary research. I was generally quite happy with my secondary research, but if I was to do it again, I would get more examples of my research, so that my understanding could be even more thorough.
Evaluate the effectiveness of design and research tool methods and skills you used to develop ideas for your production (Unit 02 LO3 3.2)
The first skills I used for designing my part of the music video was creating a mind map and mood board. These allowed me to get a rough idea of the visuals and style of the piece that I wanted to create. It also helped me to get a rough sense of potential effects and cinematography skills that I may have wanted to use.
Creating the shooting script and storyboard really helped me to properly visualise what I wanted to do. These were probably the most helpful and effective tools that I used in my design planning. I had been designated the part of the music video in which almost half of it was entirely instrumental. This made planning and design really tough as planning a performative section with no lyrics made it really difficult to come up with ideas. But by listening to the song countless times, and planning my shooting script and storyboards, while listening to the music really gave me a more solid grip on the direction I wanted to go down.
Overall, all the tools I used to fuel my development of my ideas were incredibly useful. If I were to do this project again, I would make sure to listen to the music more times while doing my mind map and mood board. It wasn’t till after creating them, that I properly used the music to its full potential. However, I still believe the mind map and mood board were successful in fuelling my ideas.
Evaluate how you have applied your knowledge of working practices to support your creative media development (Unit 03 LO2 2.2)
There were several working practices which I used in my production of music video. At the end of my self portrait project, there were several things that I wanted to improve that I feel I have successfully done in this project.
One of these was to make my shots more visually interesting. This was also essential in the music video, as keeping up the energy is incredibly important. To do this, I made use of a slider. For a vast amount of my shots, I would shoot them while moving the camera from one end to the other of the slider. This allowed ordinary shots to become moving shots, which increased the visually interesting aspect of the shots. This was a large improvement from my self portrait, where almost all of my shots were static.
Using lighting was also a brand new working practice that I used in this project. In my self portrait project, I was entirely reliant on natural lighting. However, with all my shots this time being taken in the studio, lighting was important. With my audience and close up instrument shots, I incorporated the knowledge of three point lighting, that I had learnt from a demo work project. This allowed, especially on the instruments, for there to be a dramatic sense in the shots. The lights reflected really well off the instruments. Unfortunately, in one of my audience shots, one of the lights had turned off, without me realising. Luckily, I had plenty of other shots to recover for this. But if I had more time, or was doing it again, I would be sure to be more alert to small problems like these, especially when I’m the main person on set.
Another work practice that I used after learning it from a demo work project was the use of green screen. Our original location fell through, which meant that the shots with the band as a whole in would be quite hard to achieve. To solve this problem, I decided to use a green screen. While shooting, I used the regular lights of the studio so that the lighting would be consistent between shots. I also made sure to keep the camera in the same place so that the framing of each individual member would keep consistent.
Overall, I feel this project has introduced me and allowed me to improve in lots of new working practices. I feel I now have a good understanding of many of them and can take them further in future projects.
Evaluate how you organised yourself to work to meet deadlines and targets (Unit 03 LO3 3.1)
Overall, I feel I am quite an organised person. I took a particular approach to organising myself for deadlines and targets in this project.
The first thing I did was input all the deadlines into my phone's calendar. This allowed me to know which pieces of work to be done and by when. As well as reminding me of deadlines a couple of days earlier, in case I had forgotten.
Additionally, for each individual piece of work that I had to do, I had a different technique. I printed out the project brief, and each time I completed a piece of work, or passed a deadline, I would highlight that piece of the brief in pink highlighter. This allowed me to see which pieces of work I had done, and what I had left to do. This was a great help near the end of the project where I was checking if I had completed everything. Instead of having to go searching for each individual piece of work, I could just check my printed project brief and see what wasn’t highlighted. I feel this helped me to keep on track with the schedule as well as saved me time, not having to worry about what I had or hadn’t done.
Thanks to this system, I was able to meet all my deadlines and targets. The only proper target I didn’t achieve was the production deadline where I went a day over. This was due to the schedules of my actors and location, only being available on that specific day. However, I cleared this delay with my lecturers over a week in advance, so the slight delay did not affect or slow my progress down in any way.
Evaluate how you demonstrated consideration and professionalism when working with others (Unit 03 LO3 3.2)
At the beginning, we were working with a band. This allowed us to demonstrate consideration and proper professionalism, as we were working with an actual client. Unfortunately though, the band dropped out. Although, we handled this professionally and thanked them for their time and wished them well. In some ways, losing the band helped us to understand how working with others in the real world can be.
So instead, when it came to production and working with our actors, they were not a band but simply people that I felt had the right aesthetic for the music video. Due to them also being students, it meant at times, our two timetables would clash, making them unavailable for filming. This was something that I had to work through with them, but after speaking with one of them, we were able to find two days in which we would both be available to film. This was a great thing to do and made planning and shooting a lot easier.
During production, I was in charge of the studio, which meant I had to make sure my actors weren’t doing anything dangerous. This was not too hard to do as I had picked people, who I knew were pretty sensible and wouldn’t get into trouble. They also knew that the work was for a project, so the mutual respect we had for each other allowed the shooting to run smoothly.
Additionally, to acquire the musical instruments I needed in order to shoot my music video, I had to reach out to the college's music lecturer and request to borrow the equipment. I was able to do this effectively, and between me and Charlie, we were able to co-ordinate times where the instruments would be available for me to shoot with. It was great working with Charlie as he treated me as if I was a proper practitioner and not simply a student. Thanks to him I was able to get more realistic shots and I know if I ever needed instruments again, I could always go to him for help.
Overall, I feel I worked well with others and this can be reflected by the work I’ve produced. However, If I was to go over this project again, I would’ve really liked to work with the band for the whole project. I feel working with the proper client would have improved my skills in working with others, especially getting a sense of what it would be like on a proper music video production.
My Section
The Whole Music Video
Music Video Evaluation
Overall, I’m fairly happy with my work. This project has been pretty stressful, and we’ve faced a lot of setbacks. The first major loss that we suffered was the loss of our band. This hit us hard as they pulled out too late for us to have enough time to change our idea. Instead, we had to adapt our idea, using the same song but losing access to a huge part of the original idea. Instead we adapted our idea so that we could use actors as our bands, although we knew at the time that this would impact our final piece.
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Through lots of planning and group discussions we were able to adapt our idea, and up to the end of our pre-production stage we were progressing quite stably. I completed my pre-production in good time and was pretty confident for the following stages. Sadly, one of my teammates was having a pretty hard time, and although we tried to help them, it made communicating between our different segments quite difficult. This is when I was hit by another big problem. The loss of the Sundial Theatre as a location. This was a huge setback for me. I had planned basically all my shots in there. I knew that the majority of my shots could be shot elsewhere, but I knew no other room would be big enough for the whole band shots. In the end, I devised the idea to shoot my members separately on the green screen and edit them together in the post production. I knew this was my only real option, but I had confidence and I knew even if it didn’t go well, it would give me good practice in using green screen.
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My first production shoot went pretty smoothly, all my actors turned up and I was able to get all of my band shots. However, my second shoot didn’t go as smoothly. Only one of my actors turned up, and they were an hour late. Luckily, they were the actor for the singer, but it meant I also had to use them for all the instrument shots. I had no choice but to solve the problem right there. So I chose to adapt some of my original planned shots, and had to convert them into more close up shots, rather than the long or wide shots I had originally planned. This would hide the fact that they were all the same actor. Although this was a very annoying problem, there was nothing more I could do about it, and I was pretty proud of the shots that I got out of it. If I was to redo this project, I would make sure to get actors who I know are completely reliable as this problem would be quite a major one if it happened again.
My post production went pretty smoothly. I really enjoy editing, and this project let me experiment with so many more editing skills, such as; green screen; multi shots; colour mattes and more. I was able to finish my editing a couple of days early and was fairly happy with the results. When my group put all our parts together, we found my part and the other performance part had some differences, this was due to struggles in communication earlier in the project, but the other part was still very good. We were able to input a part of the narrative, where the wife starts to enjoy the music. This way it would explain the differences, showing it’s changed due to the wife’s perception of the music.
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The part of the video that I planned, created and edited was something I am very proud of. I’ve learnt so many skills from this project, that I feel I can confidently progress with in future projects. If I was going to do this project again, I would make sure to plan for every single possibility that could go wrong, as we were very unlucky and got struck by a lot of setbacks in this project. But all the knowledge and skills I’ve gained from this project have definitely made all the hard work worth it, and I can look back and be proud of what I’ve created.
