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
Friday 1st October
Today we spent the whole day working on “self portrait”. I’d pretty much finished my pre production so I mainly worked on sprucing up my WIX website. I’ve also got all my props together and I’m ready to film this Sunday.
Sunday 3rd October
Today I filmed my Self Portrait project. I used my own DSLR camera and tripod. It took about two hours to do all shots and I’m confident I’ve got all the shots I need. I almost hit a big road block when it started to rain a little bit. Luckily, after covering the camera, after about 5 minutes the rain stopped. I was lucky this time, but I have to keep in mind for the future that if it does rain or if the weather is not what I need then I'll have find a possible way to shoot my production inside.
Monday 4th October
Today I logged all my shots that I took yesterday. I’ve realised that some of my shots are annoyingly a little bit over exposed, but this should be easy to fix in post production. In the future I need to remember that if I’m shooting outside I constantly need to adjust for the drastic changes of light. Additionally, two of my shots have less head and foot space then it looked like they had when I took them on the camera. It’s nothing too drastic but I’m considering to possibly reshoot those scenes. Aside from that I was very pleased with my production. I’m now currently in the process of putting together a rough cut.
Tuesday 5th October
Today I continued to edit my Self Portrait project. I’ve figure out how to control scale and position keyframes and I now feel I can put them to great use. At first I really struggled with these keyframes. I was able to use the opacity ones fine, but I struggled with these. What I eventually discovered was that there were multiple ways to adjust the keyframes. At first I was trying to adjust them on the sequence itself. But with scale and position the sequence control was way too sensitive so my image kept being way too zoomed in. Eventually I discovered you could control the keyframes in the effect controls. This allowed me to be more exact with my keyframes by being able to put in specific measurements. This helped greatly and let be get more exactly what I was trying to do. John also introduced me to premiere’s built in filters which should help me to better accomplish the autumn look that I want on my finished project.
Wednesday 6th October
I missed today’s lecture as I was getting braces put on. Luckily they were only editing which I feel confident I have enough time for. At home I designed a poster for my short film as well as starting work on my core skills checklist.
Thursday 7th October
In the first half of today, we looked at the development of sound and sound technology in film. I found it very interesting and I want to include some of this information in my upcoming textual analysis task. I’ve also thought of a possible film for this task, being Baby Driver by Edgar Wright.
In the second half of today we continued editing “Self Portrait”. I got to colour grading my piece and I was very pleased with the final look of it. After some more touch ups I think I’ll be ready to start looking at sound design. To colour grade my piece I first colour corrected each individual shot so that when I added the filter they would all look good under it. To do this I adjusted things such as exposure and contrast. Once they all looked good, I applied the filter to one and also adjusted it so it looked good. I then saved my adjusted filter and applied it to all the other shots in order to get a uniformed look between all of them
Friday 8th October
Today I continued editing my Self Portrait project. Annoyingly the piece of music I had originally planned to use, I felt it didn’t go as well as I thought it would. However I found a new piece of music and discovered something very cool. So, for the second half of my piece I needed a creepier piece of music. So by reversing and pitching down my first piece of music I created something that gave the right sense of creepiness. Additionally you could still tell it was the same piece of music which I really enjoyed. I also used sped up segments of the original piece to signify when a close up of right brain fades into the video, this creates a motif piece of music to the shot which I really like.
I also started looking at my Core Skills Checklist today, mainly focusing on the number rating.
Monday 11th October
We continued with our Self Portrait work today. I added in some rough sound effects which included syncing clapping with the video and adding a voice line into the part where the screen cuts to black. To make the voice line, I took a recording of me saying the line and then pitched it down in premiere. I also did more work on my core skills checklist. I had already done my number rating so today I put in the evidence for it, mainly using past experience as my form of evidence. I also planned my textual analysis work after watching the film the day before.
Tuesday 12th October
I synced my sound effects a lot better today as well as changing the voice line. Originally it said “You think you’re in control” but now I’ve changed it to say “I’m in control” which I think fits better with the mood in that scene. I’ve also added a post production and core skills and textual analysis section to my WIX website which I will add to in the coming days. I’ve additionally fully planned my textual analysis work which I plan to write over the next few days.
Wednesday 13th October
I feel I'm very close to finishing off my editing so today I was thinking about what I would add to my piece to make it better. My piece was currently about 1 minute 57 seconds long so I knew I couldn't add too much more to it. However after working on the Core Skills Checklist I had identified some things which I didn't know how to do. One of these things was graphics and titles in Premiere. So, that gave me the idea to add a short title screen to the beginning of my piece. I found a good YouTube video to help me follow through. However, while following the video it led me to the Essential Graphics window. This window had lots of preset automatic titles. They were really cool and there were several that I really liked the look of. In the end I settled on one that glitches the title in and out. It's a little bit shorter than I would like but I only had around 3 seconds to fit it in so I can't complain. I really like the title and I feel it adds something extra which really helps the whole piece.
Additionally I’ve started writing my textual analysis work. The brief says I need to write 500 words but I fear I may go quite over that. I’ll have to check with Danny tomorrow what they’re looking for.
Thursday 14th October
Today, I’ve completed my core skills checklist by adding in what I will do in order to improve it in the future. I’m mainly going to focus on continuing to use the skills I’ve learned so far as well as trying to learn things I’m not so confident with at the moment. I also wrote my first draft of my textual analysis work. I’ve additionally added lots more anchors to my “Self Portrait” WIX page. These anchors allow all aspects of my work to be accessed a lot more easily from the top of the page. I’m ready to export my project tomorrow and I’m confident I will hit all the deadlines.
Friday 15th October
Today is my deadline for my "Self Portrait" project. I've exported my project and I'm extremely happy with my final result. After writing my first draft yesterday, I checked through it and fixed any spelling mistakes as well as adding some more analysis. I then added pictures to it to help better illustrate what I was talking about. I've now finished the textual analysis and I'm happy with it.
I'm really happy with how I've done in this project. I've learned a lot in all parts of production. I now better understand how to craft an idea and see it through to the end. I've learnt all the sides of pre-production and how to properly complete risk and location assessments. In the shooting stage, I've gained experience and now know what a real shoot is like. Post production is where I feel I've improved the most. I've learnt so much, from more accurate keyframing to colour grading and audio editing.
However, I hit a couple of road bumps that have helped me learn.
After coming back from my shoot I realised many of my shots were slightly overexposed. I had been adjusting setting such as ISO and aperture during the shoot, but the mix of the forest and the sun changed more over time than I thought it would. From this I've gained experience of shooting in outdoor locations and also learned I need to pay more attention to how my surroundings have changed, especially regarding sun and shadow change.
I also hit several bumps in my post production stage, including having to learn how to use tools and adjustments I had never seen before. For example I had no idea how to colour grade. But with the help of some useful tutorials and some recommendations from my lecturers, I was able to figure it out. Now my colour grade is one of the things I'm most proud of in my piece.
Additionally, I had to learn more developed keyframes as well as adding a title to the beginning. The keyframes, I struggled for days to get right as I just couldn't get the sensitivity I required. But through investigation I discovered the effect controls panel, which helped me with keyframing as well as dozens of other things such as stationary positioning of each shot. Now that I know more about these panels I'll be able to use them more effectively in future projects. I'd also never even realised Premiere had a built in title feature. This helped me so much and means in the future, I'll have access to even more types of title screens as well as overlays.
In conclusion, I'm really happy and proud of the work I've done in this project. Before coming to college I'd never used Premiere Pro, and now I've discovered that the editing process is one of my favourite parts of filmmaking. I'm excited to continue developing my skills and create even more creative work.
Monday 18th October
Today was the week after we’d finished our Self Portrait project. We started to watch everyone's and I thought all of them were really good. Annoyingly, we didn’t watch mine yet but hopefully we will watch it tomorrow.
After that we were introduced to the music video project. I have high hopes for this project although I’m a bit worried about the amount of research. Not because it’s a lot of work but because I want to make sure I do it all correctly.
Tuesday 19th October
Unfortunately, John wasn’t in today so our Lecture was a bit unjointed. Mainly today, I look at analysing and finding inspiration from other music videos. I really like the music of Ricky Montgomery and his music videos also had a lot of range, and lots of different things that have inspired me. I also though lots of others were impressive, such as Daft Punk’s “Around the World” where all the dancers were in beat to the song. Additionally “Hey Ya”
by Outkast used clever cloning techniques which could be really interesting.
Wednesday 20th October
We were placed In our groups for the Music Video project today. I’ve been placed with Gary and Emilee and I think we’ll be able to work well together. Emilee knows of a band called “Shepherd’s Pie” from Swindon. They seem to be a sort of heavy metal band, and we’re planning to see if they want to work with us. I think working with real clients is better than a pre made song so I’m really looking forward to this project.
I’ve also added a music video page to my WIX website as there seems to be a lot of work that will need to be displayed. Some of the descriptions of the work seemed a bit confusing but I think I understand a bit more of what I need to do now,
Thursday 21st October
In the first half of today we continued with project 4. We were doing part two to the development of sound. I’m quite enjoying this topic and I’m going to start watching some of the movies for it over half term.
In the second half we continued with the Music Video and my group have started to create surveys for the band we’re working with as well as for the public. The public survey will allow us to get the opinions and views of a wide range of people. We include questions such as their opinion on the music as well as what they imagine a music video would be like. We plan to get 5 people each which would result in 15 different people. Each of us are going to get people of different ages, genders and so on, in order to see different types of peoples opinions. We’ve also narrowed down song choices to three different options, being “Boys are back in town”, “Sweet child of mine” and “Free and Easy”. We’ll use these three songs in both surveys which will allow us to gauge which song will be most popular.
Friday 22nd October
Today was an inset day so we were in control of doing our own work. So I continued some work I was doing yesterday. First I looked at constructing the survey we need for the band to fill out. This wasn't too hard but it is very important as it’s a big factor towards our primary research.
Once I’d done that I also finished off the notes I didn’t fully complete from yesterday’s project 4 lecture. As well as this I watched many of the videos that had been on the PowerPoint as well as doing some further research onto the topics covered.
Monday 25th October
It’s half term at the moment so I have time to do some work. Today, I did my research into research. I looked at the purpose and application of research, as well as different methods of research. This will help me when I get around to doing my own research.
Wednesday 27th October
Today I looked at doing some secondary research. I looked into several things such as genre, codes and conventions, techniques and theories. Just like the purpose of research, this initial secondary research will help me when I get back to college. I also sent out my groups music video survey that we made to the people I had chosen. This will aid us in our primary research.
Friday 29th October
The majority of my people have finished the music video survey now. So on top of looking at those results I’ve also added some more depth onto both my purpose of research and secondary research sections.
