Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Friday, April 30, 2010
Script For Commentry Of 'How We Made Our Video'
The Script:
0:00 - We decided to turn the video black and white in channel mixer with a tint of blue. We did this to enhance the coldness of the video. This was also inspired by a music video by the Arctic Monkeys ‘A view from the afternoon’ which we found on Youtube.
0:06 - The set up of the opening was inspired by other indie/alternative bands music videos such as Blur’s video of ‘song 2’. We researched these videos on Youtube. We wanted to show that they are an organic band.
0:22 - We edited on Final Cut Pro where we were able to digitise our footage. We chose our favourite performance track and laid it down on to the timeline and then cut in to it with footage. We did this because it gave us a basis from which to build the performance elements.
0:39 - The snow looks like a digital effect but is not. We hired in a snow machine to get the authentic look we wanted. The snow is a symbol of the male characters emotions, showing he is alone and cold even in the comfort of a wealthy house.
0:55 - We blended some of the shots together in Final Cut Pro to connect the narrative with the performance elements. We layered different shots on final cut pro timeline and then used the overlay tool to create superimposition. We went through the different blending options and chose the one that was most effective.
1:08 - We speeded up the shot of the clouds in the council estate in Final Cut Pro. This was again to work with the narrative, as the narrative is based on the lyrics to the song. ‘You haven’t got the time to remember how it was’. We did this by adjusting the duration of the shot so that it was faster.
1:24 - The performance shots were inspired by shots used in many of the Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead and Bloc Party videos we found on Youtube. We used these videos for inspiration because they are all organic bands and this is how we wanted to portray our band. We also wanted to create an artistic looking shot to connect with our target audience which would be people interested in the arts.
We wanted a wider audience and to do this we used social networking sites such as; Facebook and Youtube. We embedded our video onto Facebook so that our target audience of teens could respond to it. This worked well and we found our video embedded on other social networking sites and being watched in other countries around the world such as;
2:06 - We created breath for this shot firstly by using a smoke machine and then an aerosol can as the smoke machine didn’t create a realistic look. We then digitised the breath footage and edited it in after effects to motion track the shot to place the breath near his mouth as he was walking through the shot. We had this effect to reinforce the coldness of this house in contrast to the council estate.
2:36 - This style of editing was to again connect the boy and girl. Using Final Cut Pro timeline, it was easy to cut together quick shots to create a series of graphic matches in which they were both in the centre of the screen, as if they were walking towards each other.
We had to cut this song to fit it in to three minutes. In order to create the radio edited version of the song we felt three minutes was the ideal length. We cut our song on Sound Forge. We decided we did not want many of the lyrics taken away so we mainly cut the beginning of the song and other instrumentals.
3:03 - We edited it so that the cuts were really quick at the end to reach the climax. We wanted the shots to build up with the song and create that visual impact we wanted.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Fianl Promotional Matariel
CD Inside Cover 2
CD Covers In Place In CD Case
CD Back Cover
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Task 3 - What Have You Learned From Your Audience Feedback?
I was intrigued to see if our target audience was going to share our opinions of the strengths and weaknesses. So to find out we asked them to tell us what they found and thought were the strengths via comments on youtube and a questionnaire given to the viewers of our focus group. The majority of them agreed with what we felt that the black and white effect on the video was good as it added authenticity and made it look more original; It set it apart from everyone else’s in colour and made it stand out from the rest. Lots of people liked the way we had such a strong performance element focusing mainly on the band playing the music especially as this is what the band sells itself on through their star image of being a true organic band. The editing was also something mentioned as a strength as the editing speed and style was changing throughout therefore keeping people entertained until the last chord is strummed. The blending modes also were mentioned to be making the video feel of a higher quality and of a more professional look.
Not many weaknesses were brought up on the youtube video apart from the one or two comments mentioning the fact that it didn’t feel raw enough for what it was aiming to be with not enough hand held or moving shots. Also someone mentioned that they felt that the cutting wasn’t fast enough and therefore some people may get distracted and not find it entertaining enough to watch it more than once.
Learning about the different ways of collecting audience feedback we looked at Stuart Halls method of not treating the audience as a mass and instead treating them as a collection of smaller groups defined by social and ideological elements. This is known as the Encoding and Decoding model therefore looking at the relationship between product and audience.
The way that it works is both consciously and unconsciously our media forms are encoded with the values of their producers (usually white middle class men). However this is where there becomes a problem as not all of the audience will be made up of such people and these different groups are likely to read the text in different ways resulting in slightly different or completely opposing readings being taken from it. There are 3 main types of decoding readings, preferred is where the audience decodes the product as it was meant by the producers, Negotiated is when the audience accept the meaning however slightly question it and finally oppositional is when the audience come up with a completely contrasting reading to what was initially meant by the producers.
From our selective screening and focus group we gathered together a set of preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings for our video. Examples of some of the preferred readings are the class and status issues that arose from the contrast in wealth and status shown through the 2 differing narratives. The retro feel to the video created through the artistic instable shots such as focus pulls, experimental angles and the documentary style zooms. Also shown through the overall black and white melancholy look, the sets and props used all contributed to achieving this. The use of shots especially having so many shots of the band shows that they are a real band together that are all good friends which reinforces our star image a very good example of this is how it starts with them setting up and plugging o shows that they are very organic and wanting to practice as it look s like we are observing one of their practice sessions. Also the shots where the lead singer comes closer to the camera increases the audience character proximity making the audience feel more emotionally attached with the band. In particular when the lead singer walks off right at the end it shows that he is very emotionally involved.
Some examples of the negotiated readings brought up which we hadn’t really meant however mean pretty much the same thing are that the snow in the house was a connotation for his relationship falling apart as it seemed like the house was falling apart as the snow was coming through the roof. The blending effects were dreams and flashbacks of the good old days when they were together and link them together more. The shots of the wallpaper with flowers on cross cut with the shots of the council estate with the bare twigs acts as a contrast of the different lifestyles. Also a comment about costume as he is wearing all black which has connotations of disaster and depression and as she progresses she takes of her black and end s up only wearing white which has its own connotations of angels, goodness and happiness. The tracking shots showing the girl entering into the area of community she walks past a house with a pram outside signifying that she is entering into an area where there are families.
Ideally we would want our product to be so clear that we got no decoding oppositional readings however we got two. These were people thinking that as she walked away taking off her clothes she was get ready for sexual activities. Lastly as she was walking she was in fact walking away from the light of him and into the tunnel of the darkness.
In summary I feel that the majority of our audience feedback has been positive or preferred and negotiated readings which is a sign of a product which has been successfully received by its audience. I feel that our audience feedback has reflected our own views of our product and this shows we have succeeded.
Task 1 - In What Ways Do Your Media Products Use, Develop Or Challenge Forms And Conventions Of Real Media Products?
1) Importance of the Front Man:
In our video we decided to reinforce the key role of the front man, as the main person who represents the star image of the band. He is also the key person the audience feel most connected and closest with. In class we discussed how the majority of people know the name of Coldplay’s front man ‘Chris Martin’ and they even also know the names of his children, however if pressed wouldn’t be able to guess at the name of Coldplay’s bassist, guitarist or drummer. It is the front man / the lead singer of the band that all the girls fancy and that one person represents the image of the whole band. This just backs up our reasoning for continuously through the video having lots more shots of the singer than the rest of the band and increasing proximity of him with the camera (in the end the audiences watching the promotional video) by filling the frame with his face.
We also made the decision to use the lead singer of the band as the main character in the narrative as we felt that this would help to promote the band further; if it was being played by an actor then all the focus of the band and the style, look and appearance of the band would be lost but using the lead singer in the narrative it hones all attention in on the band in pretty much 99% of all shots in the video.
Shown bellow is an example of how a real life successful band in the industry use the dominance of their front man to reach out to their audience and appeal to them to market the band to the best of their ability through the use of reinforcing the star image through the main most recognizable band member.
One of the major themes running through the whole of our marketing campaign for the band ‘White noise’ is the authentic use of Black and White. We de-saturated the colour so as to give the video the sophisticated art film feeling of which the band represents through their typical middle class persona. However we gave the video a slight bluish tint to make it feel colder and giving it a harder edge to the imagery.
Another key marketing method was the use of techniques usually adopted by niche market art house production. For example the shallow DOF and the constant focus pulls. This challenging the forms and conventions of most 21st century videos. However we decided that this alternative style of shooting for the video and was the right route to take as it would create an eye catching ‘new and different’ take for this fresh alternative band.
Shown bellow is an example of the usual main stream mass audience pop video using lots of vibrant colours and people, thus showing our choice of challenging the usual conventions in place in the industry at the moment.
3) The Two Narratives
We decided very early on in the research and planning stage that to have a video that keeps the viewers entertained and interested to watch again and again therefore resulting in repeated consumption where we sell more copies we need to have three different elements of which we can juggle between. Thus always keeping the viewers entertained. This was further backed up when we looked at various real industry standard pop videos of which were all using more than two elements to minimise the boring cutting between 2 themes.
Although the majority of pop videos use 3 or more elements there are some that decide to use one element and using editing speed and style to vary the interest throughout. We decided to challenge these forms of video, the majority being dance and drum and bass acts. Instead we decided to represent and reinforce the common practices set up for mass audience pop songs and more band led videos such as ours.
As we knew that we wanted to have a very performance heavy product we then only had to create 2 narratives that worked well together that could be cut easily between them. These 2 narratives showing the journey of both boy and girl having just separated; the imagery used is of hot and cold, separation and loneliness.
This shot above connects the two differing narratives together and is the defying moment in the video as it is the one and only moment where the two narratives meet.
4) Symbolic Imagery Of Snow
One of the main themes used in the narrative of the male briefly described above is the use of the snow to create a feeling of coldness within the large manor house where he lived. His journey throughout his house of which we follow him in a voyeuristic style has continuous snow fall. The narrative is all about how even though he has a very luxurious house and lifestyle he is very cold wearing big warm jackets and in a completely bare house with no furniture he is very cold and lonely. This is backed up with the use of snow.
When we looked at music videos used by the major record labels something that is used the majority of the time is wild and wacky ideas and situations that would never be accepted in day to day life however in pop videos audiences are prepared to suspend their disbelief. So we felt that it would be acceptable to use snow inside as people now accept crazy ideas like this and are not surprised.
To add to the cold effect of the video and snow we decided to add a slight blue tint to the black and white colour mix. We did this in after effects and after changing it to black and white using the de saturation we added a blue colour filter over the top and adjusted the level until it added a subtle hint which added to the cold feeling and also helped to make some of the tones of grey stand out from the rest of the tones. 
5) The Role Of The Fe-Male
The fe-mail played a very important part in the video as she created a contrast for the part of the male. She was the character who was seen to be walking away from the life and love of the male in the house. As she walked away she was stripping off her extra layers, which were fast becoming unnecessary. She reflected the lower working classes of which have fewer material objects and less money than the male however she was walking back into a community through houses and homes whilst heating up as she went. Also when she walks through the tunnel the walls are covered in paintings of happy looking people all congregating together, which has connotations of happiness and a community. 
In all media forms nowadays we become used to and now expect there to always be a female and a male who play off each other and we decided that we would reinforce the use of the female however as usually they are used to create a happy ending where they end up together showing their love for each other, we decided to challenge this and have a different outcome. This is especially as the bands star image of being alternative don’t like to go along with the crowds and instead like to start their own trends, so this is why we decided to have a less happy narrative using the female to change the typical readings of a pop video. 
6) Difference In The 2 Locations
Our choice to use these contrasting locations came when we decided to use contrasting narratives. We wanted to shoot in a council estate as many of the videos that provided us with our inspirations such as ‘Arctic Monkeys’ and ‘Radiohead’ were set in this area of a poor working class housing estate. As we were aiming to recreate the same feel and attract the same audience as these videos already have shown to do so very popularly we felt that this was a definite location to shoot our narrative element in.
The Manor house was hard to find, as we needed to have large open rooms with no furniture. This acted as a great contrast to the location of the housing estate and provided us with the contrast needed to portray the difference in class, which was being shown subtly through the narrative. Having such a variety of locations through all three elements helped to create a depth in the video, which helped to make our video seem professional.
7) Album Advert Poster - Simplicity:
For our album poster we decided to research lots of posters and see what the existing forms and conventions of marketing were used in the actual industry. Shown bellow is a few examples of the ones we found.
From our research we decided that to reinforce the bands importance and star image as the main sales drive of the album we should put the a large image of the band as the main theme as we didn’t like the posters evolving themes from the video rather than the generic technique of using the band to promote themselves.
We decided to have very simplistic advertising campaigns so as not to over confuse the viewer with too much text that’s not really needed. For example the poster above in the middle uses too many colors, words and graphics which has so much of an effect it becomes negative as you cant take it all in and move on to something else. So with this in mind we decided to use simplicity as the main aspect to the poster.
So we decided to stick to as little text as possible letting everything have space to breathe on the page and letting the band and album name speak for itself and sell itself, however as it is a new band’s first release we needed to add the NME rating to give it its credibility for people to be reassured of being associated with it. Without this it could just be any band and our audience would feel less confident buying the album.
In the industry both complex and simple posters are used as you can see from the examples above. So therefore we are not either reinforcing or challenging the forms and conventions set out by the industry. Rather just going along with the flow as evidence proves that both are very successful… 
8) Album Front Cover
The album cover is in keeping with all aspects of the other two products already discussed above, as we are maintaining the black and white theme throughout and the continuity of the same font being used throughout all the advertising and on the product helps the audience to recognise the band and link it all together.
We got this idea from a Strokes album cover of the naked behind of a human body and we decided that in the real industry they often use naked human bodies to sell products as it is a very high selling technique. For us it was the sensual s shaped curves found and commonly photographed in the human body that made us use this on our front cover. 
9) Album Back Cover
The albums back cover has to link very closely with that of the front cover as they both work simultaneously so the image is very similar to the image on the cover however it is not the same which adds an extra dimension to it as it is very similar yet slightly different.
Looking at products used in the media industry we looked up the legal information that is found at the bottom and copied it and pasted into our own so as to add an authentic touch.
An Account of Our Shoot Day
“Demonstrating how the decisions made reflected the institutional and audience demands for the product.”
In the run up to our shoot day we were required to produce several pre-production documents that formed the basic structure of our production file. We had to provide these for our cast and crew. These included CD’s with the edited track on, Lyrics and sheet music of the edited song so as the band could learn lyrics and basic chords to enhance realism when shooting. We also created a shooting schedule and call sheets so that the cast and crew knew when they were needed. For our convenience we made costume, props and location lists. This made it easier for us to have everything ready for the shoot day, as we were the first group to start filming.
Creating the shooting schedule is a very crucial part towards making sure that your shoot day is going to run smoothly. It also means that you wont find yourself in the painful situation when reviewing the rushes on the following day and realising you forgot to film one very crucial shot, which is desperately needed for the narrative to make sense. So to avoid this and to make us feel more prepared and in control of the situation we put together a very thorough shooting schedule; for both timings and a detailed shot by shot list which worked in conjunction with the storyboards. (Shown bellow is an example of our schedule.)
*Shooting Schedule*
When we were casting our band we were given free picking from any of the first years on a first come first serve basis, yet if we wanted any of the second years to be involved we needed to get them ‘Blue carded’ meaning acquiring the signatures of all of their teachers and housemaster giving permission for them to miss the days lessons to be involved. So this meant that we needed to get our requests in as soon as possible, however we decided that before we cast the band it would be best to screen test them individually and all together to make sure that they came across with the ‘correct’ look on camera for our video; and secondly we needed to check that they worked well together as a band and looked comfortable as a group. Once we had done this and felt that they would give us the best performance we requested our first year cast and set about blue carding the two other second years.
We had chosen the song ‘Like Eating Glass’ by Bloc Party however this song in its full Album format lasted for 4:22. We wanted our pop promo to last a maximum of 3:30 but preferably closer to 3:00; so this meant that we needed to edit the song so that it was shorter. We did a few drafts of the edit yet each member of the group had favorite parts of the song for example at ….. the impressive drum fill takes place, the verse at ….. and we didn’t want these to be taken out. So after many different cuts using the editing software Sound Forge 4.5 we had an edit, which lasted 3:00.
Having created all the pre production documents we now felt very organized and ready for the shoot day. Now it was time to go through the production file and start to buy, rent, acquire permission and make the various props, costumes sets and locations needed. So final preparation for shoot began.
For the costumes we literally went around begging, borrowing and stealing any ‘old school’ duffer coats we could get. We went round houses and charity shops and by the end we had a collection of different colors, sizes and designs that we chose depending on how they fitted the cast and what they looked like all together. We also had to buy some white china plates to be smashed, we got more than one so that if it took more than one take to get the shot we had enough plates. For the set in the studio we had to buy enough wallpaper to cover the walls. We had agreed sizes in earlier pre production meetings with our lighting and set designers.
We also had the challenge of renting a snow machine to create the effect of snowfall inside one of our locations. This proved very difficult within our tight budget we had, in the end we came across a machine that created a substantial spread of snow that didn’t need an engineer to be hired out with it and didn’t cost too much. We also had to order liquid to fuel the machine; so we had to estimate the length of time we would need to be spreading snow for.
The only major problems that we encountered before shooting was that after the long and grueling process of finding a snow machine that fitted our criteria and that was free for when we needed it; we eventually booked it. Then the following day they got back in touch saying that they had double booked us and they were renting all their machines out to Harrods for its in store Christmas experience. So we had to fins a new one very quickly.
Also we had a last minute unreliable cast member dropping out on the evening before we shot the video. We had to act on our feet to replace him with someone with the same type of image as we had done screen tests and they had all worked well together as a band. Luckily we found someone that we could use.
From 1 O’clock the day before our shoot we were aloud into the studio to start to make and put together our set. We had to wallpaper both of the 2 8ft by 12ft boards we had as our backdrop. We then had to turn the newly wallpapered walls into what needed to look like old dilapidated damp torn walls. We also had to paint wooden strips to make them look like wooden floorboards. Once this was all done we were fully ready to start shooting the following day.
On the day of our shoot we had arranged to meet at 8:45 giving us half an hour maximum to get everything and everyone in and ready to start filming at 9:15 latest. We then split up the rest of the morning into sections of time for shooting the whole band together, then the guitarist, then bass, then drummer and finally ending with the singer. If we stuck to the schedule this gave us ample time to do all the allocated shots in each of the sections. Luckily this went well and we didn’t over run on time.
We stuck very close to our storyboards in the shots that we shot but then after we had filmed all of them we experimented and improvised with different shot ideas. I am very pleased that we did both as this gave us the certainty of having everything that we needed but yet we have lots of more free experimental footage to add in and if needed replace some of the boring and mundane shots we originally had in our storyboard for example the close up shots of the singer we had in our storyboard were far more basic and ordinary than the shots we now have using focus pulls, tracking shots, extreme close ups and tilts.
The technology used during the shoot was a JVC … Video Camera. We were running the camera through a 30” plasma monitor screen. This meant that it was very easy for the 1st AD to watch the shots and make notes of what’s been filmed and what still needs to be shot; also it makes the job of continuity much easier. We were using 4 redheads to light the set; 2 on each side at different intensities and some using diffusers. We had the playback of the edited song running through a powerful PA system, which meant that the drummer could hit the drums properly whilst still being able to hear the beat that he needed to follow. Likewise with the singer meaning that he could actually sing along, this enhancing the realism on camera without him feeling embarrassed by everyone hearing his voice.
The production roles that we stuck to on the shoot day were: one member taking on the task of DOP (Director of Photography) involving the responsibility of being the one on the camera filming; occasionally swapping around with other group members. We decided that one person would be the Director as it would be less complicated for cast if they only had one person telling them what to do rather than having lots of people shouting different things at them. Then the last member of the group was Producer, Continuity and 1st AD. This was me; and I was generally liaising between everyone making sure that everything and everyone was where they needed to be on time. As 1st AD I was in charge of the shooting schedule and was keeping the director and DOP aware of what the next shot setup would be and which shots we had left to shoot.
We decided that we were shooting to many boring and mundane shots that looked unimpressive and amateur. So we decided that we needed to be more adventurous and brave to just start improvising more freely as having artistic shots is one of the main themes that makes our pop video different from the rest and hopefully will make it stand out from the crowd when it is completed. So we really had to do something about this. Some members of the band were giving the performance more effort than others, so we had to get everyone to start performing to the same level so that they looked like a solid unit as a band.
After lunch we then moved to shooting at our second location, the manor house ‘Leith Hill’. We all got in the minibus with all the kit, cast, props and crew that we needed. We only had a very small amount of shots to shoot at this location so we didn’t feel rushed. This is the location which we were using the snow machine, and we hadn’t tested it before we arrived. The snow didn’t disappear after a few minutes like it had been advertised to us as doing so, resulting in much time having to clean the snow off the walls and floor to do a retake of a scene. To avoid this we had to do many rehearsals without using the snow and then having one chance at the shoot once the snow was turned on.
I was generally very pleased with all of the studio shots as the overall look of pretty much all of the setups were how I had imagined in my mind before hand. This was due to our very thorough planning and our strong involvement with the setup that took place on the day before hand. This however just got better and better as the morning went on and finishing off with the series of tracking shots that we shot. These were my favorites as I feel that it gives the video that extra professional touch.
I felt that the afternoon’s work in Leith Hill did not go quite as I had wanted. The reason for this is that we had acquired permission from the residence of the house to use it, but we hadn’t asked the national Trust who actually own it. Just as we had turned on the snow machine for the first time blasting snow everywhere a National Trust representative came round and finding us there was slightly apprehensive of us being there. This made us feel that we were going to get into trouble so we felt rushed to get out and wrap the Leith Hill location. This coursed the shots to feel rushed and not as artistic as we had planned therefore there wasn’t such a strong link linking the performance element and Leith hill as we had planned through the use of shallow focus, focus pulls and artistic shots. We had to stick to basic, quick shots that would get the footage we needed and mean we could get out as soon as possible.
The only way in which we deviated from plans was after lunch when we took too long filming the smoke to add in as breath to the band in after effects. This had not been scheduled for after lunch so this put us almost an hour behind schedule in arriving at Leith Hill, because of this Leith Hill is not shot as well as I had hoped. Apart from this we remained as planned in every aspect.
If I had the chance to do it again I would not redo any of the work from the morning in the studio of the performance element; however I would have got full permission to use the location Leith Hill so that we could have spent longer in there getting the shots to the best of our ability and not just getting them done as quickly as possible. Also possibly sticking tighter to the shooting schedule after lunch, which would have given us more time with daylight at Leith Hill, we also ordered too much snow liquid, which was very expensive, and finer more accurate calculations could have saved some money on that.
So all in all it was a brilliant day that has led to a very successful pop promo.
Evaluation of Rough Cut
Once we had shot all the footage, it had been digitized and captured onto ‘Final Cut Server’ we were ready to start logging. We went through the rushes reviewing it all. Where we had done several takes of one particular shot we would decide which was the best and then log that shot into the corresponding bin; be it ‘Narrative’ ‘Leith Hill’ or ‘Council Estate’. Each shot was labeled with the type of shot, who it was of and the movement during the shot for example one might be:
Guitarist – Close up – Pan down threat board.
Drummer – Mid Shot – Focus pull from face to cymbal
When we had logged every shot, we were ready to start our very first rough cut. We started by selecting the best of the wide shots of the band and dragging that down onto the timeline so that it would act as the shot we could always cut back to. We had to sync this up with the music. We found that the best way to do this is to find a significant beat in the music, usually the easiest is a bass drum beat, and put a marker on the timeline then find that same beat in the footage and align the two up so you get a synced sequence. This is what they do in films to sync the audio and image using the clapperboard.
Once we had our wide shot down on the timeline we went about re-creating the very basic cutting sequence that we had on our storyboard. At first we decided to stick very closely to the structure we had created through the storyboard in the pre production stages. However as we began to watch it back with the actual footage rather than drawings we decided that the order and sequencing of the shots was wrong so we decided to not base the edit so tightly on the storyboard and instead just go with what looked and felt best for the sequence to make sense. One example is in the storyboard we had the establishing shots of the council estate then cutting to shots of Leith Hill, which didn’t make sense so; we changed it to only introducing the council estate when we saw the female walking through it so as to not confuse the viewers.
So basically we began by sticking closely to the animatic storyboard however we felt that as we had got many more and vastly different shots from what we had storyboarded; and especially as we lacked on narrative footage and had so much good performance element we chose to just go for it and edit in the same basic way as we had storyboarded but not shot for shot.
I feel that the strengths of our rough cut so far are due to the strength of the performance element. The type of shots, style of shots and variety in shots has provided a very strong base for the video through good use of the performance. I feel that we have successfully achieved what we were aiming to when we set out to shoot artistic shots using shallow DOF and low lighting from one side of the face, as this is definitely one of the main strengths.
However the problems with it at the moment is it needs to include more of these great artistic shots, we need to work more on creating a stronger narrative that runs through the video. There are some drum parts, which go out of time, many of the shots go on for too long and there are some cuts, which don’t work to the beat. The ending is too dead and something needs to be done to make it much more impacting.
The feedback received so far from people watching it (they are our target audience) has been that they have really enjoyed it and its style. They feel that the narrative kind of gets lost in the video and doesn’t get fully understood; which we totally understand and agree with. To change this we need to work on linking the couple together better throughout the video so that they feel more like a couple who have split up not just two random people. We have had slight issues in that the target audience and us as the editors like all the moving and zooming shots as we feel it adds to the artistic style of our video however the ‘teachers’ who are acting as the record company disagree and say that they feel it makes it look too amateur.
Once we have made the changes I mentioned above in the paragraph about what is wring with the video at the moment, we can put the final cut into AfterEffects. We still need to add in the breathe into the scenes of Leith hill and turn the whole project black and white. However we have decided to add a slight tint of blue into the final color cast as it adds more interest and brings out some of the background detail rather than leaving it as a boring and rather flat image.
Whilst editing we have been influenced by many videos and films, these have helped us to shape the way that the final video looks. For example the black and white effect was influenced by these two videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_AFilMn3fA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APLOFNMIabM
The way in which we added the breath was demonstrated through this video:
(Video shown to us by matt… www.?)
The set is influenced by:
(Video of everyone jumping around the room… www.?)