MUSICVIDEOEVALUATIONCHRIS BAILEY

YOU SHOULD USE THIS TO EVALUATE YOUR FINAL FILM PROJECT. EACH QUESTION SHOULD BE ANSWERED FULLY, USE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM YOUR PROJECT WHERE NECESSARY AND EXPAND ON THE POINTS TO FULLY EXPLAIN AND JUSTIFY YOUR ANSWERS. YOU MAY ADD ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADD EXTRA SLIDE WHERE NECESSARY, BUT YOU MUST ANSWER EACH QUESTION.

GENERAL NOTES FOR COMPLETION • Remember to use examples to support your points

• Illustrate where possible, pictures/videos/etc

• Explain yourself and your process

• Justify your contribution to the project

• Assess what worked and what didn’t work

• Suggest ways you could have improved

PRE-PRODUCTIONBroadly explain your pre-production process. What went well, what could be improved? How did you organise and plan your film (you should consider the following – visual planning, organisational planning, etc)

My preproduction did not go very smoothly. This is due to inconsistencies in my choice of music video. I had made a plan in my head for a Sci-Fi themed music video but was let down by the performer I had planned to involve. Knowing that he was the basis of the music video I decided that I would have to come up with a totally fresh idea. As the original could not be salvaged.

Visual planning for my music video was easy, I could come up with visual ideas with ease. The struggle came when merging these ideas into a shot list. It meant that for a fast paced music video I had to come up with a lot of mental shots, and the diversity of these shots can be hard to divide. To overcome this I went and took some test shots to get an idea of what could look good in the music video. I found that writing up a shot list, purely from mental image creation was a timewasting exercise as it could have been spent taking mass shots and forming them into a mockup video as a basis, rather than the shot list being a basis. Similar to photography, a good way of getting those perfect shots is to take a huge quantity of shots, because minimal differences can make or break an image. This is why many of my short 2 second shots are just clips from a larger 2 minute+ shot. Because the entire shot wasn't good enough, only certain pieces.

Planning also included the whereabouts of locations we would be filming in, the expenditures, and potential risks, such as weather or injury. This was easy to do but there was really an infinite amount of possibilities which could become anomalies in our planning.

PRODUCTIONBroadly explain your production process. What went well, what could be improved? How did your filming go? (you should be considering the following – filming, using equipment, liaising with cast/crew, overcoming problems, etc).

The production of my music video went smoothly. I did not come into any problems, apart for weather which stalled some of my shoots. I used a budget action camera – SJ4000, a Nikon D3100 DSLR and a Canon 600D DSLR. The production only included myself, I choreographed, filmed, acted, and edited. This appears challenging but I believed that I could produce a better piece of work having worked on my own. This way there is no conflicts or hierarchy issues during production.

The only struggle that came from working solo was idea generation and restricted movement in the shots. Movement during a fast paced song is obviously highly necessary, as it creates an aural-visual connection. To keep plenty of movement in my music video I used a series of action camera mounts, these fitted to my chest, the bike frame, bars, and chain stay etc. This fitted very nicely with my music video, as the fast paced bike shots were able to go with the fast music, and the still shots with the slower sections of the song. By not having the ability to move, meant that there could be no following/subject tracking shots. This means that I could not have any shots where I rode straight past the camera horizontally. Because that would just be a sudden flash of the subject and then nothingness. I really wanted to include a shot where my speed would be visible, moving past a camera. I did this by facing the camera down a road, from the side, this allowed me to be in view for a large part of the shot, without the camera having to follow me.

POST-PRODUCTIONBroadly explain your post-production process. What went well, what could be improved? How did you edit and produce your final piece? (you should be considering the following – ingesting footage, logging rushes, assembling your sequence, syncing sound and image, colour correction, beat editing, etc).

My postproduction process went relatively smoothly. The assembly of my footage was the hardest part of post production, because although I had a completed shot list, it seemed like I kept running out of footage. This is due to me filming almost everything I needed, but then being picky and not using many of them. It took me a large chunk of the post production to complete the entire timeline with footage, in the time being I colour corrected and edited the other shots.

Syncing the footage to the beat was quite an easy task, but with many shots and a very fast beat, it soon became a very long winded job. It was also done whilst having missing chunks of footage, which didn’t make it any easier. Luckily my song choice has a very significant diversity in aural tempos, allowing me to easily identify which parts of footage should go where.

I came into a few technical problems during the editing of he music video. Missing files were the main culprit. When opening Premiere it sometimes briefly loses track of a file location, and asks for your assistance in finding the file, which is usually right where you left it, So I guess the SkyNet doomsday is further away than we thought…Another issue involved me giving Premiere the wrong file, this caused major confusion amongst the two of us, well, if Premiere had feelings… I should stop with the robo-references now, right? It took a lot of thinking to overcome this issue, I finally realised that there were 2 files with the same names in different folders. I obviously chose the wrong one when searching for it.

SCHEDULINGHow did you plan the different parts of your production? Did you use any specialist software or techniques? What problems did you have?

Planning the storyline of my production was something that I found quite hard. This is because the song itself, like many modern songs, doesn’t have much of a deeper meaning behind it. The original music video is very popular, because it creates the foundation of meaning in the song. It shows the recovery of a BMX rider who had his leg amputated, and it’s a true story so it hits the audience right in the ‘Feels’. Obviously I couldn’t really express my own personal sob stories through a music video, so I just planned a music video which had a relative relation to the music video.

I made a storyboard of the basic outlay of events in my music video, using a website called “StoryboardThat”. This allowed me to create digital animated image representations of my music video. This was before I took any test shots, and as I’ve said previously in this PowerPoint, I struggled making ideas and forming them without physically exploring the possible shots.

I then had to schedule when I would shoot particular shots involved, the bike scenes were easy because I could shoot in bulk and narrow it down to pieces I liked. The still shots had to be more finely created though. The schedules did not go to plan very well, often due to weather occurrences. Not only did bad weather look ugly and create dangerous cycling surfaces, they also created a gritty natural light, and that is not what I wanted, I wanted warmer light, especially in my still shots. Below is an example of a shot which I really liked, as it is very warm and the focus creates a very ‘pretty’ bokeh style background. The lighting is also perfect, the background is a little over exposed but the subject (myself) is perfectly lit. This is in fact my favourite shot of the entire music video, I think it looks very premium compared to the other shots in the video.

Example of defying schedule to get a shot where lighting was perfect.

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCEAssess your performance in your chosen roles. What did you do? How do you think performed in this role? Can you think of any areas where you could have improved your performance?

I took every role in the music video, I created the ideas, evolved them, I acted, filmed, chose and used the props, and everything else in relation to the music video. It was entirely a solo project. I think that I did very well as an individual. I’d say my ideas generation was a little off, as it’s something I struggled with due to the method in which we had to do it. I think that I did all I could have possibly done ideas wise.

As the only actor in my music video, I’d say that I did quite well. I had to cope with my bad cycling skills, and the urge not to film my face. But I knew that cycling made up the majority of my music video, and I know that close ups and portraits are important for shot variety and diversity due to the high amount of wide angle POV shots. I didn’t have to do any intense acting, or pretend to do anything much. It was more of just trying not to look awkward, or at least look like I wasn’t aware of the filming.

As the cinematographer I had to choose all shot angles, lighting, settings and subject placement. I think that I did a good job of this, I used only natural lighting in my music video, which meant I had to really be on the ball when it came to getting the perfect shot. I wouldn’t say any of my shots are even close to perfect, but they were definitely the best I could do. I put a lot of effort into the diversity of my shots, as I knew that shot variety is the spice of music videos, especially those that are fast paced.

TEAM PERFORMANCEAssess how your team performed, did you have any problems? Did they undertake their roles effectively? Could you have improved performance? How?

I’m sure they’d be excellent if they existed.

TEAM EXCELLENT

TROUBLESHOOTINGThink about the problems you had in your production [consider technical, logistical, organisational and personnel related issues]. How did you resolve them? Did your contingency plan work? How could you have improved this?

The first problem I encountered was a sudden change in my music video idea and track, once I realised that it was not possible to do due to the subject saying he could not commit. I overcame this by quickly forming a new idea, luckily was was quite early in pre-prod and only set me back by about a day of work. I came into no more problems during pre-prod, it was only once I got to production that issues returned. I found that my jump bike had a flat tyre, and having a tight budget that month due to a small payday meant that I had to use a temporary puncture repair. Luckily this worked and the bike was usable. My contingency plan worked fine, it allowed me to guess the possible issues, and create ways of reducing the risk of their happenings.

RESOURCESYou may have mentioned your acquisition and usage of resources in your broad overviews above, however, are there any specific issues you encountered [getting equipment, props, costumes, etc] that can discuss?

There were no issues getting equipment, other than the fact that I had lost my tripods quick release clip, meaning that my tripod became just as useful and resting the camera on a book shelf, because it had nothing to screw on to. So many of my still shots were just sat on a piece of furniture or upon the tripod.

The movement of my resources was an issue, I couldn’t take my tripod to bike filming locations because the bike was my only form of transport. It was also a pain going back and forward to the house to get different bikes to use. I can easily ride 20 miles but the mile or two between college and my house is physically exhausting and mentally draining.

PRODUCTION TECHNIQUESDid you have to learn or develop new skills are part of your production? How did this change or influence your choice of production techniques? Of the techniques used which did you rate as the most successful and why? Which techniques were not as you had expected? Why?

I found that getting every shot was harder than I thought, even though I had planned with a lot of detail, I still found that I had missing shots. The filming was quite fun at the beginning but it became a chore towards the end because the pressure was building and it was taking more effort than I wanted it to. I did not develop any new skills as part of the production, what I did learn is that chance and improvisation was frequent to the filming of my music video, as it doesn’t have a rigid storyline as a foundation. I’d say the most successful technique was the mass recording used for the POV footage. This allowed me to take many shots and cut it down to the best parts. This allowed me to have much more choice in what was involved in my music video.

MONITORING AND REVIEWHow did you monitor and review the progress of your project? Essentially, how did you track the project to keep it on deadline?

I didn’t really keep a particular method of tracking my production process, it was more based upon looking at the timeline, seeing bad shots or empty blocks or space where footage should be and thinking “fix it”. I kept to the deadline by trying to get everything done as soon as it could be done, this way if I missed deadline, I would know that it was unavoidable. If I didn’t have a job/social & relationship commitments then it would have been done very quickly, but I finished probably a little closer to deadline than I would have liked, as it was a bit of a rush towards the end. It didn’t help at times where I spent over an hour retrieving lost footage either.

EARLY VERSIONS OF YOUR MUSIC VIDEOExplain the process that you went through in order to complete your final film. This should consider your choice of interim screenings and what feedback you received, how you used this feedback and whether it affected your final film.

Earlier versions of my music contained the same concept, they were simply just much more basic. Music and footage wasn’t synced as well, colours were off, and footage had not been cropped (zoom wise). When i received feedback from the group I was expecting lots of suggestions regarding storyline. But I was surprised to find that people didn’t see it as an issue in most cases. This was my main concern and it’s all I considered changing, so any other suggestions I just forgot about and continued with what I had planned to do.

FINAL VIDEOAssess your final film in the following areas; technical qualities, creative qualities and whether it fit your plan. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each area and suggest how you could improve it further…

My final video is a combination of static shots and POV shots, all to create the feeling of excitement and escape. This is all alongside the song “waiting all night” by rudimental.

Planning: My music video is very similar to my planning, the shot types are similar and overall atmosphere/style is spot on. Some of the shots that I made are different to what I planned for, this is simply because in the real world practical I realised that chance played a large role in the shots I took. The chance usually depended on lighting situations and locations which stood out more than those that I had planned for. The structure of my music is identical to my planning, as it is purely based on the tempo of the music which obviously didn’t change between planning and production.

Strengths: My music video, in my opinion, has many strengths. The music video storyline is not totally structured and dense, this means that those who watch it will probably be able to relate to it in some shape or form. The mix of shot styles create a good sense of variety which keeps the viewer interested. These shot styles include POV, close up, static and moving, slow motion and more. This means the viewer won’t get bored of seeing one repetitive shot.

Weaknesses: My music video also includes weaknesses. One of the weaknesses is the colour correction. I found it quite hard to colour correct the images, as they were often taken on different days in totally different lighting situations. The image quality of the POV shots is not great either, it is quite grainy and not as sharp as the DSLR shots. This creates an unhealthy visual contrast. The lack of a sturdy storyline can be portrayed as good and bad, it allows for the viewer to create a relation, but for those without a relation will probably find it wont make much sense.

Conclusion: I think my music video is to a good standard, the concept is good and the shot quality is also diverse and entertaining. I believe that the colour correction could be better, but I did all I possibly could to correct it.