PRODUCTION-Progress on review

I feel as though my blogs are pretty much up to date and that i haven't done too many blogs. I have covered pretty much everything. The blogs i enjoyed doing were the researching ones where i had to find different music videos, those that challenged our ideas and those that had similar ideas. Researching this helped my group and i a lot because it showed us that music videos aren't as easy as we thought and also producing it was not easy. The planning part was a good experience, not the best part for me but it was good. I developed that as a group we needed to think for and about a lot of things with such little time. Such as our group name, where we will be filming, our song choice and why.The production task was very fun and blogging about it did bring good memories and also reminders of what we needed to re-do and what we needed to add to it. I enjoyed doing groups blogs and we all did add some information that we thought needed to be added to group blogs by all of us. I am happy with my individual blogs and my main target was to keep up with all my blogs and i have done that. I also set myself the target of not relying on the next day or blogging at home or just in class. I blogged every time i was free and wasn't doing anything. This helped a lot because it helped my remember things that i had forgotten about and i developed this skill and was worth learning it. Altogether i have 60 posts and there will be more to come!

Progress Review Blog !!

Blogging Journey 
I feel as if I have become more confident in my blogging posts, from the level of detail to the diverse use of I.C.T. I believe I have blogged about every part of the process of our music video. As a whole I am happy with my individual blogs and group blogs. The targets that I set myself have been fulfilled, I beileve. My creativity and accuracy within blogging have enhanced which I am pretty pleased about.

Total counts of blogs- 65, more to come yet!

OUR JOURNEY 

                       

Evaluation Q3- notes and ideas

Technology used- 

• Flip camera- to film small segments of behind the scenes or updating our audience with important information at that particular time 
• Memory Cards- to store our footage on 
• Still Camera- capture important moments 
• JVC Video Camera- record our footage on
• Mini speaker- Hear our music 
• Big speaker- to sing in time with the music

• Blogger- document our activities that relate to the making of our music video
• Photobooth
• Gif maker- diverse way of representing photos
• Photovista
• Timetoast- our production schedule 
• Youtube- to research different types of music videos and gather inspiration from
• Safari- Research anything relevant to our music video making

• Instagram- used to post pictures and videos of our journey for our fans or audience 
• Twitter- tweet about our progress

• Final cut pro- vital element for our editing process 
• Special effects- they were enticed within our music video 

PROGRESS REVIEW BLOG

Skills Development: Editing Skills

EVALUATION - Question 3

Using Blogger - 

We used Blogger to document our process for research and planning and even production 

Heres is our animatic that we made before planning our ideas. We used a still camera and a memory card to take the pictures and save them. We then edited in to final cut pro and added music in the background to make it look more like a planned story video.

Using Social networking sites - Twitter and Instagram

We used Instagram to keep our teachers updated with our filming production and editing process. For example if we were at a certain location we may have tweeted about how we got there and uploaded some pictures of us filming and some behind the scene pictures for our followers.

We also followed other groups also doing a music video to see their progress and help them with audience feedback if they needed any.

I also used some of my twitter followers to help audience suggestions, we followed fans of sugababes to ask what the audience like about the sugababes music video and we got feedback about the visual aspects of their videos and more of the quality of sound. 

Instagram is an easy site to uplaod pictures on, its like TimeToast because you can see how long ago the pocyre was posted

Evaluatio Q1 -notes and ideas

Carol Vernalis - Editing
These are some of the conventions followed through in our music video-

• Special Effects
• Continuity Editing is broken up
• Basetracks allow the camera to move in time with the music
• Increasing amount of jump cuts

Beyonce- Countdown, this example reflects these conventions - 

PRODUCTION - Editing and adding effects

We wanted to add special effects to our video and transitions for the clips but after we edited it we didn't have much time to add them and more importantly we didn't really need to add much more because the jump cuts worked in sync and didn't look to bad.

To add text to our video 

We had to look for a text that goes with our video and doesn't look too formal or like it belongs in a horror film, so we spent some time looking a for a font that we like and that looks nice and we decided to stick with Kokonar  because some of the letters are extended and we think it looks good.

We did have some trouble with the text boxes and fitting the text in to the screen and in the wide frame image but it all worked out in the end. We also picked a text with black outline to make it stand out in the video against the white wall we filmed in front off. 

Evaluation Q4(ideas)

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

That we did stress however we realised that we did actually have fun and have a very good experience in how it was in the real world and were very proud with the feedback we got from our audience.

Evaluation Q3 ( ideas)

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?



lightings( different types- in photography room)
 fig rig
camera
memory cards
final cut pro
flip camera(very helpful)
still camera(very helpful)
youtube

Evaluation Q2 ( ideas)

How effective is the combination of your main product(video) and ancillary texts(digipak and advertisement)?


Black and white, font type, artists.
Almost but not typical

Evaluation Q1( ideas)

In what ways does your media products use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?




synergy-ballon

















dance








risks of being in water and cold outside

Production-Skills development

Skills development from amal_94

Evaluation Q3 & 4- Ideas

Question 3

Discuss the technologies I've use e.g- video camera & final cut pro

Talk about HOW I USED the technologies.

Dont just list the technologies

Discuss the transitions/ effects I used cube- (At the beginning) fade out- (At the end)

Why did I use those effects/ transitions.

Question 4

Film people reactions after viewing our music video in the cinema.

And what have I learnt from the audience feedback

Things I possibly need to improve on?

Evaluation Question 1- ideas

Vernallis observation are;

1) The usual rules of ‘continuity’ editing are broken down in order to draw attention to what is on screen.

We followed this convention

    2) Edits such as wipes and special effects are used to draw attention to themselves

We followed this convention ( Cube at the beginning)

    3)   Jump cuts are used a lot

   We followed this convention

4) A base track is used a lot in order to give the video structure 

We followed this convention

5) The camera usually moves in time with the music 

We followed this convention

Dancing is in nearly every typical pop music video 

PRODUCTION -stressing: day before deadline

 Today is the day before our deadline and we are told that the editing suites will be available for the classes that have media on friday 29th november which is not us so we are very stressed because we are almost out of time and we need to finish the video today.

Production-Editing day: Texts

So today I was continuing the editing from were I left of at last time. we fixed up the beginning part of our music video which was the split screen, I managed to make that work. After that we viewed our music video and realised that certain parts were out of sync, so we had to replace it with another clip that fitted in well. 

Also in the white wall scene there was a massive empty space, so we decided to add in lyrics to that space. We didn't know what font style to use however we used a random one for the time being and later we can change the font style and maybe the colours, so that would be our task to finish of tomorrow.

What to do tomorrow

• Add more texts
• Change font style
• Fix up lyrics that are out of sync
• Add transitions
• Add effects

After we finish all that tomorrow we wont have a lot to do on friday except little finishing touches.

Production- Bloopers

I used final cut pro to put together some of the clips that showed the mistakes and fun we had making this music video.

PRODUCTION - Rough Final

Inspiration-Editing skills

Looking at the Little Mix- Wings youtube clip I found that they use a variety of different editing techniques. However the main technique that caught my eye was when the screen split in four. I found that clip very entertaining especially when the clips started to move around.

Therefore in my music video i hope to apply the same thing at the beginning, creating a similar effect. Because there is only three people in the group, the third box would be a video of all of us together.

At the beginning the split screen was hard to replicate, however with a little help from a staff member we found out how to do it easily.

Heres the little mix split screen we are trying to achieve                 

And heres what we got so far.....

Research- editing skills

So today I've been researching on different editing skills that i might use on my music video. I came across this youtube clip that is basically teaching me how change the contrast of a clip. Previously I never knew about this technique, but now I might apply it to my to a clip that might benefit from it.

I usually use these techniques when i edit an image on photoshop however I've never used it on a clip thats why I was interested in this youtube clip.

Editing

Today I was editing for 5 hours 30mins straight. Heres a few pictures I took...

Pictures editing from amal_94

Vlog- Summary

PRODUCTION - Fountain take 3

PRODUCTION - Vlogs from yesterday

Evaluation Q1 Plan

Screen shots from our own video and another video that influenced us to put some lyrics in to our video. The video is Girls Aloud - Something New. It was the editing that influenced us and the visual style as the writing was in big and almost black and white. 

Following Carol Vernallis's theory : 

Ways in which we followed her theory -

• We used lots of jump cuts in our video, especially jumping from different locations or different camera angles from medium shots to close ups 
• We definitely broke the rule of continuity editing and we broke it in certain places to grab the audiences attention for example the jump from the verses to the chorus 
• For special effects we didn't add many to the video because we already had different colours and stuff going on in our music video so we added text to our videos to make it go with the white wall behind us in the photography studio 

Following Goodwins theory 

• Our music video followed his theory and we used the amplified theory 
• Meanings and effects are manipulated and constantly shown through the video 
• 
  

Production-Filming last day!!

Yesterday we went outside to redo our fountain scene because we were told by sp many people, including our teacher that it was too dark. So we needed more close ups of the group dancing and songing. We also had close ups of the group feet doing the dance. This time there is a lot of camera angles showing the artist from the back, side and front we did this inorder to make the video look more interesting. There was also a lot more camera movements therefore not still and boring like it was before.

Problems

At the beginning when we started filming we noticed the camera was not focused, so we started to panick a little because it was cold outside and we didn't know how to fix it. However after 10 minutes we managed to fix it and began filming.

Another problem we faced was that it was toooo cold!! The first time we filmed there the water wasn't that cold but yesterday it was freezing but when we were filming we has to act like it was fine. 

Synergy

Exploring the Sugababes Website

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT: Editing Skills

Skills Audit

Get Inspired!

Sugababes- Get Sexy 

From Dan's feedback, he suggested to look at a variety of music videos to see the kind of camera work that goes on. So we decided to watch the music video, Get sexy by the sugababes. 

This allowed us to view the diverse camera angles , so we can entice it into our music video.

Shhh Work in Progress!

PRODUCTION-EDITING !!

We are working very hard towards editing as we are worried about the deadline but we are working in progress.

All this week we aim to complete our editing.

Its difficult because of the macs available for us to edit and we need most of the group here to come to a mutual decision about all the shots and what scene to use when.

 Its easier said then done but we are a hard working group and very persistent.  

Here we go again!

After looking at our scenes from King's Cross, we decide we would film the King's Cross shots again as they were not particularly good because we were filmed at a distant and due to the fact we was filming in the dark we had problems with lighting.

  As a group we are worried about time, the deadline is upcoming and we still need to film but overall as a group we are working together to ensure everything is getting done.

Full of Luck :)

That very same day we filmed in Westfield, as well as getting lucky with the restaurant we also got lucky with bowling.

Heres what we got up to while filming our bowling scene:

Production:Skills Development

This year we took a different approach in planning the production as I believe we were more organised and aware of what we were doing.

What we done differently from last year-

• We had a production time table- E.g - Timetoast, so we knew what we was doing and when 
• We created a group chat on Whatsapp, to communicate with one another
• We discussed which scene we was doing and when 
• We were assigned different tasks that were relevant to our music video

PRODUCTION-Dan's feedback

"The feedback from film, notes on the water fountain not working, and the others, are exactly the sort of individual posts I'd like to see you doing. These are really good. What I'd like to see you do now is give a full consideration to what I said in Rough Cut feedback and blog about this, explaining how it's affected your decision making and planning process. I said to Amal that I don't just want you to stick up a video of me and leave it there - what did you agree with about what I said? Did you disagree with anything? Then make plans of the back of this and, for individual posts, you should explain your particular role. i.e. I learnt in editing today, I held the camera and I learnt today that..."



This is what Dan had said to me after asking him to send me some feedback. I will definitely reflect on this and will improve on this.

PRODUCTION-Louisa's feedback and group discussion about changes

We got Louisa to look at our rough cut and we got her feedback and within the group we have talked about what we have, what we need and what we don't need.

PRODUCTION-Discussion of what was filmed

Library scene;

Pub scene:

Bowling scene:

                 

White wall scene:

PRODUCTION - Improving our rough cut

Music video inspiration

Looking at sugababes song 'get sexy' we were inspired by the camera movements while the artists were dancing. So for our music video we would use the same kind of camera movement when we dance. I also love how theres certain close ups showing the artists face while they sing. Theres also extreme close ups of lips and face, I was thinking of doing the exact same in our music video as its more effective. 

I also like the dance routine in the music video and the camera angles.

PLANNING - The day we asked for permission VLOG

 

Costume= setting

Costume - Setting from amal_94

Examine Website

This is sugababes website, its quite hard navigate and it seems like an old website that hasn't been updated in a while. Comparing this to other artists website this one differs a lot, this is because their not an active band as they haven't released any singles in a long time.

Their website has a lot os images, showing the band altogether posing. 

Sugababes Facebook page is more updated, they have a lot of likes on their page and they post on a regular basis. Although this is probably not the actually members posting it still updates their fans with relevant information which is very useful.

Filming FAIL!

So we tried to film on Monday, the water fountain scene again because we felt like there could be lots more to improve. HOWEVER when we got to our location we found an empty space, there wasn't any water coming out so i decided to ask someone that works their when the water is going to turn on and he said its going to be like this for 1 week.

The whole group was annoyed because we were so prepared to film. We didn't want to waste the day so we decided to sit down inside the uni opposite the fountain and discuss what we should do now. We discussed what we should do for about 1hr 30mins and we came out with lots of great ideas.

We thought it would be a great addition to our music video if we filmed inside the photography studio or dance studio or inside an art class. So the next day me and Kavita asked the dance studio teacher if we could use the room for 1hour and she said no :(

Later i went and asked the photography teacher if we could use the photography studio and he said YES!! we were all so pleased we decided there was no point in using the art room aswell.

Synergy

Our synergy product is going to be a balloon.

The balloons would appear in every location, whether its behind the artist, or the artist could also be holding it or playing around with it.

The ballon would be linked to the group thorough out the whole album and therefore people would recognise them with it. 

For example in Edsherans album the main theme is the colour oranage also in his music video theres lots of cats which became a slight theme as he discreetly inserted an image of a paw in his album cover.

The group name is called H3LIUM (helium) the 'I' would be the and image of a balloon and the number 3 is indicating that there is three people in the group.

The name would be kept in the same font and colour in the album cover, aswell as in the music video.

Taylor swift also does the same thing in her album cover, her synergy product in her album is her black hat. She wears it in the music video and its incorporated into everything she does album related. Also the theme colour is RED.

 

Rough cut and editing

Feedback and Rough cut from amal_94

Production-Filming fail

Heres a video explaining what happened when we tried to film.... ENJOY

PRODUCTION - Audience Feedback

RESEARCH-A couple of music videos

In Miley Cyrus' music video wrecking ball what i have noticed is that she only has one costume on which is a white belly top and a white pair of knickers. Also she only has one location which is inside a place with one outstanding prop which is a hammer. The music video may have only one location and not a lot of props but there is a lot going on. For example  the close ups that she starts off with and ends with. The wrecking ball smashing into the wall with Miley looking calm is also effective.

 In Rihanna's video 'We found love' has the similarity of lots of locations to our video. The locations aren't posh or very high classed. They are casual and they are places where a lot of people go and attend a lot of the times. Which is just like ours where we have locations inside and outside.

What i liked about this video is that Chris dances for the first chorus and it gives the video a great affect and when he sings he does little dances in different locations and its like a story throughout the song.

                                 

PRODUCTION-filming again

After the feedback recieved from our teachers, we as a group have agreed to film the chorus at King's Cross fountain again. The reason for this is to make our chorus almost perfect and many more...

What we can't film!

It was going to turn out as a filming fail , when we planned to film in one of Westfield's restaurant -

The Real Greek 

But unfortunately Mariam visited the restaurant just to confirm we was allowed to film. The official manager said we could not. We was confused as we already asked permission a couple days back but the lady we asked was a temporary manager and had only been working there for only two weeks. 

However...........

We got lucky as we sat down in another restaurant , just to decide what to do. We had a eureka moment as we thought to ask permission and they allowed us to film.

   

Mise en Scene !!

RESEARCH-Rihanna -What now

What i like about this music video is that there is only one location but it is used very effectively. There are only two costumes which are the same but differenct colours. Rihanna wears a dress which is black in one shot and a white version of the same version(dress). The props she uses are very simple but have a long meaning behind it, for example the cross necklace she wears might connote that she's lost and as she says" i just can't figure it out" or she might be talking about something as typical as being in love. One thing i've noticed about the costume and location is that when the room is white she wears white and when the room is black she wears black.

 This is a a similarity to our music video because at the water fountain the girls wear all black in a dark place outside but there is lighting coming from the camera and from the fountain lights. However, there is a difference in our video when Rihanna is in the white room, in our video when the girls are infront of a white wall they wear again black to have more of an effect against the white wall.

Also the special effects that Rihanna has in her video is very effective and also the movements. There is a lot of movement in the video which aren't usual movements, there is also some fast pace moments when she moves like she's in pain

RESEARCH-Royals- Lorde ( us version)

I feel as though this music video is very effective. The reason being because of the everything being white and also the costume of the artist and the others in the video. They are all dressed in white and everything is very plain. There is main location which is inside the house  there is a lot going on and the changes of costume half way through the video is one of the only things that have colour in it.

There are similarities in this video that we would want to use in our music video. For example the shots where the artist doesn't sing but the song is on in the background. One contrast to our video is the artist in the middle of the white wall whereas in our video the girls stand on the side so that lyrics can be placed on the other half of the wall.

PRODUCTION - Blooper video

PRODUCTION - Editing the rough cut!

Editing the rough cut!

After editing the music video we done in the last weeks of AS for summer work i had a rough idea on how to edit music videos with base tracks. However as that was a long time ago, i got another group to help me go over how to mark and what to do.

After roughly 5 minutes, i quickly got the hang of editing on Final Cut pro again as it was pretty easy if all the base tracks were good quality and the lyrics are obvious to recognise. 

Reflection on progress

 Looking Back

PRODUCTION - Rough cut!!

Reflection on Progress Blog 2

PRODUCTION - Feedback from Dan

Dan viewed our rough cut !

Here 's what he said - 

He suggested to look at a couple of music video's to get a sense of how the camera angles are showcased  -

Get sexy - Sugarbabes 

Alternative Route

 After our filming fail in King's Cross Fountain, we came up with an alternative. We had three options/choices -

• Get the photography studio and film against a white wall for effect
• Attempt to see if we can get the dance studio 
• Back up option, film with the green screen 

We chose to film in the photography studio with the white wall -

It was a success!!

PRODUCTION - Rough cut!! Signing

PRODUCTION-consideration of filming again

When looking back at what we had filmed especially the chorus i felt like the chorus needed to be done again. The reason was not because it wasn't good but because we all agreed that the chorus was to be perfect. So after watching it we talked about it and we agreed that the chorus was to be done again at king's cross.
     

So we went to king's cross just to see that the fountain had no water coming out of it. We asked one the people that work there and he said that there was a problem with the fountain and that it won't be on for a week. Which then meant that if we were to come one in a week's time then it will be passed our filming deadline. So we had to stay with what we had and that is what we will be using for the filming.

We were very disappointed with the outcome because we had everything planned out and were ready to just film one last time but we weren't so lucky i guess.

Filming fail :(

One of Our Bad Days 

Take Two !

As you know with filming , it can have its ups and downs , good days and bad days. Unfortunately on this occasion we experienced the bad day. We were all ready to film for the second time in King's Cross as we felt our footage was not up to standard   therefore we all arranged to meet up. However as we got there we noticed the fountain was not working , so we asked a member of staff in which he told us the fountain will not be on for a week.  As a result we were disappointed.

Vlog of our disappointment 

PRODUCTION - Last day of filming

Finished Filming Forever

 Even though we i felt that we has already filmed enough, i wanted to film something against a white background after watching Jhene Aikos new video because the simplicity of it made the video look 10x more better. So after searching long and hard (okay 1 day) for a perfect white wall we found one that happened to be a photography studio!! One of the girls in the group (Amal) is actually a photography student therefore she is welcome to use the studio whenever she wants which meant that we didn't have to wait for permission.

When we were filming we decided on all black (to wear)  like the fountain however this time with some color on our tops. This is because of the contrast against the white background with the black balloons for synergy and so on

PRODUCTION - Filming Failure by Farheen

PLANNING - Our First Story Board.... L O L

Our little visit to King's Cross Fountain

After filming the library scene, we all decided to visit the King's Cross Fountain as this was our main location in which we sing the chorus.

First we got lost and had to ask directions from various people.Eventually we found the fountain.... after a few mintues.

King's Cross Fountain Map 

We ventured out around the fountain and started inventing a dance rountine to perform in the fountain.
The group and I were apprehensive in getting in the fountain as we were not prepared but for our projects sake we gathered a feel of the fountain and how would our dance synchornize with the fountain lights.

The Day of Filming 

Libary - Take 1!

Shhh... Filming in progress!

The library scene was our first shot at filming for our music video which lead to some complications.

  

1. We had to get permission from the Central Islington Library. Initially I called first then Amal and I had to visit it as we thought it would be easier to speak to them face to face. Once we spoken to the management team , they allowed us to film at a specific date and time in a particular part of the library.
2. Then we relayed the good news to the rest of the grouped and we organised how were getting there and who's bringing what equipment.
3. Finally we got cracking with the filming.

Problems that occurred -

• We did not have clear instructions in how the scene was going to be filmed
• People of the public interrupted during filming, although we expected it to happen
• Our time was limited as only had minimum hours to film in the library 
• Group members had trouble remembering lyrics 

Did anything go right? -

• Our mise en scene was on point , from the costumes to the setting.
• We managed to film a lot considering our time 
• We worked around disruptions