INTRODUCTION

For the fifth draft of our music video, we primarily focused on making sure our clips weren’t too dark and were clearly by going and adjusting the brightness and contrast.  In addition, with our masking experience from our previous draft we attempted to mask a small fragment of our songs lyrics behind a close up of our star for some amplification between the song and the video. Regardless of our changes it is still a work in progress as we need to go back to re-tweak the brightness settings in the initial clips.

SUMMARY OF CHANGES

• Added lyrics masked behind the singer
• Adjusted brightness in some darker areas and clips
• Fixed some minor issues with lip syncing

REFLECTION

The drafts building up to our final two have all had a purpose. Throughout the development stages of our music video, we have gradually built up the volume of media language (Conventions, repertoire of elements (Altman & Lacey)) used within our music video. The reasoning for us ensuring that media language has been included is to ensure that our music video remains conventional in hopes to engage our target audience; more specifically the audience of our chosen music genre, Indie Rock. There are moments in our video where parts of the song or the narrative are amplified through both actions and choices made in post production, I feel that this heightens the connection made between the song itself and the video; further reeling in and maintaining engagement amongst our audience.

After five different drafts of our video I feel that we have ensured that the representation of our star image (Dyer) is accurately depicted through the use of media language ,(mise-en-scene, camera, editing and sound) All these elements, including some of our more complex, unique choices in post production help reflect our branding and it’s key descriptors ; Independent, relatable, talented, sincere and meaningful. Music videos act as promotional tools for artists, hence why it is so important to convey your star(s) and your brand according to whatever image of them you wish to represent to your audience.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

Masking will always be a semi-complex process where the difficulty is amplified especially when the object you are masking is constantly in motion. Thanks to previous experience with this, we successfully masked a part of the songs lyrics in the way which we intended, allowing for the correct denotations to be encoded (Hall) and decoded by the audience.

To help the video have a smooth feel throughout the whole duration, we learned how to use stabilisers to counteract any unintended shaky movements. One notable spot which we applied this was the opening clip of the clock where the time displayed was shaky and not static.

CONVENTIONS CHECK-IN

We have now fulfilled our conventions checklist, which therefore means that our star and brand are being accurately connoted to the audience in the way that we intended.

Our final draft of our music video is next. Upon finishing this draft we will receive some final feedback from our teacher to ensure that the end result is perfect.  Overall, the final draft will be of higher quality as we make some minor tweaks to miniscule properties such as lighting, clip speed etc.

VIDEO

INTRODUCTION

For the fourth draft of our music video, we took the advice we received from Specsavers’s creative team and made a variety of adjustments / tweaks to vastly improve the overall production quality of the video. Our primary points of focus / objectives were firstly to mask the intro “3AM” text over our star, additionally we went through the whole video and re-sized all of our clips following the change in aspect ratio in draft 3; finally one of our most notable changes was the implementation of extra clips where the video cut back to a ped of the main star on numerous occasions. I feel like this made the video more engaging and a whole lot less repetitive.

SUMMARY

• Masked the intro text.
• Re-adjusted clips and borders.
• Added border colour.
• Stopped cutting back to the slow rising clip of the star and implemented more clips to vary the build up.
• Slowed down impactful moments on the final climax.

TECHNICAL SKILLS

The main technical skill which we developed this draft was the ability to mask our star over the intro text. We did this by using keyframes to mask the star based on his movement; the range of unpredictable, unusual movements made this post production technique exceedingly difficult to pull of effectively, hence why there are still minor but visible errors which we aim to vastly improve going into draft 5. Another more simplistic skill was the resizing and the addition of colour to the borders which was miles easier now that we are more familiar with premiere pro in general.

CONVENTIONS CHECK-IN

PEER FEEDBACK

For our peer feedback we asked:

• What do they understand of the narrative?

  • Who are the main protagonists in the narrative?

  • How does it establish the protagonist(s), develop the problem and resolve narrative?

– “From my understanding, the narrative consists of a man waking up very early in the morning and he is almost finished with a puzzle. He then has a bit of a mental breakdown and destroys it. The necklace that keeps being referred back to could suggest that he is missing someone but I was a little unsure of why he was destroying the puzzle. “

“The main protagonist in the narrative is the guy who is also the lead singer in the performance. I can see the narrative relates to missing something or a piece that was once a part of him. The problem starts developing when the main protagonist cannot find the last piece resulting in him destroying the puzzle. The final piece and the necklace are constant reminders of what is missing.”

• How does the mise-en-scene represent the genre and star image of the performer or band?

“The mise en scene of his costume (pajamas) encodes that he is tired and very carefree because he does the band performance in his pajamas. This suggests he is relatable and ordinary rather than having a high status and fancy outfit. This could help fans connect with him and better understand what he is going through. There could be some more movement/ action in the performance, maybe him walking? around and the camera follows?”

“The outfit of the protagonist fits the genre of the song and links to the song’s clear meaning of being awake early in the morning with something on his mind.”

• How have camera angles, framing and movement been used to represent the narrative and performance?

“There are a good variety of angles but could be some more framing as the main character is in the middle of the screen for the majority of the performance. There are lots of meaningful close ups which help portray the narrative and show what the main character is looking at e.g the necklace and puzzle.”

“The use of camera tracking of the protagonist in the narrative as he is searching around makes the viewer feel more invested as he is looking for the missing piece. Star and the band are not always central in narrative as well as the use of high angles, low angles and looking over the shoulder during the narrative showing variety. This helps reveal what the protagonist is looking at and adds perspective to the narrative and performance.”

• Which specific editing techniques (cutting, filters, effects, captions…) contribute to the impact of the video and sense of narrative?

“There were some nice transitions between the shots which help make the video feel smoother and more conventional of a music video.”

“Transition effects at 0.28 between scenes and the boxes at 0.53 / 1:53 where it featured the band’s instruments being played, help move from the narrative into the performance. Cutting between scenes with the kick drum and the necklace portrays it as a key object in the narrative and builds up to the chorus.”

• Can you provide 3 clear suggestions as to what should be considered now in terms of editing, special FX, extra pick ups etc

“Maybe play more with the speed of shots?”

“More framing”

“Play with the saturation of shots? Everything feels quite dark.”

“I like the transition you used towards the beginning where it swiped across, you could try adding maybe a glitch effect for a transition to create a distorted/ detached feeling to represent the emotional dissonance.”

“You could look into key framing where the clip can move around or zoom in which could be used for the performance parts or use it to give more energy during the chorus.”

“Text overlay of the key lyrics may help make it visually interesting for the audience. Could frame the singer / the band members or their instruments with the lyrics so it’s not just sat on the top of the clips.”

“However, it is a good video and I like the sequencing as the narrative and performance flow well, and the cutting between scenes work well with the rhythm of the music.”

REFLECTION

In summary, this draft proved very beneficial and significant in terms of both overall improvements to the video and our own personal technical skills, we experimented with arguably the most complex techniques which we’ve attempted to use thus far . Us trying out unique editing technique will without a doubt make our music video much more appealing and abstract to our target audience. If our target audience are engaged, this significantly improves our preferred reading in contrast to oppositional reading.

INTRODUCTION

Draft three of our music video contains various changes in terms of structure and editing in response to our teacher feedback. For this draft, we discovered that our resolution on premier pro wasn’t proportionate to the videos, so we increased it which also vastly improved the quality but left the boxes we created containing clips disproportionate as a result. In addition, we implemented an adjustment layer over our narrative segments to give it a warmer vibe . Specsavers, a creative department who specialise in media as a whole (Including magazines, music videos etc) visited us at the sixth form centre to give us some useful feedback on how we can turn our music videos up a notch; overall, they ended up being a great help as when we decided that we wanted the performance to feel separate from the narrative, the team gave us a few ideas of how to make it feel more grungy by playing around with more filters; our result will be included in draft 4.

VIDEO

OVERALL CHANGES

-Widened the resolution

-Added lumetri scopes + adjustment layer to the narrative

-Experimented with warm tones on the band

-Slight switch up with the narrative order

TECHNICAL SKILLS

For this draft we began to experiment with slightly more advanced post production techniques, including adjustment layers and lumetri scopes which at first flew right over my head, but as we progressed with it and trusted the process we found that it was slightly more simple than it appeared on the surface and as a result, we ended up developing a colour filter which fit pretty well with the vibe of our narrative sections and overall the feel which we intended to generate for our target audience. In addition, we also started adding coloured border to our split screen instrument segment; which originally only contained images rather than having clear separation.

VIDEO WHICH HELPED WITH FILTERS

CONVENTIONS CHECKLIST

SPECSAVERS FEEDBACK

Overall, the feedback we received from specsavers is going to be extremely beneficial for the development of our future drafts as they are providing us with valuable, professional opinions on how we can improve our video and maximise engagement.

Feedback:

• Potentially cut out our star over the text at the start
• Add a cooler tone filter on the performance
• Fix the borders/boxes
• Add puzzle pieces green screened over the performance
• Shoot some shots in a dark room of our star throwing around puzzle pieces to develop narrative
• Slow down clips during the bridge build up for impact of puzzle breaking
• Maybe find a way to overlay a puzzle over the band so they look like a puzzle

REFLECTION

Creating this draft has helped develop both our technical skills and our understanding of what works and what doesn’t. We went back and improved in the areas which were lacklustre using our conventions checklist to help our video feel more well rounded and engaging to the audience; additionally we prioritised making the changes which our teacher highlighted in our previous draft; overall I feel that this draft was a massive step up from its predecessor.

Like we did with our teacher feedback, we will reflect on this post to ensure that we really focus on implementing most of the feedback that Specsavers has given us into our video. All these small changes will all come together in the end, hopefully resulting in a high quality music video.

INTRODUCTION

For our 2nd draft we have now combined both our narrative and performance shots into one video. Not only has this helped us develop our technical skills such as editing and overall familiarity with premier pro. With this draft out of the way, we now have a brief idea on how our music video will be structured and how we can improve upon it in future drafts.

 EDITING TECHNIQUES,

REFLECTION

When comparing our video to this assessment criteria there are features which I feel we have managed to implement effectively and features which do need improving. For example; our star image (Dyer), MES and Genre have been represented effectively and appropriately with great help from our previous shot lists and the use of media language. In addition, we have combined editing to the beat with our lip syncing to piece the video together and assist in appealing to our five key brand descriptors.

Appealing to technical conventions such as editing to the beat, sequencing  and match on action which evidently still needs a bit of work will create a preferred reading experience for our audience; if we were to edit off the beat for example the whole video would feel unsettling and uncomfortable to watch which then causes the audience to reject our text (or video)

A few more things which we could improve upon is our variety of shots, both scenes in general and distances such as extreme close ups. Towards the last third of our video we found that the shots we had to work with weren’t nearly enough. It began to get very repetitive and we had to reuse some clips temporarily just to get a draft out. In regards to shot variety, we had a good amount of mid shots and close ups but I reckon we could’ve definitely gotten a few extreme close ups in to really improve the lip syncing aspect of the video and to create a more personal connection between the band and the audience.

SKILLS

This first screenshot shows us attempting to create a semi-transparent overlay of a drum beat which we felt could assist in amplifying the synchronisation between the video and the music. Overall it was a fairly simple editing technique but being relatively new to editing software it was a pretty useful thing to learn in-case we ever find a proper use for it in the future.

This technique however took me a little more time to figure out. The screenshot shows me attempting to overlay our song title at the beginning of our music video in an alarm clock font, including the flashing conventionally found amongst digital clocks. After pairing it with a cross dissolve transition I was successful in creating this effect and feel as if it is a key aspect of our music video. After figuring out how to do this it was more tedious and time consuming than anything.

Now that we are slightly more familiar with the software itself, we can now use our newly developed skills to encode more meaning into the video through editing techniques; throughout our drafts we will definitely be experimenting with more complex techniques to really amp up our post production.