Editing

28/01/15

Megan and Hayley began to go through the shots me and Aaron took on monday. They started editing the scenes we took by going through them and deleting the rubbish ones. They cut some of the clips so that the out of focus scenes were deleted. They began to add the clips to the sequence, on Final Cut Pro, making sure it went along with the music. Some of the scenes in which Grace was dancing quite aggressively went really well with the chorus as its really upbeat creating the emotional tension.

Later on today Megan and Aaron stayed behind for lunch doing some more edits of the ballet scene. Here they started to play around with the mid shots and the feet and cutting from the two to create tension. The first chorus of the song was of the ballet dancing as there the chorus is really upbeat and pace working along really well withe dance movements  and the cuts of the shots being short and pacey. Along with the original idea of having the narrative, including ballet scenes, be in black and white this was done on Fianl Cut Pro.
This is a part of the section in which was edited of the ballet scenes:

Looking at the shots in a bigger screen they look pretty good. Theres only a few changes which we need to do, which we will take in to consideration when we reshoot. The changes are when filming using a D1200 Canon DSLR, having the setting clear and all blacked out and using the Drama Spotlights.

From watching our music video, i think we have done extremely well in that we have boosted our confidence into knowing that if we just work harder we can reach our target of producing and have created a high standard music video. At the start of the filming of our music video, i think we all lost our confidence in being able to film some good scenes but from doing rough shoots and then re-shoots i feel that we are learning from our mistakes and developing rapidly.

Filming Dance Performance

27/01/15

Aaron and I started filming the ballet dance scenes of Grace today. The shoot didn't start off too good as the dance room we originally wanted was occupied so we had to use another drama room. In the room we shot in there were no spotlights which meant we had to use a studio lamp, which was not professional however it didn't look too bad. I think the shots we filmed were actually pretty good, obviously we will have to do a reshoot, but for the time being its right as it gives us a little more of an idea of what we are aiming for and what we need to improve in our music video. I think the dance performance was really professional and the costume being white looked amazing against the darkness around Grace; it showed the idea of negative spacing. The camera we used, D500 50mm, was not too good as it made the shots look grainy, so next time we will use the D1200 to give that clean look. The next time we shoot we will film more of the narrative side when filming the dance scenes so that it goes according to our storyboard and makes more sense when put into our final music video.

 

Experimenting 1200 DSLR Canon Camera

26/01/15

Today as we had nothing planned, due to both our actresses being busy, we decided to play around with different camera lens and filming using DOF( depth of field). Depth of field "is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image." This is what makes the scenes captured more interesting due to the idea of shallow focus and having one object be the main subject. The lens that really amplifies the shallow focus is the 50mm lens on a 1200 DSLR Canon. This is why we have decided to use the 50mm lens when filming the dance as it will give a greater impact of focusing on certain areas making the audience focus on those areas.

Here we had a play around with the 50mm lens experimenting with the different pull focus and how to move the camera along, keeping the subject in focus, while the subject is moving.

I think this lens works really great as it gives that professional look due tot he pull focus. Using this when filming the dance scenes will really work well and look slick.

For inspiration, when filming the dance sequence, we looked at the music video from Whiplash which was shown towards the end. The pace of the cuts being fast and from different angles and camera shots is what makes this performance in the music video interesting. This is what we will try to persue when filming the dance scene.

Feedback on Second Screening

These are the feedback sheets we received from our class mates based on our second screening. The feedback was not really positive as there was not much footage that we had. There was far little shots that we took shown and more of the animatics still left which made everyone feel confused. The shots were not strong enough in the fact that in the hand-held parts the camera was very rigid and shaky making it look unprofessional. Also in the solo parts of Poppy the shots were not in sync with the song as the lip-syncing was off and the performance looked way too staged making it unrealistic.

 

 
 I think by screening our second cut and receiving these feedback's have really been an eye opener as it has given us the shock of us falling behind and not working hard enough in creating this music video. We really need to buckle ourselves up and start filming more shots, thinking of doing lots of reshoot and really planning what we actually want to film.

Second Screening

21/01/15

Today the group and i screened our latest shoots put together constructing a rough cut of our music video. We had shown all the shots we have filmed so far and edited them so that it fits into our music video. When constructing this second screen we were all well aware that there were not enough shots taken, most of the shots need to be re-taken and we need to focus on the micro-elements.                                       

                  

In order for us to create a high standard music video, we need to start making more time for shooting lots of different scenes and re-shooting them. Therefore we elaborated on our production log by marking in more days in which we will be filming. There also has to be more focus on other filming areas rather than just Poppy's solo singing which is why we have started to plan filming in different locations such as the school drama room.

Edit Music Video

14/01/15

Today, Hayley began editing the shots we took yesterday of the narrative side and started replacing them with the illustrated frames on the animatics. She made the music video pace by creating lots of short cuts of the scenes. By having lots of different cuts makes it more engaging for the audience. For the cuts to be flowing smoothly, different transitions were added. 

                             
   

Narrative Music Shoot

13/01/15

Today we did the narrative part of the shoot to our music video. As the day was pretty sunny and bright we thought to film the outside part in which the younger Isabel Beau (Grace) is waiting for her dad to pick her up from dance class. When filming here we elaborated on the idea by filming grace timing her shoes, walking out of her dance studio and waiting. The costume that we told Grace to wear really connoted the idea of her being a dance student due to the pineapple bag, sports bottle and tracksuit. We took some footage of Grace in her room in which we felt could contribute to the video. However we didn't get to filming the house scenes due to the camera battery running low. Overall, i think the shoot went really well, Grace was working well and acting out the way we wanted to which was perfect and we filmed some good shots.

Blog feedback

14/01/15

This is the feedback i got from Shaun for my blog. I am up to date with my blog but i just need to add a few bits like the animatics video's and some of the clips from the shoots we have done. He was very pleased with the posts i have been doing continuously and loved the idea of the lyrics book that i made along with the posters and digipak that i designed.

                          

Poppy's Solo Shoot

09/01/15

Looking through the videos taken we found a pretty big problem in that the whole shoot was filmed with a yellow filter which lead all the shots recorded in being filtered looking really horrible and strange. As all of the artists singing videos are suppose to be in colour we can't hide the filter by making it black and white. The other thing was when we were viewing the videos were that they looked a bit too staged and fake; the acting and emotions were very minimal and not realistic. Although we were going along with the idea of negative spacing i don't think it works well enough as it doesn't give the pop feel, maybe this is because she has no colour on her face or the hair is a bit too simple.

So to overcome all of these problems we have asked Poppy to learn the whole song of 'Battlefield' so that when it comes to doing the shoot we can just film her singing again and again changing the camera angles. We have also decided to style her up a bit more giving her some colour. Having her wearing red/pink lipstick along with eyeshadow and styling her hair differently. We will also be aware of the fact that the camera may have a filter so we will test it out and check it properly before filming. The next shoot of Poppy singing solo will be sometime next week when we feel like she knows the song vaguely.

                                                 

Shooting of Poppy's solo shoot

09/01/15

Today's shoot went really well as the footage we got of each scene looked proffessional and far better than the scenes we had from the start. The black costume against the white background worked really well as the centre of attention was our artist which is what we wanted to do. By having the setting be in the gallery made the scene more realistic due to the wider environment and natural lighting being the main. We had also set up the studio lamps up so that the lighting is bright and equal. The way each line was mimmed and acted seemed to look goo. Again, in this shoot, we lots of takes were taken; as much as we could so that we have lots of shots to choose and edit from.

Shoot Planning

07/01/15

Today we as a group made a visual plan and discussed of when we are all free so that we can plan our shoots according to who is free. I made a little diagram of what days everyone is free on. We all agreed on having a minimum of two members from our group make it to each shoot. Our shoots will be planned on this and our actresses; Grace and Poppy.

                     

After deciding which days were suitable for us to carry out the shoot i made a quick production log on the January month. I shaded the days in so that its clear on which actress we need on which day; yellow being Grace and pink being Poppy. According to our production log, our next shoot is on Thursday with Poppy acting out her solo performance of her singing. This shoot will take place in the art gallery due to the white background and bright lighting.