Feedback on rough cut

Today I have been receiving feedback on the rough cut from fellow students, my teacher and a couple friends.

The all agreed that the editing and shot types used were very good. The only constructive critism I got was that It needs an extra shot of the artist for the video to be interesting and take it up a level. By this I don't intend to get another shot of her lip syncing but more shots of the artist walking.
Something that resembles the lyrics 'Whats going on'

Fellow students told me that my editing and cut aways work well with each other and that my lip syncing is all in time. There are certain points in my music video rough cut where I don't agree with this..there are still a couple of clips I have to shuffle ever so slowly one way or the other to get the perfect timing.



This could be hard to get more time with Meg(The artist who sings the song) but hopefully it is possible.

I had the idea of having Meg walk up a hill (perhaps castle hill) then have her looking over Cambridge. We could include POV(Point Of View) shots with this which is a shot I haven't yet included with my video.

Another idea is if we can't get the artist for more time to shoot then to film some of Cambridges main attractions to add to the video. This wont be as good but would fit into the theme of our video.

Recording again

I have emailed our chosen local artist via facebook after receiving feedback.
I realise it may not be possible to get her again to shoot the video and it was our mistake to not get the extra footage on filming day.

Editing

The editing process:
I used the pen tool on Final Cut to cut in and out of clips. I decided to not use any transitions between the clips and cuts as there would be so many and I don't think it would look right.
Most music videos change the camera angle around every 2 seconds, which is a lot. I think my rough cut changes around every 6 seconds so I may try to add in more cuts but I have also tried to keep to the beat of the song. The song is slower than some so the fact my cuts aren't every two seconds might work better as it could seem too fast for the song.

I used the 'Razor Blade' tool to cut some of the clips where there shots were no good to use.

I have also been working on effects I can put over the music video, I particularly liked the 'Sepia' effect. This gave it a sort of vintage feel...the downside to this effect is that it takes the colour away from the grass and scenery.
I also tried the the filters 'Tint' and 'Threshold' but I liked the natural light and effects of our shots more so decided against using these video filters.

Rough Cut

I was given the job to edit the whole video. This is a rough cut of the editing I have done so far. I plan to get feedback on this to improve what I have already done.

I used Final Cut to edit. My biggest problem was lining up all the video shot types so that they played at the right time to the track.
This was particularly tricky to shots we had done where we had only filmed half the song or a little bit of the song.

I decided to keep some of the shots of ducks and cambridge scenery. The brief was to film a Cambridge artist or band, we wanted to make our video as 'Cambridge' as we could.

Day of recording

Today we went to collect cameras to shoot the music video.

We met on Parkers Peace a local green area in Cambridge.
It was only me and Tom filming as Christian has been ill. We originally got 2 cameras and a tripod but the second camera ran out of battery after just the first shot in the first location so we only used 1 in the end.
We took turns to film Tom, I think I came up with some good camera angles when shooting and did all the hand held camera work. Tom did most of the tripod shots.

Before going off to record I made sure I printed out directions to our chosen locations and the track on my phone to play out loud.

We recorded at a few different locations. The first was at Mill Pond by the river, we did 4 different angles, 2 being hand held with a verity of crane shots, low angle, side angle and panning round.
For the shots on the tripod we only used the mid shot and close up for the first locations.

Our second location was by a big tree by queens back in Cambridge. We filmed here as the background had a road and path with lots of people walking and cycling by getting to their jobs. We wanted this effect as the lyrics go 'give me a little attention' we wanted to give the effect that no one was giving her attention in the video.

Our third location was on the side of Christ green in Cambridge town, we chose this because we wanted to give a darker shade to the locations. This shot was done in tree's. Although thinking this would be a good location before, after watching it back I think this location was a mistake and we should have found somewhere better.

Artist

The artist we have chosen is 'Meg Scully'
Meg is a solo singer who lives in Cambridge and goes to local sixth form Hills Road.
Meg has also played in Bands but the song she has chosen for us to film is a solo song.
We gave her a choice out of any of her songs and she chose 'Whats Going On'

The song starts with a funky bass line with the drums and guitar coming in at 7 seconds.

Locations and ideas

I came up with the idea of spelling out the song name and artists name at the beginning or end of the video with spaghetti letters using the program 'Istopmotion' I think this would add a more comical effect to the video.

These are a list of the locations we are planning to film at
1. Mill Pond by the river
2. Christ Peice in the trees
4. By a big tree by Cambridge colleges/road and path
3. Town near the market.

We will each need to bring money to pay for the punt on the day of filming, from my research it costs £20 per hour. There are 3 including me in my group so if we all bring £7 we will have enough.

We will also need some Ipod speakers to play the track for Meg(the artist) to lip sync at these locations.

Our task was to find an existing band or artist in Cambridge, punting is big in Cambridge and we thought filming some of the shots on a punt would make the video feel more 'Cambridge' as anyone watching it around the world would recognize that the video was filmed in Cambridge itself.

Storyboard

We were planning on filming the music video today but the artist had to drop out and prospone until next Wednesday for filming. Despite this being a set back it gave me a good chance to look at the lyrics more deeply and find inner meanings on the song.
None of my group turned up yesterday to lesson so I managed to work out the words to the lyrics of our song 'Whats Going On'
It was hard to figure out some of the words by listening to the track but I managed to get the basic idea about what she is singing about in the song and the main words used.


We were originally planning for a shot with her playing guitar but today I found she only sings in the song. This could be seen as a set back as we wont have a shot of her playing just shots of her singing. After watching other music videos of female singers most of them don't show the band..only the singer lip syncing her song in different locations.

video analysis - Arctic Monkeys

Research, Analysis of the video 'I bet you look good on the dancefloor'

The music video of Arctic Monkey's song 'I bet you look good on the dancefloor' is purely performance based and only has one location.
They have the whole band performing live at a venue that has a similar set up to the junction(where we shot our video)This was their first single and was released on 17 October 2005 by the label Domino. The song went straight to #1 on the UK Singles Chart, beating Sugababes and Robbie Williams. 
This video has quite a few different camera angles and there is a cut every 2-3 seconds changing the angle which keeps your interest. 
At 22 seconds it has a close up of Alex Turners(singer) guitar as guitar is the main instrument at that point of the song, 
Even though the song got to number #1 it doesn't look like a high profile budget video as there isn't a story line and you can see back staff and the camera man on the stage at some points in the video. But that could have been what they were looking for in the video? We shall never know.
I think the reason that i like this video is because the timing with both the lyrics and the music is spot on! 
That is definitely something we need to try do with our video as what we are doing so far my lip syncing doesn't look entirely in time all the time but we have a lot to edit so we shall try do this.

Locations

We hope to film the video in an open space such as the Gog Magogs in Cambridge with the sun shining. The weather has been raining everyday for the last 2 weeks so we will be lucky to get sun. 

We thought it would also look good to start of filming in a coffee shop. 

I have the role of camera man in my group. I have already been thinking of many shot types for the day of shooting.

I will be the main editor with help from the other two in my group at certain points. 

I've been playing around with filters and think the Sepia and Black and White filter could look effective with our finished video if we get the lighting right. Fingers crossed it will be a sunny day for natural light. 

Chosen Track

As a group we have decided to use a track from local singer Meg Scully.
Her track is called 'Whats Going On' which has funk style bass, guitar and drum beat.



This is a screen grab of an email I sent to see if she was free to fit in with the schedules of others in my group, if not I will try make my group compromise with the artist we chose.

music video analysis - The Strokes

Research. Analysis of the video 'Under Cover Of Darkness.

In this video by The Strokes there seems to be around 4 different set ups but all seem to be in the same building which is interesting. There are various takes of the band rocking in the posh building with a 4 class meal.
The whole band are wearing suits with their own different styles of doing so with the singer when in the location of the leather sofa wearing a leather jacket and sun glasses which looks very rock'n'roll. I like that the band keep perfoming at different places in the same building in this video, my favourite being on stage at the theatre with a guy composing as if it were a classical peice.
I like the tracking shot from the posh red chair all the way back to the table of candles to the band playing. I think this shot is effective because it comes in just as the lyrics and vocals to the song start so you usually expect to see the singer but this is different in a good way. 
All the editing in this video is spot on with the beat and usually at the end of each bar or roll complimenting the music.

music video research

Research. Music Video's

Today I have been looking at all different kinds of music video's on youtube.
Ones of well known bands such as Arctic Monkeys, ones of not so well known bands such as Egyptian Hiphop.
R&B video's such as Jason Derulo and Justin Beiber, and also some classic pop such as Britney Spears.
It seems some bands have a mix of different kinds of music video's and some seem to stick to the same kind of mise en scene, such as the band Late of the pier, who's video's all seem to be very weird and abstract with some clever bits which show what the song is actually about.

Number of cuts in other music videos

Research. Number of cuts

I counted the number of cuts in the video Granade by Bruno Mars and got 140,




I also attempted to count the number of cuts in Katy B - lights on music video, from what i counted there was roughly 145 cuts during the video which is 3 minutes and 26 seconds long.