Here is our music video.

Here is the outside panel of my digipak album cover.

Here is the inside panel of my digipak album cover.

Here is the inside panel of my digipak album cover.

Here is a link to my artist's website. Please click on the image below to enter the website.

Friday 23 June 2017

Evaluation Q4: How do you think your prelim experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?

PRE-PRODUCTION

Song Choice - The prelim has helped me hone down reasonable song choice. I think 'Cool Kids' by Echosmith was a very good choice for our prelim task because the song has a very simple story to convey: people who want to be popular, but find 'coolness' in their individuality. This story is easily producible for a music video. For our music video coursework next year, I will keep in mind that our song choice is better uncomplicated, so that it is easier to create a story around it.

Meera portrayed the version of Sydney that's longing to 'be like the cool kids' 
Rehearsals and Schedules - I have learned the importance of scheduling and attending rehearsals ahead of the shoot. In the prelim, we had a schedule for everyone (cast and crew) to know when and where they were needed. Everyone attended the rehearsals when they needed, and thus everybody had the same training and understanding of what was required of them. For next year, I know it will be helpful to create our own rehearsal and shoot schedules for ourselves, as well as for any external performers. If we tailor it to our personal schedules, we can make sure that everyone has an opportunity to rehearse before the shoot and can attend times where they can participate in the shoot.

Our first rehearsal as a band
PRODUCTION

The Look - From the prelim task, I have learned that the visuals of the music video are key to conveying the image of the artist. The music video compliments Echosmith's innocent, family friendly identity with a pure white backdrop, bright lighting and the smart costumes (blazers, ties, dresses). I will use my new knowledge of this convention in our task next year to make sure that we approach the look of the music video as a reflection of the artist and what they stand for.
The brightness, smart colourful costumes, the silly dancing and smiles - all this helps convey the ethos of the band. 
Here is the studio lighting desk, where we created our lighting set ups and controlled the look of the music video
Compromising and Resourcefulness - I have learned that grandiose music video ideas are not good ideas when creating an A2 music video. 'Cool Kids' was a good example of a simple but well crafted music video that was shot in a studio with uncomplicated or expensive set ups. I understand that there are limitations with what we can do for our music video next year, mainly our week long shoot day and finite budget. However, I have also learned to be resourceful and make use of the facilities we have available, most notably our excellent studio we have at the school, which we can dress to look like a professional studio as we did for our remake.

A lot is accomplishable with our Seward Studio; for example, we could set up an infinity white as a backdrop, which looked very professional and stunning on camera
An example of a compromise: we could not get hold of a deer prop for one of the shots, so we used what we had to hand instead, and ended up dressing Sailesh in a Panda costume. We liked this addition so much that we ended up making a cameo out of the panda and he can be seen in more than just this one shot. 
Efficiency - During the shooting of our prelim, keeping a planned shoot schedule was crucial to finishing the shoot in time and with plenty of footage to make use of; we managed to end our shoot early in our prelim, purely from being professional when on set, being on set on time and acting on directions quickly. For our task next year, I will make sure to be proactive in knowing where I need to be and what to do for each of the shoot days, as well as being a responsive and energetic performer so as to achieve good takes right off the bat.

Our media teachers (and Chris, our old technician) standing in front of the shoot board, which we taped on the wall at the back of the studio. We could easily find it at any time and find out where we needed to be and when. 

POST PRODUCTION

Grading - From finishing the prelim, I learned that a lot can be achieved from grading, such as creating a mood appropriate to your the song (see post 2 for more information).

Although we could not achieve perfect lighting conditions to match those seen in the original Echosmith music video, we could fix shots in post production to look better. Next year, I will not create too many different lighting set ups for the shoot, as this takes a lot of time and effort, and instead understand that many things can be accomplished using the ProcAmp and Three-Way Colour Corrector tools on Premiere Pro to change up things like saturation, hue, brightness, contrast etc.


Editing - Editing our prelim, I realised that a lot of the editing rules that I had picked up from completing our film opening task in Year 12 had to be unlearned when creating our final edit for the music video. For example, the music video for 'Cool Kids' exhibited no continuity editing and many jump cuts, with some shots only lasting a few milliseconds. I will understand these conventions of music video editing when creating the edit for our main music video next year and showcase my understanding of how music videos are made by using lots of jump cuts etc.


You can see the conventions of how music videos are typically edited in the sequence above: many unrelated shots being spliced together in very quick succession.

Overall, I found the prelim to be an enormous learning curve for me. I had a great time and will use what I've learned for the music video task next year. 



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