Our Music Video

Editing (Day 12)

Today, I was adding the final touches to our music video. I made sure the clips cut according to the beat throughout and fiddled about with the audio on the clips. Sir said that when watching the music video, he wanted to concentrate on the song and the visuals which worked to enhance that "glow" he got when watching and listening to "Is He Really Coming Home?"

He also said that the examiner might thing that we'd left the external audio in by accident and so it might be best just to remove it. We decided to mute the clips e.g. the bus driving off and the couple playing in the leaves. Although I felt that keeping the external audio added another dimension to the music video and realism of the footage, and plus made it sound very cute and romantic with that included, I followed Sirs advice.

Here is how the music video would've sounded had the clips kept the external audio:

I had Ms Ferdinand have a look at the music video, just getting a fresh pair of eyes' opinion, who raised concerns about what part the Soldier walking home played in the video. 

She said that she was a worried regarding the fact that the effect Black & White made those scenes look as though they are part of the past, rather than clips of him walking home in the present. To separate that storyline from the New Lover relationship and conflicting past memories of the Soldier and artist, we decided that a gradual introduction of colour in shots would make it seem as though what was originally a memory or dream of the Soldier returning is now a reality when at last he knocks on the door.

So the order goes;

Editing (Day 11, Part 2)

I stayed after school just to go through the music video and check everything through. As the clips of the Soldier running home had been changed to Black & White, I felt that the performance shots of the artist shouldn't be of the same effect, else audience might make a connection that they are both in the past etc, which isn't correct and not what we want to convey.

As a result, I put them in colour and added the effect Vignette to the clips, which outline the shot with a blurred frame of black, which centres the audience's attention on the artist and makes the colour scheme stand out more.

The Groundskeeper came in unexpectedly and said I had to leave so he could lock up. I logged off quickly and scheduled for myself that I return to our music video on Monday and Tuesday to make a couple of finishing touches e.g. making sure clips cut on the beat, the effect are correct, and save and upload our music video to YouTube.com for the deadline.

Editing (Day 11)

Today, with all the clips in and trimmed, I asked Sir to watch our music video and give us feedback on what we can improve.

• To add a transition to the first flashback and change the transition going from the bed scene with the New Lover and the artist to the bus stop, first meeting clip

Sir suggested that for the first flashback, as a code for the audience and to make it clear that the the sequence they were about to see was in the past and a memory, we put a transition on it. After testing a number of transitions, we chose to apply Cross Dissolve, which would have the picture fade to the next clip. This would signal to the audience that the music video had gone back in time and the effect Cross Dissolve is reminiscent of memories, a generic convention used in films and music videos to represent thought, the past and remembering. We put it at the end of the clip as well, to signal to the audience that we are out of the flashback and that any clips with that effect are of the past.

We also changed the transition to the first meeting, which we had as Cross Dissolve as well. We'd initially tried the Bloom effect but it was very cinematic and a little cheesy for our music video. However, I felt that using the Cross Dissolve effect twice would confuse the audience in identifying that the bus stop scene was the couple's first meeting. The Bloom effect, on reflection, wasn't that bad and so we reinstated it, as it acts as a noticeable signal that what the audience is about to see has some relevance and is more important than the other flashbacks in the sense that this is the couple's first meeting.

• To change the effect put on the flashback shots of the couple to a lighter effect

We'd added an effect to the flashback shots, however, it was quite a dark effect and didn't really give off the sense of these being a happier time. We searched with Sir and came up with Teal Orange, which was much brighter and made the shots seem much more happier and upbeat.

• Possibly add the clip of the record in a little earlier

The record entering a little later seemed a little odd to Sir and so in order to fix this problem, I just rearranged the clips a little, placing shots of the record player earlier on in the music video.

• Do something with the uniform of the soldier

There wasn't much we could do about changing the uniform of the soldier. The 1940's uniform just didn't fit in with the modern day setting, despite us wanting the music video to have a vintage twist, and Sir really just wasn't going for it. As a result, he suggested we add the Black & White effect, which we did to all the filler shots of the soldier walking home except for the last little sequence which we left in colour. This would hide the 1940's-esque uniform and solve the problem of it looking out of place, which although we were worried people might forget or not recognise Eliot's character as a soldier, leaving the last couple of shots in colour solves that problem. 

It also gives the idea that the Black & White shots are of past soldiers running home, and that war is a terrible thing that separates loads of families and couples, giving our music video a moral message as well. The colour shots bring it back to the present and place the soldier in the music video, in the present but maintain the idea that war has horrible consequences on the soldier who fight in it.

Editing (Day 10)

Today, we trimmed the rest of the performance shots together and inserted them into the various clips e.g. the pool scene. We also added some random, background filler shots to the gaps in the footage, such as snippets of flowers or the sky I filmed on my iPhone4 on a walk home, to fill out and complete the music video. This was ideal because it meant we had all the footage and could add the effects.

I also asked Kirsty if she could email the footage of the record player playing because although we had a shot of the record player already in Final Cut Pro, it didn't look very good as just a photo.

It looked much better when playing, and so, once downloaded, I bladed it with the blade tool into different sections which I interspersed with other shots, a technique I've developed through the music video and one I'm quite fond of. I then placed it at the end of the video, rather than at the beginning because I thought it looked better there. The end of the clip has the record player image blurring and so I added the Fade transition effect so that the clip blurs smoothly into the next one of the Soldier running home.

At the end of the lesson, I asked Sir if he would watch it through and tell me what we needed to improve it. He said that he'd do it tomorrow, as there wasn't much time now and that he'd write me a list.

Editing (Day 9)

Time to add in the performance shots!

Performance shots are difficult because after dragging them onto the track section you have to sync them to the music. We had to listen very carefully to Phoebe's singing on the track so that it started at the same time as the song began. Some of the clips we had to cut out halfway through a line either because Phoebe had forgotten the lyrics or sung the wrong ones (Can happen to anyone, and she sung altogether very well) and switch to a filler shot of the sky, or flowers etc.

I only managed to trim half of the performance shots today, and were still filling in the final gaps, so I'll be finishing them off tomorrow.

Thank God!

As we had a theory lesson on Thursday, we couldn't import the footage from Kirsty's camera even though she'd brought it in fully charged! However, today, we got in quickly at the start of the lesson, plugged in the fully-charged camera and imported the footage *sigh of relief*

Phoebe and I sat down at the computer and started looking at the footage collected. There was so much of it, it was ridiculous! In order to find a starting point, we opened up Safari and went to my blog to have a look at the Animatic post and watch the YouTube clip. We found what we'd planned to have at the beginning and started dragging and trimming the clips of the Soldier's letters and the picture of him on the mantle into a sequence for the beginning of the music video.

We'd been playing around with the opacity of some of the clips, in order to have them overlap each other. This is reminiscent of memories, and fits in with the idea of the artist remembering the soldier and her as a couple, going on dates, and longing for his return.

We then started to edit the clips of the New Lover and artist together. These were really beautifully filmed clips which looked really professional, helped by the filming of the clips on Kirsty's camera. We fiddled with the opacity again to create the dream feeling, which worked as the New Lover and artist were in bed together. It also made the footage a little more tasteful.

Near Miss!

Kirsty brought in her camcorder today which was fantastic because it meant we could get on with the editing! What wasn't so fantastic is that it had NO CHARGE so we couldn't import the footage from the camera onto Final Cut Pro.

Damn!

Editing (Day 3 & 4)

Thursday

We started editing the couple shots of them frolicking in the park. They were really cute and the audio on the clips was really natural and added a realism to our music video so I was determined to include them in the clip.

Once trimmed and edited together in time, Phoebe and I played around with some of the effects we could put on the flashback clips. Sir had advised us to add some sort of effect to distinguish the footage of the past from that of the present to signify to the audience that distinction. We chose Strife effect to give it past-vibe but this might be changed.

Friday

We continued with editing. We started looking at filler shots we could use, and trying them along side the performance and narrative shots. Some of the footage was taken from the camera, but other stuff was from the footage I'd filmed on my iPhone4 on a walk home from school. It came out fairly good quality surprisingly, and there's a really nice, vibrant sky clip I'm eager to use, possibly merged with a clip of a bird flying across a grey sky from Kirsty's camera.

Editing (Day 2)

Kirsty was still working on the website so while she did that, Phoebe and I uploaded the footage from yesterday's filming onto Final Cut Pro. They had a lot of really cute clips, and the all important first meeting footage, which I chose to begin with.

I did the bus stop, first meeting clips first. Trimming them down, it was a count of 4 clips to make up the sequence. There was a really good clip of a bus driving off which I thought would be a good filler shot to establish the setting and divide the clips of them talking so that the meeting seemed longer. I left the sound of the clip ON so that you could hear the sound of the bus driving off, as it adds a realism to the music video and fits in nicely with the song.

I had to trim the last clip of the sequence a little because Eliot had tapped the post box in a weird way - very funny, but not quite what we were looking for in our music video. Once satisfied that the sequence was up to scratch, I went on Safari to find the pool clip from "Whip It" we decided to use instead of filming the underwater scene we had planned ourselves.

I uploaded the clip into ClipConverter.cc and downloaded the converted footage onto Final Cut Pro. From there, I just trimmed it to the underwater scenes which didn't show their faces up close and staggered the shots to the beat of the music.

Editing

Post-filming, we arrived Tuesday morning with the school camera we'd used in tow.

Since we'd missed out on filming on the Friday of half term with Eliot due to unavailability, Kirsty, Phoebe and Eliot took one of the school's cameras and went out to film the bus stop scenes and a few more couple-shots. While they were doing that, I imported the footage from the camcorder onto Final Cut Pro. I only had one out of the two cameras available as Kirsty hadn't brought her one from home, so with the footage I had, I got to work editing.

The first move was to import and drag the music track into the editing section.

It was clear from when I was looking through the footage that I was missing a lot of what we needed which was on the other camera. However, I had the clips of Eliot running down the road and arriving at the house, planned for the ending of the music video, which we'd filmed on the Saturday. With this in mind, I grabbed those clips and started editing the different shots of him together for the ending of the music video. I watched the clips first, then trimmed them and matched them up so that the cuts from shot to shot were in time with each other e.g. as he turned a corner into the house and the camera switched from his back to his front.

Then the challenge came of having to set the cuts of the clips to music. To do this, I closed  my eyes and listened solely to the music, pressing the 'M' button which marked on the track the beat I wanted to cut to various clips on. Using these as guidelines, I positioned and trimmed the clips accordingly, completing my first sequence of shots placed at the end of the music video.  

Bloopers

Filming (Day 3)

I'd spent the majority of my half term doing work experience at my Aunt's law firm, Children and Families' Law Firm, in Brixton. I'd been invited to attend court on the Friday morning of filming and was really eager not to miss such an amazing oppurtunity. The team understood and the plan was for them to get started at around 10:00 and for me to join them at around 12:00.

At around 11:30 however, I got a text from Phoebe saying that Elliot had to cancel that day for filming, which meant there was no need for me to come as they'd done all that was needed. It was a shame because we were going to do all the couple shots, e.g. the picnic in the park that day, as well as go on location and film outside of the house and Ribblesdale Road.

However, Phoebe and Kirsty did film all the performance shots of Phoebe singing which were vital to our music video's completion and so something good did come out of the day. The footage I saw later was very good and all stuff we could use.

Filming (Day 2)

Today, we'd arranged to meet at 10:00 at Phoebe's house for filming primarily the couple scenes, background and abstract, filler shots and some performance shots. Kirsty was visiting LCF University today so she wouldn't be coming until later.

When I got to Phoebe's, she was finishing up putting on her outfit and we were ready to go. I took a range of panning shots of her bedroom; it has a very vintage, hipster feel to it with alcohol bottles, The Rumours record, Moulin Rouge poster and clothes lining the walls. There were a lot of old-fashioned items decorating the interior, such as her record player and the radio we borrowed from the Graveney drama department, which related the music video to the artist's persona and helped generate the setting of modern times with a vintage, 1940's twist. We also took some panning shots of Phoebe, close-ups of her looking out of the window and anything else we could think of. Mr Roberts made it a priority to reiterate "You need to get as much footage as possible."

Elliot arrived at around 11:30, and we got started on the couple shots. We got him changed into another shirt for the bed scene, similar to Theo's, and shot that. It took a little longer without the dual camera action, but it had a little less laughing so we were keeping to schedule.

We then went outside and filmed the couple on a date, hugging in the archway and the artist returning his coat. We hadn't previously planned to film the "Goodbye"-in-the-archway bit, but it was old-fashioned and so romantic, we just had to use it. We also filmed the shots of Elliot running. In hindsight we should have used a street featuring less objects of modernity in it however, we went ahead and filmed a series of close-ups on areas of the body and panning shots of him running down the street.

We had a little trouble with the cameras where Kirsty's camera ran out of battery early on in the morning. It was a shame because the camera was better quality and the footage was, therefore, a higher standard. Then the second camera ran out of battery, and as we were filming outside, we had to hurry our filming. It wasn't too bad as we got all that we needed but it just added an extra pressure to get things right the first time.

(Couple of cheeky selfies from the two Phoebes)

All in all, the day was a success, with us gathering enough footage so that we wouldn't need to catch up too much on the Friday. I left at around 2:00, and we'd finished by then so Kirsty didn't need to come. We checked details for Friday before packing everything up.

Filming

As we'd organised the timetable for filming for half term, we were all set to start filming. It was Friday, and usefully, we have Media Studies period 5 (Last period of the day). As a result, we could take the lesson off and, starting at the beginning of lunch, film for a whole two hours and get a head start of collecting all the footage together.

Phoebe only lived about 5 minutes away from school so after buying lunch, I nipped over to Phoebe's house with Kirsty to film the shots of her and Theo (New Lover), as Theo was only free that day! As a result, there was a pressure to focus and stick to the schedule, which I think we did, even if there was a little goofing around.

Once we'd arrived (I was about 20 minutes late because I'd needed to eat lunch and the queues for food were ridiculously long), Phoebe and Kirsty were in the bedroom, while Theo sat outside listening to his music. They were deciding on an outfit for Phoebe to wear in the shots, and we chose a nice pyjama set for the scene with them in the bed and a casual-esque jeans top for the rest. When that was sorted, I hopped out of the window onto the conservatory roof, to film the shots of Phoebe singing out of the window with Theo lying in bed next to her, sleeping. 

Unfortunately, it didn't film as well as I'd hoped and involved me having to shakily film Theo's face then swerve up to Phoebe at an angle, as you couldn't see Theo just pointing the camera at the window. I captured a range of shots of Phoebe singing/looking out of the window and gleaned some landscape, nature shots from my position on the roof e.g. I followed a line of ivy that scaled up one side of the house to use a possible filler shot.

Phoebe's Dad had painted the roof of the conservatory and so it was still drying when I was up there. It was a bit of a hassle trying to manoeuvre around the wet areas and I had to take my shoes off when I entered back through the window but we got the necessary footage and Theo helped carrying my shoes in.

Halfway through filming, my camera ran out of memory and so Kirsty gave me a one of her memory cards. 

With the two cameras we had to work with, Kirsty and I took different jobs. Kirsty filmed the reflection shot of Phoebe singing into the mirror as Theo walked in while I filmed pan shots of the bedroom. Things then got awkward when I had to shoot the bed sequence. Phoebe and Theo got in, after a quick costume change, and we started to film. It took a while to calm the giggles but we got a nice selection of shots from some good angles, with both me and Kirsty operating the cameras. I shot from a bird's-eye view standing on the bed while Kirsty knelt by the side of the bed.

Journeying to the downstairs kitchen, we filmed the scene of Theo and Phoebe drinking tea and looking out of the window, again with dual cameras filming. The shot of them looking out of the window was a little trouble to co-ordinate as in the footage the viewer could see my reflection while filming, and so I had to film from an angle. It wasn't quite how I wanted it to turn out but we had to make-do with what we had. A great thing about Phoebe's kitchen is that it has huge floor-to-ceiling windows which let in the natural light, ideal for a clean, bright and natural shot.

Doing the filming today meant that we got a head start on filming and could leave the equipment there for filming the next day. We also set-up some of the scenes a little and created the outfits Phoebe planned to wear so that we could start filming straight away, efficiently as I had an engagement which only gave us until 2:00 on Saturday to get everything done.

Filming on the Move

For some of the filler shots, I felt that rather than scrape anything we could at the locations we'd decided to shoot at, I would try to collect some on the way home. My iPhone4 camera is pretty good quality and this gave me the chance to find things that I liked rather than be restricted to whatever was available on film sets.

On two occasions I filmed footage. The first was walking up my hill, and when I looked up at the sky, it was late afternoon and cloudy. It was beautiful and with the camera shadowing the trees and houses, it was ideal for a filler shot.

The other time was again walking home, but up another route. There are a line of houses with roses in their front gardens and so, while walking up, I stopped every couple of times and filmed a few seconds of footage of a white rose or orange berries, or snowdrops blowing in the wind. Having these little extras just gave us a little more of a range when editing and deciding what to use for filler shots.