Evaluation-

Introduction:

Our unit 5 course was the production of a music video, we set out to make a three minute video choosing our own artist, which was in fact Rudimental, the song we picked was Waiting all night which is a drum and bass, liquid fun song.Target Audience: Our target audience for the song was pre-teens to mid-20’s who enjoy dance music which is usually exhibited to audiences in various locations such as clubs and festivals and parties, it appeals to this niche audience.Conventions:We used codes and conventions because we wanted to provide a structure that the audience can understand and to ensure that the lyrics of the song fit with the video, how we wanted it to be.

Technical- The way we shot our angles using the camera and the different shots we used as well as the genre.

Symbolic - The way we showed a meaning behind what you can see, we made our character use facial expressions and gestures.

The codes and conventions of a music video we used were:

The style: The performance in my music video consists mainly of my artist singing to camera as

well as dancing and singing as well. It was a creative way to make it interesting for the audience to watch.

The narrative in my music video is a mixture because it is a combination of performance and narrative and it makes it enjoyable for the audience to watch as well.The camera:We used many shot types in the music video for example:

Mid shot: this shows the character from her waist to head, but still gives an impression of location.

Close up: this shows the persons face and the camera focuses closely on her. Extreme close up: this shows the character face extremely close and has an effect of

showing the audience thoughts and feelings through expression and lip synching which is used.

Over the shoulder shot: this shows in my narrative where the character is waiting based in my narrative, showing something that my character is looking at.

Low angle: this is where I shot my character from below while she’s performing.

Preproduction Process:I conducted a lot of research before beginning my music video, for example a task I undertook was pick three songs that I was interested in and my objective was to not remake the video that already exists but to create a music video to the song based on the lyrics as well as a narrative thought that comes into mind. This was part of my research and planning.

Another task I completed was doing a presentation on codes and conventions of music videos, this helped me get a better understanding of what I need to do when creating my own music video in terms of the style of it etc. In this task I also had to analyse music videos that past students in Haverstock created and pick out the good points and what they could have improved on.

I also conducted a star construction, I had to research about a specific star and make a presentation about the person in general and how they promote their music on social media websites and the clothes they wear e.g. how they present themselves.

At the beginning of the preproduction process we each had to come up with our own ideas for our music video, we had to come up with a presentation to pitch to my class; it had to consist of my music video idea which included:

Location ideas- what places I’d like to shoot my video. Costumes- what my character will wear. Film proposal- all about my video.

The presentation went well I believe, when pitching it to my group I chose to just show pictures on my slides and have a page of notes so I could explain what the pictures mean.

I also created a Storyboard online using the website www.storyboardthat.com of how I wanted my music video to look, this was a very challenging task because I’ve never used the website before and it was hard to get used to it, it then became very easy and I became confident in the task.

We then as a group had a discussion and came up with a final idea for our music video; we decided to add little bits from all our ideas and come up with a final decision. We all made sure that we was happy joining all our work together and everyone added there thoughts and feelings towards the music video idea. Our discussion included all the difficulties we could come across if we chose to do another idea for our music video. I believe this was a very good way to discuss our initial ideas and start planning when we’re going to start filming.

We created a filming schedule, we chose to do this so we could be organised as a group and know what we had to do every week. We did not always stick to this plan some days we would film extra shots and different ideas. However this was a good decision because it made us prepared.We also had to make sure we knew about all the risks we could come across filming and how to control them so we made a Risk assessments form.

Research and planning was very effective because it helped me understand how to analyse music videos, codes and conventions of a music video as well as understanding that it is very hard to complete a music video and a lot of preproduction work is important before producing. Completing all the preproduction work helped me out a lot because at the beginning of the course I was very confused on how I wanted my music video to look like but learning about all the different shot types and researching music videos helped me out a lot.

A lot of tasks went well in this course it helped give me a better understanding of everything a music video needs to be satisfactory. I learnt about new websites and realised that team work is essential when planning a music video it’s very hard to do alone. I could have improved by working with my team more often; I also could have added more information to some of my presentations and stick to the filming schedule.

Production Process:

Strengths: The footage I recorded in general was very good; the performers lip synching was of good standard as well as all the locations we allocated at. My performer made it look very genuine when she was performing including her singing and dancing. Another thing that went well was team work; we all met up as a group at different times and recorded our person. While filming my character we captured a lot of shot types and angles which I learnt from the codes and conventions of music videos and kept are filming as suave as possible. The narrative in our song was also a strength because it related to the title which is Waiting all night, I made my character look at her watch and show emotion just to show the audience she’s vulnerable and waiting for someone. We made sure we captured loads of footage that we could work with so we had enough options to choose from.

Weakness:I think our group could have improved our time management we was very slow because we chose to record a lot of footage and we started editing later that everyone in my class, however getting all the performance and narratives for the music video was very important to me. Another weakness in our footage was some clips were very dark because we filmed at night and had no extra equipment with us such as lights, but using my technical abilitiy this meant I could colour correct the clips.

Production and editing logs- I believe that I could have added more information to my logs and they could be more detailed, however I didn’t have enough time to do so. I wrote a production and editing log after everything our group had did such as recording in one of our locations or synching performances while editing.

Finished Product:

Our finished product changed compared to my initial idea which was to have a girl wishing to reach her goals and become a singer but she keeps getting rejected and chooses not give up and in the end, her dreams come true. Everyone in my group each had their own idea, we chose to put them together and create a better one for our music video.

My music video appeals to my target audience because our audience for the song was pre-teens to mid-20’s who enjoy dance music and it goes with the genre which is a drum and bass, liquid fun song. This video also relates to all young women in lust waiting for that special someone but indicates disappointment. As you can see in my music video my performer is dancing around and looks very retro/vintage. However it’s a very modern song and my performer is very stylish and young and suits the video.

Technical qualities:

I believe the music video is well edited, the pace of my editing is very fast towards the chorus of my song I switch from different performances very fast using fading visuals and the pen tool. I had to sync all the performances together and made sure that the lip synching and the song were running at the same time e.g. her lips were moving the same time the song was playing and she was singing along, it looked like she was actually singing. I chose to cross cut between different scenes and tried to make it look professional as well as using the colour correction tool to edit the dark scenes and make it more lighter.

The Feedback I received from others I believe was very good, people said that the way I edited my video fits the pace of the song very well and how I made my chorus scene unique compared to the others in my group.

Hadila Sharif