Editing so far

Over the past couple of week both myself and Roisin have been busy editing away at our music video. So far we have managed to do a lot of the video but have still got the last section to finish putting together. We have also got a small piece at the beginning which we had not yet filmed which needs to be done in the next week, so we can finishing the first draft.

One of the problems which we have found during the editing process is that some of our clips, mainly the ones which we filmed in location 2. Have all been letterboxed creating a smaller viewing area. This is a problem which we have been looking into resolving as we did not want our video to have something which distracts the audience. Which this might do.

We have both tried a number of different techniques which we both thought might help, but they both seem to be having the same affect when it comes to editing them in the clips. One of these was to edit the scale of the clip, so we would be zooming in on certain parts of the action. This then got rid of the litter boxing but we found that the image was not a clear as originally and also our artist looked as if he had just been stretched. Which is not good.

Because of this we have chosen to look at another way of doing this. This is by exporting each individual clip out as a QuickTime format in the format 4:3 which is what we need. And then having in important them all back in again to re-edit what we have done.

We tried this with a couple of clips and they seemed to be working. But as we tried it with other clips which had more detail in, we started to see how they clips quality was not as good and also in a couple we had the same problem as before, and having are artist being stretched.

In the end we have both decided that it will most probable be best to keep it as having this letter boxed affect added on. And if we feel that some of the other clips which are not focused on the artist in location 1 may have to have this effect added on. We do not think that this is a huge problem. The only thing which we are worried about is how the change is quite big and we do not want this to distract our audience and be talking about that instead of the content within.

Filming 24th January

Unfortunately Louis could not be there, and neither could Daisy, which meant that the scene me and Louis had planned before could not go through.

What we had wanted to happen was for the scene to show more about the relationship between Ainsley and Daisy. There was going to be a bedroom scene where from a high angle the camera would see the couple lying in bed together, the angle of the camera would then come down low to view the side of Daisy's face to see a tear falling down her face which would link to the lyrics "I can see widows and orphans through my tears". The camera would then go back to a high angle to see to see the couple turn away from each other so they are back to back. we would then take one shot of then couple in bed together, then we would remove Ainsley and lated on in the editing process we would hope to create an effect where Ainsley would fade from the bed, showing through the narrative that he had left Daisy.

However with Daisy unavailable we chose to have a diiferent scene. We decided that Ainsley should enter the room, walk over to a picture and cry himself, to keep the visuals and lyrics linked. Then within the picture we should show Ainsley and Daisy beng happing and laughing. We could not decide whether we would do this by layering the screens on top on each other or by green-screen. With this in mind I placed a green piece of paper in the frame just in case. However in the editing process we decided to go with layering effect as we had become more at ease with this effect due to using it before in Daisy's feild scene, whereas with green-screen though we had research it we had no experimented with it ourselves.

With the moving photograph clip, we chose a clip from where Daisy and Ainsley had had a lapse in concentration and giggled during their scene. We the turned it black-and-white to show it was from the past, and slowed it down to create the dramatic effect of them laughing together and being happy. We then put it down to size and put in position.

Digi-pack analysis – Munford and sons.

I have chosen to look at the digi-pack for the Mumford and son’s album cover for Sigh no more. I have chosen to look at this cover so I will be able to get some ideas about what I am going to need to include on a digi-pack. It also should hopefully give me some more ideas about what I could possible do with our CD cover for the son ‘the cave’ by Munford and sons.

Front cover:

The front cover of any CD has to be eye catching so that they are able to see this to a wide range of audience. On this cover they have used a very simple image which is very affective and eye catching to an audience. In the image it shows the band /group and takes over large percentage of the cover but help to see who they are. It is also laid out in a way which has not got too much on it to make it too busy for the audience to be able to understand or navigate.
On the front cover they have not got too much on it as it then makes it very easy to understand what and who the album is by and what it is called.

1. Image of band/group. From having an image of the band within the front cover we as an audience are then able to see who they are. It then helps to give an impression about what kind of style this group may be performing. From an image of the band we can get a lot from what they are going to be like, this can come from their fashion, as a lot of people look into what people they aspire or look up to wear. – This is something which I think I am going to look into adding onto our front cover as it then makes it a clear link to who our artist is and what they song is going to be like.
2. Band/groups name and name of the album. This is something which we are going to have to make sure that we include on the front cover as it is very important that the audience know who the band/group are. It is also very common to add the name of the album or the single which they are selling. On this cover it is very clear and stands out, which is important to get the audience’s attention. – This is something which I have to make sure that we include as it is very important to let the audience know what we are going to selling or what their latest single is.

Back cover:

Again like the front the back is laid out in a very simple way with a very clear image that links to the front cover. On this it has little information but all of what is included is going to be important and will the help to see the album to their target audience and other audience members. To make it clearer they have used the space in a way so that they have everything that is important in the centre to grab the attention of the audience.

3. Track numbers of the album or the single. This is a track list and the order which the tracks will be played in when listening to the single or album. This then could have some impact on the audience as they may chose or not chose to buy the album or single if they either do not like the songs or have already brought them in some form or another. Either brought downloads or CD purchases. – we should defiantly include this on or digi-pack as it will then make it clear to our audience what is going to be on or single or album.
4. Barcode. This is something which needs to be include to be able to sell the album or single. They also often have the price somewhere around this area. This is going to be important for an audience to know how much the album or single is going to be – I think we should consider this on our digi-pack as it will show if we decide to display it on our website that it is a general item which could be for sale.

Inside digi-pack/CD album:

In the inside cover where the CD is placed we are able to see how they have used a number of different things. We can see again how they have used images of the band. This time we can see how they are all doing something which relates to their personal part in the band. On the last part we have the CD.
The CD is plan and blank with just the band’s name and the album name on it. This is very simple but effective as it makes it very clear about what the CD is of and will not be able to get confused as it has the band’s name on it. – this is something which I feel we are going to have to do as we want it to be very clear about what we are going to be listening to.

Digi-Pack

I have been made in charge of looking at what I might be able to do when working with our digi-pack for our music video. Both myself and Roisin have decided that we do not want to go for the conventional case which you normally get with a cd. We have been looking at different possible cases which we could possible use. And have looked at a number of different possible designs. There is one which we both fond we really liked and would be different; we also found that we would be able to work with and create an eye-catching cd cover. The case design is called the muitse cross digi-pack. With this case it has a number of different flaps which we will be able to apply pictures and maybe some writing, linking both to the song and to the website.



Just from thinking about what is possible with this case I have had a number of different ideas about what we could use and what might work for our cd cover. These will on depend on what i get from stills from our video. Unless we chose to go and get some more shots for the cover of both our artist and dancer, but this will on depend on what kind of stills we have in our video. There are a number of possible shots which I think we could possible use but this will all depend on what looks right.
So far I have thought about a couple of design which we might be able to include within our front cover, cd cover and for the back of the cd. These are just in the beginning stages or development, and will change in the process as we want to use some stills from the video as images on the cd. Some images may have to be taken afterwards as we have not got these anywhere within our video.

Previous Student Work - I Will Remeber You 2009

The opening of the video shows that the editing of the piece is strong as the stums of the guitar are in time with the music, this is something we hope to achieve within our own video. However the actor singing mouth movements are very small which makes it unbelieveable and less realistic that he is actually singing, something we will try to avoide.

Some of the camera movements appeal to me nonetheless the hand-held camera is sometimes very unstable and could have been smoother. For the viewers it is sometimes difficult to see whether the actor really is singing along with the words.

Unfortunately in my personal oppinion I find the video not very engaging as there does not seem to be much going on. I have found that many popular video's have some narrative within them, which helps appeal and draw in some audiences. It also helps the artist a it seems they are trying to get over some important message to their fans.

In terms of editing there are many straight cuts, which are all in time and very effective in some places however I feel I would like to create some variety to create some individuality within our video.

Website

My self and Louis have begun the creation of our Website for the band of our video "Mumford & Sons", though I have only begun o play around with the tools and applications I feel we are making sufficient progress.

I have looked at other band websites, mostly those of Mumford & Sons, All American Rejects and Lady GaGa as I felt these were the bands that have influenced us the most. Looking at their design many have links which connect to Twitter and Facebook, this will be a key part to our own website as we want it to appeal the Hopeful Youths who are frequent users of these social networks. Many of the bands use their websites personally as their own kind of blogs. This is a very personal trade mark and helps viewers to communicate on a more personal level, myself and Louis have decided we won't go for this idea as we feel it will distract our viewers from thinking they can try to talk to the real Mumford & Sons.

Many of the websites have simply layouts, though some are more cluttered, but all have proven to be easy to use and have simple menu bars running along the top to make things easier to use. After disscussing Louis and I have decided we would also like a simple design but with lots of pictures.

Another feature we have chosen to use will be the store where we will publish our digi-pak and other such merchendise which will appeal to our viewers. Louis has already begun the process of looking into Digi-pak promotion and how best to advertise it on the website. I will research into t-shirts and other items which appear popular on other band websites.

Filming Monday 3rd January

The rest of the filming was to be done in a wood near Roisin's house in High Rougham, we chose several key places where we felt our scenes would be most suited. As the filming began it became very apparent that our actor/actress would get very cold very quickly, so we brought along blankets and hot dinks, the blankets also provided a place to put our equipment whe we weren't using it.



As Jazz (our artist) had to leave early we started by filming all of his sequences first, then we moved on to the ones which included Daisy as well. There were some key shots we were very focussed on getting, however there were a number of shots that came to us in the moment which were inspired by our surroundings. Such as when Daisy runs to the tree and Jazz stands on the opposite side playing, but she doesn't see him.

We soon became tired and very cold so we stopped for a break and then when we returned without Jazz we filmed Daisy's running sequences, we tried a number of different angles and shots with a locked camera and a handheld camera. The difficulty with the handheld was when Daisy would come across an obstical on the forest floor, meaning she couldn't run in a straight direction like we wanted, she had to work her way around it. This did provide some problems but also some interesting shots which we included later on.

When Ainsley arrived we shot our final scenes of the day with him, though it was a short time to film it was a key moment in the narrative as it clearly showed Daisy leaving Ainsley, for our video this would tye in with the lyrics "the sun it rises slowly as you walk, away from all the fears and all the faults you left behind" This is why we chose for Daisy to wear white as it shows her innocence and purity contrasting with Ainsley black atire, which shows him to be dark and cruel. For the narrative this was a key moment where Daisy is walking away from her "fears and faults". When filming this scene Daisy and Ainsley worked well together however there were moments when their concentration lacked and they would lapse into giggles. However this provided the scene in which Ainsley looks into the picture frame and sees the image of them laughing together. This signifies how the couple once enjoyed each others company and loved each other.

With this filming complete we only had one more scene to film, the bedroom.

Filming on Monday 13th December

Monday 13th December.

This was our first date filming, where we had chosen to film sections which take place within the auditorium. We chose to do this then as we knew that we would be able to use the space after school and would most probably be able to use some of the lights which were already set up.

We had original set that we would be working between 4-6, and were aiming to have everything done within that time, so that if we needed to re shot anything we would still have time. As it was very hard to get started and we had a lot of things which needed to go through with the people we were working with. And also working out what lights we could have. This meant that we did not start filming till about 4:45.

Within the time we managed to get most of the shots done with our artist so he was able to go, but we had to stay an extra half an hour with our dancers so that we could make sure we got all of the shots which we needed from this location. We found that we managed to get most of these shots done, with a couple which we were not sure whether to film inside or in or location outside. At the end of the shot we were both feeling very happy with what we had recorded and felt that we had managed to get a large amount done.

When watching the footage back within the next lesson we found that some of the shots mainly with the dance did not look quite right or we had to get the shot which we had original intended. For these reason we are re-organising another day once we have come back from the Christmas holiday to make sure that we get this done.

Hopeful when we next go filming we will be more organised and be able to get straight on with the shooting and not waste any time like we did this time.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire results

In the preparation for creating our music video we decided to create a questionnaire which we were going to ask our target audience the “hopeful youths” we chose to create a questionnaire as it meant that we would be able to find out which kind of ideas people had about videos, and what is seen at the moment. Some of the information which we have used has influenced what we are going to do within our video. Hopefully this will all be for the better.
For our questionnaire we chose to ask around 50 people aged between 15 and 18 we also wanted to try and get a mixture of male and female. We ended up with a larger percentage of them being female. We wanted a mixture as we would be able to get different results from each gender. We did not manage to get all of the questionnaires back so in the end we ended up asking a total of 46.
Within our questionnaire we ended up asking

Male
Aged 15 – 3
Aged 16 – 2
Aged 17 – 3
Aged 18 – 1
Female
Aged 15 – 8
Aged 16 – 5
Aged 17 – 18
Aged 18 – 6

Witihn the questionnaire we chose to ask people what kind of genre they profered. We asked them all to tick 3, in some fo the questionnaires people only ticked one ore two bpxes. Here are the results about the profered genre.

From this we are able to see how that there is a varied interested in music. With only alternative standing out with having a much higher level of interest than others. I feel that this is because there are so many different genres about and also a number of different songs which fit to different genres within the charts at the moment which create an interest in a number of genres. I am expecting this to be similar within the results for the females.

This is kind of what I expected as we are able to see that there are a wide variety of genres selected through the genres. It is very clear that within the female results we can see how indie is very popular throughout the age groups. Other than this I was expecting this to have an average level for each genre with a couple which had much higher numbers.

The next question which we asked was. Who is your favourite artist? From this question we have found that there are a very wide range of artistes which are very popular within the hopeful youths. These are all artists which people would look up to and maybe aspire to be like in the future. Through the feedback there are only a couple out of the whole 46 people that we asked who have said the same artist. Which there proves how many different artists are around at the moment.

What type of video do you prefer? We chose to ask within our questionnaire what people would prefer to see whether it be performance, narrative or concert based. We chose to ask this question as we were struggling with how much narrative we wanted to put within our piece. As we had an idea of what we wanted to use but did not want this to take over the piece. This is the feedback which we got:

From this I am able to see how people prefer to see elements of narrative within a music video that they are watching. From this we have decide to keep the narrative aspects within our video but make sure that they are all relevant for the video and for the song. I feel that this will all change and we will find something extra after filming and when we get into editing. This is when we could add more narrative elements or take some out.

Do you prefer music videos which have links between lyrics and visuals or music and visuals? We struggled with this as we knew we wanted to have this connection within our piece somewhere. We have been thinking of a couple of ideas about what we could possible do for each, but it all depends on what the audience feel should be included:

From this it is clear that people would rather have a link between the lyrics and visuals. Because of this we have found some elements where we are able to add this within our piece, we struggled with trying to make some of these elements as clear as possible. we have also decided to include elements of links between music and visuals and both myself and Roisin feel that this works very well.

How do you think the artist to look? I do not thin many people took this question seriously as we had a lot of answers saying that they think they should be “hot” or “good look” we had a couple of answers which did help. These were saying how they think “the artist should link to the song and the genre” which is what we were thinking of doing.

Do you think special effects work within music videos? If yes what effects work? I do not think that many people understand what kind of effects we meant as a lot of people left this question blank. Some of the answers which we had where that the use of
• black and white
• enhanced colours
• slow motion
• fading
we are hoping to be able to use these within our piece as both myself and Roisin feel that these would work and fit within or music video.
Have you heard of the song “The cave” by Mumford and sons?

Most of the people within our questionnaire have heard of the song, which is a good thing as it means we can get more feedback if we need about what kind of narrative they think we should possible have or what elements do you think would work.
Our next question was. What do you think of it? Overall most people said that really liked it or loved that song. It is also a song which the find very relaxing and could listen to for a long time. This is good as it means that people may want to watch the video as they like the song. It also means that we have to do a good job to make sure we create a video which will link to the song.

All of the feedback which we got from our questionnaire has been very helpful and has given us a lot of ideas. Now that we are in the process of starting to edit, some more of the points which we asked our audience will come into action more, as we can chose how much of certain elements we show.

Props

For the most part of our video we will being using the scenery and the people featured in our video to draw the audience in, however there are a few props that will be needed to make the video more effective;

Guitar: for the artist to show the music basis of the video, we have chosen someone who has the skills to play this instrument to make the finger movement and strumming in time and more realistic

Stool: we decided that the artist should be sitting when in the spotlight to connote the connection to other astist many of whom sit whilst playing, it seems a very "humble" position

Pictures: in the bedroom scene between the male and female character we thought to personalise the bedroom with pictures of the couple to show their affection and that the room is really there's