Evaluation and Final Reflection
introduction
The project task was to create an original music video based around the conventions of a specific style and industry professional. The three specific styles to choose from were Performance, Narrative and Abstract.
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​I planned to produce an Abstract music video because I believed that I could be the most creative with this style as I was not restricted to using visuals that related to the song lyrics or including performance elements which would have required lip syncing in post-production.
research
Firstly, I researched into two examples of each music video style. So I researched 2 performance music videos (Hideaway – Kiesza & Promises – Calvin Harris; Sam Smith), 2 abstract music videos (Feels Like We Only Go Backwards – Tame Impala & The Writing’s On The Wall – OK Go) and 2 narrative music videos (Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) – Katy Perry & Paradise – Coldplay). I also listed 4 other different examples of relevant narrative music videos and made some brief comments on how it is relevant nowadays.
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Once I had chosen the style of music video I was going to produce, I was tasked with creating a mind map of everything I had learnt about that specific style, in this case it was Abstract. I detailed what elements of an abstract style you would expect to see in a music video of this style such as an absence of storyline or unique colour schemes.
Another piece of research I carried out involved a practical element which allowed me to test my knowledge of using a camera. In this example, I was tasked with finding an industry professional and a piece of their work and then to re-create a excerpt of their work, for example a particular editing style or certain camera angles that were niche. I chose to re-create the opening few shots from Chris Cunningham’s music video ‘Come to Daddy’ by Aphex Twin.
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I think my research was extremely useful for the development of the project because it allowed me to gain a better understanding of music videos in general and from that, to inspire what I would create for my own music video. Also, at the start of the actual version of the music video I created (Lose Control – Meduza; Becky Hill; Goodboys), there are a series of titles used that are cut to the beat of the song which are the names of the artists followed by the name of the song; this research into this influenced my music video because I replicated these in my music video and timed them to the beat as well.
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The main way I could improve the research I carried out is to investigate and analyse more music videos of the three different types; abstract, performance and narrative. This would have enabled me to better understand the genre of music video I was planning to produce.
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finished product
My music video was designed for all ages and anyone interested in the house music genre as this was the genre of the music track I created a music video for. Although my target audience is aimed at everyone, the majority of people who would listen to the song of my music video would be teen age or above and not necessarily younger than this as younger people would not be ready to listen to music.
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Overall, my music video was quite well received following the screening because most people commented on the fact that my shots were good and varied as well as having good editing.
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I received a range of positive feedback with a wide variety of different constructive criticism comments. The audience felt that my music video had good editing, smooth camera shots and good use of cinematography and time-lapse. I agree with this as I focused a lot more on the camera work this time around as I wanted to improve upon what I produced for the sound design project which I believe I have done quite well.
A lot of people picked up on the fact that my visuals did not follow a coherent story. Whilst this may have been a possibility if I had written a script/planned this out, my main focus of the video was the visuals and the abstractness of these in conjunction with the music track. As my choice of music video was abstract and that many people believed there was no story, perhaps my music video’s style was not obvious enough for the audience to notice this.
One person made a comment about the fact that there was no human presence in the video to break up the scenery which obviously, in retrospect, makes the video look rather boring and stale as there are only visuals of nature and the surroundings.
Another member of the audience said that I should have something going on in the background. I agree with this because when looking at the video again, this is clearly noticeable and in future, I would need to add some flair to the background to make it more interesting and intriguing to watch as a viewer.
Finally, one audience member said that my music video was a little bit repetitive. I agree with this and completely understand where they are coming from – in retrospect, the video is quite repetitive and this is mainly due to not having enough different locations to pull footage from so this led to me having to maybe use the same location a few times in the video to fill the time.
With regards to the comment about the lack of story in my music video, to improve next time, I would make it much more obvious that it was an abstract video by experimenting with different visual and special effects to make it more exciting.
Furthermore, the person who stated that it would have been good to have a human presence in the video to break up the scenery – I would definitely look at filming a human being to be present in the video next time as this would have certainly made the visuals seem more entertaining and little less stale with visuals on their own.
Again, with the background imagery, I would include an activity going on in the background of the music video as this would absolutely help the audience stay alert and spark their interest to keep watching the music video.
Moreover, to improve the repetition seen in the music video, I would look into a lot more different locations and also film a lot more footage of different things and not just nature but to have a human presence too.
I think the impact these improvements would have on the audience would be positive and it would mean I would receive a lot more positive feedback with less constructive criticism.
personal development
The main areas I have improved on throughout this music video project are filming and editing.
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Filming – Following on from the last project, sound design, I have developed my camera skills in particular, my framing and composition. When I was filming the music video, each shot I filmed, I made sure to frame it nicely with the subject placed on the intersecting corners of the grid used within the rule of thirds. Also, when filming, I experimented with manual focus a lot because I wanted to create pull focus shots to put emphasis on certain things within the frame for the audience to see. I find that auto focus, even on digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs), never tends to work reliably enough to be able to rely upon it so that’s why I wanted to use manual focus for my shots because it gave me ultimate freedom of where I wanted the focus to be and when I wanted the shot to be in focus, if the shot in question was a pull focus shot.
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Editing – I believe I have improved greatly within post production compared with the previous project and the one before that as well. In this project, I managed to successfully edit the shots to the beat of the song which helps keep the audience engaged.
In a music video, fast paced editing is often essential and this requires fast cuts (depending on the song type), multiple shots/angles and lots of footage to be able to edit with. With regards to my music video, I filmed a lot of different shots and angles so when it came to editing, it gave me a lot of footage to work with and the creativity to choose which shots to put where on the timeline, depending on how this fits with the song at that particular part of the song.
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Another technique I developed through editing my music video is colour grading. When I had created a rough cut (final version without any adjustments/effects) of my music video, I considered how I could colour grade my footage to make the colours look sharper and make them stand out, rather than leaving the footage as it is when it would just be rather flat and boring without any additional colour.
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I carefully thought about how I was going to colour grade my footage because there were several ways that I could achieve this. One way would be to add an Adjustment Layer over the whole video, however one universal colour grade would not have worked for every individual clip because it would have made some look better, some may look the same and some of the clips would have been made worse than the original. This is why I chose to create an Adjustment Layer, but I cut the layer to each clip individually one at a time so it allowed me to individually colour grade each clip by comparing the before and after to see how the colour grade would affect the footage. Although this was quite time consuming, I felt it was the best way to colour grade my footage to ensure that each clip was colour graded how I liked. If I wanted to amend any colour grading later on in the edit or remove the colour grading entirely, I could simply just go back to the clip and change it individually, or remove the layer relating to the aforementioned colour grade, instead of having to re-do the whole thing again.
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The main programme that I have developed my skills using is Adobe Premiere Pro, an editing software I used to edit my music video. The main process I have learned to use during this project was colour grading. I managed to use the correction of white balance, brightness, contrast, whites, blacks and highlights to make all my footage stand out a lot more and look more visually pleasing, whilst also increasing the saturation of the colours slightly.
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The main challenge I encountered was during the editing process when I realised that I did not have enough footage to edit with for the whole of the music video. To overcome this, as well as filming on the Wednesday, I filmed on an additional Saturday to film a lot more abstract shots so that when it came to editing again, I could add this new footage to the timeline and I would have enough to satisfy the whole duration of the song and therefore the video.
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I think I need to develop my skills further in Adobe Premiere Pro by experimenting with different effects to make the music video feel more abstract.
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The skills I have developed throughout this project with regards to Adobe Premiere Pro will help me if I was to become an editor/colourist or something similar because I think I have progressed quite a lot with colour grading. I have learnt the basics of colour grading which are enough to improve the colour of the video however there is obviously a lot more to learn with more complex techniques allowing for more complex and diverse colour grading.
If I was to become a colourist I would be prepared with a basic to intermediate understanding of colour grading whilst I would obviously need to understand a lot more about the process before actually becoming a colourist so having a basic understanding would put me in a good position to go on to learn more about colour grading.
I think the overall project went very well in terms of camera work and cinematography because I focused a lot this time round on the framing and composition of my shots. The rule of thirds particularly helped me with this because I made sure to frame the interesting part of the visuals on the intersecting corners to make it more engaging for the audience.
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The colour grading in the post production process went very well in this project because I now understand how to effectively manipulate the colour to bring out the best in the footage by simply adjusting the brightness, contrast, warmth, whites, blacks and highlights in order to make the visuals stand out. Although these colour grading techniques are quite basic, I think they made quite an effective difference to the footage and the audience approved of this too.
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​If I had more time or an opportunity to start the project again, I would definitely try to experiment with different effects in Adobe Premiere Pro to make it obvious to the audience if a music video was designed to be abstract. I would also improve the colour grading slightly by using more complex techniques which would require researching into how to do it but I think it would be great to learn about as it would give me a lot more insight into how to properly use the editing software to its fullest potential. Furthermore, I would also scout out a more varied selection of locations to film the music video and also I would film a lot more footage so that when it comes to editing, I would be able to pick and choose freely any shot and/or shots to put onto the editing timeline meaning I would not end up having to re-use some footage twice.