Evaluation Question 1: Did you enjoy the main workshop shoot day? What role(s) did you take? What were your best bits and why?

I really enjoyed the workshop and participated in many roles.

Why did I enjoy the workshop day?

• The set and equipment was a lot more professional than anything I’ve been involved with before and so it was a new experience.
• Dom and Amy ran the shoot very smoothly because of their good planning. Ed on the camera and Eddy on sound made the experience a lot more professional and gave us an opportunity to ask about what they're doing. 
• It was educational to work with and talk to professionals. Not only could you observe them in action but also ask them about working within the media which is something I am interested in.
• It was fun for us to act our roles and do things we’ve never done fore.
• We got to know our peers more and became better friends.

 Here is a time-lapse that was made of the shoot day showing the organisation put in

What roles did I take on?

On the shoot day I utilised my time as effectively as possible to get the maximum learning out of the experience. Some of the things I did are shown below: 

                                                        My roles in the music video

One of the things I enjoyed most was getting into character. It gave me confidence in front of the camera and has made me want to participate in my own music video that we will do next year.

I really enjoyed workshop day and thought it was a great experience. 

Evaluation Question 2: What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks 1, 2 3, and 5?

Task One: Audition

My Audition video

The audition video gave me beginning experience into music videos. Not only did it test camera confidence but also helped me to understand the importance of energy in the shoot.

I learnt how to lip-sync and how to edit the shots on top of the music track so that the lip-sync was in time. 

What I learnt:

You need to sing confidently (even if you can't sing) and know the lyrics off by heart for the lip-sync to look genuine.

Costumes are needed to help actors feel ‘in roll’ and allow them to really let go.

Energy is needed to make the shoot look genuine and get the audience to enjoy it.

We needed many takes to ensure we had enough choices when it came down to editing. This includes different camera set ups.

Task Two: Learn and practice your performance:

We had to learn various dance routines. With the help of Jasmine and Tasha I learnt my hip-hop, end dance scene, and band dance moves.

Warming up is extremely important to prevent injuries whilst performing. 

     
The standard routine we all had to learn

Me practicing the worm in costume

Practicing the one step before camera rolls. 

Shake it off routine by Tasha used in the end scene

We learnt how enthusiasm comes from facial expressions and body language and how to express this. 

We had to learn lots of different dancing styles as Taylor used many different genres of dance within the music video. Our dances were ballet, hip hop, contemporary, and just general shaking off. Natasha was our dancing choreographer and teacher. She guided us through rehearsals and taught us the moves she created. She taught us to emphasise our movements to as body language is key in promoting our ‘emotions’ Cleary to the audience. This was achieved by the energy needed in the shots. Jasmine helped us build confidence and team work skills by playing various games which focused on energy and group co-operation. This proved extremely useful as in the shoot we needed to work together for things to run smoothly. A key thing that I learnt from Jasmine was that; when lip syncing, you must actually sing powerfully to strain the tendons in your neck so it looks realistic. 

Task Three: Help to plan and organise your costume: 

We needed to replicate the costumes on Taylor’s music video. To do this we had to first decide on costumes we would wear on each scene. Olivia, our costume designer, created costumes and altered clothing to make it closer to the original music video. She sewed badges onto the cheer-leading shots and also feathers onto ballet costumes etc. We were asked to bring in clothing similar to that in the music video even if we weren’t in that specific role. This meant borrowing and lending clothing to work collectively in achieving a believable costume remake. In my Hip hop dance scene I wore a black bomber and red oversized shirt which was borrowed from a team mate, my own black jeans and black trainers. For the cheer leading shots I wore a blue t shirt, and white shorts with white socks and shoes which I supplied. For my Band scene I supplied an all-black outfit and finally for my end scene dance routine I supplied a blue t shirt with light blue jeans. Below are images of each outfit. 

Me in Makeup

It is extremely difficult to recreate the exact costumes. As a team we all brought in clothing which was similar and created costumes from these. As you can see, despite not having the exact outfits, our costumes are very convincing.

My cheer-leading costume

My hip-hop Costume

My cheerleading costume

My end scene costume

My bang costume

I’ve learnt it is necessary to be organised with costumes and that they could essentially be made together of everyday clothing if tweaked slightly. I’ve also learnt that team work is key as we would not have been able to have costumes if everyone didn’t work together and supply costumes for fellow team members. 

Task Five: Editing

We needed to edit the footage to create the actual music video. For this task I was in a group with Alex H. Being strong editors we both found it quite easy but obviously faced new challenges. At first it took a while to accurately match up the sound to the lip-sync but after a while we managed to understand the sound waves and it became much easier. Emma helped us to create effects such as zooms and grading tools such as levels that Alex and I have never used before. I have definitely become a more confident editor especially on the grading process where I learnt that colours needed to be balanced out to give the best possible looking shot.  

In the edit I learnt that to get the lip-sync perfectly lined; you need to zoom into see the wavelengths on the sound waves as shown below.

Grading each shot is time consuming as they all alter, not only this but we couldn’t grade to the original music video as our lighting was different. Instead we graded each shot to make them look the best they could possibly look.

I learnt how to add video effects such as zoom ins and outs for the cheerleading shots to imitate the original.  

Evaluation Question 3: Are you pleased with the footage and your finished edit? Is it how you expected it to look? What works really well and what would you change?

My groups edit of the shake it off remake is shown below. My editing skills have improved since the start of this project. You can see from the edit that our lip-sync is in time and the shots are well graded. We have created the remake the best we could have done given our equipment but still managed to produce something which is convincing.

The shot is before and after grading with Levels on the end scene shots, as you can see it has made the darker colours very vibrant but left everything else the same

Before and After Grading 

                                                        The colour wheel and ProcAmp

The ‘Levels’ effect

Things that went well:

• Costumes that are accurate and similar to the original music video.
• Grading makes shots look professional.
• The effects used such as zooms makes our remake more convincing.

Things that could be improved:

• Some of the shots are not identical to the original music video such as the hip hop dance moves. Saying this however we did the best we could given our actors.
• We didn’t have enough cheerleaders and so I would re-film some of these shots and use the whole cast so it looks more like the music video.

Evaluation Question 4: How do you think your prelim experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?

Our brief for next terms music video is: To create an artist/ Band from scratch and create a package of promotional material to launch them onto the music scene.

The promotional material consists of:

1. Original music video
2. Album Cover
3. A website 

Having done the prelim it’s made me think about a lot of things I would have not done before. Some of these include using a studio, being in the project and coming up with our own styling and costumes. 

I’ve learnt that good planning is essential when it comes to pre-production.  I will need:

• A well planned idea of what is in the music video. i.e. characters,  costumes, genre, background.
• Audition videos to see who is best for each role. 
• Costume and makeup list for each character
• Shoot schedule including shot numbers and timings for the main shoot day.
• Creating and rehearsing choreography 

Having a complete schedule for the shoot days including strict shoot timings is crucial for the main shoot. It will also be helpful to have proper crew for the shoot who would all do individual jobs to keep responsibilities such as an assistant director like Amy and runners like Shay.

Professional lighting set up

Our Crew consisting of Ed, Olivia, Dom, Mckenzie, Amy, Chris, Jasmine, Tash, Josh, Shay, Amber, Miss B, Ms Dymioti

Overall, I found the workshop extremely educational and fun. I will use the knowledge I’ve gained in my music video in September. I’d like to thank all the staff and teachers for putting this workshop together for us.

Closing Post

This blog is now closed. I hope you enjoy our Opening sequence and reading about my ideas and experiences.

Evaluation Question 1 : In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our film is a cyber-security action thriller called ‘Algorithm 404’. It is about a young adult who tries to take down a conspiracy organisation. He does this by hacking files the organisation doesn't want to be leaked and saving it onto a USB to deliver to someone who has the power to publicise what the organisation has been doing. The organisation is aware of what David (the hacker) tries to do and thus follows him, holds him at gunpoint and then knocks him to the ground. The story then goes back to 24 hours earlier of how David starts his journey in bringing the organisation down.

The most useful real films and TV series that inspired us were:

1. Alex Rider
2. The James Bond film series
3. Mr Robot
4. The Matrix
5. Hackers
6. Live Free or Die Hard

Form

Opening credits are a typical feature of an opening sequence. These include the title of the film, Distribution Company, production company, directors’ and actors’ names and names of others and extras involved in creating the film.  This is conventionally done after the setting and characters have all been given a slight introduction.

Typical features of an opening sequence are:

Institution and companies

Introducing the main characters

Sense of genre

Builds enigma

Our opening credits were overlaid onto a ‘fade to black’. We thought this was affective as it created suspense and broke up action to change the pace when necessary. The film ‘se7en’s opening sequence inspired this fade to black and we thought it worked well in our opening sequence 

Se7en inspired our titles.

Genre

The prezi below shows some of the conventions of Cyber-Security action thriller and how we have connoted the genre. 

Cyber-security is a recent genre as technologically has only recently become this advanced. This made it slightly more challenging as there wasn't much we could get inspiration from and so our ideas were original.

We did conform the the Conventions of Action films by having male protagonists however challenged the conventions of Cyber-Security as David wasn't a 'nerdy' character; instead he seemed fit, trained and able to compete physically as well as on his computer.

To connote the cyber-security genre, we used titles similar from “the matrix” and Mr Robot. Seen below are examples of Titles. They have a black background and a very high tech font to connote the genre of Cyber-security. We decided not to have the titles over the shots as it makes it harder to see them, but also as it breaks up the action and helps to change pace similarly to our inspiration ‘Se7en’. 

Algorithm 404 titles

Mr Robot Title

Mr Robot Title.

To further connote the action-thriller genre the pace of our opening sequence built up, there was a feeling of suspense, there was a 'chase' seen followed by a 'capture' scene involving guns.

Narrative Structure 

Style

“A film must connote it’s genre, through the way it looks and feels.”

Grading:

We wanted to grade our shots to make them all look even, the same colour and give a more ‘realistic feel’ 

The hardest scene to Grade- Under the bridge.

                                                          Some of the shots in our opening- We colour graded the shots under the bridge as the lighting would always change and make the shots look non-continuous. When we colour graded we evened them out and gave a more 'action' feel to the scene.               

Conclusion

To conclude, we followed most code and conventions from the cyber-security action thriller genre and of an opening sequence. Allowing us to produce a film opening looking professional and similar of that to real media. 

Evaluation Question 2 : How does your media product represent particular social groups?

We decided to make the film focus on representations of age and gender. Our main protagonist is a male, young adult.

We wanted David to come across as intelligent, challenging the negative stereotypes of young adults.

We showed this as he is a very intelligent person by knowing how to hack into a corrupt organisation for the “greater good”.

Saying this, we still connoted his age through his inexperience as at the end of the opening sequence he fell into a trap. 

                                                                    Capture Scene

In our opening sequence we didn't include any female actresses, this was only the case as the scene in the opening would come again later on the film after the '24 hours' has been replayed and would explain where the main female actresses were. For this reason we did not need to think about challenging or confining to stereotypes woman have. Had we included our main female protagonist in this opening sequence she would have challenged negative stereotypes of being the 'damsel in distress' and instead make quick, on spot decisions to help take down the organisation. This would appeal to our secondary TA of women as they are being represented positively and could be aspirational.