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.