Music Video Evaluation

In this post I am going to discuss the process of making the music video and the tools and effects I used to achieve the finished video.

When I initially captured back the footage to the computer, some of the footage had been filmed in such a way that the character and the shot were elongated and looked dis-proportionate. This was easy to remedy. I select the shot in the viewer, and then selected motion, I then changed the aspect ratio from 33.33 to 0. This soon made the shot look much more proportionate, as shown below.

This is the toolbar found to the left of the screen in final cut pro. Throughout the contstruction of my music video, I used the majority of these tools.


Firstly I used the cut tool, this looks like a razor, and is the tool selected on the panel above. Below it can be seen cutting a clip, this is the tool most commonly used, and I used it to cut up clips into the ones I wanted to use, and ones I didn't. The red arrows below are an example of this. In the below clip you can also see the audio. We found when we were cutting up some clips that it effected the audio, we resolved this by putting the padlock to the left of the print screen on. This meant that the audio was locked and didn't move at all.



Above is an example of the fade tool. This is once again a tool I found in the panel, and it is used to fade a clip in and out, as desired. It can be manually placed so that you can get the exact desired effect. It looks like the black dots above.
These two images represent the effect the fade in and out tool have. I used this throughout the video, and in this example at the end, to fade out this montage of images.

Below is an example of the use of markers. They are used to mark a certain point in either he video or audio. I found this useful when marking a specific part of the song I wanted to match a clip or shot to. This is done by selecting the 'M' key when the timeline is selected.



This section details how I logged and captured my footage. I did this by clicking the file menu and selecting Log and capture. The camera is then connected via a cable, the tape inserted and the following window appears.

I then clicked 'capture now' and this allowed me to control the sections of the film I captured back via the control panel on the camera. By pressing the escape button at any time I could stop the tape from capturing back.

There were some shots in the film, especially towards the end where we wanted to put in black and white. This was one of them. The way in which I did this is shown below.

I clicked effects and desaturate and the clip was put into black and white. As shown below

After I worked on my first edit,there was some room for improvement, firstly the clutter in some of the shots. This could be altered by enlarging the clip.

By selecting the clip, and image and wire frame, I was able to enlarge the clip and eliminate any clutter from the shot.

Other useful skills I learnt whilst making the video, was the organisation of the clips. I found it was best to give each clip a name linked to what it was, this made choosing the clips and locating the footage much easier.

A skill I learnt in this music video which I hadn't previously used, was using a freeze frame. This was effective in my video for a different effect. I did this by selecting modify and make freeze frame which made the clip a still. This was used as a segregation between clips and added a twist to the story, the example is below.

Cross dissolves were an effect I used a lot in my music video. This is because they are a good transition between clips, and as the style of the video is quite deep, they reflected the thought process and emotion of the character quite well, there were several clips I joined using this effect.

This is an example of a cross dissolve from one shot to another.

This was my time lapse. We used this to show the passing of time in the video by seeding up a clock being filmed for half an hour. We did encounter some problems with this however, when we tried to include a cross dissolve from this shot to another, the image became distorted and showed other footage we hadn't selected. This I found was because when you use a cross dissolve it extended the clip slightly to maintain the same time fixture. This looked terrible when we played it back so we decided against adjoining these clips with a cross dissolve.

Throughout the music video I tried to use a range of shot types, below shows examples of extreme close up, low angle shot and mid shot.

(Left) This is an example of a high angle shot where the camera is positioned so that it is looking up towards the character. (Right) This is an example of the use of a mid shot in the music video. I used this as it allowed me to show the setting as well as the character in a good composition.

This is an example of a close up, used here to show the characters expression, this type of shot is also good to be used with the depth of field, as you can see the background is out of focus which makes the shot look professional and well thought out.

There were some parts of the video I filmed with the camera handheld, this was mainly due to the locations when filming, for example when filming on a sloped beach it was difficult to get the tripod to stand straight, and this would have meant the angle of the camera was not right. Although I did try several times, it was clear it wasn't going to work. Therefore when filming on this specific location, the camera was handheld.

There were times when the camera work did look shaky due to holding the camera. I overcame this in two main ways, I either propped the camera up against something like a chair, or got my self and another group member to both steady the camera. I found this was quite effective. Another measure I took was ensuring I didn't use the zoom unless it was really necessary, this is because the zoom enhances any movement in the camera handling even more.

Other examples of when I did use a tripod was when filming in the house and on the road, this allowed me to keep the shot steady, and add a seamless pan to wherever the character was walking. For the style of music video I made, using a tripod was essential, as the character was often walking, so the pivot on the tripod allowed me to use a tracking shot to follow her.

To set the tripod up, I firstly took it out of its case, and extend all three legs to the desired height. For example, if I was filming a low angle shot I would extend the legs fully etc. I then took the plate and attached it to the base of the camera, and clipped the camera onto the top of the tripod. Another way of securing it is to put the camera directly onto the plate which may be secured already to the top of the tripod.

There are several different techniques within the music video, as previously mentioned, due to the nature of the video and the way in which it tells the story, we follow the character throughout her day, this means there is a lot of tracking shots, in order to add a bit of variety to this I tried to vary the types of tracking shots by including, high and low angle tracking shots.

As the character is first introduced we also only see some shot of her feet tilting up to her face. This adds to the feeling of suspense, and teaches us more about the character.

I have also used several establishing hots, in order to set the scene and inform the audience of the setting. I have done this in the video with the use of pan shots to see the entire view of what the character is seeing.

When using the pan techniques we did experience some jolts in the camera control, we overcame this by re-taking the shot and putting the camera on the tripod and using the lever to move the camera, as this eliminated any jolts in the camera work. On the shots on the beach where we couldn't utilize the tripod some of the camera work is jolty, I overcame this at the editing stage by slowing the section of the clip I wanted to use right down. This meant that the jolts were much less noticeable.

In some of the shot we used the zoom to focus on a specific part of the frame, we could have improved her however, tis could more often than not, been much more thought out, and focusing more on the composition of the shot. Such as depth of field, ad other things which may be within the frame.

Another crucial aspect of filming was the camera settings. These had to be regularly altered depending on where and when I was filming. I firstly set the white balance to outdoor for all the outside beach filming I did. This meant that I could achieve consistency with the colour of my filming.

Similarly when I came inside, I set the white balance to indoor to achieve the same effect.
I also had to alter the shutter speed when I was filming under a dark area, this was so that I was able to alter the exposure and get the desired colour exposure for my video. In addition to this the shutter speed can also impact the sharpness of the footage, which I used to help me achieve some shot with narrow depth of field.
In addition to the shutter speed another setting I was aware of was the aperture, which allowed me to control the amount of light coming into the camera, as this was the main setting for making the exposure darer or lighter.
The Manual Focus was essential for the focus of the camera. I found if I left the settings on Auto Focus they were problematic because the camera didn't know what I was aiming for and it shifted focus to whatever came into frame.
Manual focus allowed me to set the focus precisely before filming the shot and when I got used to using this setting it allowed me to shoot more complex shots such as a Pull Focus. It also meant I could achieve a Narrow Depth of Field where the foreground is in sharp focus but the background is blurred.

In terms of communication throughout the project we coped really well. We made good use of a shooting script in conjunction with a clapper board (shown above) This allowed us to keep a log of the shots and re-take any if necessary. The shooting script really helped us to keep to the plan of what shots we wanted to tsake and keep a record of whoch shots were good and whch we may disount, at the editing stage this was crucial as it sped up the process as I was very organised.

We produced an effective storyboard and animatic which meant that each shot was well thought out, and when we came to film we knew exactly what we were going to film. however due to circumstances such as the wetaher and access to locations, not everything we filmed was pre-planned in the storyboard. This was not in any way a negative, beacuse wherever possible I did keep to the basis of the storyboard, and this was still very helpful. The animatic helped when we came to contruct the video, and match the shots with certain parts of the music.

I went out filming twice for the entire footage for the music video. This meant that we had to be organised in order to book out equipment and get to locations on the decided days. The days we filmed also had to be planned around college, and group members commintments, beacuse of this it was importnat that each group memner had each tohers contact details. At the start of the project I handed out a contact sheet for the group members with contact numbers and e-mail adresses.

For each time I filmed we contructed a production schedule, this was important so that we could record the date we were going to film, who was needed and involved, the location and the equipment needed, each group member was presented with this.

Whilst filmng, or even beforehand, we chose not to assign roles, as we throught it would be better if we all took an active role in both filming and editing. We didnt feel we nessasarily needed a director as we were all as involved as each other, and noone needed to be incharge we woeked well sharing the work load and taking an active role in all aspects, including the planning and excetutuion of the video.

Ways in which I chose to communicate whilst the camera was rolling wasnt always used, as before we filmed each shot we talked thriough what we planned to achieve and if for some reason there was confusion or the shot didnt turn out as planned, we stopped the camer and used the shooting script and clapperboard to record what we did wrong and re-took the shot.

The final video has changed considerably from the initial edit, mainly due to outside feedback. I was told the video would benefit from a few changes, some of the shots didn't make sense in the order they were in, other shots were too dark or poor quality. This meant I had to utilise some of the other footage in order to make sure only the best quality footage was being used.

Other advise I took on was the idea of including a montage of images at the end of the video, in order to tell the story of the video. This was something I did decide to do. The outcome gives a slightly different style to the story.

Problems I encountered with the making of this video, are mainly due to the footage. Some of the footage was filmed in 16 dv which meant when I came to capture it back I found that the footage looked elongated and distorted. This was relatively easily resolved, by cutting the clips up and dragging them onto the timeline, I then double clicked the clip, and changed the aspect ratio from the 33.33 which was causing the problem, to 0. This made the clips correct in appearance.

Another problem I encountered was when I came to the quantity of footage, after I filmed for the first I thought that I would have enough footage for the entire video. however when I started to cut the footage up and construct the basis for the video, I soon realised that I was going to need to go out and film for a second time, as there simply wasn't enough footage to use without the video looking repetitive. In reality this was a good decision to take, as it gave the story more depth and meant I got some really good footage second time round to use with the initial shots.

Some of the shots I filmed were not very well thought out, and there were objects in the shot as well, this included cluttered clothes, when looking back over the shots this did make it look very amateur, luckily this something I could improve on, by selecting image and wire frame and could enlarge the shot, to eliminate this problem.

I did encorporate some of my research into the types of shots in my video, the two shots belwo show where I got some of my inspiration for shot types from. The shot of florence and the machine, shopw her to the left of the frma,e where thr background is out of focus. In my shot the chacter is to the left of the frame. I think this addes depth to the shot and allows the audience to focus on the entire frame, which can allow the background to become more apparent.

Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of the video, although I strayed slightly away from the original idea, the basis is still there, and in reality the original idea was a bit over ambitious and the final video, was much more achievable. I did still include original concepts such as a time lapse and the story line.