Monday, 14 January 2013

Main Task: Reflecting on our first cut.


After reviewing our music video we have realised that in some parts of it our variety of shot distances and angles were not appropriate.
For example at 0:14 these is a shot of the guitarist strumming one not on his guitar, this is the first shot the audience will see of the band and there are a few things that could be improved. As we have used Final Cut Pro to zoom in on this shot in post-production the shotis more blurry and grainy than other, non zoomed in on, shots and it takes away from the overall effect. We also originally shot in straight on and this does not make it look very dramatic. When we reshoot we will use a lower angle to make the subject appear more powerful. This is also true of the whole band shots at 0:17, 0:23, 0:53, 1:00, 1:04, 1:13, 1:17, 1:37 and 2:06. At 0:39 the angle is okay, however it has been zoomed in on in post production and this makes it too blurry.
By reshooting these shots we can make the music video more professional as a convention of metal music videos is to make the band look big and powerful, which will be accomplished by changing some of the angles we have used.

Another aspect we have chosen to focus on is framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate.
We filmed in  a car park as there was one part of it with stone walls and harsh lighting, which we thought would look good for our music video idea but as we filmed here it was hard to keep cars from the shot as we were surrounded by them due to the fact that we were filming at peak time and it was busier than it was when we first went location scouting. We do not want cars in shot as we think this makes it look low-budget and the cars do not fit with the rest of the music video.
So, at 0:49, 1:25 and 1:28 we have to reshoot to make sure these cars are not included. Also at 1:06 there is a reflection of the cars in the bass drum, which is not as obvious as the other shots but ideally we would still refilm this as it is these small details that will make our video look professional.

In post production we also need to work on our mise-en-scene including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting. The main thing we need to focus on is the lighting.
Due to filming at different times the lighting changes between shots and this makes it look jarring and draw the eye to the inaccuracies in colour instead of the shot itself, such as from 0:32-0:33 and 0:51-0:52. To change this we will edit it using final cut pro. We will do this by using the colour corrector wheel and finding a suitable lighting level for all the shots, we will then transfer this over  to all the performance aspects of the video so that all shots have the same lighting and colour tones. This will improve on the flow of the video and stop it from looking so displaced.

We also feel that we could improve using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set.
This is because our song is heavy metal/metalcore and so there are certain expectations from the audience and the conventions of this genre are quite rigorous. Some of our shots, such as at 2:33 where there is a mushroom in harsh lighting and at 2:34, a teddy bear, don’t really match these conventions and expectations.
Whilst originally we used these shots as we thought they would add to the narrative we can now see that with the whole music video put together they do not match up with the rest of the mise-en-scene and this makes the audience confused and ask the wrong kind of questions.  As they disrupt from the flow of the video we have decided to simply remove them. But to do this we must make sure we film more scenes to replace them.

Using a varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and appropriately for the task set is something that overall we have done quite well. On the other hand we could still improve upon our music video by using these better.
For example at 1:38 we use the effect ‘blink’ to create an almost strobe light effect on the video and we have decided to cut down on our use of this and remove it from 2:05 onwards as we thought it was a bit too disorientating and took away focus from the actual shots we were using.
We have also decided to us the captions at the start/end over the music video saying the band name, name of the song and distributer as this will make it look more professional and will hopefully improve the viewing for the audience.

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