Diary Post Sixteen

Now that I have screened my first draft to my classmates, I discussed with my two teachers how they thought it was looking so far. We decided that my video needed an extra narrative to make it more interesting to watch, and so that the video progresses as the song does, rather than repeating itself. I am planning to re-shoot on 2nd April, this time using three male actors appearing as a band. The narrative, which will be entirely in black-and-white and once again in extreme close-up, will follow them setting up for a performance: tuning guitars, testing microphones, doing their hair, etc. I will intersperse this footage with my existing video, replacing the old shots that I am not happy with, so that although the video begins with the girls, it will gradually become more and more about the boys until the middle instrumental, which will all be the black-and-white narrative. Then, in the final instrumental, I will replay the  black-and-white narrative, sped-up. The video will end on a long shot of the band about to play the first note of the song, but before they begin, it cuts to black.

Audience Feedback

After screening my first draft music video (see below) to my fellow classmates, I filmed a few of them giving me some feedback. They all fit into my secondary target audience. Here are the results...

Music Video Draft

This is my first draft for my music video. I am still in the stage of editing in Adobe Premiere Pro currently, so there are no filters on this and I have not yet got to the stage of blemish removal or perfecting the appearance of all the clips. There are a few changes that I plan to make before I export it to be edited in Adobe After Effects, including re-exporting the final reverse sequence at a higher quality and replacing the one I have temporarily in at the moment. I am planning to screen this draft to my peer members next week, and then I will use their feedback to make any changes before I start working on After Effects. As it is hosted by YouTube it is of a lower quality.

Magazine Advert Second Draft

After receiving feedback on my first draft magazine advert, I have tweaked it slightly for this second draft. I changed the fourth photo down as I noticed that it was slightly out of focus and I wanted my advert to look as professional as possible. I also decided to add the 'limited edition red vinyl' and 'available on itunes' text as it conveys that the album is available on several platforms, as most currently are, and the mention of vinyl makes reference to the fact that vinyls have come back in fashion, particularly in the indie music genre. Hence my magazine advert is continuing the generic conventions established in the music video. Once I have completed my final digipack front cover, I will add a small image of that in the middle strip, between the band and album names.

Diary Post Fifteen

Just a quick diary post to say that the last minute shoot before half-term went well and I recorded all the footage that I need. This has now been uploaded onto the laptop I'm using and I have begun editing it with my old footage. I have also discussed some ideas with my teacher to make my video more interesting, such as using split screening and having some of the lyrics appear on screen. I'm hoping to upload a first draft here in March.

Diary Post Fourteen: Re-Shoot

This evening I re-shot my music video using three of my models, again in my media classroom against a white backdrop. Unfortunately due to the fact that we began shooting later than I had planned - as the camera I was going to use had been taken home by one of the teachers - I did not manage to get all the shots I require. Because of this I am going to do a very quick reshoot of just the instrumental shots tomorrow with my model Becca.

Diary Post Thirteen: January

This month so far has been the busiest yet: I've been editing my footage on Adobe Premiere Pro, ready to be exported and then edited further in Adobe After Effects. So far things are going well, although I have had some problems with the technological side of things; due to the high quality of my footage, many of the computers I have tried to work on are running too slowly and crashing. As a result I have moved on to using CS5, which seems to have solved the problem. I am planning on re-shooting my music video on 9th February as by this point I should have made enough of my video to know what needs to be re-shot. This shoot will again have three out of my four models due to other commitments, but they are a different four to the first shoot: Daniella, Becca and Amy. I have already planned some of the ideas for the shots that I want to do (for example, I want a blender blending fruit for the line 'I want a girl with the smooth liquidation') but I will write up a more detailed plan of the shots and props nearer the time.