For our music video project, I was given the roles of partial camera-person, partial editor, prop person and actress within the actual video itself. In the video I played a musician, and would appear in various places throughout the video dancing and sometimes lip syncing, we had decided that we would wear various Christmas type clothing such as Christmas jumpers as well as wear Santa hats, which I provided for Reece and Myself, I also provided the “inflatable snowman” which is also seen in a few shots of the video. A final thing I was responsible in doing was recording the music track for our video, alongside Abby, although Abby was the main singer, as it made more sense for her to be that as she was the main girl seen throughout the video.
I feel as though my contribution to the project was efficient, although I feel as though I could have contributed more to the ideas, as I did not take much part in the planning and think that if I were to do this project again I would try harder to let my ideas be heard. My performance in the video I feel was good and really showcased the “cheesy” atmosphere of Christmas, for example throughout the video I was often smiling, one of these such shots was when I was in the Christmas shop looking at cards and proceeded to wave and smile at the camera. One thing I would definitely of improved on if we were to do this project again is to improve on my lip syncing, as I did not lip sync very well in the video, and therefore made the video look a bit scruffy, with the exception of this error, I feel as though my contribution, performance wise was done effectively.
From being part of the creating of this music video, I have learnt both practical and theoretical things. Practically wise, I have learnt how to pan the camera and keep a steadier hand when doing so, as well as this, I’ve also discovered how to use Final Cut Pro in a more successful way, and now know how to use it in a more efficient way. Theoretically wise, I learnt that in most cases with music videos the lighting and shots will effect how well a video will work, for example if all the shot’s were the same, then the video would just end up plain and boring, so a variety of shots are needed. Lighting wise I learnt that the lighting can effect the genre you’re trying to work within and that you must be careful with any editing of lighting to make sure it still meshes well with any natural light in the video.
The overall technical quality of our video was okay, because of the fact the images and lyrics we displayed during the video matched the overall genre of our video, but the actual filming of the video could be much improved as even though the “amateur” feeling of the video helped to add to the whole cheesy Christmas video atmosphere, it made the video seem a bit rough and sketchy at times, therefore not really looking as professional as one would expect a music video to look. Other than the camerawork, I feel as though the rest of our technical quality e.g. lighting, sound etc were okay but could always use improvement in certain area’s such as, with the sound the music got a bit repetitive so we could perhaps add a bit more difference to the soundtrack itself.
The editing of our video I feel was very effective, I particularly liked the fact that shots of Abby going into the dream and coming out of the dream were black and white and featured fading in and out transitions, as they really helped to showcase the dream sequence effect of the video, as well as illustrating Abby's "sadness" of not having a perfect christmas in reality. I thought that the actual cinematography, were alright, though could do with some work. For example we focussed mainly on using long-shot's throughout the video and I think that we could have done with more of a variety of shots because after a while the amount of shots that were done in the same way got boring. The actual clothing we wore in the video just consited of normal clothes with a christmas jumper and a santa hat, which didn't really add anything to the video, and if I were to do this again, I would look into further and perhaps change to having actual christmas costumes on like elve costumes and santa costumes. The props we used however I feel were more useful to our video as they added a real christmas vibe to the set of our video. Finally, the actual soundtrack of our video related well to our chosen genre as it was very cheery and happy, which is the typical theme of most christmas videos.
I thought the ideas we had for the video came across well in our finished piece, although I feel as though the ideas could have perhaps been improved if we all as had a say in the ideas as a group rather than just Abby coming up with all the ideas, although Abby's ideas were well done and the video came across how we wanted it to. I believe the scriptwriting ideas were quite good and really had the cheery cheesy feeling that christmas video's usually demonstrate. I think the actual presentation of the video was good, although it did seem a bit rough on the edges and could have done with slight improvement in the camera work to make it seem more professional. I believe the video kept to our synopsis perfectly as we kept to the outline and did not make any changes to it during filming, as well as this I think the video did well to keep to the original brief, and we did well to keep to the codes and conventions of our genre.
The feedback we got from the audience we displayed our work to was both positive and negative, although there was seemingly more postive feedback than negative. A few postive feedback comments were that our video was very "funny" and "cheerful", and a few people even said it was "memorable", I was particularly happy with these three comments as this was the main aim of our video in the first place. A few negative comments we did get was that we could have used more footage, our lip syncing needed improving, and that our camera work needed work, these comment's I agree with and if I were to do this project again I would definatley improve on each of these, as they would help improve our video greatly.
A few things that went wrong in our project was that our group could not seem to see eye to eye throughout the whole time length of beginning to end of the project, I believe one reason for this is because I found it hard to communicate across to Abby my ideas, without feeling as though my ideas were not useful to the music video. If I were to do this project again, I think I would try to communicate my ideas better to Abby so that we wouldn’t end up getting frustrated with each other within the group and would be able to work better in general. Another thing that went wrong was that our camera work wasn't all that great and in the end even though the camerwork unintentionally gave our video more of a "home-video" look, it could have done with alot of improvement, as it made our video look bad and rough in alot of ways. The things that did go right in the video were the editing and the actual putting together of the video as we all worked better as a group at that point, and we all managed to edit the video well, and it really helped to add to the overall dream atmosphere that we needed to have for the video.
Our project did well to compare to the real music videos we looked into to give us inspiration for the chosen genre of our video, for example "I wish it could be Christmas everyday" by Whizzard and "Mistletoe and Wine" by Cliff Richard, both had keyfeature's in there videos which we wanted to include in our video, like the christmas hats and dancing seen in Whizzard's video, and the walking towards the camera seen in Cliff's video.
Overall I think our music video went well and was very amusing to view and managed to be memorable, although it could have done with more impoved camera work, better lighting and maybe a few more effects added on final cut pro to make it seem even more christmas like.
I feel as though my contribution to the project was efficient, although I feel as though I could have contributed more to the ideas, as I did not take much part in the planning and think that if I were to do this project again I would try harder to let my ideas be heard. My performance in the video I feel was good and really showcased the “cheesy” atmosphere of Christmas, for example throughout the video I was often smiling, one of these such shots was when I was in the Christmas shop looking at cards and proceeded to wave and smile at the camera. One thing I would definitely of improved on if we were to do this project again is to improve on my lip syncing, as I did not lip sync very well in the video, and therefore made the video look a bit scruffy, with the exception of this error, I feel as though my contribution, performance wise was done effectively.
From being part of the creating of this music video, I have learnt both practical and theoretical things. Practically wise, I have learnt how to pan the camera and keep a steadier hand when doing so, as well as this, I’ve also discovered how to use Final Cut Pro in a more successful way, and now know how to use it in a more efficient way. Theoretically wise, I learnt that in most cases with music videos the lighting and shots will effect how well a video will work, for example if all the shot’s were the same, then the video would just end up plain and boring, so a variety of shots are needed. Lighting wise I learnt that the lighting can effect the genre you’re trying to work within and that you must be careful with any editing of lighting to make sure it still meshes well with any natural light in the video.
The overall technical quality of our video was okay, because of the fact the images and lyrics we displayed during the video matched the overall genre of our video, but the actual filming of the video could be much improved as even though the “amateur” feeling of the video helped to add to the whole cheesy Christmas video atmosphere, it made the video seem a bit rough and sketchy at times, therefore not really looking as professional as one would expect a music video to look. Other than the camerawork, I feel as though the rest of our technical quality e.g. lighting, sound etc were okay but could always use improvement in certain area’s such as, with the sound the music got a bit repetitive so we could perhaps add a bit more difference to the soundtrack itself.
The editing of our video I feel was very effective, I particularly liked the fact that shots of Abby going into the dream and coming out of the dream were black and white and featured fading in and out transitions, as they really helped to showcase the dream sequence effect of the video, as well as illustrating Abby's "sadness" of not having a perfect christmas in reality. I thought that the actual cinematography, were alright, though could do with some work. For example we focussed mainly on using long-shot's throughout the video and I think that we could have done with more of a variety of shots because after a while the amount of shots that were done in the same way got boring. The actual clothing we wore in the video just consited of normal clothes with a christmas jumper and a santa hat, which didn't really add anything to the video, and if I were to do this again, I would look into further and perhaps change to having actual christmas costumes on like elve costumes and santa costumes. The props we used however I feel were more useful to our video as they added a real christmas vibe to the set of our video. Finally, the actual soundtrack of our video related well to our chosen genre as it was very cheery and happy, which is the typical theme of most christmas videos.
I thought the ideas we had for the video came across well in our finished piece, although I feel as though the ideas could have perhaps been improved if we all as had a say in the ideas as a group rather than just Abby coming up with all the ideas, although Abby's ideas were well done and the video came across how we wanted it to. I believe the scriptwriting ideas were quite good and really had the cheery cheesy feeling that christmas video's usually demonstrate. I think the actual presentation of the video was good, although it did seem a bit rough on the edges and could have done with slight improvement in the camera work to make it seem more professional. I believe the video kept to our synopsis perfectly as we kept to the outline and did not make any changes to it during filming, as well as this I think the video did well to keep to the original brief, and we did well to keep to the codes and conventions of our genre.
The feedback we got from the audience we displayed our work to was both positive and negative, although there was seemingly more postive feedback than negative. A few postive feedback comments were that our video was very "funny" and "cheerful", and a few people even said it was "memorable", I was particularly happy with these three comments as this was the main aim of our video in the first place. A few negative comments we did get was that we could have used more footage, our lip syncing needed improving, and that our camera work needed work, these comment's I agree with and if I were to do this project again I would definatley improve on each of these, as they would help improve our video greatly.
A few things that went wrong in our project was that our group could not seem to see eye to eye throughout the whole time length of beginning to end of the project, I believe one reason for this is because I found it hard to communicate across to Abby my ideas, without feeling as though my ideas were not useful to the music video. If I were to do this project again, I think I would try to communicate my ideas better to Abby so that we wouldn’t end up getting frustrated with each other within the group and would be able to work better in general. Another thing that went wrong was that our camera work wasn't all that great and in the end even though the camerwork unintentionally gave our video more of a "home-video" look, it could have done with alot of improvement, as it made our video look bad and rough in alot of ways. The things that did go right in the video were the editing and the actual putting together of the video as we all worked better as a group at that point, and we all managed to edit the video well, and it really helped to add to the overall dream atmosphere that we needed to have for the video.
Our project did well to compare to the real music videos we looked into to give us inspiration for the chosen genre of our video, for example "I wish it could be Christmas everyday" by Whizzard and "Mistletoe and Wine" by Cliff Richard, both had keyfeature's in there videos which we wanted to include in our video, like the christmas hats and dancing seen in Whizzard's video, and the walking towards the camera seen in Cliff's video.
Overall I think our music video went well and was very amusing to view and managed to be memorable, although it could have done with more impoved camera work, better lighting and maybe a few more effects added on final cut pro to make it seem even more christmas like.
