Music Video Prelim Evaluation

1. Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?

- I really enjoyed the workshop day. I loved being able to be in front of the camera for a change, and experience how the actors would feel. It was interesting to be able to see a semi-professional shoot in action, and all the different elements coming together. It really helped me to realise that this is definitely what I want to do in the future. One of my favourite parts was the end dance routine, where everyone came together to perform. I also loved shadowing the director, doing playback (showing the actors the shots they were about to perform) and cable bashing as I really felt like part of the team.

2. What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks?

- I learnt many things throughout the whole process of this music video recreation. The first task was analysing a music video. I chose Beautiful Liar by Shakira and Beyonce and this helped me to study the lip-sync more closely, see discontinuous editing in action and understand the other conventions of performance music videos.
- The next prelim task was the audition video. This really helped to get all the performance nerves out of the way early. We realised that we had to be confident performers for the final video to look as professional.
- Once we were given our parts we had to learn the performance. Tasha, a year 13 with dance experience taught us the dance. It took a lot of concentration and practise and I learnt how much time and effort needs to go in before the actual shoot day. As soon as one person went wrong in the dance, the whole shot would look bad, so we needed to concentrate individually.
- Planning and organising costume was a particular example of where we learnt the importance of teamwork.  We all brought in clothes and lent them to each-other. Although costume may seem like a minor part, this was the point at which we realised how important it is. Once a costume was accurate and complete, everything looked better and it felt like things were starting to come together.
- One Day Workshop. The things I learnt which stand out are the importance of pre-planning for the actual shoot, and the amount of shots and set-ups that are needed to make a music video look professional and interesting. Without all the highly organised pre-production, the shoot would never have come together as successfully as it did. Records and paperwork are of the utmost importance. I also learnt that there were many specific roles and jobs for the people in the production team and they are always stuck to.
- Workshop Edit. In the editing process, the different takes and set-ups seemed vital in make our re-make video seem interesting and bland, it also gave us a better chance of creating an exact match. It also helped me realise that timing, particularly in the dance, was of the utmost importance to get right on the day, because we were not able to re-shoot. There were many shots when the dance was wrong or actions were incomplete, and these are the shots where our edit looks less professional than intended.


3. Are you pleased with the footage and your edit? Is it how you expected it to look?

- I'm really pleased with how the footage looked. There were shots which didn't capture the actions in the real video exactly, but a lot of them were extremely similar. The confidence of all the performers also shines through. Our editing of the shots are very accurate and the finished product looks very professional. However, there are quite a few shots where the actions and dance moves are not particularly in time or exact   when compared with the real video. Not everything was achievable because of the day's time-limit, but if we had more time in hindsight, we could have spent more time making sure all the shots were exact. Due to the amazing lighting on the shoot day, the grading was kept to a minimum. With the low budget of the production, i'm extremely impressed with what we've achieved.


4. How do you think your prelim experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?

The process has really helped me to realise how important the planning process is, so I will make sure that our group spends a lot of time an effort towards this next term. I also now see that costume and set/mise-en-scene can really take a music video from amateur to looking professional, I will therefore ensure this is planned out thoroughly. Before the shoot, I was definitely hesistant as to deciding on a studio based performance video, but after participating in this remake video I have completely changed my mind. This style is really fun and when done well, looks very professional and exciting. After playing one of the band members, I understand the pressure put on the actors when shooting, so I will ensure that they are well-treated and made to feel comfortable to maximise their energetic performances.
This prelim has really given me an insight to the work we'll need to put in to create an exceptional music video next term.