Production - Teacher Feedback

Teacher Feedback

We got Marisa to give us some feedback on the final video that we produced so far. Here is what she had to say...

Production- Editing Techniques

Speed Manipulation: 

In our music video we are using speed manipulation, so that we can use slow motion within the third verse of our video. Originally we sped up the song using Garage Band and altered the speed of 130%. Therefore, we found to slow it down, so that our song would be in sync we changed the speed of the shot to 74.98%. Our song is quite slow paced for it's genre (house).

Using speed manipulation is something we planned to do from the start and although keeping up whilst singing in time to the sped up version, it proved to be difficult, however now we have incorporated this technique it is beneficial to our video. 

Transitions and incorporating synergy:

In terms of synergy, we are using the theme of Bokeh Lights as they feature nicely in our video, due to it being shot in the City of London. Therefore, we altered the focus of the camera to achieve it. Having our shots overlap allowed us to incorporate our synergy in a creative way, this technique was also demonstrated at the beginning of the video and the final image.

Colour Corrector: 

Colour correcting our music video took a while as in some of the shots I look rather orange, however we wanted to add filters and also make the 'orange' shots look more neutral. The colour corrector itself was beneficial, although it was hard to distinguish how white or how bright our shots needed to be, so we have to experiment for a while. However, with filters we couldn't find any significant ones, we demonstrated with the blurs and glows but none worked for us. Therefore, we used colour corrector to enhance odour footage to look warmer, and then copied this over to all the other shots which in the end made our footage look how we wanted it. 

Update

Whats been going on?

We had to re-shoot last Sunday, and that was our last day of filming (YAY).
So at last, we had finished. Then the editing process started... I don't think any of us were prepared for it to be as long as it has been because we underestimated our own song. I didn't realise how long the song actually is. It's around 4 minutes in total, which isn't really a long time, but for a music video and editing, it feel like 20 years. We decided to cut the end of it which was really just an instrumental anyway, because it wasn't really needed and it helped us out with time. We added a couple of filters and effects that we didn't have before to make our video look a bit more professional and better looking. We've all been helping out and doing our part for editing which is a big help to us all and our teachers have been giving us really helpful feedback to make our video better. We've had a couple of scares (mild heart attacks) because yesterday our work almost got deleted due to a small touch of the video drive, but thankfully our work is okay and I can't wait to see everyone's work in the cinema soon. Our lighting has been our main problem throughout this whole process because our music video is in the night time, so we knew it would be difficult to have it well lit throughout the whole thing. The filter on the camera also kept us back a bit as we shot with it on by accident but the new shots in our music video is okay. I've really enjoyed everything so far and (don't tell them I said this) I really like the company I've been in and I'm glad I was put with them. Kinda.

Filming Overall Personal Review

Production - Update on what's been going on...

Update

Just a short video explaining what has been going on lately…

Production - Filter issues whilst filming

Whist filming we had come across a variety of issues and besides the lighting, we also realised that we had the ND filter on which essentially makes our footage have  an orangey wash on it. So when we reviewed our footage some of our shots were different colours. This was evidently an issue as none of the shots would match.

The 'filter issue' occurred on two occassions whilst filming this meant that out of the 7 days only 5 days of filming were worthy of putting in to our final product. You can see this orange glow in our footage and we are attempting to colour correct this.

Production- Editing techniques

Due to our footage having an orange wash on it due to the camera's ND filter being on whilst filming we have had to attempt using colour corrector to alter the shot.

Recently, I have been watchin Youtube tutorials on Final Cut and have noticed other groups doing so as well. Therefore, I have aimed to learn techniques from these tutorials and have found one that may help us make our footage a more neutral colour.



As another shot of ours has the same orange tone we will need to remember what numbers we set the brightness and tones of the colours we will add to make our shot look better. We also want to add a filter effect within our footage to enhance the colourings and make it look professional. We will aim to add this filet to all of our shots, ensuring there is a sense of continuity.

Production - Last week of Editing

Today, we are aiming to edit quite rapidly as on Friday at 3pm it is the deadline for our music video.

At the moment we feel that the first verse is successful and we are happy with the outcome of the shots after re-shooting on Sunday. Our shots now have a suffiecient amout of light in them. We needed to film alot of shots where Molly admires the city and over the shouder shots as the instrumental in the chorus drags

For the second verse we will be using shots for the Millenium Bridge and we aim to use rapid editing which will include jump cuts. Although, some of our shots have different lighting exposures so when using jump cuts we must use the well light ones so there will be a match.

Here are my three colleagues hard at work...

Production - Editing Update!

Editing Update

Just a quick update of us starting to edit the second part of the music video!

Production - Rough Cut Out of the Way!

We have finally uploaded the rough cut to our blog. Its been a struggle to get this far but it is not finished yet…

Production - Filter Research

Filter Research

In order to make the editing process a little bit easier, I wanted to do a quick research on filters that would make our music video look better; perhaps more professional and try to make it as less 'studienty' as possible. I just read from different websites some of the filters that Final Cut Pro has to offer. For example….

Production - Rough Cut Personal Opinion

Rough cut personal opinion

Rought Cut

Production- Complications Whilst Editing

Whilst editing our group has come across many unfortunate issues. The first issue and probably the biggest was after reviewing all the footage for each point of the song, we came to the conclusion that we didn't have enough in total. (or the correct shots we needed for the various verses/choruses etc) Prior to this, it resulted in our group having to film another 3 days to make sure we got all the shots corrected and more then enough footage.

After reviewing the footage of the extra three days, our group all agreed that we had completed the filming. However from the beginning of this project the biggest weakness for us has been lighting. As we have filmed our music video after sun down it meant we had to use the same lights (dedo lights) and have them at the same angle for each time we filmed. Unfortunately this didn't occur to us until the last two days of filming. Which means during the editing process we have fantastic shots in terms of angle and variety, but a unusual differentiation between lighting.

Although this is extremely annoying it does have a solution in which we will have to use. To correct the difference within the lighting we have to use effects such as colour corrector, brightness/contrast and image control.

Filters which may come in handy!

Here is a list of photoshop filters in which i have been experimenting with, I have been doing this in order to see whether or not they may be useful for us to use within our music video. The purpose of a filter is to make the quality of the video better in some way, whether it makes it look more professional or effective i believe me and my group may be using them when colour correcting some of our shots. 

Rough Cut Personal Opinion

I feel that our rough cut slightly shows how much we really need to get done. Although our effects and shots were aligned nicely, we still have a lot to do before we can say we're finished, or nearly finished.
The chorus' are proving really difficult for us and we'll need a lot of shots that we're not sure we have to fill it up. Hopefully more ideas will come to us soon and we'll have enough by the deadline. 

Production- Reflection of what needs to be re-shot

Lately we have been having a lot of issues whilst filming, the inevitable English weather (wind, rain and the coldness) Also, due to our video being shot at night time and in well-known London sites there are a lot of obstacle to avoid, especially the consistent current of commuters on the Millenium Bridge.

Having the Dedo light has also proved to be challenging, however we have also been experiencing the top light and we have found that both have there advantages and disadvantages...

- The top light can be screwed onto the top of the camera, therefore we will have nobody moving in front of the light and causing shadows. However, it has been proven nothing runs smoothly for Group 7... The light makes our footage quite dark and it doesn't look amazing!

- The Dedo lights are fabulously bright enough (from a distance), which is aggravating telling commuters to mind our the way, of course we ask in the nicest way possible! But when the light is close I look like a ghost, being of Irish heritage has become a bit of an encumbrance.

We have sat together and discussed what needs to be re-shot and what we have done so far:

- The Liverpool Street shots for the last verse are well light and can be used for the final verse.

- We still need a well light high angle walking shot in Southbank, to use as a possible jump cut in the instrumental after the chorus of the song.

- There's potential in our Millenium Bridge shots, however we need some panning shots of the city and myself looking out. Also to re shoot our miss shots and close up from various angles.

- We intend to demonstrate speed manipulation in our music video and we have filmed various parts of me singing the speeded up version of the song, so we can incorporate some slow motion.

Overall, I think as a group we need to keep the faith and determination! Fight the cold and get some beautiful shots! Day 7 will be our last chance to film and that will take place tomorrow! 

Production - Updates on Social Network

Updates on social network

This is a quick update to show the use of our Twitter feed. As you can see, every me and my group went to film, we tweeted in order to keep our followers informed about our location and how we are feeling while filming. We also use Twitter to upload pictures, which shows our location and what we are actually doing...

Production - Few Shots of Filming Process

Few shots of filming process

These are just a few shots we took during filming some shots in millennium bridge! It was freezing…

Production- Change in Schedule

After reviewing all the footage, as a group we have come to the conclusion that we will have to re-film some shots. This is due to not having the correct angles e.g. match cuts, or having the right footage for particular parts of the song.

Day 1
We decided to re-film the millennium bridge

Production - Filming Day 5

Filming day 5

Just a small summary of our fifth day of filming...

Social Networking

Our Twitter and Instagram page are in full swing!

Photoshop

In these screenshots, I am just showing how we cut to the beat when editing, by doing this made it very easy for me and my group to chose which base track would come next. This is probably the easiest way to edit a music video. 

Production - Rough Cut Feedback from Audience

Rough Cut feedback from Audience

Eugenie, one of our peers from class, gave us feedback on your rough cut. Here is what she had to say...

Production - Rough Cut

Rough Cut

This is the rough cut that we have produced so far. we have realised that editing the chorus is longer than we expected and might need to re-film some parts because the lighting is not as well as we wanted them to be. Also, we feel that we need to film different angles for the Southbank base-track because the lighting was not good enough as they were running out of battery when we were filming. Moreover, Rebecca also suggested to go and re film some of the Liverpool Street shots as well because in some of them the lighting is not that bright. We weren't able to finish our rough cut because, like mentioned before, we didn't expect the chorus to be that long, therefore we need to take some more shots of lights and buildings. We will hopefully get this sorted soon so that we can continue editing. We, however, really like the beginning because of the way Molly fades onto the time-lapse. We will keep you posted on how it goes....

Second Day of Filming Personal Review

Day 2
We went to Spitalfields the next day and filmed in two locations within Spitalfields. We had some slight lighting issues as there was a light on the set which we were quite reliant on, and we didn't know it would continue to turn on and off. We also didn't know who was in charge of the light and we couldn't ask them to keep it on for us. Also, just as we needed to film a couple more shots, security of the building behind us asked us to leave as we actually needed permission to film there. Our sign also caught some attention from people who were walking past and there looked interested in what we were doing. We had to leave anyway and we went to the other location, which was more well lit and easier to film in as there were less people there. 

Production - Editing!

Editing

Here are some shots of us during the editing process. As you can see, we are editing our base tracks and we are trying to make sure that the shots are at the right time as the song. 

Production - Car Timelapse

We have two time lapses in our video and they both show the manipulation of speed that we wanted to use. We speed both time lapses up but slow the choruses down for some diversity. Here is our final time lapse, sped up. 

Production - Bokeh Lights Example

Bokeh Lights

Bokeh lights are a big part of our synergy and we had to achieve these lights by taking the camera out of auto focus and changing it to manual focus and blurring the lens. We are perhaps thinking about using these shots for the chorus and also for the end of the music video. Here's our example:

Production - Editing Video

Editing

This is just a quick screen recording of us trying to decided which shots to introduce for the first verse. We are using Final Cut Pro to edit our music video.

d

Filming Personal Review 1

Day 1
Our first day of filming was not what I thought it would be. We were unintentionally unprepared for the first day in terms of equipment and the weather. Many people in our year group were filming at the same time as us so there weren't enough fig rigs, lights and speakers for all of us. We had to use our phone lights and phone speakers instead and we hadn't thought about the phone batteries and how loud the phone would actually go so our shots were limited.
We also had some trouble on the bridge with some people that wanted to be in our video and they didn't ask us in a... nice way. All we really wanted to do was film as quickly as possible, but we had a sign that read 'FILMING IN PROCESS - the producers and crew apologise for any inconvenience caused', so everyone thought that we were filming an episode of Eastenders or something...

Production - Slight Change of Location

Slight change of location

During the days of filming that we have had, we found some really good locations that we didn't know about before and we decided to film some shots in these locations because we could perhaps use them in some parts of our music video. As you can see in the images, we took some shots of places such as under the bridge in London Bridge and also in Broadgate, which is near Liverpool Street. Those locations also look very good and night time so perhaps they also help with the lighting. 

Production - Fourth Day of Filming Personal Review

Fourth day of filming personal review

Because of all the bad things that happened to us, when we were analysing the shots that we already had, we realised that the shots were not that good so I felt like we had to re-film them because aspects such as the lighting or camera work was perhaps not as we expected. We decided to film after lesson on thursday and it was a good idea because by the times we got to our locations, it was dark enough for us to start filming. First we went to Liverpool Street and filmed all the shots that we needed to film, and then went to Southbank as well. It was a slightly long journey as we walked and also the weather was really cold, apart from the fact that we had to carry all the equipment. I feel like it went well because this time we did have all the equipment needed and we finally succeeded to take quite a few good shots. Hopefully when we start editing we will see how we organise them and it will be in better quality. 

Production - Starting to Edit!

Today we all used the Editing Suite as we are beginning to form our Music Video, we started by arranging the clips into categories i.e

• Fast/Slow (as we are using a manipulation of Speed in our video)
• Names of the different locations: Southbank, Millenium Bridge and Spitalfields
• Also depending on the type of shot: CU, MS and LS

Beginning to edit

Editing 

Today, we have begun to edit our music video, and we aim to add a variation of effects to allow it to run smoothly. As our video follows Goodwin's theory of Disjuncture, we have no set shots to place as there is no narrative to display.

Last night, we had our last day of filming and re-filmed some of our shots from Spitalfields due to the shots being too dark. Moreover, yesterday we were supplied with a fig-rig and Dedo lights which ensured that our shots would have the correct lighting and the camera work less shaky. We also filmed some more shots on the Southbank, but not on the Millenium Bridge to show a sense of continuity.

For the first verse we have begun to mark the shots out, and we have counted in 8 beats because this best fits our song and would look right to jump cut to different shots using this rhythm. At the moment I feel that we have a strong opening as we have used cross fades to transition from the walking shot, focusing on only my feet, to fading slowly into our timelapse of the city. We also aim to put some sort of wind sfx as our song hasn't got a musical introduction and therefore having some clips of our artist walking to her location would help introduce the brand image and our location. 

Another focus point of of our video is using Bokeh lights as our synergy. We have filmed various lights which view in our locations and as it's coming up to Christmas the trees are lit with Fairy Lights which has helped us quite a lot. We aim to place this synergy in places where the beat of chorus where there are no lyrics. We have experiemented with opcacity editing where we will merge a shot of me and a shot of the lights together. This will link to the ambition we had to abide by Goodwin's theory of amplification as we will repeat this technique throughout the video so it is remembered for it's consitent use of synergy- bokeh lights. Which again would focus on our aim to portray the brand image of the artist in her city. 

Production Process- Being Prepared!

Day 3- Personal Review

Movie on 15-11-2013 at 19.29 from Sophie Larkin on Vimeo.

Production - Something Bad Always Happens :/

Something bad always happens :/

Production - Filming the Car Timelapse

Filming the car time-lapse

Just a short videos of us filming one of the time-lapse we are going to use for the music video. We unexpectedly found this bridge so we thought that It would be good to use it.

Production - Third Day of Filming Personal Review

Third day of filming personal review

Just a short video about how I felt thinking about the third day of filming…

Production - Second Day of Filming Personal Review

Second day of filming personal review




These are the places in Spitafields where we filmed…

Production - Filming Day 3

Filming day 3

Production - First Day of Filming Personal Review

Day 1 Personal review

Production - Skills Development

Skills Development

Production - Alternatives for missing Equipment

Yesterday our group collected our equipment from the office to unfortunately find that we were unable to receive some of the specific items we asked for. This included a Fig rig, Lights and speakers. Prior to this we had to think quickly and usefully to find alternatives. This resulted in using two windup torches and the torch app from our smart phones, along with playing the song off them. (Which ate all our battery within an hour). Although the footage wasn't bad, we decided to scrap most of it as it wasn't up to the standard we would like. However Rebecca ensured us that next time we film we will be able to have the items we missed out on.

Still using our social networks

Group 7 have 2 active social networking sites. TWITTER and INSTAGRAM

Twitter

Planning - Reflection on Progress

Reflection on progress

Production-Lights

When getting our equipment we were unable to get hold of dedo lights. This resulted in having to come up with a substitute which resulted in all of us having to use our phone lights and me and Olamide both brought wind up torches with us. However we were ensured that next time we film we will receive the dedo lights!

Production - Filming Time-lapse From Balcony

Filming time-lapse from balcony

Footage of David filming from his cousin's house...

Production - Time-lapse for the Beginning

Time-lapse for the beginning

 After having some footage, we collected the shots that David took from his cousin's house and then edited it using Final Cut Pro. When editing it, we speeded it up so that it gets dark very quickly. We plan to use this shot for the beginning of the music video. However, this will be shorter so this is just a long example of long it would look like.

Production - Filming Day 2

Filming day 2

This is an update of our second day of filming...

Production - Lighting Replacement

Lighting Replacement

Due to the college being short of equipment, we didn't get the light that we asked for. We were very disappointed because we needed these lights as we were going to film at night time, and we didn't want the shots to look really dark. Luckily, I had a torch application on my phone which allowed us to at least film with a bit more light. Also, we were able to get a wind up torch which was also useful as the battery on my phone was running out. Hopefully next time we go film we will get the lights that we asked for so it will make it easier for us to film and it will also be more reliable. 

Production - Behind the scenes with Molly Clift

Behind the scenes with molly Clfit

 We got a small interview with the amazing artist Molly Clift after the first shoot for her music video. This is what she had to say...

Production - Filming Day 1

Filming day 1

This is an update about what we did during our first day of filming. 

Planning - Thinking About An Idea

Thought of something!

Production - What Happens Next?

We've looked over all our footage and we realised that some of the shots we filmed were in different places than we originally planned, and some of our shots were too dark. 
Our shots in spitalfields were quite good  but quite static so we need to get more angles in...

ALSO we slowed down our track and hope for a huge reveal of slow motionafied (yes that is a word that I just made up) goodness, but nothing really happened.. so that will have to be sorted out somehow.

We need to go to millenium bridge and sort out the lighting and film those parts again...

We need to make our main synergy point clearer and more obvious, which was our bokeh lights. (David keeps filming buildings instead of lights so this is a problem.)

We do have a lot to do but we've come a long way! Our first night of filming was not a success and the other times we were much more prepared...

Here's a HUGE list of all our equipment we took on the first night!

I know we were so prepared right? We didn't even dress for the weather so we were all FREEZING and i'm sure that someone lost their finger to frostbite. So the next night went something like this...

WATCH THIS SPACE GRRRRR

Planning - Personal Opinion About Test Shots

Opinion about test shots

This video will explain my opinion about the test shots that we have produced.

Why We Couldn't Film On Sunday :(

Discussing when to film next!

Thanks Trevor!

This blog post is dedicated to TREVOR for finally getting our song done for us. If we're not officially now your favourite group then who else is? 

Reviewing our Footage

We have agreed to film on another day in Southbank as the lighting is quite dark and we can barely see our artist. Today in workshop we have reviewed our footage and watched our current time lapse's, also how good the lighting looks where we filmed. We now feel more organised and prepared and know what we need to get done on Wednesday!

Filming process sofar

Sofar we have completed two days of filming, although we are filming at night-time we have limited time. The equipment we have been using is the camera, a still camera so we can take stills as possible ideas for our ancillary product, a flip cam so we can record how we feel about our fiming process sofar and unfortunately we did not receive a fig-rig or dedo lights so we have had to improvise...

Fortunately we had a chat amongst ourselves to see how we could improvise, we were able to bring bright torches to use as our light source as well as the lights from our surroundings in spitalfields and the millenium bridge on the Southbank. Also from the first night of filming, we were quite cold and as my costume is thin, silky material I was shivering and i found it hard to keep still, also David's hands were cold so the camera shook. However, we all decided to bring warm clothes, blankets, gloves and large jumpers so we could survive the cold.

Although not having some of this equipment made us feel at abit of a disadvantage, we ensured that we were well prepared and used sufficient lighting that worked well the surrounding. The locations we have chosen are well light so this could also contribute to our lighting source.

Day One of filming

Our first day of filming was on Wednesday the 30th of October anbd the location we started at was Southbank as we intended to visit the Millenium Bridge whih was one of our prime locations. We also were able to retrieve a sign which helped us with getting the publics attention and to avoid any possible risks that may come about.

The sign was really effective as it made the public swerve around us. 

We began walking from bank station and took shots of tower bridge and the view from the side of the Thames which we aim to use during the chorous of our video. We were really please that the lights on the Southbank were bright and vibrant as this would portray our artists background, experiencing tyhe City she lives in. 

Whilst we walked down by borough market, we came across a tunnel that had lights on the floor, the lights were circular and they were blue and green. We thought this would be a great oppertunity to film shots of me walking, also they could help us create that bokeh light effect that we aim to use for our synergy. 

Overall, our first day of filming was cold and we felt abit un-prepared due to the cold weather but for our next location we aim to be more prepared!

The test shot process

As I am the performer in our music video, there is alot of responsibilitited that lie on my shoulders...

• Bringing the correct costume to each different filming location.
• Learning the lyrics to the song.
• Performing in a naturalistic way

Moreover, as we successfully learnt how to speed the song up, meaning this will allow us to have some slow motion footage in our video. Singing when the tempo of the song has been sped up has proved to be quite challenging.

In college we decided to do some test shots and practise the walking shots, the positioning of the lights and me being able to sync with the song. 

I did not anticipate how close the camera would be when we needed the close up shots, so I did tend to laugh and break character. The walking shots had to be practised as I would have to walk extremely slow so David, Sophie and Olamide would be able to track me with the camera and lights. Although, in the classroom we had limited space I was able to acknowledge the pace that I would have to move at to ensure I would be in the frame of the shot.

Overall, I am looking forward to filming over the half term and hopefully will stop the laughter and successfully shoot our video.