Prelim Outtakes

Here are our groups' outtakes! I hope that this video provides an insight to the hard work that we put into producing our prelim. We thought that making this video was beneficial as it provided us the opportunity to practice our editing skills using the new version of iMovie.

Prelim Evaluation

We experienced a few difficulties when producing our prelim. As previously stated in another post (Filming for Prelim), the dance routine was probably the most difficult aspect of the prelim. I also found that editing was harder than I had expected, it was quite time consuming trying to edit to the beat as well as matching the lip-synch correctly. Towards the end of the prelim, at around 00:28, the lip-synch is slightly off, which is very distracting for the audience, for our final music video we will spend more time carefully editing to ensure that this mistake is not repeated. I also think that it would be helpful if we didn't include as much performance, this would cut down on the amount of lip-synching required.

Unlike the original video, we filmed outside of the school instead of on the street, this was for practical reasons, it would have been too busy to film in public, this would have made it harder to obtain the required shots. For our final music video, we would need to pay closer attention to our mise-en-scene to ensure that it is relevant to the chosen song and genre, thereby creating a more professional-looking video.

Whilst the setting was very different, we wanted our costumes to be as similar as possible. We put a lot of effort into our outfits and I am quite proud of the results. The best costume, in my opinion, was Janadhi's (below left) as she had an almost identical blazer. For the other costumes, we had to compromise and substitute certain items, for example, we didn't have black or white blazers so, instead, we wore other items of clothing but in the same colours (below right) so that it was clear which characters we were portraying.

              

We managed to match Jane to Bruno Mars almost perfectly (hat, chain, sunglasses) with the exception of the pink blazer.

 
I think that costume is an extremely important element of a music video as it helps to set the tone, for example, bright colours for an upbeat song, like our prelim, and darker colours for a sadder song. We will continue this attention to detail in our final music video.

Below is a vlog showing audience reactions to our prelim. I thought that this was helpful as I could listen to criticisms from an outside perspective to see how others thought we could improve.

Prelim

Here is our finished prelim:

Prelim Vlog

We finally finished our prelim today! We had to refine the editing slightly so that the lip synching was correct and that everything looked as smooth and seamless as possible. Here is our vlog where we reflect on the prelim production process:

Filming for Prelim

We started filming our prelim today, focusing on the group shots. We wanted our prelim to be as similar to the original as possible so we carefully chose our costumes so that we resembled the characters, we wore the same colours and sunglasses to match our corresponding character.

I think that one of the hardest parts of the shoot was learning the dance routine and performing in time with the music, it took a while to learn and, also, to then stand in the correct places and hit the correct marks that we drew on the floor. It was quite difficult to compose the shots as we needed everyone to be in frame, even as we walked closer to the camera. We only have a few more shots to do, we are planning to finish filming by Friday. Below are some photos from the shoot:

Us in costume

The group watching the footage back

Preliminary Task

Today we were given our preliminary task, we have to recreate 30 seconds of an existing music video, shot for shot. By copying the video exactly, we will be able to build on our existing skills, for example, camera work (framing, panning etc), attention to detail (through our mise-en-scene and ability to frame the shots as they appear in the original music video)  as well as our planning and time management.

We have chosen to use the song 'Uptown Funk' by Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars, we are planning to copy the first 33 seconds. We chose this song as it was fast paced with a strong beat, allowing us to edit the shots in time with the music. The video contains a variety of different shots, for example, close ups, mid shots and long shots, allowing us to practice our camera work, it will also provide us with inspiration when it comes to storyboarding our final music video.