Experimenting with Video Effects

In todays lesson we experimented with the different video effects available on Premiere Pro. We were told to pick a song, film someone singing along to it and edit it. The aim of the exercise was to practice editing music videos and learning to create new effects. As well as experimenting and trying out new things we had to learn to create effects we would actually expect to see in a music video. This is the final product.

Lip Sync Exercise

For this task we were asked to get into groups, pic a song and video ourselves singing along to it and sync it with the original soundtrack. Sounds simple right, well we learnt it was a lot more complicated. Here's the final product.

Past Music Video Ranking/Review

In class we watched music videos made by the previous years. We were then asked to rank them in order of best to worst.

1. 13A3 Nine 2 Five


2. 12A2 Life Happens
3. 13B6 Ike and Tina
4. 13E6 Go In, Go Hard
5. 13A1 Sparks Fly
6. 13134 Lost
7. 13E4 If You Wanna
8. 13B3 What We Started
9. 13E9 Today I Cried
10. 13E7 12 Rounds
11. 13B1 Rewind

From doing this exercise I feel I learned a lot about music videos. I learnt what to do and what not to do. The video for Nine 2 Five was the best out of all of them. It was very well executed, the lips were in sync and they cut in time to the music. They aslo had a vairety of loactions, which keeps it interetsing. I found the video for Rewind was the worst, because, the lips were not in sync to the music, they attempted using a narrative in the video, but it was very confusing and unclear.

I have learnt that when making my music video, I should make sure the lip sync is perfect all the way through the video. To make sure I avoid the issue of the lips not being in sync with the music, I'll use the same version of the track when filming as well as when I'm editing. I will also leave pleanty of time for re-shoots. My music video will aslo consist of different locations. This keeps video interesting and the viewer engaged. I will also make sure I cut the footage in time with the music, this way it doesn't look unprofessional and sloppy. To avaid this I will look at the synaesthesia of the music, and cut at the high notes or the low notes. It is also improtant to use a variety of shots from different angles, so that users are compelled to watch it. When going on a shoot I will take more than one camera, so that I have a lot of interesting footage to work with when it comes to editing. Another issue I found with some of the videos were that some of the actors were very lifeless and awkward in front of a camera. So when it comes to choosing who's going to perform in my music video, I'll be sure to choose someone who's confident performing in front of a camera.

Evaulation of Last Years Work

Completing last years production task has enabled me to develop my skills across the different stages of production, from planning to editing. Having made the opening sequence to the film, naturally I made some mistakes however, this means that when it comes to making the music video I know what to avoid.

I feel the initial research and planning stage of the project went quite well. We all had varying ideas of the type of film we wanted to create, with a bit of compromise on all our parts we decided on the finial idea quickly and efficiently.

We didn't spend a lot of time storyboarding as we thought we had a good idea of what we wanted in our heads. So our storyboard was brief and not incredibly detailed, this proved to be quite disadvantageous as during our shoots we would become uncertain of things such as camera angles. What I have learnt from this is the importance of detailed planning; this avoids time wasting during shoots and makes the overall operation run more smoothly.

I personally feel that I was very organised during the course of this project, I had to adopt the leadership role in my group, due to lack of cooperation by other members. I felt I dealt with the responsibility of that role proficiently and I managed the team well. Part of my role was to organise all of our shoots, collect all the props and equipment and get all the actors prepared for the shoot. I also had to take charge of the group blog where I updated the progress of the project on a daily basis. The responsibility of maintaining my group effected my independent work, and I occasionally struggled to meet deadlines. For the next project I hope that I have a more reliable team who will contribute equally to the project so that I don't fall behind with my own work.

I really enjoyed the filming and editing process; during the filming stage I took on the role of director, and this was an exciting experience as it gave me an insight into what its like to be a director, which is a role I aspire to achieve in the future. When it came to editing we found that not all of our footage was up to a high standard, luckily we identified this in time to have a reshoot, but for the future I will definitely make sure to get filming done as soon as possible, so any errors with the footage can be rectified as it allows for the possibility of reshoots.

Having completed the bog work and evaluation tasks from last year have helped me expressed my ideas through a variety of media platforms. It has also helped my ability to express my thoughts in a clear and concise manner. The most important lesson I have learnt in regard to blogging is the importance of keeping up to date with posts, which is definitely something I aim to work on in the next music promotion project.