Final Editing and Alterations

The production team and I had no viewed our music video in a long while due to focusing on our ancillary tasks, however we recently viewed our video and realised we needed to make final alterations that we did not consider before. We came to realise that the lip syncronization was not precisely in time to the music. We were in a dilemma on deciding whether we should speed up the scenes on certain clips or not, however we gathered useful advice from our media teachers and came to the conclusion of replacing the lip syncronization scenes with other scenes and clips. On the other hand, another criteria of the music video which was not originally included was adding in credits to introduce the song name and band name. Therefore, I have uploaded our original final version of 'Superman', and the actual final version which will be sent off to the moderators.

Originally, the final music video

Final Music Video

Lip Syncronization

Andrew Goodwin states that incorporating lip synchronisation means the performer is addressing the audience directly embracing them whereas in films the audience has a voyeuristic relationship with the actors. This is the main reason in which the production team and I used lip syncronization, the clip are the first two clips of this set of scenes.

Choices of Style

Throughout the construction of our promotional music video, the production team and I kept analysing the various elements in music videos to relate to ours so that we are using the conventions for music videos in our pop/rock music genre. I personally, noticed that in Avril Lavigne's music video ''Sk8er Boi", she uses various aspects which were used in the creation and development of my music video, which also helped us to make final decisions:

- There is the use of an urban area which is made apparent in outside shots to establish the setting.

- There is a narrative throughout the music video, which is to do with boyfriends/girlfriends/relationships.

- Characters are of the same age (teenage)

- There is the use of teenage stereotypes such as the ''grunger/goth/skater boy'' and the fashionable and popular girl, who could also be stereotyped into the group of ''cliques''

- The ''skater boy'' wore dull, black clothing, which helped us to come to a final decision that black would be the best colour for the ''goth'' in our music video. This was made apparent in society within the stereotypes, and this particular music video reconfirmed this.

- This music video shows youth like behaviour such as messing around with cars and acting animal like in the street, we related the theme of showing youthful behaviour in our music video by releasing it through the youthful and fun side to relationships instead since that was what our narrative was based on

- The lyrics during the music video syncronize with the narrative through having scenes which reflect the lyrics narrative, for example ''he was a punk, she did ballet, what more can I say?''. During these lyrics scenes consisting of the ''punk'' and the ''clique girl'' were present, we also did the construction of our music video in order to make the storyline as unambiguous as possible.

Editing Cont...(Part 6)

Today, the production team and I managed to finally complete the construction of our music video. Of course, we faced problems, however we managed to overcome the simplisticness of these and come to a final completion. We again, used our storyboards in the help of finishing off the finishing touches.

Special Effects used:

- Fade to black...

We used this effect to end the music video to represent that the relationship was ongoing even though the music video came to an end. This is an editing feature which the group and I witnessed when doing further research on music videos of our genre. For example, in 'Sk8er Boi' by Avril Lavigne, this editing technique was present.

- Speed...

In many areas throughout the music video, the speed was always being altered. This was due to the powers and excitement of the marvel comics being expressed in our music video to recreate the feeling of 'Superman'. Also, this generally, at times, helped to make the clip move at the same pace as the music lyrics. Also, this editing technique was not a common feature for our music genre, therefore we are challenging the conventions of pop/rock.

- Cartoon...

We again, made much use of the cartoon effect as this portrays the narrative of the Marvel comic books, especially that of 'Superman'. We also made use of this effect in certain unusual scenes, such as sccenes that contain unconventional camera movements such as the scene where the 'Superman' is on the roundabout and is spinning rapidly. This could also relate back to the powers of 'Superman' from the comic books.

Editing Cont...(Part 5)

In our free periods today, we organised another editing session for a few members of the production team and I as we were getting anxious about our deadline approaching. Again, we managed to add in extra special effects, especially the ones which relate back to the Marvel comics.

Effects

The production team and I made use of the 'romantic effect' in a particular clip which happened to turn out grainy which was not what we thought would be very compelling for our audience and overall grade. So, we accordingly added in this effect. The scene in which we added it into was a scene that we were not intending on being romantic, however the 'romantic effect' helped to put forward a contradiction and in some ways sarcasm as the scene in which it was added was a scene that was in action during the time of the lyrics "...devil did him a deal..." was being played.

Here is an example of our use of the 'romantic effect'.

Another use of special effect which we put to use was the 'reverse and speed'. We used this when the female character made up her mind on who was her 'Superman'. Therefore, we used this special effect of 'reverse and speed' to make it appear that all the other male characters were going back to where they came from so that the intended 'Superman' is the one singled out to be the main male character. Also, we found that as this particular special effect made everything appear fast moving, it was another aspect which helped to keep the audience engaged and keep their mind occupied with the narrative because if the narrative was slow moving, then the audience would easily lose interest.

Here are a few examples of the special effect of 'reverse and speed' being put to use.

A further transition which was in fact very vital for the narrative of our promotional music video was the 'cartoon effect'. Not just did we use this effect due to the fact that some of our clips came out dull and grainy and this effect helped to brighten them up and physically appear clearer, but it also related back to the original storyline of 'Superman' and the cartoon comic books. This special effect did admittedly come out similar to the dream effect, however this was thought to be a positive aspect because it added on to the cartoon and childlike feel, plus it could be considered to represent the female characters thoughts.

Here is a few examples of the 'cartoon effect'.

Transitions

Again, the production team made use of the 'jump cut' as it makes the clips change with the beat of the music to give an upbeat, fast and rhythmic feel to the video as a whole, which will again add to the audiences engagement.

Another transition which we had not made use of before was the 'fade' transition. This transition was put into use during the lip syncronization of the leading female character to show signs of deep thought and imagination. This appears effective in this video as it could show a sense of confusion and a deeper understanding to the audiences knowledge of the characters feelings and emotions.

Editing Cont...(Part 4)

In yesterday's media lesson, the group and I had the opportunity to resume our editing of our promotional music video, so consequently, we made the effort to replace the twenty seconds we lost and to make it of a higher standard as required by the rest of the production team. The replacement of the work we lost was much easier to replace and produce due to the fact we already had some experience with this area of work, also our storyboards were a great help as this is what we originally followed, even though we have decided to add in extra pieces in certain areas which are noticable in our work so far.

Special Effects

We agreed that using special effects will add to the atmosphere which is created throughout the song in our music video. We all consented to using the 'dream effect' which iMovie produced on the clip which had the sign that said 'saucy singles speed dating' and on the clips which had all three characters walking down the road to the speed dating venue. This produced the audience with a clear understanding as to whats happening within the narrative in the music video. Also, the dream effect could help relate back to comic books.

Here is an example of the 'dream effect' we used on the 'saucy singles speed dating' sign.

And here is another example of the same effect being used on one of our characters walking down the road.

Transitions

We also applied transitions in areas we thought would be effective such as when the female character was on her dates with the three characters. We applied the 'wipe' transition as it maintained the chronology as to who the female character dated first, second and third. This also maintained the discrepancy between the different archetypal characters.

Another transition in which the production team and I gathered to be very useful was the 'jump cut'. We thought this would be quite compelling when applying the beat of the song to this as it produced an upbeat and fun appeal to our target audience. This can also again when viewing remind us of comic books generally, because comic books usually have a fast moving storyline which is always able to attract our attention, so by adding this particular transition, it should successfully attract the attention of our audiences and keep them engaged in the fun and yet musical beat accompanying the action.

Editing Cont...(Part 3)

As week by week continues, the deadline for our promotional music video is nearing, therefore we have to spend more time in the media room editing. At times, some of the production team is not free the time other members are which can result in a few complications but we usually work around these.

Today, a member of the production team (Reena Chadee) used her time wisely to go and edit so that we were able to have at least half of the music video complete as time was rapidly running out. However, she came to realise that the work which we had managed to do efficiently at the City Learning Centre was not saved which resulted in us having only eight seconds of editing footage instead of up to twenty eight which we were able to complete. This took us a great amount of time to produce due to everything being so precise and sharply matched so that the clip moved precisely to the rhythm of our song. When we discussed what had happened, we tried to think of ways in which we could improve what we had already managed to do so that when we reproduce the twenty seconds we had lost again, it would be of a higher standard and with more inspirational ideas so that we will result in having a more successful production of our promotional music video.

Editing Cont...(Part 2)

On the 16th of December the whole media group and I went to the City Learning Centre to gain more essential information about the new software 'iMovie' which we found difficulty using since it was drastically more updated compared to the version which we used in the previous year. A few months prior to the 16th of December, we went to the City Learning Centre to gain confidence in the understanding of the use of the programme 'Garageband', however we did not put this programme to use due to reasons explained previously. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our trip due to the fact it gave us the amazing opportunity to have inspiration with editing techniques when composing our music video together with a person which had many years of experience with the Mac software.



Firstly, on our own, we assembled the clips to have transitions which we in time to the beat of the music at the beginning of the music video. We then gained feedback from the person who was training us with this software and he explained to us why our transitions were too slow and not exact to the beats of the music. Regardless of this, our assistant enabled us with a new technique which ordered us into doing this technique effectively by adding time markers to each beat of the song we wanted the clips to change on resulting in our timing being much more efficient towards the beats of the music.



Another problem which we managed to overcome was the transition which we gained influence from Blink 182's music video. We came to realise that the iMovie software did not cater this transition therefore we had to reassemble our thoughts, and in the end we concluded with the 'wipe' transition from left to right with certain clips to help reassure the audience with each character making them unconsciously noticing their different stereotypes.

Editing

Today's date is one of our first whole lessons to attempt editing our now uploaded promotional music video. Again, we researched on YouTube a variety of videos which could help us to have an even more profound understanding of how to use the version of iMovie which we were still not 100% confident with. One of our first tasks which was essential in the editing of our scenes was to crop them to make them immaculate. There were a few scenes which we recorded that had areas of certain rooms showing which made the overall image of the scenes inconsistent and disheveled. Therefore we researched specific videos on YouTube which was giving tips for cropping, and as a result we successfully managed to crop the scenes that we intended on doing. Also, we adding in specific transitions after experimenting with them in the process of uploading the film. In certain scenes such as the ones consisting of lip synchronization the production team and I decided that adding in a cartoon transition would be most effective in the efforts to enhance the 'Superman' cartoon like feel towards the video as we relate Superman to the Marvel comics.

Uploading Our Film

In today's lesson the production team and I uploaded our filming onto the Mac computers to enable us to begin making a start on our editing using the most updated version of iMovie. The team and I were very confused to begin with since the new version of iMovie was very different to the one in which we used last year. We went onto YouTube to look for videos which could possibly give simple instructions on how to do simple effects as we did not even know how to do something as simple as that. We finally found a YouTube video which helped us to understand more about applying transitions. We experimented with the transitions and applied a few even though we were not intending on actually using them as we just wanted to feel more confident about how to use certain transitions and how to apply them effectively. We accomplished how to use them after a while and we all felt relatively comfortable, however we wanted to make certain scenes tinted red, but we soon managed to realise this would not work due to this not being an option.

Filming Cont...

- Today, the production team and I made the effort to finish off filming our last scenes for the music video after realising we did not have enough tape to cover the whole three minutes we were aiming to produce for the music video. Our original storyboard had scenes altered and deleted and what we proposed doing was to finish off filming the areas we added in so that our final outcome would match our new and updated storyboard. However, this meant we had to carefully think of the locations we were intending on using.

- Reena ( main girl character) made an attempt to film the 'Superman' scenes with Krishna ( the male playing the part of Superman ) and herself enjoying each others company and having fun with one another to show their fun and young relationship they were building on, as part of the storyline. We all agreed that domesticated areas such as living rooms and bedrooms would be most suitable for these particular scenes to emphasise the comfort found in one another by both characters.

- Another scene was set in a park in the childrens' play area. The change of setting symbolises the changes in their relationship as their relationship is growing stronger the more they get to know each other and spend time with one another. Therefore, the settings regards their perspective of each other. Also, the childlike play area shows that they are able to have fun together and act immature - this can relate to marvel as an inspiration that we researched into when choosing 'Superman' as the name of our song.

- Furthermore, the costumes allocated for each character are similar to what was worn in previous scenes, however some areas of clothing are somewhat different. This is also another aspect of a change in the relationship which is being built, however this could appear as a non-continuity error. An aspect of the character's attire is that the girl is wearing 'Superman's' cardigan whichs symbolises a sense of sharing in the relationship.

Filming

On the 5th of December, the production team and I began our filming for the production of our music video. We had made a schedule to begin filming at 10am however this did not materialise due to many complications. One of the difficulties we managed to swiftly overcome was our plan to film at April's house in her living room due to it being very spacious and convenient for our 'dating scenes', however this resulted in being very disruptive towards the family which resulted in us not being able to use that location we intended on. Therefore, we had no choice but to change the location. This proved a hassle as many aspects such as the mise-en-scene and the lighting were going to be very different to what we originally had in mind. Nevertheless, we all reconsidered the design of these particular scenes and reshaped them to what would mould perfectly into the mise-en-scene of another production team members bedroom. The angles were slightly different, however still overall successful for us to be able to begin filming at approximately 12pm. This consequently gave us a sufficient amount of time to get the majority of the main scenes filmed as we had already planned to make a huge effort on filming most of our scenes on this date. We also wanted to film the majority of the films on this date because this would enable all of the characters to look exactly the same in every shot and it would also contribute to more time for editing once filming was over.

Here in an example of a scene we managed to film. We managed to film all three male characters walking down the road to emhance their role and stereotypes. We used this as a way of creating a jump cut effect to create the massive contrast between the various personalities. This also makes it unambiguous that all three male characters are going to the same place - enhanced through jump cut effect.

Here is an example of a complication we managed to overcome. This is an example of a 'dating scene' which we had to change. This location apparent here is that of Reena's bedroom which was our last resort. As a result, the scenes were grainy and not as clear as what they would have been in our first considered location. On the other hand, the grainy image could work in collaboration with the idea of a romantic feel.

Extreme close ups were other shots we managed to film which helped to emphasise each characters attire, for example, here is a screen shot of the 'Geeks' bow tie which helps the audience to accommodate themselves with the stereotypes before seeing each character as a whole.

List of Props

We made a list of props that we would need to bring for our shoot day. By doing this, it helped us to put into words the materialistic things which would help to keep up the image of each character and the scenes we are hoping to propose.

Filming Problems

Today the team and I were scheduled to begin our filming. On the morning of the 28th of November we had all the props prepared and ready to start shooting for the scenes we were planning on doing this weekend. However, at the very last minute we were contacted by two members of the production team to find out that we were unable to begin shooting as two members were unable to attend due to emergencies and illnesses. We thought about continuing to film, but we realised that these were main characters that were not present, therefore making it rather difficult. Due to this, we rescheduled our shoot day to the 5th of December. This might prove quite a problem because this only enables us one last weekend to film before the deadline. We considered meeting after school for a few shoot days, but because we need the daylight, this also will prove a problem because by the time school finishes and we set up our scenes it would be near enough evening. Also, the production team and characters have other responsibilities to attend after school in the evenings, so that would be an extra issue.

Arranging Props - Lesson 27/11/09

In today's lesson, the group and I thought it would be a constructive idea to make a start on the organisation of props. We began by making a 'Saucy Single's Speed Dating' sign. This was a main feature we need as it will give the audience the sense of atmosphere we are trying to create. The colours of red and white help to give it a feel of romance however the provocative symbols such as the devil horns and hearts help to give a comical feel to it.

Costume Designs

Today, the production team and I discussed the costume designs for the protagonist characters and what particular image would be suitable to help reflect their personality. We all studied the iconography of each individual character in depth and came up with a montage of images which helped to imply each characters individuality. Hopefully, by doing this, we are able to come up with a clear image of what is iconic for each character. Also, as we did not do this in the planning for last years AS production, our images of each character should come out more precise compared to last years outcome.

We analysed this characters costume through the study of semiotics. This characters personality is shown quite obviously through the fashion of her costume; the casual look helps to portray this characters personality as being quite ‘cool’. Additionally, it is clearly shown that the style of this characters clothing is like the majority of teenagers. Plus the costume design also gives the hint that this character has a general interest in fashion.

This character pursues the role of a punk. The use of black clothing helps to hold connotations of a sinister personality. However, this character is going to wear black make-up which could help to symbolise the lack of confidence that this character has.

In the first glance, this character may appear relatively similar to the main female character due to the sense of fashion. However, with a closer look, this character’s image holds connotations of an arrogant and ignorant nature.

This character’s image is stereotypically known as the ‘geek’. This characters costume appears old-fashioned which helps to portray his boring lifestyle and personality. On the other hand, this changes as the music will begin to progress. His confidence will develop and then he will turn out to be the ‘Superman’ – hence the Superman costume.

Characters and Cast

The production team and I thought that it was now a crucial time to begin organising and arranging who was going to be the characters. We realised that there were many factors involved in making the final decisions as to who was going to play what character. Factors which the group and I considered to be very important were the general image of each person, their availability and, of course, how good each character was at acting and staying in role for long periods of time. We all agreed as a group that the general image was one of the most important factors as each character had to look around the age they were actually playing plus the general image helps to portray the actor as who they are trying to represent as a character. This would therefore be for the audiences benefit as it would help them to understand the characters in more depth when viewing our final outcome.

Characters
(Protagonist characters)

- Female : Reena Chadee

- Boy Date (Punk) : Robyn Oliver

- Boy Date (Geek) : Krishna Mootoosamy

- Boy Date (Hunk) : Michael Chering


Characters

- Young Boy : Cameron

- Devil : April McKay

- Screaming Girl : Laura Fredericks

Value of Sound

The value of sound in a music video is questionable when much of the research around music videos only makes brief references to the music itself; an example of this is Kaplan who applies film theories to music videos. The links between music videos and films continue to grow especially since chart hits have been used to promote movies rather than their own album such as Paramore promoting Twilight in 2008.