Making Your Music Video

Guide to Shooting

You must have a CD player with you which can clearly be picked up by the camera mic (record and check this before starting shoot), remember the in-built camera mic doesn’t have a very good range. If you intend to shoot using a long lens to do a long shot then I recommend you use the professional 416 mic that we have in school. Shoot the performance from at least three different angles AT LEAST ONCE ALL THE WAY THROUGH, although ideally you would do it three times all the way through from different angles to allow greater flexibility in the edit. These aren’t the only shots you’ll do, they are simply your base tracks.

You will need to buy your own memory card.

Editing

Be sure to create footage folders and premiere pro edit folders and that the computer has been set up to always save to your edit folders. Make sure you also back up your work on the school hard drive (see me if you are unsure of this) as it is YOUR responsibility to look after your own footage and to always save it on the HD as GCSE students use these computers as well.

Lip Syncing and Editing

Don’t import all footage, just the items you are sure you need. Save the items on the memory stick to your own computers or keep hold of the memory stick. Make sure other students can access your work at all times if it is group work.

Once you have deleted the most obvious ‘excess’ footage you need to line up material for lip syncing. Do your base track first (main track) and then work from there. It is possible to magnify the audio track and match up sound waves by going in close to a single frame with a ‘marker’. This can be time consuming but is essential to creating an effective piece.

It is important to be ruthless in the edit as the tighter the cuts the more powerful the piece, no split ends please! Effects can be useful to disguise problems, but if the problems are too great I will expect you to re-shoot sections as part of the standard process of filmmaking.

Use your storyboard during the edit to guide you. Sometimes it is better (as is the industry practice) not to have the director edit but someone else as this ensures objectivity. Editing is the stage of construction that will take the longest. A minimum of 10 hours will be needed.

Screenings and Feedback

It is essential that you embed the rough cuts of your video at least twice to show its developmental stages (as you would in the industry) and get feedback from your target audience (as you would in the industry, except it would be the viewpoint of the director and media institution’s feedback).  Questions to be asked could include:

·      What genre do you think it is?

·      Why?

·      What sense did you make of it?

·      Why do you think certain decisions were made (provide examples of decisions)?

·      What impression did you get from the artist?

·      Was the artist appropriate to the genre?

·      Was the mise en scene appropriate to the genre?

·      Did the video remind them of any other media texts (intertextuality)?

Now summarise the feedback you got. Do you agree with it? If not, why not? How will you change some aspects of the video to conform to the feedback given?

See me about an organised screening in the library for your target audience. Yopu could film the reaction to the video and the feedback to it as well to embed on your blog. You don’t necessarily have to do questionnaires, but whatever you decide to do it is essential to summarise the feedback and evaluate your thoughts on it. For your second feedback session on the improved rough cut I would recommend a different means to representing the information. You could even use Survey Monkey and other on-line tools to help get the general public to view the video and comment on it.

Assessment

Be sure to work to the levels for construction as provided at the start of the course to ensure you meet all requirements and work to the highest possible standard.