Final Production ( music video)

Below is our final production of our music video.

Final Production -New York City - KGB Productions

Feedback from Mr Kerrigan:

I like the idea behind your narrative; there is a clear sense of progression, and it ties-in well with the song. The idea of a literal journey that parallels an emotional journal is a well-established convention of story-telling, and it works well here. I particularly like the night-time shots; they match the tone and mood of the song. There is a nice transition between the day-time and night-time scenes; the use of speeding up the footage in post-production editing works well and is an effective way of time-shifting. I like that there is a sense repeatability in your video; whilst the story makes sense after the first viewing, subsequent viewings allow the viewer to pick up on subtle details, which allow for a more developed understanding.

Second edit- (including feedback and reflection)

Below is our second edit of our music video. We took into consideration all the feedback which we received from the first edit of our final music video and made a second edit with all the improvements.




Below is a link for our second draft of our music video.

KGB Productions- Second edit of New York Ciry

We then received feedback from our focus group regarding any negatives which could be improved upon.

Focus Group Feedback:

Phoebe: "I think the girls have made this video look really cool and it is getting better and better! The corrections which were needed after the first draft have been made, there is some refining to go but the concept is definitely there."

James: "The quality of the second draft is a lot higher than the first. I really like the transitions used and the reversed sequences. I like the fact they've gone off path from their plans in order to avoid continuity issues as I think is shows how versatile they are as a group."

Alex: "This is still completely different to the storyboard but it works. The girls have obviously worked hard and spent time on fixing the issues and I like that they keep putting new ideas in there. I think it is almost at completion but will look even better with refinement."

Scarlett: "It was a promising first draft and an even better second draft. The audio goes with the visuals and you can see that links are being made. I am really glad the jumpy cuts have been fixed and the music video is more visually enjoyable now."

Ben: "I really love the emotions Phoebe is portraying in the music video and it goes really well with the song. The whole concept works really well and I really look forward to seeing how the final product turns out."

Reflection

After receiving this feedback from our focus group we took into consideration all of the negatives which could be improved on. It is important to take into count all the negatives which other people not just us pick up on and can say about our music video.

First Edit ( including feedback and reflection)

Below is our first draft of our music video.





Below is a link for our first draft of our music video.

KGB Productions - New York City First draft

We received feedback from our teachers and focus group.Below is the feedback which we received from our first draft for our music video.

We then took into consideration what our focus group had to say both the positives and the negatives. However we then acted on the negatives as we wanted to make these improvements and make our music video even better.

Therefore as Phoebe said about all the shots being jumpy we took this into consideration and began by editing the shots and including transitions to make the shots look much more smoother and make it more bearable for the audience.

Editing Journal ( including reflection)- Day 2

The next day editing we worked on placing the footage which we have in time with the music which was inserted previously.

We then concentrated on cutting each clip with the parts which were not needed to fit our storyboard and where we wanted the footage to be in the music video.

We then began cutting our footage and getting rid of the parts which were not needed. This did take us a long time as we weren't sure which parts to get rid of.  As a group we then faced some difficulties as we didn't like sometimes where the footage was placed. Therefore we went completely against our storyboard idea and where the original footage was supposed to be and changed our music video completely.

In the first draft of our music video we began with the original opening, however  we did not think that this was as effective and completely changed what the beginning of our music video is going to look like. Therefore we experimented as a group putting in different shots as the opening and it worked perfectly with the particular shot. We also decided to change a lot of our original shots as we did not like the order which we originally had.

Above is an image of one of the shots at the beginning which we wanted to include and cut to this shot from the opening when Phoebe stars walking to the white bridge.


We then went on to making sure we matched visuals with some of the lyrics which were being said. Such as when Phoebe is driving and the lyrics are 'In my rear view' she looks up in the rear view of the mirror in her car and we matched this exactly with the lyrics in the music video.
 We wanted to make sure that we included lyrics to visuals in our music video so that it creates effectiveness.Below is an image of the lip-syncing process of when we wanted the lyrics which Phoebe was singing in the wood shot to match with the lyrics from the song.


Below is an image of what it looked like on the editing software and how we had to match the song with the lyrics and the visuals.

Above is an image of the 'mirror balls' and how we had to be careful not to get the camera reflection in the mirror.

After completing the lip-syncing process of editing our music video together. We then focused in getting the time lapse part of our music video done well. We got enough footage from filming Phoebe doing her make-up in her bedroom so we then took this footage and edited it in Premier pro and sped up the speed of the footage. This looked effective once it had been finished. We did however face some difficulties as we had to make sure the main part of the 'beat drop' matched the fast paced part of Phoebe doing her make-up so that this was effective and looked satisfactory.

Below is an image of how it looked like while editing this part on Premier Pro editing software.

We experimented when doing transitions using 'Cross dissolve' while editing and thought that this was a very interesting start to the reverse shots part of our music video.

This was the bench shot.

This is the ending shot of our music video. We decided to use this shot as a group as we thought this was the most interesting way to end the music video as the music at the end is very slow and coincides with the shot which is shown. We then used a cross dissolve in this shot to show that this is effective and interesting way to end the music video.


After we did this we saved our first draft and are going to upload this to Youtube. We then received feedback from both of our media teachers.


Reflection:

 From one of our teachers ( Miss Pearce) said: 'The bench shot cutting straight to the car didnt make sense to her so therefore won't make sense in our music video'. She went on to say how this could be improved by including a shot of the bench with Phobe not there or something to show how she is leaving that location and going into her car from the bench. This will then look more effective and real-life.

Miss Pearce also said; ' I like the way the music matches each shot and that the lyrics and visuals work well together'.

' I like the mirror balls shot, to me it shows as if someone is watching Phoebe throughout the music video and that Phoebe is unaware of this happening'.
She also went onto say that;

Editing Journal ( including reflection) Day 1

Once we finished filming we as a group began the editing process for our music video.

As we were previously experienced in converting the footage and laying down the footage this process did not take us long to do.

On the first day we began by importing our footage from the SD card onto the iMacs. We then dragged our footage once it had finished importing onto the software which we are using ( Adobe Premiere Pro CC editing software).

We then placed all the clips in order of which they go from our storyboard. This is done to just get a general idea of what our music video is going to look like without any cutting yet. By doing this it gave us a general idea of how our music video will fit from the footage which we have and also a general idea of the length of our music video without cutting any of the clips yet.

Having placed each clip in order we cut the audio as this was not needed in our music video.As a group we then decided to include the music 'New York City' underneath the general clips which are in place in order to see a general idea of what the footage will look like as well as with the music.

Filming Journal ( including reflection ) - Day 2

On our second day of filming we began filming in the bedroom location which is Phoebes bedroom in her house. We kept to our storyboard for the majority of filming however we did change our storyboard by including new shots such as a pan of Phoebe's bedroom, picking up her car keys,walking down her stairs to go to her car and another car shot of when she is driving to town. We thought it was important to make these changes to our storyboard and shot list as it kind of made sense having a pan of her bedroom to show who's bedroom it is and what it actually looks like and having the car keys shot to show that she is leaving her bedroom/ house as well as walking down the stairs to show leaving her house. We thought all of these were important to include in our music video to show a sense of continuity and real life aspects to the people who will be watching our music video.

We faced some difficulties when filming the mirror shot and the time lapse as we had to find the correct angle in which to film Phoebe in the mirror without the camera being visible. However we overcame these difficulties by finding a correct way to film Phoebe and so that it looked professional and effective. We took many takes of this shot just to make sure that it was what we wanted the shot to look like for our music video and when it came to editing so that we wouldn't have to film this part again. 

Another difficulty which we faced while filming the mirror shots was that we had to get enough footage for the time-lapse to be effective and work. We had to film at least a minute/or two of Phoebe doing her makeup in the mirror from a normal angle rather than in the mirror. We had to do this to ensure we had enough footage when it came to editing our music video together as this was part of the time lapse which we wanted to include in the music video.

The next thing which we filmed was walking up towards the top of a car park and the rooftop car park.  We used a trip-pod for both of these shots as we had to make sure that as Phoebe is walking up the stairs to the car park that the shot is smooth and not shaky. Again we took multiple of these shots while filming to make sure we had the correct shot which we want to use in our music video when it comes to editing. We did not experience any difficulties while filming this part of the music video. We then filmed the top of the car park. This was a very simple and impressive part of filming as the time in which we started to film on the car park the sunset was happening and the sky was nice and colourful as well as dark. We took some test shots to make sure that the shot wouldn't look too dark but it was very successful and looked very professional with the lighting. This was exactly the effect which we wanted to have in our music video. therefore we did not experience any difficulties while filming this part of the music video. Below is an example of filming at the car park and with the tripod.

Once we had finished filming at the carpark we drove to our next location. Our next location 

was the underpass near Waitrose with the mirrors all around the underpass. We did face some difficulties here as the time which we were filming was a very busy time around rush hour ( 17:30 and the underpass was used by many commuters. Therefore sometimes we had to ask people to wait 2 or 3 minutes until we were done filming that shot. We then had to make sure that the camera was not visible in the mirrors around the underpass, so we took many takes of this to make sure that it looked good and professional. We went against our storyboard and included a different shot in the underpass of the mirror which were on the top of the tunnel. We thought that this looked effective as we would then cut from the normal shot of Phoebe walking down the underpass to then cut to a shot of Phoebe walking passed the other mirror on the side of the tunnel to then cut to the mirrors at the top. We came up with this idea on the day and thought that by including this it would be very effective to use in our music video with a meaning behind it too. We thought that by using the mirrors it could create a sense that someone is watching Phoebe and that she is unaware of this.


Reflection :
Overall filming was good on the second day.We completed everything which we had planned in these locations. Although we did make some minor changes to our storyboard this was only for the better as it improved our music video a lot.

Filming Journal ( including reflection)- Day 1

Filming Journal- a daily record of news and events of a personal nature; a diary.

We began filming during Half-Term. On the first day of filming we began with more test shots of each location which we were intending to film at. Alongside this we used our 'Shot list' and 'Storyboard' which enabled us to be consistent while filming and we knew where we were filming as well as what shot to use. This was very helpful as it made filming more productive and efficient. However as we began filming and taking test shots as a group we began to slowly see that our original storyboard with shots which we had planned didn't quite form what we wanted our music video to look like. Therefore we did use our storyboard but ended up changing it ever so slightly to fit what we actually wanted. For example after filming our opening of the music video we decided to use   a close up of phoebe's shoes as she walks along the bridge. We thought this was more effective. Below is an image of the test shot of the white bridge which we are filming at. 

We then began to film our music video. We began filming our establishing shot of Phoebe walking across the white bridge. Initially ( according to our storyboard and initial ideas) this was not supposed to be the establishing shot, however we thought it was more of an effective opening to a music video. We did not experience any issues while filming this first shot. By using a trip-pod in order that the camera was not shaky. We therefore took multiple shots of the establishing shots and when Phoebe walks across the bridge in order to choose the best one which we thought when it comes to editing our music video together.

We then moved onto filming more shots on the white bridge ( Phoebe walking across the bridge).

We again went against our storyboard and changed the shots which we wanted to do. One reason which we did this was to enable us to have enough footage when it comes to putting our music video together when editing. We took different shots of Phoebe looking out to the other bridge ( Maidenhead Bridge) and close up shots to show her emotions. We did not face any difficulties in doing this. Again we made sure we took multiple shots of Phoebe so that we did not face any problems when it came to editing our music video together.

Once we had finished filming Phoebe on the bridge we then moved onto the woods location( which was just across the bridge in the middle of the river so an island). We began taking test shots of the woods location. We did this to see whether we like the lighting and whether we like where we will be filming. Below is a picture of a test shot of the woods location.

We began filming in the woods. We followed our storyboard and shot list here. We did not change anything on our storyboard for these shots. We filmed Phoebe walking towards us while lip syncing and again closer to phoebe as she walks towards us. We thought this was very effective, however we still made sure that we had done multiple takes just in case when we came to evident and viewing our footage and cutting it that it was satisfactory and was what we wanted our music video to have in it.

Once we had finished filming the woods part we then filmed the bench shot of Phoebe sitting on the bench and looking out towards Maidenhead Bridge. This was filmed on Guards Park Islands. We made sure that it matched the angle which we wanted the shot to be so that Maidenhead Bridge was visible and so was Phoebe. We took multiple takes in case any of them weren't as satisfactory as we wanted them to be. Below is a photo of the bench shot looking out towards Maidenhead Bridge.

 

 After filming in the woods location we filmed a small part of the Maidenhead bridge. We did not face any difficulties in doing this as this was the easiest part of filming for our music video. We took two takes and then this was completed. Again this was not included in the storyboard this was included while we were filming as we came up with the idea that this would look really good and effective.Below is a photo of Maidenhead Bridge.

Reflection:
Overall filming was good on this day. We completed everything which we had planned in these locations. Although we did make some minor changes to our storyboard this was only for the better as it improved our music video a lot.