Research - Strangers Video Reflection

Now my group of five have finished the editing, I have reliased it was a very beneficial experience. Now that we have a completed film, I feel I have learnt a lot from this experience and will take what I have learnt into account when it comes to filming my final music video. Below are lists of what I think we did well and also what we could have done better.

Positives:
- Lip Syncing was in time. We feel that we did a good job of fitting the live lip syncing with the studio audio.
- We used a variety of shot e.g. mid-shots from Ned and me, high angle shots from Graham.
- Framing of some of the shots was very good e.g. The singer was in the middle of the frame for Ned's mid shots.
- Considering we had some issues with the video renderring, I feel the fades were used were good.
- We alternated well between the shots i.e we didn't stay on one shot for too long.
- The shots that we planned worked well.

Improvements:

- We could have planned for the shots to change at certain times in the song. This was part of the planning that we did not really consider.
- We did not plan if we were going to use a dolly in certain places. This can be seen in some of Ned's footage as because we did not arrange to use another dolly, his camera shook at times.
- We could have thought more aobut the lighting. This is an important factor that could have potentially disruptive.
- Seen as we only had one run through of which we could film it, we didn't always vary our choice of shots, although we were happy with the majoirty of the footage.

Research - Live Performance Editing

In my group of five, we have now begun editing our clips together from the footage we have of the band 'Strangers'. As we had a lot of footage from the three different angles that we shot from, the first step that was necessary was to pick out the bits we had thought showed the best examples of framing, or the parts of footage that we thought were the most proffesional. As we began to work our way through editing the footage, we noticed that the part of the song that we felt we ahd the best footage for was as the short instrumental moves into the chorus. As a result, we decided to make a film of this part of the song. In addition, I feel that everyone who filmed, Me, Ned and Graham, filmed some good quality footage. However, in terms of my own performance, I feel that I could perhaps got more of a variation of shots.

The shots that we picked out were the 'mid-shot' of the drummer (Me), the mid-shot and low-angle shots of the singers (Ned) and the close-up shot of the keyboard (Graham). Although we were all pleased with this footage, it still took time to get the footage in sync with the studio audio, of which we were putting over the top. This is something that we have to certainly to make note of when it comes to our actual music videos. At the moment, we are at the stage of putting the clips we have together and are experimenting as to what is the best possible order that the clips should go in.

Research - Live Performance

At school we were given the opportunity to film an up and coming band called 'Strangers' live in the Pit at school. We were given a group of about 5 people and were allowed to film 'Strangers' performing a song of our choice. I worked with Graham, Seb, Ned and Frankie. I feel this was a very interesting experience for me as it showed how difficult it is to film to band performing live in comparison to a planned music video. Unlike previously, we only had one take and so had to try and avoid making errors that perhaps, had we had more than one take, wouldn't have been costly.

We were given the time of 12:30 to be allowed to do our filming. Therefore, we decided during the previous period to plan out our ideas for our filming. In this planning, we sorted out the roles (e.g. I was in charge of filming with the dolly on the lower floor, Seb was the Director), and discussed our ideas as to what types of shots we were going to use. In the case of the shots, one of the factors we had to consider was that that the pit, the location of which we were filming, had multiple floors.
This meant that not only could we film a variety of shots, but also raised a potential issue in that Graham (who was filming on the upper floor) would have to make sure his filming did not cross paths with me and Ned, who were lower down. This is something that I had not thought would have been a major issue prior to the task, but it soon turned out that we had to take this problem strongly into account. We decided that Graham would signal to me and Ned when he was going to move, and as a result we feel the problem was solved to some extent.

Below is the Music Video for one of their songs - 'In Chaos', which was the song that we decided to film them playing:



In terms of my filming, although I was pleased with the framing of some of my shots (particularly the mid-shots of which we had discussed beforehand), I found it a challenging experience. The dolly proved to be difficult to maneuver and position smoothly at times, as I had to try and anticipate the movements of the band members. In addition, I feel that I found it difficult to get a variety of shots myself, as my lack of experience meant that sometimes I was not used to thinking ahead as to what shot I wanted to film. Overall, however, I feel this was a very useful experience for me, as it gave me an insight into the demands of filming a band live, something of which I think will prove useful when it comes to film our final video.