Evaluation - Prezi: Camera Shots and Angles

Camera Shots and Angles on Prezi

-MICHAEL IKEJI-

Evaluation - How is our media project similar to real life media texts

How is our media project similar to real life media texts

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-Michael Ikeji-

Evaluation - How does our project challenge real media texts?

Our music video does challenge most music videos of the same genre as normally with in RnB music videos a narrative is not normally displayed. Within an RnB music video we normally see ritual celebration and the objectification of women but we have not included that in our music videos therefore we are challenging real media texts. Our video takes a more sombre tone and to a certain extent a depressing feeling as it corresponds with the song. Also I believe our video challenges other music videos as it is of a longer length. Normally RnB videos are of a short length mainly due to their non-narrative content but ours is around 5 minutes long meaning it is of a significant increased length compared to other RnB music videos. Moreover we had a significantly lower budget than normal RnB music videos meaning we had to make do with the supplies we had. Because of the lower budget sets and props were not as elaborate as normal music video and we were not able to achieve effects that required specialist software. However overall I think our music video is similar to a lot of RnB music videos already produced as we mostly tried to keep with the aspects of generic music videos.

-BYRAN FERROL-

Construction - Day 9 of Editing

The 9th day of editing proved to be the last. The last clips that were filmed were of the couple in their home and their relationship problems. Most of he clips were made black & white to emphasise the fact that its a flash backs. A section of the song that was cut was filled with a montage of the couple arguing. The additive dissolve effect was used to create fragmentation within the scene emphasising the chaotic undertone.
This editing day also saw us add in intertextuality. We filmed the female lead watching a television. We were then gonna overlay a clip of the male lead singing and place it on top of the screen so it looks like the female is actually watching him on the screen. However while we filmed this the camera moved slightly which means the whole illusion would be compromised. To overcome this we instead used a still image so there was no chance of the camera moving. We then placed the desired clips on the screen to achieve the effect. It took a bit of time to overlay the clips to make sure it loked like it was actually appearing on the screen. The finished outcome was very clean and professional and it was hard to tell that it was a still image with the clip placed on top of it.
After this the music video was then finished and ready to be exported. We exported it as an flv so it was in a suitable format to be placed on Youtube.

-BYRAN FERROL-

Construction - Day 8 of Editing

The 8th day of editing started with the new green screen idea being produced. Our new idea was to place Michael on the face of a clock and speed up the clock to show time passing. This was successfully achieved on after effects. A video of a clock face was downloaded then sped up usind Adobe Premiere. It was then imported into After Effects. The footage of Michael was also imported. However the green had to be color keyed out. This was a lengthy process as there were shadows on the green screen meaning there were different tones of green on the green screen. The different shades of green then had to be selected individually until all the green had gone. Once this was done Michael was then placed on the clock and the effect of the clock actually being in the backgorund was created.
Problems arose when the clip was ready to be exported. Many of the files we exported the clip as made the clip appear blurry when imported onto Adobe Premiere. We repeated the exporting process 4 times until we eventually found a high quality format that was suitable to use for our music video.
When the green screen was imported into Adobe Premiere we then made it black and white, an effect that we had used previously in our music video. We placed the clip right before the very end scene to indicated that time had passed before the end scene took place.
As well as this another part of the music video was changed due to the groups weariness towards it. After much analysis we did not like the "supposed" death scene where the clip stopped on Michael's face. We then changed this to mysself appearing afterward where Michael had previously been. A cross dissolve was used so my body dissolved into the scene then dissolved out. The finished effect was favourable among the group.
After this day of editing there was not much left to edit of the film. The only bits that were missing were scenes of the couple.

-BYRAN FERROL-

Construction - Day 7 of Editing

The 7^th day of editing was mainly dedicated to green screen. This meant that instead of using Adobe Premiere we had to use Adobe After Effects as the is the programme used to achieve the green screen effect. We had filmed a number of different green screen shots so we were able to make a decision at a later date of which one were going to use in our music video. The idea which I edited this day was an idea put forward of the artist being placed on a money note. No major difficulties occurred the only difficulty being setting the colour. It was hard to get the right balance as changing the tolerance lead to the footage becoming blacked out. However after this it was very easy to get an image of the money bill then placing Michael on it. However after this day of editing we are not sure whether this will be used so our next days of filming will involve filming other ideas that can be used for the green screen.

-BYRAN FERROL-

Construction - Day 6 of Editing

Day 6 of editing pretty much involved the same process as previous days of editing. We had filmed new clips in the same location as the previous days of filming. Our video was nearly complete meaning that the clips filmed were clips that needed re-filming or “filler” clips. The editing day also proved to be long and strenuous as still a high level of editing knowledge was needed to achieve our intended effects. The most difficult clips to edit were clips that saw Michael jumping off a bridge. Because Michael couldn’t actually jump off a bridge editing was needed to give off this effect. The way in which we filmed this was a shot from the side and from the front of Michael jumping over the safety bar and a POV shot of the camera falling towards the water. This had to be carefully edited so the desired effect could be portrayed to the audience. After many attempts of trying to create the affect all these attempts proved futile as the footage wasn’t good enough. In the end what we decided to do was was to partially scrap the POV shot as it did not look “real” enough then just use the side shot and front shot. We then stopped the front shot on a particular part where Michael’s face could be seen. We then cross dissolved footage of the water over this stopped clip and added a splashing noise indicating to the audience that he had jumped into the water. I believe that this was a success as I feel that the audience will still get the idea that the artist jumped without physically seeing it.

Another part of editing which was perhaps more difficult than this was trying to lip sync and create a split screen for a particular part of the song. The effect we wanted was to have “two” Michaels on screen having a conversation with each other while lip syncing a certain part of the song. The filming day before saw  Michael finding it very hard to lip sync this part of the song so when editing came a long there were many of the same type of clip which proved to be a lengthy task finding the correct one. After the correct clips were found we then had to lips sync each clip to the corresponding part of the song. This was successful even though Michael had trouble lip syncing we were still able to fit together certain parts of the clip and the music. After this was done the split screen effect then had to be created.  This was unsuccessful as it could easily be seen that the two clips were separate where as the split screen effect means it looking like it was all filmed at once. Because of this we decided we could not use it in the video leading us to completely scarp the idea of the split screen effect. We then tried to come up with other ideas of how we could film it but no ideas came to fruition meaning we cut that section if the song out of the music video. Instead of just completely cutting it out we downloaded the instrumental of the song and matched it up to the correct place in the music video then had that playing instead. This helped in cutting down the length of our music video.

-BYRAN FERROL-

Contruction - Day 9 of Filming

The 9th day of filming was what we proclaimed the final day of filming as our objectives was to film the remaining blanks that are in the video. The filming on this day consisted of scenes involving the couple in the video where the footage obtained will be used as narrative in the video. We played with different story lines and camera shots and angles which included filming a blank screen which in premiere will be used to add another scene into it in order to replicate intertextuality.

The final day of filming occurred with no problems as i feel that we were very determined to make that day final and we were pushed for time as myself and my co-star could not attend filming for any longer than 3 hours due to other activities. We knew that we had to rap things up within 3 hours which made us i dare say the most focused we've ever been.

After 9 days of filming equilvalating to about 2-3 months of production, Elite Records are proud to declare that all footage for our project has been filmed with no other needs for filming days. Throughout the whole experience there are definitely a number of things that we could do better if we were to go through the process again, this includes time management, organisation and communication between groups members to allow an easier experience.

-MICHAEL IKEJI-

Construction: Changing Image from Google

 In order to change the image i used, i first looked for an image in google. of a broken heart and inserted it into the program photshop.

 

The image was then edited by altering the brightness and contrast using the adjustment layer. The Contrast/Brightness tool can be found under Layer/ New Adjustment Layer/ Contrast/Brightness



Or on the layers palette (accessable in Window/ Layers) click on the half white & Black circle and choose "Contrast/Brightness"


What comes up is perhaps simple pop-up window in photoshop. The concept is very straight-forward, the top slider adjusts brightness, and the bottom one adjusts contrast. Once i played around with the contrasts, i was happy with the shade of blue i had obtained as well as the fact i was able to eradicate the shade of grey behind.

Once happy with the hear i used the lasso tool to select the whole shape of the heart and exporting the outline so that it could be imported into the acuall CD cover.

The heart was finished and imported on the actual cover to eventually look like this.

-Michael Ikeji-

Construction - 8th Day of Filming

With the deadline getting closer every day, we decided to film during half term and due to unforseen circumstances, jeremiah could not attend. The objective for this day was to near enough finish the remaining footage neeeded excluding the green screen which we wanted to do aswell but the facility needed was closed.

Unlike other flming days done in the passed, nothing went wrong for us as i kept the equipment over the holidays so i made sure the camera was fully charged, the tripod was appropriate and we had enough memory. We were able to film almost all the remaining scenes and we were very pleased with it. The only negative that i could think of that day was that we only had 30 minutes filming time so we had to time our scenes wisely.

After this day, i can say that we will only need about 1-2 days of filming left which is just green screen in order to complete the video.

-MICHAEL IKEJI-

Construction - 7th Day of Filming

Day 7 of filming was quite a productive day as we set out to finish all chorus parts due to the majority of the chorus being un-usable because the camera that was originally used was a HD camera which the program could not keep up with.

We started early and wanted to complete the first verse and first to second chorus. Also on this day we wanted to experiment in different techniques we could film that could be used for editing. However the day could have worse as there was no memory card located in the camera but luckily we had a spare memory card.

This again will teach us to fully check if all materials are equiped as we have the tendancy to either forget or not check something key to the production of the video.

-MICHAEL IKEJI-

Construction - Flashbacks

Flashbacks are very powerful ways to improve a music video's storyline.

Using flashbacks generally have one major advantage, this is to allow past incidents to be dramatized in all their impact instead of just recounted verbally.

It helps if the audience really wants to know the information contained in the flashbacks and the importance it has to the whole story.

In some music videos after an opening scene, an entire story is told in flashbacks; the first scene poses a very clear question and hooks us into the story immediately. A potential downside of a flashback could be that the ending of the story is already known to the audience.

This risk is balanced, however, if the difference between the end situation

and the development of the flashback story creates a strong sense of dramatic sarcasm.

Also, a clever director can create the illusion that the story might as yet end differently. i have chosen an example of this occuring in a film called 'Carlito's Way'. In Carlito’s Way, for instance, we know from the outset that Carlito is doomed. Yet, near the end of the story, he triumphs over his enemies, and we start to hope that the opening scene was some kind of dream or fantasy. When tragedy strikes, it does so from an unexpected, yet logical, direction maximizing the impact on the audience.

One of the main rules of a flashback is that if we close in on the face of one character as the flashback begins, it will represent his or her memories. Also flashbacks are generally shown in black and white for a number of reasons; firstly it can notify the audience that a certain scene has happened in the past, and the relevance of black and white provides an effect to suggest that the footage is 'old'. This is used in Kanye West's song 'all of the lights' where it shows a little girl in black and white to suggest that the girl was seen in the past due to the use of black and white.

-MICHAEL IKEJI-

Contruction - How to censor offensive language in premiere

Our song of choice is Kanye West - Blame Game. This song happens to include language that may be seen as inappropriate to the target audience. If we would want our video to be published onto channels such as MTV it is essential that all offensive terms in the track are either uted or reversed otherwise the video would be deemed 'un-watchable' on television which is why we censored the language used in tthe video. Reversing audio while editing is simple and takes a few easy steps to achieve this goal.

Firstly the part of the song that contains the language must be selected and trhen the parts where the language starts and ends should be cut using the razor tool. You can use the Razor tool to cut a clip into two clips, or to cut across clips in several tracks at once. Splitting a clip creates a new and separate instance of the original clip, and any linked clips. The resulting clips are full versions of the original clip, but with different In and Out points.

 

  Once the parts are chosen, you then highlight the part and go clip > speed/direction in order to alter the recording.

With the previous step done, all left to do is check the reverse speed box and the audio will be seen reversed. Once the video is played back, you will notice that the offensive language is reversed and un noticable meaning that your video will be able to be shown to your target audience. 

 -MICHAEL IKEJI-

Construction - Day 5 of Editing

The 5th day of editing involved editing new clips that we had filmed a couple of days before. One of the main challenges of this editing day was that the new clips we had filmed required more editing knowledge and techniques. This was due to a number of different transitions and effects that we needed in order for different shots and scenes to work. One of these included myself having to disappear and reappear on a bench next to Michael. To gain this effect we overlaid the two clips, one of Michael and the other me and used the additive dissolve transition so the apparition was gradual and neat. We then used the same effect for the disappearing part. Another transition to proved very difficult was one in which the camera moves up from Michael then when it comes down back down it is me. After this day of editing i did not manage to get the intended effect as the transition would not work in time with the part of the song the group wanted it for. We tried speeding up the transition and cutting but both ideas were futile so we came to the conclusion that it was not possible. However the finished effect we achieved is not exactly what we were hoping for but still achieves the same out come and works well in time with the music. Lastly during this day of editing I was able to use the opacity effect so two clips can play at once. I used this a number of times just by overlaying the clips and putting the opacity of the top clip down to around 50. After this day we then had over half of our music video done and we could definitely finish our video with a few more days of filming, subject to all of our filming days running smoothly.

-BYRAN FERROL-

Constructing - Day 4 of Editing

Day 4 editing was the day in which the traffic clip was incorporated into our music video. The traffic clip took a while to upload onto the editing software as it was around 20 minutes long. This was the first set back that occurred during this day of editing. Once the clip was uploaded we imported it onto the sequence. It proved a difficult task to cut down because of the length and it was difficult to decide which parts of the clip to use. We cut it down to what we thought best showed the transition from light to dark and also the entire clip had to fit into a certain part of the song. Once we sped it up we then put it where we thought it fitted best in the song. We decided to play it during the outro of the song. However we thought that the clip had to be complimented with something else as the viewer may get bored watching traffic for around 25 seconds. Eventually we decided to include words that Kanye West's sings to keep the viewer occupied. We did this by creating titles and putting them on top of the traffic clip. This proved to be a lengthy process as it was difficult to match the words in time with when Kanye Wests sings them. However once it was all in time the finished product was popular among the group.

-BYRAN FERROL-

Construction - Fast motion Traffic

In our music video we have included a clip of cars on the motorway. Instead of having it in normal motion we decided to speed it up to show time passing and a transition from light to dark. We could have done this effect using green screen but we decided to film it ourselves to make it look more authentic and realistic. We filmed from an overpass on the traffic beneath us. We mounted the camera to a tripod and left it in the same position for 20 minutes so we were able to see the transition from day to night and also the clouds passing overhead.  Once the clip was uploaded on to the editing software we were able to speed up the footage to 2000% so the moving cars were moving at a very noticeable increased speed. This fast motion also saw the movements of the cars light and the clouds above moving. The clips also shows subtly the sky getting darker. It is important to document this as this is the clip in our music video that took the longest to film and also emphasizes our decision over the real world and green screen.

-BYRAN FERROL-