Beth Melia

Music Video Final Evaluation- Sweet Disposition- The Temper Trap

Before producing a music video I had to do research. The first bit of research I did was video codes and conventions. I had to pick 3 music videos and write about their codes and conventions. We had to research the 3 different types of videos; performance, narrative, concept. Research showed me that performance based videos are when we can see the artist/band performing the song. Narrative videos are when the music video tells a story. Finally a concept video is a video that doesn’t have a storyline and doesn’t make sense. It’s usually seen as usual and surreal. I found a video for each of these types and wrote about them. I had to include; target audience and needs, lyrics, tempo, genre, use of digital effects, editing and camera techniques, use of digital effects and editing. The three different videos I analysed were:

Katy Perry- Wide Awake

Bombay Bicycle Club- Always Like This

King Charles- Ivory Road

Idea’s Generation

The next bit of research I did was a music idea generation. This was a mind map of ideas that I could include in my music video. It was just throwing down ideas of the types of things that were included in different music videos and the camera shots/camera work, lyrical meanings, settings, visual style, lighting, props, costumes, editing and digital effects and the types of characters.

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Further Ideas Generation

The next stage of research was the further ideas generation. This included a picture of artists/bands of different genres made up of words.

This was to help us with our further ideas. Picking different artists or bands gave me more information on the different genres of music and the video I wanted to create.

Next I looked into all aspects of different music videos that are already out there. We looked into important things such as, the settings, costumes and props and lighting. I made a power point of mood boards using screen shots from lots of music videos. This helped me to see the differences and similarities within the styles of music videos. This doesn’t apply for all but it shows how pop music videos are usually high key and happy, lots of people wearing bright costumes and lot is going on. Whereas rock/indie music videos are usually a lot more serious, lower key, not as many people.

Job Roles in a Production Company

Next I researched into the different job roles in making a music video. Directors, Camera men/women, sound recorders and lightening jobs, are all important when it comes to making music videos. The director’s job is to make sure everyone who is working on set knows what they are doing and what to do when, where and how correctly. A camera man/woman’s job is self-explanatory. They are the people in charge of the cameras. They are the ones to film all the footage needed. They

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must follow a storyboard and work together with the director to get the perfect shots that the director has in mind. Sound recorders are in charge of making sure any sound needed is recorded. People in charge of the lighting must make sure the lighting on set or at the location is correct. They must make sure that if the location is based outside that they don’t run out of light.

Music Video Production Budget

To make a music video we have to use equipment at a high quality. Luckily college provides us with this. But we had to look into this as though we were producing a real music video. We had to research how much the costing of hiring out camera’s, lighting kits and locations would be. We were given a budget and we had to stick to it by getting information off different hiring websites.

Proposal and Treatment

The proposal and treatment is an overall explanation of what is going to happen in the music video. In this, I explained who the band were and a little bit of information on them and the song. I explained the target audience, my idea, and who/why it would appeal that audience. I explained that it was going to be a concept style music video and that it was going to be ‘a day in the life’ type video. This appeals to our target audience because they can relate to it. The second part of the proposal and treatment was the Guild Lines and Considerations. Within this I had to include the rules that as a group we were setting ourselves. For example we wrote that it will be high key, shot indoors and outdoors and that there’s no story to it. The last part of the treatment and purpose was pasting links to different music videos that we have got any ideas for our music video from.

Scripts

As an individual we each had to create a script. These were step by step paragraphs of what was going to happen in the video at what time. It included what lyrics were sung at that point, any narration, the music used and any effects that were going to be used.

After we had finished our first draft scripts we got together as a group and read through each other’s scripts. We decided as a group that my idea was (not necessarily the best) but the most realistic and affordable idea. It was a ‘day in the life of’ style music video. This means that is isn’t a narrative. There’s no story to it. As nobody was performing the song, it wasn’t a performance based video. If anything it was more like a concept style video. The idea was to include footage through the eyes of a student. It had to include random footage of things we were getting up to throughout the week. I

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got the idea from other existing music videos. A lot of artists are using this idea at the moment. They are doing a lot of them whilst on tour so the fans get to see the behind the scenes.

After choosing whose script we were going to use, we had to go away and adapt that idea. We had to add our own ideas and add any shot/camera angles/effects that they think would improve the original script. This was our second draft script. We then got together and decided whose script we were going to use as our final script.

Storyboards

The next step of our preproduction was the storyboards. This is an important part of preproduction as this is the best way to visualise the idea. It breaks down the script shot by shot.

We each did our own section of the script to do as a storyboard. Then we put the storyboard together. It was important do draw the pictures as we wanted the shot to look. For example if we wanted an extreme close up to draw the picture as an extreme close up. The storyboard had a drawing of each shot and a description underneath, the scene number, the shot number, script reference and we have to note if there was any sound effects.

Meeting Record Sheets

Throughout the pre-production above we filled out meeting record sheets. These were to record when we met up as a group to talk about when/where/how we were going film our music video. After every meeting we wrote a meeting record sheet. This recorded who attended, the date, the time, the location and what was actually discussed.

We had two different meetings. The first meeting record sheet tells us that it was recorded on the 8th

January at 3pm in college. It tells us that we decided to go with my first draft script and the reason because the song appeals more to our target audience.

During the second meeting Hannah was absent, so I and Georgia just had to read each other’s scripts and wait until Hannah was back in college. We discussed changing having 3 main characters to just 1 character as it may be easier to focus on one person. Although when it came to filming it we decided 3 main characters would be better.

The call sheets kept us up to date on the things we had discussed.

Location Recce/Risk Assessments

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The next stage of pre-production was the location recce and risk assessments. This meant going down to our locations and taking photos and then writing a risk assessment on them. To write out the risk assessment we had to fill out the template that included everything we had to cover. This was the scene, hazards, risk rating and the action to avoid this. For example the hazard on the bus could be the risk of it being too cramped. I gave this a risk rating 5 and the way to avoid this was by filming on a day when the college bus was less busy.

We had to do a thorough check on each of our locations.

Call Sheets

A call sheet includes everything all the cast and crew will need on the day of filming. It has all the important information such as the time, date and location of filming. It has all the contact details of the crew. It has the schedule for the day and the schedule of dates and times for filming.

Filming/Editing

Then we started our filming. We hired a college camera got most of our footage filmed over about two weeks. To make our video a little bit more diverse (other than going to college and going home) we took a trip to town. We wanted to get lots of different footage throughout the day. We started off by filming on the train and then around town. We used the tripod to make some of our shots static. Luckily the weather was nice, so thankfully we didn’t have to do our filming indoors. I think the good thing about our idea was that because the footage was random that we were being natural and we didn’t have to try and act. So it didn’t look cheesy.

After we had filmed all our footage we then had to edit our footage. We looked through everything we had filmed and deleted clips we really didn’t need. Then we imported our footage onto Adobe Premier Pro. We imported our song- Sweet Disposition by The Temper Tramp. The only problem with our idea was the fact we couldn’t really stick to our story board which made it harder when we were editing it to decide what footage to use at what points. We first had to make a rough edit.

The second to last part of creating this music video was the rough evaluation. We had to watch and evaluate our work critically. We had to write what we liked and disliked about our music video, and what amendments I make.

The last part of creating the music video was the final edit. We had to go back and amend the things we wrote about in our evaluation. When we were happy we uploaded our music videos to YouTube and our blogs.

The thing I liked most about these units was filming and editing the music video. The thing I disliked about these units was the pre-production. Although I learnt that pre-production is very important as well as the post production.

Beth Melia