How Our Music Video Drafts Progressed.

Here is the thrilling tale of our drafts, how they were received, and how we changed them because of that feedback. I was waiting for all the drafts to be finished before I made one big master post of the video drafts, and now we're finished, here it is.



This was the very first draft we ever did. As you can see, the shots were shaky and there are massive black spaces, but there's a post dedicated to that earlier on the blog. I showed this to my friends and family, and they told us that:

• The camerawork didn't do it for them.
• They liked the concept of the narrative.
• They especially liked the photobooth shots because it went with the music.
• Some of the acting in it looked incredibly bad.

In response to these comments, we produced this:

Here, we re-filmed the narrative shots, but kept the photobooth shots, in accordance to the feedback we had received.

We then showed this to people are their comments were that:

• They still liked the photobooth scene.
• They thought the camerawork had improved.
• They liked the idea of the narrative still.
• They thought the phone section could have looked a bit better.
• The last narrative scene seemed a bit rushed.
• The last shot didn't seem to flow.
• There was a continuity error in the last narrative scene, with people magically moving places.

In response to these comments, we produced this, our final draft:



The feedback we got from this one was:

• They liked the performance bits, as they thought it showed us well as a band.
• They liked the house bits, but they didn't get why we were all different colours.
• They liked the bit with Ben looking at the notes and especially the clip of the arrows along the wall leading to 'come in...'. I like that bit, too. I didn't at first but it's grown on me.
• They liked that we fixed the continuity error.

And that is the magical story of our music video. 

We filmed today! We re-filmed two of the narrative scenes: the one between Hannah and Ben and the one between me and Ben. We got some really good shots and some not so good shots (such as one where Ben is about to push me and Livvy walks into the shot and we both jump a mile in the air). I will upload some of the raw footage in the morning, as the router is in the living room and makes my connection extremely slow.

However, we didn't get everything we wanted to film done today. We were going to film the Livvy/Ben/Jess scene, but it poured with rain so heavily that we couldn't. We also need to re-film the phone scene. After that, it's just the performance shots and the conceptual shots and we are done! 

I'm aware this post has been text-heavy, so here's a picture of a happy panda.

Dirty Heart Testing Shots.

This is a visual representation of some of our ideas for our video. These are the kind of shots we'll be using, but they will be better than these. There are black spots where we were unable to film something for that particular section until another day, there are rough cuts and there are shots which just don't look aesthetically pleasing. 

Using this as a reference, here is our problem/solution list:

1. The black sections: the obvious solution to this would be to film something. We have things mapped out for these sections, as you will see once we post the storyboard, but for practicality reasons, we have been unable to film them yet.

2. The extremely shaky camera work during the first verse: as it is a shot following them walking from the front, I filmed this walking backwards. Because I couldn't see where I was going, I had to keep turning around to check. Our solution to this is to have the person not filming guiding the person who is filming so they don't have to keep turning around and shaking the camera.

3. The length of some of the shots: some of the shots are really long and so we are going to have to use different angles to keep things moving, as pop videos tend to not have long, continuous shots.

4. The phone section: when we came to edit, we found the clips didn't quite match up with each other in length, and some of the lip sync is out. To remedy this, we're going to have to be more precise with the timings and make sure the lip sync is, well, in sync..

Although it sounds like I hate it, there are things about it I like. For example, I like the photobooth bit and when we first got it in time, I made a noise that could only be described as a 'happy seagull' imitation. 

Conventions of a pop music video.

Conventions Of A Pop Video from Sarah Byard

I made a Powerpoint. It's about the conventions of pop music videos, seeing as we're making a video for a pop song. I will make another blog post (maybe even in the same post as this, exciting times) about how we will utilise or dismiss these conventions. IT'S ALL COMING TOGETHER.

Similar Products: Little Mix.

Similar Products: Little Mix. from Sarah Byard

Dragon's Den Pitch.

Today, we had to do a sales pitch about our music video/band image to Sir and the rest of the class. We decided to film them and edit them together for research and planning evidence. After taking about half an hour for us all to work out how to put the camera into the new tripods, we finally got going. Harry went first, then Ben, then me and Hannah, and lastly (BUT NOT LEAST, WE LOVE YOU JESS) Jess. All in all, I think it went quite well; me and Hannah didn't completely forget everything we wanted to say and managed to not be awkward.

Here is the video (which took almost 3 hours to edit it, hate my life):


Here are the powerpoints we used in today's presentation (love me a good Powerpoint)

Reasons For Our Song Choice from Sarah Byard

Dragon's Den Pitch. from Sarah Byard

YOU GOT A BLACK HEART.

This is what our video is going to contain.
Enjoy.
Ignore my face.

I had a really good idea for a post at about 4 o'clock this morning but, in my sleep deprived state, I've forgotten it. So here is an information post.

Me and Hannah were thinking the other day, and we've decided to scrap Gotye and use a different song for various reasons, the biggest one being the fact that we don't have enough friends to help us out. We're now going to use Black Heart - Stooshe. We emailed their management and they have given us permission (we used Hannah's email account so I can't post a copy of the email here yet) to use the song, so it's all gravy.

It's quite exciting. 

We've got a lot of ideas, which are written in a book and look like a mess but we understand them so that's okay. We even have ideas for a digipak, which is great. We think we're going to keep the name The Machine Ate Florence, because our audience feedback seemed to like that one the most (I'll make a post about that when my laptop doesn't freak out when I try to printscreen). We're also going to rename the song to Dirty Heart (which are other lyrics in the song) and we're calling the album Monsters. But I'll go into that in more detail when we figure it all out.

One minute extract + filming diary.

One minute extract analysis

One Minute Extract Analysis.

View more PowerPoint from Sarah Byard

I do love Powerpoint. I may make a special post one day dedicated to my love for it.


Here is my one minute extract analysis.

Sourcing our coursework track...

I have been a busy bee as of late, and have found three bands who would be willing to let us use their tracks for our coursework. They are:

Basement Nation - my lovely friend Raph's band. He says we can use any song we like, as long as we credit it 'Basement Nation 2011'. 

The Dead Famous - I actually spoke to somebody without having a panic attack or crying. They say we can use Superstar, as it's the only one that's not a demo track.

Union - there is no link for this one, but I've got the EP. This is my stepdad's band. He is fab.