Music video evaluation

Group: Sharay, Stanley, Dejean

Planning:

We had very little time to plan the music video and decide on the song we were going to do. From the planning we had to pick locations within the college, we decided on a range of outside and inside shots. However we did not think about the time we had and ended up with mostly inside shots. We did not plan the types of shots or camera movements we were going to use so we ended up filming different shots on whim. With teamwork only a few people inputted their ideas so the video did not develop as well. With the little time we had the person featured in the video did not have time to practise lip syncing so it was not very apparent what words they were singing and at times they would be out of sync with the music. As we did not have much time to plan the video and make it there were only a few shots we had to edit together. If we had a longer time and better planning the shots would have looked more professional and the initial idea would have been well-structured. Furthermore with a better plan we would have been more organised instead of thinking on the spot and doing things on the whim. Some things we could think about planning next time would be locations, camera shots/movements, cast, lighting, movements and actions of cast members.

Camera shots/movements:

We used a DSLR camera and hand held the camera, therefore most of the shots taken were quite shaky. It would have been better to have a tripod to have more steady shots. As we did not plan the shots and movements we were going to use there was not a variety of shots. At times we used zoom in and zoom out whilst we were film a shot and they looked quite stiff so it seemed unnatural and not smooth. There were mostly mid shots, however there were a few close up and long shots used. A tilt and a pan was used in some of the shots, there was also a shot where we followed the cast member around and used pan a lot to make it seem more natural. We tried to do an over the shoulder shot however as the camera did not have a strap it was quite hard to film at the angle we wanted without dropping the camera. Some of the shots had the white balance set to auto or tungsten light, however some of the areas we filmed in were quite dark and the white balance did not help much so the lighting was not very consistent. If we had planned the shots better and had the right equipment the shots would have been cleaner and the lighting would look more consistent throughout the shots. It was also quite hard to focus and sometimes the camera would go out of focus mid shot, therefore it would be better to practise manually focussing the camera so we can quickly focus the camera if it should go out of focus during filming.

Editing:

With editing it was a bit hard to link up some of the shots due to the different lighting the shots has so we used transitions like dissolves and fades to transition from dark shots to lighter shots. We used a normal cut for shots which had similar lighting. Whilst editing the video we had to make sure that we cut at the same time where they were lip syncing to the song. It was quite hard as we had to be specific to where we would cut it and sometime the actions within the shots would not match with the lyrics or the next shots. It was quite hard to cut to the pace as we had to take multiple small shots and put them together whilst making sure they cut/transitioned natural. Furthermore we needed to make the cutting constant so it would not cut too suddenly, which would make it seem unnatural. We didn’t get time to finish editing the last part of the video so the shots at the end were quite rough. Through editing we could correct some of the lighting issues and raise the brightness of some of the shots to make them look better and more consistent with one another. However there was only so much we could change about the lighting so some of the shots still did not look right, but they did look better than the original ones. Because when we were filming some of the lip syncing was out of time with the original song it was quite hard to match it up with the soundtrack, however if we had more time it would have been possible to make it work by maybe speeding or slowing down the shot.

Mise-en-scene:

As we did not have a lot of time to plan we only thought of the locations we would use. The locations we chose were mainly outside, however we did have one location outside. But we had some camera difficulties and so the outside shots were overexposed and too bright which could not be used for the video. The inside shots were quite good, but one of the locations we chose was quite dark and setting the white balance there was quite hard as it still remained quite dark. We were limited by the space we had in college so we couldn’t film wherever we wanted and occasionally people would walk past and interrupt the shots. The cast member did not have a specific costume, instead they wore quite casual clothing, which did suit the theme of the song so it worked out well. We didn’t have any props to use apart from our phones so we tried to interact with the location more, for example we would use a staircase or the ledge of a window and the cast would do hand movements instead. The lighting we used was the lights in the collage, which were tungsten lights, or natural lighting. We did not have any special lights with us so we had to use the lights we had which led to some location shots being darker or lighter than others. It would be better if we did have our own lights or chose locations with consistent lighting so that the shot could look cleaner and more professional.

Overall the music video did have a few good shots, however with the bad planning we had it did not turn out the best, especially with the uneven lighting and shaky shots. Furthermore as we ran out of time to edit only have the video was edited properly and so some of the cuts are quite sharp as there are no transitions. We did our best to edit a variety of shots together and try to keep the song in sync with the video. The video could be improved next time by having better lighting, planning, and location choices and with the use of proper equipment.