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Music Video Pitch

Pitch

Chosen Song

The song 'You Know My Name' by Chris Cornell is the one we decided on, to create a music video for. The reason we chose this song is because we liked it, the lyrics are quite open letting us be creative in our idea, and it is a rock song the genre we wanted. Our next step is to think of a narrative for our music video we will create from the song.

Progress Update

I have decided to choose the theme of music, to make a music video. I am now in a group of three, and we have been brainstorming ideas for the video we wish to create. We have no concrete ideas at the moment, however we have a few songs that we might use. As a group, we spent an hour on YouTube looking through many different music videos to give us information. Following each video we watched we had a short discussion about how much we liked it, and what we would do if we chose the song we watched. Currently we are thinking about choosing a rock song, but we still need more time to decide.

Chosen Theme

The task that I have decided on is a music video. The reason for this is because it is a more creative task in comparison to a documentary. If I were to create a documentary it would have to be about a serious, real life subject. This means there would be no story-line to create because it would have to be genuine, whereas with a music video it can be about almost anything. In addition a music video has more opportunities to use a variety of camera, and editing techniques.

My next step will be to find a music video I can create my own music video for.

Practice Filming/ Editing

This was an activity we completed in a group to practice our filming, and editing skills. The video is based on the documentary Excluded: Kicked out of school, which was suitable because we were creating the video whilst at school.

From this task I have became very familiar with Final Cut Express, the software I will be using for editing in the future.

Coursework Options

There are a number of different tasks which I could choose, they include a: Music Video, Documentary, Short Film, TV News, and Advertisement. From these choices I have limited it down to my two favoured tasks. They are a Music Video and a Documentary.

The reason for a music video is because it is probably the most creative task. This is because music videos are usually quite strange, containing many different effects and lighting. With this task the set for the singer can be created in a very original way, where as with a documentary the sets must be natural places, with natural sounds and lighting.

However I am thinking about the documentary task because it can be about a real issue, which is meaningful to me, unlike a music video.

From the previous opening sequence task, I have gained some skills which will help me for this task. This includes learning about camera work, such as the 180 degree rule, and a number of different shots. In addition, I am now more familiar with Final Cut Express, the software I will be using to edit the task.

However there are some skills I will need to develop for this task. This is because the previous task was a film opening sequence, and a music video and documentary are created in different ways. To understand how a music video or documentary are created I will need to research into the topic. Part of this research will involve me watching many successfully created examples.

The next step for me is to decide between the two tasks.

Evaluation of Previous Work

For our opening sequence we worked in a group of 4, which overall worked out successfully. However there were some moments where there were some organisation issues with our group. One example is when we were initially brain-storming ideas for an opening sequence. We all had conflicting ideas about the task, with half of us wanting to create a thriller, and the other wanting a romance. Because of our indecisions we started the work slightly later than planned. Another organisation problem was on the day of shooting. We arranged to travel to London, when some of the group arrived late and had to meet us in London at a much later time than we had intended. These organisation issues were a weakness of our work, and did mean we were not able to obtain all of the shots we had planned. But mostly we were able to capture most of the shots we wanted, and I am pleased with the outcome.

Because we were indecisive when thinking of an idea, we started by developing two ideas at once. We developed a romance idea, and a thriller idea alongside each other. We eventually decided upon the romance idea, and continued to develop that idea. However we were still indecisive about our romance idea, where yet again half of us wanted a different outcome to the different half. Some of us wanted a conventional romance sequence, whilst the others wanted a sequence which challenged conventions. This was another weakness of our work, because we struggled to agree on a single idea, which lead to some areas of vague developments.


Our camera work was probably the most successful part of our opening sequence. This was further complemented with the great natural lighting. 1:01 in the video, was one of my favourite shots. The reason for this is because of the very smooth camera work whilst it pans, and the natural lighting. We were lucky because the sky had almost no clouds, and the sun was clear. In addition the location was a good choice, with Big Ben, The London Eye, and The River Thames all visible in the same shot. Therefore the lighting, the miss-en-scene, and the camera work all lead to this being our best shot.

A successful part of the project was the research. When researching into the romance genre we looked at a variety of successful films in the genre, such as Titanic and Love Actually. This gave us inspiration for our own sequence, and showed us the key conventions of romance films. This helped us, because we were creating a conventional romance opening sequence.

To prepare us for the opening sequence we completed many preparation tasks. A key task was the creation of a storyboard for our sequence. This meant we were very organised on the day of shooting, because we knew exactly what shots we needed. Further helping our organisation was the shooting schedule we created. Both of theses tasks were helpful, but they could of been improved. This is because we did not plan in enough detail in the shooting schedule, which lead to some shots not being possible to capture. For example, we planned to take a shot of some tube doors opening from the outside, the problem with this shot was the fact that there were always people walking in the way of the shot when we took it. If we had planned better we would of realised the flaws in this idea and could of saved time, which could of been spent on another shot.

A planned shot we had was to film aboard a bus, from outside the window. This turned quite well, given us some good shots, for example 0:38 and 1:48. However we were not able to use the intended shots we filmed from the bus because we encountered a number of issues. The first problem was the fact that the bus made the camera shake, and the other problem was that some of the buses we took had very dirty windows.