Learning comment: From this task i have been able to develop my skills of taking photographs that are likely to capture the imagination of intended demographics. So, as shown here, the album cover by 'Jerome' is essentially aimed at a male demographic. This is highlighted through the use of dark colours making up the most part of the album cover. In addition, I have developed my skills of Photoshop - having not used it since projects in year 10. The use of the magic wand and burn tool make up the most of the editing of this image to ensure that it looks suitable for the rap genre of music. Consequently, I think that the most important element I have learnt from this task is that photoshop can often enhance images to great depths - showing that it isn't always about the quality of the picture you take but, moreover, the way you attempt to fit it to a particular genre of music.
Learning comment: From analysis of a variety of different bands and artists, i have learnt how important it is to keep a strong line of consistency in what you aim to do in order to represent an artist or band. For example, Catfish and the Bottlemen effectively keep their branding plain and simple (black and white) as a means to allowing fans to become familiar with their albums, merchandise, etc. One of the most important things i have learnt from this task is that it is imperative to have a clear band name for fans to see. Therefore, being able to create a clear and appealing band name typography will be key to my final product. Considering the positioning of the text, the text itself and the size of the text will all be important to my decision process over the creation of my digipak.
Learning comment: Upon completion of this task, i have gained inspiration and ideas for when i come to make my own music video. In addition to this, it was interesting to analyse how certain adverts represent artists in different ways - depending on their music genre. Therefore, i will make sure that my advert follows the typical codes and conventions for the genre i use. For example, pop adverts may include the following codes and conventions:
- Bright colours to connote positivity and happiness
- Engaging colours to entice wide audiences
- Artists in the middle of the poster
- A clear brand identity through the same typography
First cut: From this cut, i found that, on the whole, the sequence was relevant to the task of creating a music video section. It provides viewers with quick and effiecient cuts between actions as well as camera techniques (such as match on action and eyeline match) that add a larger depth of complexity to the video overall.
However, some improvements could be made to this sequence. For example, the change of angle at 33 seconds could do with trimming to a second after the actor in red turns around. This would make the footage look much more realistic and legitimate in comparison to the footage shown at this certain stage. A similar error occurs at around 42 seconds where, again, the character in red is shown carrying out the same action (looking down at the sellotape) in successive cuts.
Furthermore, the editing process that took place first of all failed to identify that the non-diegetic sound of Justin Bieber's What Do You Mean is often overstated by the diegetic sound of the door slamming, for example, at 35 seconds. Second cut: As a result of these issues, a second editing stage was added to ensure that all issues shown in the first cut were corrected. Below is the final cut of my 30 cut sequence:
Storyboard: Creating a storyboard is an imperative part of the creation of any sort of video. As the same of last year when creating a film sequence, collating ideas for a music video will have to be transferred onto a storyboard in order to have a clear plan of how the video will take place. With key conventions of music videos consisting of quick cuts and a variety of camera angles, the storyboard created above was a clear way for us to replicate those key conventions. In reflection, the storyboard was one of the most helpful things to have to hand when i was shooting the 30 cut sequence.
Outtakes: As well as story-boarding and final footage, unwanted footage is also good to reflect upon as a means of improving in the future. Above is some footage that was of no use to our actual music video but instead improved the final edit. For example, the first clip shown highlights the difficulty to find ample camera angles in order to capture the correct footage. Action taken on this was move ever-so-slightly to the right of the camera in order to accommodate relevant things on screen. As a result, it is clear to see just how important filming from various angles is to the final product.
Learning comment: From this task it was very useful to see how filming at the standard music video pace was. For example, the fact that we had to create a 30 cut sequence in a short space of time brought to my attention just how important it was to not stall on shots for multiple seconds. The use of different camera angles was also very relevant to this task as it allowed me to use a varying number of camera angles in order to keep the footage both engaging and at a large variety. Perhaps most importantly, was the use of different camera techniques that were used in order to make the sequence even more engaging. The match on action used in this task shows just how far my camera skills have developed since starting our film sequence project in Year 12.
Organised storyboarding, too, was a very useful thing to add to the task as it ensured that our planning and research of how we would shoot the video would be of good standard.
When looking at doing our music video in future, there are some elements i would like to improve. For example, creating a storyboard with additional scenes could prove to be a way to make the music video better as it will allow me to select several ways of ending the music video. With this task, it was difficult to get to the 30-cut minimum as a result of a limit of clips.
As a result, this task proved of significant help on the whole as it will directly help my music video due to the fact that there are elements of the video that could be improved - smoother match on action, for example.
