My name is Ignacio Flores (Candidate number: 9049) and I am working in Group 2 with Mario Louka, (Candidate Number 9099) and Eddie Rowe (Candidate Number 9147). To access my work, please click on the three labels on the right named A2 Research and Planning, A2 Construction and A2 Evaluation.
The main workshop shoot day was long and we had to do a lot of work during it, but at the same time it very rewarding. The experience of being on a professional shoot was amazing, there was always a lot going, which helped to keep it exciting. We all got to meet and work with professionals in the industry, which made the experience more entertaining.
In the performance, I was the bassist of group 2. After much practice with the performance directors I was able to know what type of movements I had to be doing during the performance, as well as how to play my instrument and in which stance I had to be.
Me, cable bashing
I also did some things that didn't involve performing. I carried out some tasks with the dolly - building the dolly track and also being the dolly grip for some shots. Sometimes I acted as cable basher, moving cables out of the way of the camera operator/ dolly grip and dolly. I also used the clapper board to mark which setup, take and group were in a shot for Jack, the Director of Photography.
I think the best parts of the day were being able to watch our and other groups performing, as when I was performing it didn't feel very special while I was in the heat of the moment, but watching other groups do it showed me how much energy and effort we were all putting into our performances.
From this task, I learnt that it was important to actually perform during the remake. To carry out this task well, I had to learn how to lipsync, which meant I had to be actually singing the song. Looking back on this task I noticed that in particular I did not move as much as the others and my performance was not very energetic; so I resolved to try harder in the real thing and during rehearsals.
Task 2 - Practising the Performance
How the bassist looked in the real thing
During this time we all practiced our individual roles, I was assigned the role of bassist. I was taught
different movements I should do and how I should look while pretending to play my bass guitar, and I think I took this information on board. I also learnt how important it was to stretch out before performing, to avoid injuries.
Task 3 - Costume, hair and makeup
A picture of me in costume
My costume was quite accurate in relation to the original video. I had a black shirt and red trousers as well as trainers, which meant that I looked similar to the bassist. I also had makeup like 'guyliner' applied to me and part of my hair was dyed purple, this added to the punk look which we were going for.
Task 5 - The Edit
How our sequence looked during editing
After the shoot was over, we had to edit our footage to make it look like the original music video. Editing this was different to what I was used to, as opposed to the film intro we made in AS, this was very fast paced and continuity didn't matter at all. When editing the video, we would put takes into different tracks and sync them all up, and then pick which parts of which setups we wanted for a certain shot; by using this method it made it a lot quicker. I found that making sure the video was synced was one of the most important things to take into account. Grading was also very important, most of the shots needed a high amount of contrast and saturation and it took a very long time to tweak each shot, so that they looked just right. We used "Luma Corrector" to change the lighting of some shots, and this was used mainly for the flashes that appear frequently throughout the video.
I think that our finished edit turned out well and that we did a good job on it. It very closely matches the original music video and it looks better than I had thought it would - editing it really made it shine, making it look aesthetically similar in the colouring of the shots, also having flashes and flips added made it look much more similar to the original.
There were some problems with some shots, but we worked around them, using different shots in their place or changing the shots' positions to make the framing on them more accurate. I think that a reason for not having some shots that we needed was that we were quite limited for time, having needed to film all of the setups for the three groups, so while merging some setups and hastily doing
Off set can be seen to the left of the line
some improvised shots, we did not have enough time to spend too long on certain shots if they didn't turn out well. This could be seen in our shots of the power slide of the guitarist, most of the shots showed outside of the set on the side, however since we had to move on, those were the shots that we had in the end. Although I would have preferred to have better shots for some setups, it was something that couldn't be helped.
Although we weren't able to make something that was 100% accurate to the original, I still think what we managed to create was extremely good, looking very professional and having shots that were very close to the original.
I think that the prelim has had a very big impact on how I will approach next term's music video coursework. It has made me realise how much work went into the planning of the shoot day, not only to the shot lists and time keeping aspects, but also the cast and crew.
Depending on the scale of the music video, we may need to bring in people from outside the media group, so we would have to teach them how to properly lipsync if they are singing in the video; we would also need to thoroughly teach them the actions we would want them to perform in the music video. We would probably have to also make character sheets for the people acting in our video, so that they know how they are meant to look and act.
I have also noticed that we needed to spend quite a lot of time editing our video, taking quite a while adding in special effects; this has made me want to plan out our edit time when it comes to the real thing, so that we have as much time as possible to work on it and perfect it.
A behind the scenes video of our music video remake, this shows how people were working with each other throughout the day, enjoying the experience; something I hope everyone involved in my music video can do as well.
