It is not uncommon for a song to have fan made music videos produced for it, and often these videos are low quality and do not have much effort put into producing the videos.
We decided that it would be fun and interesting to produce a fan made video using Photobooth and a series of backdrops.
Enjoy.
Keep an eye out for some of the production team in the video and for the intertexual reference to the dancing style often seen performed by Ian Curtis in his days.
Friday, 25 March 2011
Thursday, 24 March 2011
Final Cut with Annotations
Finally, hope you enjoy our final cut with annotations.
We have received a lot of positive feedback from this cut and we didn't note any faults that we could iron out so we settled on this as the final cut. (comment taken from the final cut without annotations)
We have received a lot of positive feedback from this cut and we didn't note any faults that we could iron out so we settled on this as the final cut. (comment taken from the final cut without annotations)
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Rough Cut 5
This is the final rough cut of our music video. With just a few changes left to make, the video is nearly complete. After making the necessary changes after the last audience feedback session, the below video was the outcome.
AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
- The 8mm footage works very well now. Perhaps try swap the Malham 8mm footage with the previous shot from that section.
- As mentioned before, just look for little opportunities to cut the video to the beat or lyrics. For example bringing in the woods section when the vocals come in.
- Look at the transitions again, use more cross fade dissolves to allow the cold turkey scene to bleed into the other locations.
- Try slow-mo the shot of the protagonist falling to his knees.
- The cold turkey scenes work much better now they are less frantic. Overlay now works well.
- At 1.32 there is a echoing sound. Switch the following shot to sync with this sound.
- As the character climbs at 2.36 he grins. Though this was intentional to signify a sense of relief, the preferred reading was no followed so to avoid confusion, cut this slight grin out.
Following this advice, we are now ready to create our final cut of the video
AUDIENCE FEEDBACK
- The 8mm footage works very well now. Perhaps try swap the Malham 8mm footage with the previous shot from that section.
- As mentioned before, just look for little opportunities to cut the video to the beat or lyrics. For example bringing in the woods section when the vocals come in.
- Look at the transitions again, use more cross fade dissolves to allow the cold turkey scene to bleed into the other locations.
- Try slow-mo the shot of the protagonist falling to his knees.
- The cold turkey scenes work much better now they are less frantic. Overlay now works well.
- At 1.32 there is a echoing sound. Switch the following shot to sync with this sound.
- As the character climbs at 2.36 he grins. Though this was intentional to signify a sense of relief, the preferred reading was no followed so to avoid confusion, cut this slight grin out.
Following this advice, we are now ready to create our final cut of the video
Friday, 18 March 2011
Rough Cut 4
Not much in the way of feedback at this stage, just touching up on a few small issues such as shots that could lose a few seconds and shots which we could add a few seconds.
Rough Cut 3
AUDIENCE FEEDBACK:
-Experiment with more overlaying and inter-cutting in the cold turkey scenes to emphasise the distress. This could work especially well towards the end of the video.
- Don't forget the 8mm footage - it could work really well in certain scenes.
- Transitions work well. The ghosting style in to the car park scene could be extended to flash on screen 4 times rather than the current twice.
- The first cold turkey scene shot of the wall appears almost like the floor. Try overlaying a different shot from the scene or just remove it.
- Try to cut a few shots to match the music more. For example at 0.29 this shot could come in a few seconds earlier when there is a "whoosh" sound.
- Look at the underpass scene again and just tighten up some the cutting to the beat. Possibly inter-cut another shot too?
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Editing Notes
Whilst we worked on the first 2 rough cuts, we used our trust blue diary to note down every step we took, how we did it, any problems and who did what. It was a helpful device at organising what we had done and were going to do and at referring back to. Because Final Cut was a new program for all of us it was great and writing down new tools so we could remember how to use them in future.
The Diary was written up into a word doc to be uploaded to blogger (with the helpful aid of Scribd)
Unfortunately we only documented the steps to creating rough cut 1 and 2.
Editing Diary
The Diary was written up into a word doc to be uploaded to blogger (with the helpful aid of Scribd)
Unfortunately we only documented the steps to creating rough cut 1 and 2.
Editing Diary
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Rough Cut 1 + Feedback
Facebook Feedback
Our own:
Callum - We should remove quite a bit from the woods section to allow more time for other scenes at later points.
Audience Feedback:
- Train scene is good but perhaps cut a bit more distance between the position of the train.
- 8mm footage works well in wide open spaces, but not particularly in more confined locations i.e the woods.
- If possible try a shot filmed from on the train as you go past the car park. Unfortunately this shot isn't really achievable, but we will look at alternatives.
- In the bedroom scene (which is yet to be included) experiment with overlaying of the same character (or different) and use editing to "ghost" them.
Cinematography, Lighting, Mise en scene
The screen grabs from our video have been added after to show some of the ideas talked about.
Cinematography
The cinematography in the music video is hopefully going to be a strong point, we intend on having a variety of strong landscape shots at the malham and leeds location, as well as some excellently framed shots in the more confined locations. We are hoping for a strong establishing shot showing a road leading into the distance which the actor can walk into.
We are hoping to make the video to the style of Anton Corbijn whose video are seen as highly sophisticated which is what we want to achieve, our
Quoted from Jonny's Blog
"Lens: We will experiment with the use of fish-eye lenses, as this is a quality often used by Corbijn. It creates a disorientated quality that would work well with our video.
Film Stock: Though our video is being filmed in HD, we also plan on using an 8mm iPhone app. This will take a bit of experimenting but could work very well (again it's a technique seen in Corbijn's work). It creates a gritty feel that we and Joy Division's music both signify. The 8mm look also gives it that indie film-maker appeal. The use of an iPhone shows a link between old and new media, which is vital for our work.
Filters: A black and white filter will be used. This signifies the work of both Corbijn and Joy Division. This has also been discussed in the previous post.
Snorricam: There's a whole post on this but I'll quickly recap it here. Auteurs such as director Darren Aronofsky are major fans of this film-making tool. It is essentially almost a reverse of a POV shot, looking back at the character's face directly. Again it creates a disorientating feel as well being great for capturing emotion.
Depth of field: We plan to vary the depth of field of shots in our video. Two of the key themes are confinement and isolation so clearly confinement is signified by tight framing in contrast to isolation being signified by wider framed shots. The use of both should create some striking visuals.
Camera movement: Again this is something that we will vary in the video. We plan some shots to be perfectly s
till whereas some more quick shots to be moving, and sometimes tracking the protagonist. Again this should keep the video interesting throughout. We also plan some shots to be hand-held which will again contrast, and are at this stage considering using a tripod dolly for certain scenes."
Lighting
We are hoping that the lighting will be very mixed during our video, during the majority of the music video they should be decent light because it's outside, though this light will fade a little due to the black and white filter we will be putting onto the video.
The confined shots inside will be much darker, we are going to block all outside light for these scenes, instead we will use a flashing lamp to create a light and a floor lamp for the scenes in and around the bed.
Mise en scene
Our video doesn't rely much on mise en scene, we want our video to not look out of place in a 1980's inner city area and it managed to achieve this very well with the setting but we never really set up a location and really relied on a already set up location. The same can be said for the most rural scenes.
The shots indoors needed to be set dressed a little bit more though really we didn't. Within the cupboard they is nothing on the walls so it was fine anyway but in the medium shots in the bedroom you get a bigger picture of the mise en scenes, the bedroom we filmed in features a average medium bed and a bedside table. At first look it will be fine though if you inspect closely they are a few set items which do look out of place but they are not really noticeable.
Cinematography
The cinematography in the music video is hopefully going to be a strong point, we intend on having a variety of strong landscape shots at the malham and leeds location, as well as some excellently framed shots in the more confined locations. We are hoping for a strong establishing shot showing a road leading into the distance which the actor can walk into.
We are hoping to make the video to the style of Anton Corbijn whose video are seen as highly sophisticated which is what we want to achieve, our
Quoted from Jonny's Blog
"Lens: We will experiment with the use of fish-eye lenses, as this is a quality often used by Corbijn. It creates a disorientated quality that would work well with our video.
Film Stock: Though our video is being filmed in HD, we also plan on using an 8mm iPhone app. This will take a bit of experimenting but could work very well (again it's a technique seen in Corbijn's work). It creates a gritty feel that we and Joy Division's music both signify. The 8mm look also gives it that indie film-maker appeal. The use of an iPhone shows a link between old and new media, which is vital for our work.
Filters: A black and white filter will be used. This signifies the work of both Corbijn and Joy Division. This has also been discussed in the previous post.
Snorricam: There's a whole post on this but I'll quickly recap it here. Auteurs such as director Darren Aronofsky are major fans of this film-making tool. It is essentially almost a reverse of a POV shot, looking back at the character's face directly. Again it creates a disorientating feel as well being great for capturing emotion.
Depth of field: We plan to vary the depth of field of shots in our video. Two of the key themes are confinement and isolation so clearly confinement is signified by tight framing in contrast to isolation being signified by wider framed shots. The use of both should create some striking visuals.
Camera movement: Again this is something that we will vary in the video. We plan some shots to be perfectly s
till whereas some more quick shots to be moving, and sometimes tracking the protagonist. Again this should keep the video interesting throughout. We also plan some shots to be hand-held which will again contrast, and are at this stage considering using a tripod dolly for certain scenes."
Lighting
We are hoping that the lighting will be very mixed during our video, during the majority of the music video they should be decent light because it's outside, though this light will fade a little due to the black and white filter we will be putting onto the video.
The confined shots inside will be much darker, we are going to block all outside light for these scenes, instead we will use a flashing lamp to create a light and a floor lamp for the scenes in and around the bed.
Mise en scene
Our video doesn't rely much on mise en scene, we want our video to not look out of place in a 1980's inner city area and it managed to achieve this very well with the setting but we never really set up a location and really relied on a already set up location. The same can be said for the most rural scenes.
The shots indoors needed to be set dressed a little bit more though really we didn't. Within the cupboard they is nothing on the walls so it was fine anyway but in the medium shots in the bedroom you get a bigger picture of the mise en scenes, the bedroom we filmed in features a average medium bed and a bedside table. At first look it will be fine though if you inspect closely they are a few set items which do look out of place but they are not really noticeable.
8mm Vintage Camera
We have also put some of the footage together to show you what we recorded.
Technology + New Media
Throughout the project i have used a lot of pieces of technology as well as New Media's.
"New media is a broad term in Media Studies that emerged in the later part of the 20th century to encompass the amalgamation* of traditional media such as film, images, music, spoken and written word, with the interactive power of computer and communications technology, computer-enabled consumer devices and most importantly the Internet." quoted from Wikipedia.
* In general, amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form.
With filming, shooting and creating the music video and the promotional pieces i used the following.
The Iphone is one of the latest smart phones released, even though its a phone like most new phones these days it has a camera. But you have a HD camera you ask? well the IPhone comes with the ability to download apps, one of these apps is called 8mm(?), this apps means you can record a video using the camera but the footage will get a unique silent movie style edit to it. We used this at a few locations to collect some footage for the music video.
A Snorri cam is a mount for a camera which attaches to the body of the actor to create a weird look and style.
I did a whole post of Snorri cams so look here.
The fish eye lens was another interesting piece of equipment we used. You can buy fish eye lenses for your cameras but we didn't have a budget to do this so in the end we improvised, using a old glasses lens and a roll of Sellotape we managed to attach it to the camera and it worked to a extent. In the end we didn't use any of the footage in the video.
For the Digipak and the Adverts we used a SLR camera, these high quality professional cameras are great for photography, it uses a SD card to store the images and is 12 mega pixels. We took one to two of our shoots and took one out one day to take the front cover of the Digipak.
We used a A3 colour printer to print out our Digipak onto card, as well as to print out the a3 advert.
We used a A4 colour printer to print out some of our adverts.
"New media is a broad term in Media Studies that emerged in the later part of the 20th century to encompass the amalgamation* of traditional media such as film, images, music, spoken and written word, with the interactive power of computer and communications technology, computer-enabled consumer devices and most importantly the Internet." quoted from Wikipedia.
* In general, amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form.
With filming, shooting and creating the music video and the promotional pieces i used the following.
- HD Video camera (add specific brand)
- Tripod
- Iphone with 8mm App
- Snorri Cam (home made)
- Fish eye lens (home made)
- SLR Canon Camera
- A3 colour printer
- A4 colour printer
- Photo paper
For promoting the promotional package as well as creating parts of this blog i used the following.
- HD Video camera (add specific brand)
The HD camera was the main piece of equipment i used, it was used for filming the majority of music video, it uses a SD card for storing clips and is very light and compact. It uses touchscreen technology and is packed full of different features, It creates .MP4 video files.
- Advantages: Very good quality footage.
- Disadvantages: We had to book them out in advance because other groups wanted to use them and they was only a few between everyone.
- Tripod
The tripod is used for simply creating still steady shots, its 3 legged and can be compressed down so its easier to carry. Any camera can be attached to the top so its securely in place. We used the tripod to create as many steady shots as possible, we took one every time we went filming and used it when ever possible.
- Advantages: Lightweight (depends on which brand) and useful.
- Disadvantages: Annoying to carry around
- Iphone with 8mm App
The Iphone is one of the latest smart phones released, even though its a phone like most new phones these days it has a camera. But you have a HD camera you ask? well the IPhone comes with the ability to download apps, one of these apps is called 8mm(?), this apps means you can record a video using the camera but the footage will get a unique silent movie style edit to it. We used this at a few locations to collect some footage for the music video.
- Advantages: Small, handy and comes with many features
- Disadvantages: Expensive, the quality of the footage isn't to great though it is hidden behind the 8mm footage.
- Snorri Cam (home made)
A Snorri cam is a mount for a camera which attaches to the body of the actor to create a weird look and style.
I did a whole post of Snorri cams so look here.
- Advantages: Does its job at such a cheap price.
- Disadvantages: Not too stable and a pain to make.
- Fish eye lens (home made)
The fish eye lens was another interesting piece of equipment we used. You can buy fish eye lenses for your cameras but we didn't have a budget to do this so in the end we improvised, using a old glasses lens and a roll of Sellotape we managed to attach it to the camera and it worked to a extent. In the end we didn't use any of the footage in the video.
- Advantages: Cheap once again
- Disadvantages: Didn't work exactly how we wanted
- SLR Canon Camera
For the Digipak and the Adverts we used a SLR camera, these high quality professional cameras are great for photography, it uses a SD card to store the images and is 12 mega pixels. We took one to two of our shoots and took one out one day to take the front cover of the Digipak.
- Advantages: Professional and great quality images
- Disadvantages: Expensive and like the camera we had to book them out.
- A3 colour printer
We used a A3 colour printer to print out our Digipak onto card, as well as to print out the a3 advert.
- Advantages: great prints
- Disadvantages: had to ask to use them in the D.T department at school and they weren't too happy with us using their resources.
- A4 colour printer
We used a A4 colour printer to print out some of our adverts.
- Advantages: good prints
- Disadvantages: sometimes they would be streaky lines down the page which wasted paper and ruined the image
- Photo paper
Photo paper is a special kind of glossy paper which is ideal for printing out photographs, we used it for printing out the adverts.
- Advantages: great quality images
- Disadvantages: 10p per sheet
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Final cut express
Final Cut Express is a non-linear video editing application created by Apple Inc. It is the consumer version of Final Cut Pro and is designed for advanced editing of digital video as well as high-definition video, which is used by many amateur and professional videographers. Final Cut Express is considered a "step" above iMovie in terms of capabilities, but a "step" underneath Final Cut Pro and its suite of applications.
We used it for creating our music video, it proves to be very hard to use at first but once we learnt its ways it was all fine. We did have many problems with using it when it came to exporting our rough cuts and when it came to finding work which kept disappearing. This was the main program we used and we used it for editing all of the music video.
This program could only be used on Mac OS so we had to use it in school.
- Advantages: Great piece of software, many different options for editing and is at a industry standard.
- Disadvantages: Very complicated at first.
- Adobe photoshop CS4
Photoshop is a graphic image editor. we used it for the Digipak images and for the net, and for the adverts. Both me and Johnny were no strangers to the program so we had no issues in using it and in fact we quite enjoyed it. The program gave us many different options when it came to the editing for example using text, filters. We even went as far as downloading and adding our own text font (Joy Division font).
- Advantages: Great at photo editing
- Disadvantages: Not very good at drawing which is what we needed to do for the digipak
- Song Vegas .10
Sony Vegas is another professional non-linear editing system, this program was used by all 3 members of the group for simple video editing at home, i downloaded the trail because its a very expensive program and it served its purpose, it is very much the final cut of windows.
- Advantages: final cut of windows, everything we wanted from it.
- Disadvantages: could only download a trail due to costs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Blogger
This internet site is used to upload and showcast my work.
Blogger gave me the opportunity to smartly upload all my work, while adding links/pictures/ video clips.
Blogger has given me lots of options to improve my work with the ability to insert links, edit my posts by changing fonts/colours and font sizes. Aswell as adding photos from my folders or from the internet.
- Scribd & Divshare
Both these websites are used to upload and post my files and works.
Both these websites give me the oppurtunity to upload my files and audio files and them embed them onto my blog, this means that i can show my work on my blog without turning it all into either movie files or jpeg files.
- Internet Forums
We used a internet forum to collect feedback and as a platform to show our work and get it around the web, we used joydiv.org which is a Joy Division fansite, we found a few very helpful members who gave us great feedback on our ideas and rough cuts.
Facebook is currently the world's largest social networking sight, on it through a profile you can share videos and pictures, this meant it was arguably the best place to collect feedback on every aspect of the project, unfortunately sometimes due to it being a social networking site, we did received some irrelevant comments.
- Youtube
Youtube is one of the worlds largest video sharing sites, using a account and a joint account we were able to place our videos out their to collect feedback on our videos. Our biggest viewed video is currently at 250 hits.
- Prezi
Prezi is a zooming presentation website, it is used to create unique and interesting presentations which can embedded into my blog, i used it a few times to show developments of my adverts as well as my locations.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)