AS1 Blog 5 - Understanding the Techniques of Music Videos - “Elton John and Kiki Dee".

In this task I will create a music video of the song ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ by Elton John and Kiki Dee. I will explain how I created the video including the shots of the footage, how many shots where needed, how did I edited it and technique used.

When making the video of ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’, to ensure that it looked good and was unique, I had to make sure that I took many shots as possible from different angels and perspective at the same time as repeating some shots that turned out bad or out of focus. Throughout the filming of the development, there were challenging moments that I had to face such as finding the right shots to edit together from all the filming to make the video continues and to ensure that the actors are in the correct position when facing the camera so I can tell them when to start and when to or other important details, such as the lyrics to the song. As we were filming, I would start of by saying “Go” to let cast know that we a rolling. Whilst doing that, to make performance of the video look more really I made the actors dance and sing to the music by giving them lyrics of the song, so they can memories and say them while listening to the song in the background. Afterwards, as I am editing the video I would get rid of the audio and put the song in its place. When it came to the editing, I had experience before when I did the blog 3, but with this video it took me longer than before to edit it.  When I started to edit the video, I had experience from before, such as blog 3, however it me longer than before to edit the video. This is because creating the video, meant that I had to edit the footage of a different levels or platforms. So I would put one shot on a time line and another one in a different time line. This would create the effect of the singers cutting from each when it comes to their lines in continues synchro flow.  To ensure that the music video is a continuous video and I have edited to the beat, I made sure that when I was editing, I would mark on the timeline throughout the music, so see which parts the music drops the beat and mark it. Afterwards, I’ve found the right shot to match the music including the lips syncing and put it together.

In conclusion to my ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ video, I created, I think I it is a success as the music video illustrates that it is matched with the song and the actors are singing the song.  Also by putting the shots in different platform or time line I was able to change the shot when I needed it to be, so the video could be continuity. By having a number of shots I was able to consume the viewers to be interested while bending the video to my will. Although, even if I find it perfect there are still thing I could have improved by changes the small things and making it more free flow. First in the video around 43 the video would go into a fade then it would just change clips. This ruined the continues of the video because it was fading, then it went straight to another shot. Also throughout the video in some places it shows the Kiki Dee’s sing but the shot itself is to slow because the mouth of the singer is not meeting up with the song, so the actors does not lip syncing correctly. Besides that, I believe that I have edited to the beat and that the video is a success as it clearly demonstrates the techniques used and the continues flow of it. 

AS1 Blog 4 -Understanding the Techniques of Music Videos – “The Pretender”

In this blog I am going to post my completed animatic video for my storyboard about the Pretender by Foo Fighters. I am going to explain the process I went through to create the animatic. Also talking about what I learned about the variety of shots needed when shooting a performance and pace of editing. 

For me to full understand the techniques and effects used in music videos I had to create an animatic video of ‘The Pretender’ by the Foo Fighters to help get that information needed. When creating an animatic video, the first thing in needed to do was to a storyboard of The Pretenders’ video. I would have take 20-second worthy of shots from anywhere but have to be in order. After I would then draw each shot individual on to the storyboard and edited them together on Premiere Pro.  Later I would than added the music from the right point started the storyboard and exported it onto YouTube. As I created the storyboards I learned that there are so many shots in a small number of seconds and putting them together can create the right pace for the performance to be at it’s best. For example The Pretender’s video was fast paced and many shots were used in a number of seconds. The shots changed between the characters in time with the music, which made their performance of the video more effective.  However, if the video was on slow pace and the shots did not match up with the music it will not be successful.

As I was create the animatic, I realised that the in that 20 seconds there were many different types of shots include that made the video memorable to audience.   There are many selections of shots that they used to make it memorable, such as close up, extreme close up, long shot, wide shot, high angle, low angle, tracking shot, eyeline shot, 180 degree, vertical shot, diagonal shot and birds eye view.  In the music video the mise-en-scene changes depending on the song style and structure. For The pretenders video used very little props when it came to filming compared to other music video, as they did not changes the location of where they where filming. The only props they would need are clothes, instruments and other things. With the singers having these having these things, they were able to make the desired effect for the video.

From creating my animistic of The Pretenders, I have gained the necessary information that allows me to understand that pace of the song effect how the process editing is done. The Pretender is a song that is fast pace, which means that the editing of it is going to be fast as different shots changes under a second to match the beat of the song. For example the animatic I created was 20 seconds of the music, in that 20 seconds there were 23 different shots all edited to match the song with the shots. If the music were slower than, the editing would not really need to be touché as much as a fast song because the song is not fast pace, so the shots don’t need to be regularly changed.