Editing

The above video is an example of some of the editing that I have been doing this week. As can be seen from the clip I have been working on layering within my video, to emphasise the narrative I feel that layering certain shots of my elderly actors over the top of the artist would be quite effective. I am pleased with how this shot looks, I achieved this by experimenting with the opacity of the sequence. I feel that this still needs work however, I feel that the opacity of the couple dancing is too strong, and as a result too imposing on the shot, moreover the transition from normal film to layering needs to be smoother also.

Having experimented further in my lessons, I feel that I have gotten the opacity of the shot right. The image below can now be seen properly and inflows much better as a sequence than in my previous video. The transition of the shot is still not right, however and as I pecs together my filming with my story boards, I will be able to create proper cuts and shots in the video which will match the generic conventions of the genre, and give the video a more professional finish.

Starting The Editing Process

Whilst I wait to complete filming by finishing the final narrative sequence, I have begun to start importing and editing my film. I am using Final Cut Pro X to do this, and am currently working on editing the length of each shot using the blade tool. I have also used my storyboards to piece together a sequence, although I will review this with the additional footage I intend to take, and to ensure the narrative of the story really shines through, but does not dominate the video given that it is a hybrid of performance and narrative. 

The above image in an example of some of the editing that I have done thus far. As can be seen from the screenshot I have used a variety of angles and shots when filming, the image above shows a head and shoulders shot, I have also included in my video panning, zoom sequences, experimentation with focus and side angles to conform to the generic conventions of a music video. I have included in the video so far the main piece of performance filming that I did, whereby I played the song for my actor whilst he played the organ, and I shot the whole sequence in one long shot, much in the style of say Sia's 'Chandelier'. I then did additional filming from various angles, and using different shots and will cut the long sequence, to incorporate these more interesting shots.

I will be experimenting with a number of different looks and techniques in my attempt to create the most professional looking music video that I can. The above image is an example of a transitional shot that I took, when filming i realised that I may need certain shots to acts as a bridge between the narrative and performance elements of my video. Therefore, I have certain shots like this which is of the fairy lights I decorated the set with, and the lights are purposefully out of focus which I feel to be quite effective. Similarly, I have taken a shot of the sun setting on location of the performance of my video, and a shot of a candle/ fairy lights which I may or may not use.

The final image depicts the narrative element of my video. I was particularly pleased with this image as this close up was lit beautifully from behind by the setting sun, and I feel that it adds to the romance of the sequence. Equally, the close up and extreme close up that I shot here matches with those that I took of my artist during the filming of the performance element of my video, and I feel that this cross generational mirroring will be very effective when edited. I intend to layer certain narrative shots over the top of my performance section, and experiment with black and white filters potentially, to give the video a nostalgic feel. 

Lastly, the above video is a screen recording of the work that I have been doing so far on Final Cut Pro, please feel free to have a look!

Designing my digipak - Album Title

Having filmed the majority of my video, I decided to experiment with creating the album title for my digipak. When filming the performance element of my video, I had known that I wanted to take a series of pictures with my artist and that particular location to use for my digipak. The below images are different versions of one of the pictures that I took and is what I felt was the most effective image for a digipak. 

This first image was an experimentation of the features of Photoshop. I was able to play around with brightness, contrast, levels and exposure amongst other things. There were many elements of this image that I ultimately didn't like, the contrast of the image was far too dark and created an almost silhouette - like outline of the artist. Equally, the typography was far too bold, the 'stencil' effect juxtaposed the softness of the image, and I felt that the colour and placement of the type needed work as well.

The second image that I created, I felt was a great improvement to the first. I feel that the typography and placement of the type is far better and I kept this style and set up for my final album cover. The creativeness of the digipak, the colour scheme and style was rated quite highly by my target audience in the research that I carried out, therefore it was important for me to get this right. As a result, I decided to look back over my own digipak research, highlighting what I liked most in terms of style and colour. I established that it was vital for their to be synergy between the typography and the image, so I changed the font for a softer, more romantic font. I also matched the colours of the font to the colours of the image, lessening the opacity of the colour to give it a more 'faded' approach. Whilst I was pleased with this image, I still felt that the contrast was too dark and needed adjustment.

This is my final image, and will be the front cover for the album of my digipak. I am very pleased with this image and feel that it conforms to the generic conventions of the genre and will hopefully appeal to my target audience. To create this final image I needed to fix the darkness of the contrast/ shadow on my artist. Using Photoshop I experimented with the brightness and contrast features, levels and curves but this edited the entirety of the image, and not just the artist. To evade this problem I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut out the figure of my artist and layer via copy to isolate this part of the photograph, I was then able to lower the contrast of my artist with curves, and merge the layers back together to produce the final image. Furthermore, I feel that my final image encapsulates the message that I wanted to convey, it captures the classic, softer side to the song, and also shows off the more contemporary influence given the powerful stance of the artist and use of lighting which mimics a more modern album cover. Lastly, there is a sense of convergence between this photography and the music video, given that they were both shot in the same location which should connect the ideas of my music video with my artists identity, as is done by popular artists; whose album title's closely resemble the look/ style of their image within the first single released off of the album. 

Filming - Narrative

The filming of the narrative element of my video, I felt went well. I was especially pleased with the piano sequence between the my two actors, as I felt that this captured the romantic feel of the song. Moreover, I that the lighting was especially good naturally when filming outside, as the sun was just setting which cast shadows and created a 'bleaching' effect which is often used within modern music videos. Equally, filming in the garden as pictured to the left went well as I used my story board which was invaluable to guiding me in the shots that I needed to take, reminding me of the zoom sequences, long shot, mid shot and close ups that I wanted to capture, typical generic conventions in terms of camerawork of the genre. The shooting schedule which I created was helpful also as it kept me organised and ensured that I was able to get the majority of my shots done.

Whilst overall my filming went well, there were a few improvements that could have been made. I was very aware of how quickly it would get dark on the day, and that as a result the footage would not be as good a quality. Therefore I ensured that I had my outside sequence set up with the props of fairy lights, a rope of lights and lanterns, fairly early - the drawback to this however was that the lights were not as visible on camera as I would have liked. Similarly, I was not able to get all of the filming that I wanted to done on the day, and will film the home movie and park bench sequence on another day.

Shooting Schedule - Narrative

When filming the narrative part of my music video, it is important that I stay organised and keep to a time schedule to ensure that I get all the shots that I wanted to done, I previously used a shooting schedule for filming the performance element of my video and found it to be very effective so have created another one. The below image is my second shooting schedule.   

I found that a shooting schedule was key in allowing me to visualise what I needed to focus on and when, and the addition of notes on lighting and camerawork was very helpful. Overall, I did indeed manage to keep to my shooting schedule which definitely helped my filming. However, I did need to deviate from my shooting schedule as it took far longer for me to set up the garden with the fairy lights and light rope than anticipated, equally due to the fading light given the time of year I had to film my garden sequence earlier in the day which meant that it was slightly lighter than I had planned and as a result the decorative lights were not as effective as I would have liked, but still gave the shot a romantic feel.

Narrative Storyboarding - Final

The above image is my final narrative storyboard. Using images I have represented the exact feel that I intend for the narrative element of my music video to have. The storyboard details each individual sequence of the video, and I hope to find it useful to refer back to when filming. I detailed the storyline of the sequence within my draft of this storyboard, but it is designed to have a romantic feel overall which will hopefully fit well with the music, and the performance sequence. The storyboard details the more intricate elements of filming, stating not only the shot I intend to achieve, such as wide shots, over the shoulder shots, but whether it is to be a high or low angle, and also whether/ how it would transition to another shot or image. The idea that I have for this narrative sequence, is to layer certain shots over the main feature of my music video - the artist playing the piano, to convey how they are connected, and I will experiment with light and opacity to give the narrative sequence an almost ethereal quality. I have seen this layering done in more modern music videos, such as Taylor Swift's 'Style' and it is very effective, but hopefully this will as give the video my desired contemporary feel, and ensure the video does not become repetitive, but connects with my predominantly 'young' target audience. Lastly, whilst I have planned the narrative sequence on one storyboard, there are several sequences within it that require different locations and props, especially the home movie sequence which requires an old movie camera, and I will therefore strive to film as much as possible, whilst keeping in mind that I may need to film the narrative element of my video in two halves.