Overcoming issues

Whilst editing my music video, I came across a number of issues from not enough footage to it being too dark thus making it difficult to see the actors.
Below, I will explain each of my problems and how I overcame them.

Issue One: Some footage was too dark
When I uploaded all of my footage and sorted through it, I noticed that the first few shots were too bright and it was difficult to see the actors.

I over came this by improving the brightness.

Then, using Colour Corrector, I changed the colours to give them the washed out flashback effect.

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Issue Two: Not enough footage

When in the process of editing, I noticed I was slowly running out of footage but still had a fair bit of the song left to edit. 

I overcame this by using footage that was originally a shot that went wrong and editing it to make it seem like it is part of the video.

An example of this is the protagonist laughing at what she has done once the ex-girlfriends have been poisoned.

This shot shows the evilness of the protagonist as she laughs heartily at the fact that she not only killed her boyfriend, but also his ex-girlfriends/lovers at his funeral.

This shot however was a mistake as all of the actors started laughing instead of keeping a straight face.

I simply cropped the footage, layered it over three times and matched the brightness and contrast to the rest of the funeral scene.

Another example of this is adding in shots of the protagonist simply looking at the camera whilst there was no words to be sung.

This prolonged my video and conveyed the protagonist's emotions further.

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Issue Three: Lack of effects

Throughout my music video, I noticed there was a large lack of effects thus rendering my video slightly boring to watch. Therefore, I looked through a majority of the effects on offer and selected the ones I thought worked well and weren't too overpowering. I then selected moments throughout my video that I though could be done with an effect to add a bit of excitement.

One example is the moment when the protagonist strikes her boyfriend with the lollipop and kills him as seen in the clip.

Another example is layering some of my footage to add a ghost-like effect. I thought this was suitable as the video has death within it.

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Issue Four: Repetition of shots
My previous issue of lack of footage lead to the issue of shots being repeated. This is something I felt had to be changed.
One specific example is when the protagonist reveals the tattoo on the back of her neck.

I wanted to include this shot towards the end of the video but it would have resulted in an obvious repetition of shots.

I overcame this by using a different part of the original clip which still showed the tattoo which I wanted. The clip I used originally zoomed into the tattoo on the back of the neck however, I reversed this and had it to zoom out.

Final Product - Music Video

The finished product!

My Vlog on Editing.

Marking Up Footage

Here you can see evidence of me beginning to order and mark all of my shots for my music video. This will make it easier when editing as I won't have to waste time looking through all of my shots and can just proceed with editing.

I came up with a code that works for me and is easy for me to remember; 
Narrative/Performance - Camera Number - Scene - Take
I then added a description to make is easier to know what the shot was, said if it was good/bad/ok and my reasons for this.

Styles of a Music Video

Glossary of Key Terms in relation to the Style(s) of a Music Video.
Here are some key terms that I will define, give examples of and explain:
-Pastiche/Parody
-Interpretative
-Animation
-In Concert/Live Footage
-Narrative
-Genre Specific

PASTICHE/PARODY

One distinguishable style of music video is pastiche/parody. These types of music videos each have different and similar features.

Differences between each music video will depend on what the video is parodying, for example, Alien Ant Farm's cover of Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal' is a parody of Michael Jackson due to certain elements and characteristics that AAF use. Some examples of elements are listed below along with screenshots.

• Jackson's single sparkly glove and monkey
• Light-up pavements
• Dance moves to 'Thriller'
• The lean that Jackson does in the original 'Smooth Criminal' music video

Each of these elements are explicitly mocking Michael Jackson's music (there are at least three music videos of Jackson's in this one video).

The reason for AAF doing this is unlikely to be to make people like Jackson or pay homage to his work, it is however, to make the audience laugh at Jackson and see AAF's view of him.   

INTERPRETATIVE
Interpretative music videos are simply how the artist has interpreted the song and relays this to the audience through the music video. A very good example of this is Lady GaGa's (featuring Beyonce) music video of 'Telephone'. This is due to the song being about her being in a club and not wanting to answer her telephone, however, the video portrays GaGa in a prison to start with then gets released by Beyonce and they both murder a number of people in an American diner.

The possible reason for GaGa wanting to make the music video in the setting of a prison instead of a club it considerably reflective of her previous work. She is a music artist known for going over the top and doing things alternatively and this video definitely lives up the that reputation. However, in the case of other artists who are not like Lady GaGa, although they may show their interpretation of a music video in the same way, it will not be to live up to their reputation. For example, Amy Winehouse's music video 'Back to Black' is set in a funeral whereas the song is about a break-up.


ANIMATION
A music video in the style of animation is fairly straight forward. It doesn't use real people, instead it uses animated characters that may or may not resemble the artist/artists. In most cases, animated music videos are commonly used in music numbers in a cartoon such as a Disney film. An example of this would be Billy Joel's 'Why Should I Worry' from the 1988 Disney film, Oliver & Company. Throughout this musical number, there is constant animation, and although the character does not in any way represent Billy Joel himself, the song is still sung through the character of 'Dodge' (the dog).

Animation can be used for a number of reasons, however, in this case, the animation is used to attract the target audience; young children. In addition to this, the fact that it is animation may add to the excitement of a dog running around on the rooftops of cars in New York City for small children. Dodge has been considered a character which many children admire due to his careless ways and fun attitude, these elements are shown through the way in which he has been animated and the way Billy Joel sings the song.
Another way of using animation in a music video is through partial-animation. This is when a music video is animated but also has elements of non-animation throughout. An example of this is Fall Out Boy's 'America's Suitehearts'. As you can see the animators have also made cartoons of the artists themselves to give the added effect of a fantasy world.

Fall Out Boy use the style of animation to express their view of 'selling-out' in the music industry. People used in their music video are first real life, then animated, then they flash between the two until they become a real-life version of their animation.

IN CONCERT/LIVE FOOTAGE
In concert/live footage is fairly straight forward. Instead of filming a music video to show a narrative of the protagonist, it is just clips of the artist performing their song.

In this case, The Beatles' song Love Me Do shows their performance and also the fanatical attitudes of the fans watching them. Other reasons for filming a music video using live footage is to show the excitement of the fans and the atmosphere possibly resulting in the audience wanting to go see them live.

NARRATIVE
A narrative music video shows a story that coincides with the song. Taylor Swift is a very good example of this as when the audience hears her songs, they also see her songs. By this I mean that what is said in the lyrics at a specific moment is shown in the music video .
In 'Love Story', Taylor Swift sings of a love dilemma and compares it Shakepeare's Romeo and Juliet through her lyrics. Similarly, in the music video, it is very similar to the play itself with the costumes and the setting. 

GENRE SPECIFIC
Genre specific music videos are music videos that, if watched without the music accompanying it, the audience would still be able to tell what type of genre the song is. An example of this is Slipknot. Most of Slipknot's videos are all very similar to each other and other metal/rock bands. This not only makes it easy to distinguish what a Slipknot music video looks like, but also what a metal/rock music video consists of. 
Their music videos generally consist of:

• Pale-ish colours (mostly black and a sickly-green colour)
• Dark/eerie/abandoned locations
• Fire
• Themselves
• Head-banging
• Distorted effects

Similarly, Rammstein's song 'Sonne' uses similar elements thus showing that they are both from the same genre.

First Day Filming

Wednesday 12th December was our first day of filming which proved to be very successful. We was able to film the first and last scene with minimal disruptions. Below you can see the outcome of what the protagonist looked like for the final scene (the funeral). We stuck to our initial idea of the bright pink contrasting with the black and the candy make-up and I feel it proved to be very effective and striking. 

On this day of filming, we encountered the issue of one of our actresses not turning up due to illness however, we had already known about this for approximately two days and was able to find a replacement. We organised to have one of our members filling in for the missing actress.

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Below you can see one of the props used in our music video. I made and painted this for my group and it proved to be a very important piece of equipment.

Edit Footage Step-by-Step

When uploading our footage, we noticed some of the shots were very dark and difficult to see. To overcome this, we used a piece of footage we did not need and figured out how to make it brighter. 

We came up with the following steps:
Brightness/contrast
colour correction
DO NOT USE LIGHT RAY
Colour corrector ('sat' all up)
gradient colourize (gradient mix)
RGB balance
Gradient mix