My name is Godgift Emesi (9044) and for my A2 Coursework I am in group 3 with Monica Aghadiuno (9365), Angela Chen (9025) and Thakshana Yogeswaran (9179).
To see my work, please click on the 3 labels on the right named A2 Research and Planning, A2 Construction and A2 Evaluation, and ignore the rest as that is my classwork.
Group 3 - Music Video
Group 3 - Digipak
Our Digipack, top left - back, top right - front, bottom left - inside panel, bottom right - inside panel (CD)
This is a link to our website, click the image above to enter our site
Behind the scenes experience of a real life studio set up
Close contact with industry professionals
The opportunity to handle expensive filming and lighting equipment
Enjoyed being in front of the camera for a change
Was able to get my make-up done
Learnt the various steps and processes needed in order to create a music video e.g. shooting in set ups instead of shots, deigning the set, costume planning, call lists etc.
Getting my makeup done
Shooting
The roles I took:
Cable bashing- I learnt how important a role this is when shooting anything. The person in charge of this role is responsible for the safety of the camera when it is either being pushed on the dolly or hand- held.
Dolly pulling- I learnt that there is a lot of physical strength needed for this role and there's a lot of pressure on whoever's taking that role as they're responsible for not just the speed the camera is moving at but also the quality of a shot as they have to take care not to hit the edge of the dolly track otherwise the camera gets jolted and thus quality of that shot fluctuates
Clapperboard- Unlike the previous two roles, this role i'm very used to and have had a lot of practice in and therefore did not learn as much. However the importance of the high level of communication needed between the 1st A.D and person in charge of the clapperboard was emphasized to me.
Lead guitarist for band 3- I learnt how to study the characteristics of the genre, rock, and my character's personality in depth in order to exude the same and not rely on communicating the persona of my character through the words of the song, which is what i'm used to doing.
Me cable bashing
Me managing the clapperboard
Below you'll find a video of one of the workshop rehearsal days highlighting the close contact we had with industry professionals and the fun we had too
- that the art of lip syncing is actually in singing
- the usefulness of shooting in set ups instead of in terms of shots
- how to sync clips according to the music first before cutting out the set ups where not needed in editing
My Audition Video
Task 2: I learnt...
- the importance of warming up before shooting/rehearsals
- each member of the band has a different personality to them and had to learn how to exude that when performing for example the guitarist, whom I was meant to embody, had a "cool" air about him and he's usually full of energy as you can see from the GIF below
- the story behind the lyrics of the song how to demonstrate them via body language
- how to work in groups, especially with people I've never met before, and take everybody's ideas into consideration
My band warming up before a rehearsal shoot
Task 3: I learnt...
- organisation in bringing a variety of costume choices on the right time before fitting day & then keeping the outfit I choose on fitting day neat and tidy till the shoot day
- how to adapt to last minute changes by finding creative solutions; many of what I tried on either didn't fit or wasn't giving the right look so there were a lot of changes and things were only really finalized the last day before the shoot
My finalized costume decision
Task 5:I learnt...
- more about the grading process and how it takes up the most time of editing
- to edit by 'lip-syncing' each take of each set up first then selecting the best takes and cutting them down where needed
-the importance of framing during the shooting because it directly impacts whether you'd have to re-adjust framing during the editing session
Below is a time-lapse of the behind the scenes of task 2 and task 3 put together
I am pleased with the footage and the finished edit. We did however take a longer time than other groups to edit and that made me realise just how much you shouldn't underestimate the difficulty and time consuming nature of the editing process. The editing schedules really helped us in organising the time we'd use to edit.
Our Editing Schedule
Creating flashes using grading: 1) Normal shot 2) Pro-camp &Three way color corrector used 3) Luma corrector used
The grading process
I felt grading was the hardest part of the editing process as the effectiveness of your grading directly affected how similar our remake would look to the original video. As you can see from the GIF below, we really tried to precisely use brightness, contrast and saturation to get the same 'flash' effect as in the original music video.
We used ProcAmp to adjust the brightness, contrast and saturation levels in order to heighten the quality of the specific clip and make it look more defined. Three color way corrector was used in order to balance the color levels, so in the case of the original clip most of the clips had more of a bluey/purple tone to it and we were able to replicate it due to the corrector program. I feel that our flashes worked really well as we stuck to a basic brightness level of 53 and contrast level of 58 across all clips that needed a flash and just adjusted those levels slightly when some of the clips that needed flash naturally had a lot more/ less lighting than the others.
Below is a tutorial I made on how we synced our audio and video clips together
Syncing the clips we shot to the original video's audio was definitely the easiest part of the editing process, since we'd had lots of practice with the 'lip-syncing' technique from editing our audition videos. A short tutorial, I made, of how we lip-synced videos can be found above.
Organisation is very important with a big project such as this involving a large team, so that time isn't wasted during rehearsals/shoots and all cast and crew members receive the right relevant information at the right time. I would need to thoroughly plan those listed below in order to have a less stress induced shoot:
Shoot board page 1
Editing schedule
Cast list
Shoot-board page 2
Set ups sheet
- Call sheets
- Location
- Choreography & rehearsals
- Audition videos
- Costume (availability)
- Shoot schedule ordered in terms of set ups and not shots
Production:
If I'm able to, it would be preferable to have a 'crew' where roles are delegated and makes the shoot easier to manage. It would also bring a more professional approach to carrying out my shoot:
Camera man/ team:Depending on the quality, variety and type of shots a team may be needed in order to film
Director
Make-up team
Choreographer
- Lighting team
- Timekeeper: In order to keep the whole crew and cast accountable to the amount of time we have on that specific location because during task 4, the actual prelim shoot, we did overrun by a whole hour plus in the beginning, but this was all caught up on thanks to the 1st Assistant Director who as able to keep the whole team to time
Post-Production:
Although we were meant to edit by lip-syncing, we didn't and that was one of the main reasons why our editing took longer than other groups as we had edited by shots instead of setups. I would keep editing in setups a priority for when approaching next terms music video coursework.
When grading, it would be best to figure out a basic grading level across brightness, contrast and saturation so it can be applied to all clips and then readjusted for some where needed so that time isn't wasted when grading.
