Thanks God this is my last blog post for Media 2. Feel unbelievable that I have finished 19 blog posts already. English as my second language, I really do not like writing. The biggest problem for me now is what can I learn from these blog post and why we cannot use these time to learn more editing skill rather than doing this? Stop here, I already do not know what should I type next. I think the project reflection is necessary, which can help me rethought the whole processing again and find the parts which could be better. As other blog post, sometimes I feel bored when I am writing.

As the last blog post, please forgive me to write only these words. %>_<%

After seeing the GoPro music video from band Foals, I have searched some information about this band and the music video director. ‘Just as OK Go likes to push the boundaries of what a music video is, English indie rock band, Foals, has launched a 360 spherical video to accompany their new track “Mountain At My Gates”. Rather than use a dedicated 360 camera, music video director, NABIL, used GoPro’s spherical Virtual Reality technology instead to mash up a number of shots so you can pan around to see what’s happening behind the camera.’

Warner Music signed band Foals has partnered with GoPro to shoot the video for its latest track, creating an interactive virtual reality experience for fans.

The video has an interactive feature that allows the viewer to change the perspective and explore the background by dragging left and right on the video which I think is a way cool!

The brand partnership marks the first use of GoPro’s new spherical virtual reality technology on a music video production. It has been shot by high profile music director, Nabil Elderkin, and aims to immerse fans in the performance. By using this technology, viewers can see 360-degree view as the band performing, rather than watch the specified scenes.

Bob Workmam, SVP brand partnerships at Warner Music said: “Foals and Nabil have a history of creating stunning videos together and it has been really rewarding to work with GoPro to raise that bar further. The video has evoked a powerfully positive online reaction amongst fans and gets the new Foals campaign off to a great start.”

As the GoPro action camera, I have heard about and have not use it. In my knowledge, GoPro camera is designed for shooting sports scenes, like skydiving, diving, skateboarding…… I really want to use it for have a try and I am wondering if RMIT has this camera or not.

Song chosen (week 1):

‘Ten Different Names’ is from the band POCKETS, which is friend with our team member Tim, and it is easy to get the permission to use.

Idea brainstorming (week 1):

After choosing the song, we all have listened to the song few times and think about what kind of music video is suitable, narrative? Non narrative? Which feeling we have got from this song? What will we shoot?

• backyard science experiments (potentially progress throughout the song), can look at varying speed and reversing play
• use the logo as a base to come back to throughout song, start simple and build with more heads, shapes, colors, movements
• potentially have the profile face’s mouths (of the logo) moving in some sections with the lyrics
• one head represents each of the band members
• filming using green screen – have band member(s) heads in profile like in the logo and have them singing lyrics. Potentially use different props (hats, glasses, lollipops, windmills etc.) to make the profile view more interesting and varied)

Background testing (week 1,2,3):

We all did some experiments at home and show to other member it could be used or not in the class.

Green screen testing with teacher (week 3):

Learn how to use the camera and how to set the lights in the green screen room.

Green screen shooting day (week 4):

We have invited the band member Dan and focus on shooting his silhouette in different ways with different props.

Rough cut (week 5):

In week 5, almost every day, group member was editing the rough cut. After getting the feedback from teacher and classmates, we have started our editing again.

Fine cut (week 6):

Fine cut is almost our final cut.

Final cut (week 6):

Steph has uploaded the music video in Vimeo in private mode, everything done.

Challenges:

It is really excited to set the green screen stuff by our own and finally we successes.

Every time we have got the idea about how to show the silhouette and it is a big challenge to edit, but we figured out every time.

Worked more than one day to accurate the mouth shape with beats.

How to match your idea with your group members’ idea?

How to use Premiere well?

Fortunately, everything done well!

Music Video Reflection

‘Ten Different Names’ from POCKETS is the first music video I have made and I still feel quite amazing about what we have done. At the same time, media 2 is my first studio in the university and I have learnt so many from this class.

I used to use Video Studio Pro to edit the video clips, and now I can use Premiere to do all the things I want, of course, except the special effect, which is the weakest part to me and I will learn and practice more in the future.

To be honest, compared with other crew members, I still feel a little unsatisfied to the final cut, some details even some parts we could make better. Like in the beginning of the music video, the ‘ten different names’ words on a black background, I suggested to make the colours inside the words to flow, maybe it is difficult to make and it is still stationary. Especially the blanket green screen part, I think it is fun to use in the music video. After finishing the final cut, I still feel quite regret that have not use these. Because it is a group work, it is important to listen to other people’s idea and opinion. Compared to the pitched idea, we have done mostly, except the inside silhouette effect. It will be better to learn more skills to do this part.

The singer Dan from the band whom we have invited is a very good performer, I have to say the successful of our music video is depends on him and he did really good job! Also the background experiment is another big job for everyone in our group. During few weeks, we all have tried so many and only a few could be used. I have done the watercolour and milk mixture first, and it is too difficult for one person to do both mixing and shooting, but Nikki has done well with her friend. The smoke video footage I shot actually is for the inside silhouette effect, just like the Taylor Swift’ music video ‘Style’. Obviously, the smoke video footage is not using by this way.

Our music video is not like other groups which have plots in, so it is much more difficult to figure out the content, only using the zoom in and zoom out will be boring after seeing more than twice, therefore, we have created other more interesting possibilities, like making the silhouette passing around the frame and put more than one silhouette to produce the crazy atmosphere. We have spent so many time in testing these effects. Another hard thing for us to do is to match the mouth shape just on the right beat, I feel exhausted during doing that part.

Finally, I think I am lucky to work with my group members and the only and the most important thing is we all had fun in editing and shooting, and also thank Rohan for teaching me well.

Edit your best shots together: the first thing you need to do is go through your footage and decide which shots you want to use in your finished trailer. One you have picked out the best shots you will need to work out what order to put them in. think about where you want your most dramatic shots to be. How do you want your trailer to end, bearing in mind you are aiming to leave your audience wanting more? You will also need to think about pace when editing your shots together. Tell your story with captions or voice over: most trailer editors use captions and voice over to help drive their trailers. As you only have a short time to sell your film this helps to structure the trailer and signpost the audience. Your first caption needs to set the scene.

Music and sound effects: choose your music: once you have a structure you need to find some music to go with your trailer. Music can have a profound impact on how an audience responds to what they are watching. Choose the wrong music and you could risk putting your audience off. Experiment with different tracks. Try out different music to see what feels right. Think about using different tracks for different parts of your trailer. It may be that you want the trailer to start happily and change tone as it processes.

Tracking: tracking shots are shots that move with the action. Camera operators usually use carts on tracks to achieve these shots but the same is achievable using a wheelchair or skateboard. This is a fun way of bringing more energy and a very professional look to your shots.

Small cameras: smaller handheld digital cameras allow you to move around when shooting helping to make your shots more dynamic. Lots of mobile phones also allow you to record video.

Arm’s length filming: one technique with small handheld digital camera or phone camera is arm’s length to film yourself. This is a really interesting angle and looks great when cut with your other shots.

A locked-of shot: is where you put the camera on the tripod and leave it running, letting the action happen inside the frame. You can play with these shots in the edit. For example, making someone disappear and reappear in.

Basic editing: think about trailer conventions, most film trailers conform to certain conventions, ask yourself what genre your film is and what conventions you might need to follow that are specific to that genre. Have a look at some other movie trailers and think about what works. Try and spot the techniques that the editor has used to make you want to see the film. One key convention to think about is the cliffhanger, which means leaving your audience wanting to see more. Trailer editors will show you the most exciting bits of the film.

A conclusion of how to shoot a music video:

Planning the shoot:

Gat to know the music, listen to the track a lot. Need to know the track really well before you shoot the video. Come up with some visual ideas, think about how you can illustrate lyrics and how you can use your location. With music videos you have got permission to be a bit abstract, so think creatively. Find a good location, it is crucial that you find a good location to shoot the film – somewhere that inspires you and fits the track.

Get master shots:

Find you shots, decide on your framing before you even get your camera out. Create a rectangle with your fingers (it mimics what a camera sees) and try to find interesting shots. Film the whole song in close up and wide shots, and you can cut between these in the edit.

When filming a music video, you need to play the track whilst you are filming. I did not know this before and Nikki and Tim did this well, they brought a speaker while we are shooting the green screen. Even though you will be using the original recording in the edit, playing the music whilst filming will help to make sure that you are in sync, especially if you are lip-syncing with the lyrics.

Creative techniques (from internet):

Getting creative with your camera work can really help lift the production value of your video and there are lots of easy tricks you can use.

Planning: add movement to your video by doing simple pans using a tripod. Planning means moving the camera from side to side. Try and make your camera moves as steady as possible.

Today is our first time to see all the experimental backgrounds and green screen shooting stuff to edit the rough cut. It is quite crowded for five people to stay in one small room, and it is not efficient to have five different ideas at the same time.

Firstly, based on my past experience, even the music video, we should first determine the storyboard, especially the idea of the beginning and end. I think knowing the implementation of the plan will be good to go with less. We have spent the whole morning on testing the best effect that we could do. I feel excited to see all the processing and the final results. In the afternoon, we started to looking through all the footages we have got and selected the parts that we may use.

The music video from my group is very different between other groups, we do not use too much camera language, but more dependent on the post-production effects. Like groups all have spent a lot of time shooting the actors, and we spent only three hours in the green screen to get the nice silhouette. However, in the editing part, out team need to spend much more time than other groups. Which is sad, maybe you took the time but still cannot get the results you want. Five people in our group, I was used to use VideoStudio Pro software, and the rest of four, only two of them can use Premiere well, which will be one of the biggest problems we need to figure out.

Today is out crew’s green screen shooting day, it is very happy and fun to work with one of the POCKETS’ member, Dan. I have brought lots of hats, Yuxin has brought some hats and an earmuff, Nikki brought the blanket and Steph brought lots of different kinds of props, especially the snorkel and the brownie she made!

We have learnt how to shoot last week from teacher, but we still got some problems like forgetting how to set the white balance correctly, by using white paper or white clothes?

Dan cooperated very well even though we asked him to stand on his knees. He was always very kind and gave us the best visual shots. Sometimes, he could give you the better effects that you want.

We have tried so many props and hats are the most important part we will use in the music video, so we have asked Dan to put different hats on every time and he did well. Especially the pop up pop down part, he was still standing on his knees and cooperated well.

Because of everyone’s concentrated work, we have finished very fast. It is very happy to work with Dan again!

Today is so fun! It is my first time to be like a stuff in a gig. I have been to a gig before and I did see the camera putting place is just an arc around the stage. It is excited to do the same thing in the class.

I think setting the white balance for every camera is very important, in case the video clips have different tone.

The steps for setting white balance:

Toggle the WHITE BAL switch to A (which is what I use to store the temp white balance). Place a white sheet or use a white area to zoom into fully in the viewfinder. Set up your exposure. Press the small whit balance button located under the lens mount to the left side of the cam.
That’s it. The setting is stored in A and will show in the viewfinder on the lower left corner with a temperature number – i.e. W:A 5200K.
If you balance and it 4800k and you feel this is still too cool, tweak this up to 5000 –warmer. Also make sure you do not have viewfinder direct menu set to ‘all’ as WB cannot be changed in this mode.

And today is my first time to be in a light/audio control room, always watching other people working in this room for the TV show or for the concert, which is a magic room for me, I feel good when I was using the sliding key.