Final video

           Unfortunately there seemed to be issues with copyright of the audio and youtube blocked the audio from our video and so I have imported the video above in a lower quality. 

           We were all very happy with the video and found this short project really helpful in improving filming and editing techniques. However, some shots are quite slow due to the slow nature of the song and I think this makes the story less interesting. We did have to cut the song because it was quite repetitive lyrically and also relatively long but I don't think it is that noticeable which adds to the professionalism of the video.  

Editing

           Overall, the editing process was relatively smooth and took a lot less time than first expected, this was helped along by the fact we had previously decided on straight/ continuity editing. We managed to create a final product which we were all happy with and which we felt portrayed the correct themes and really created a sense of atmosphere. It was refreshing finally putting all of the shots together in some sort of order even though we did differ from the storyboard quite drastically.  

           The most helpful tool when editing the music video as opposed to editing other forms of video was the marker tool, we were able to highlight hit points of the song and make sure cuts were put in the correct places. One of the most frequently used tools in final cut was the colour mixer enabling us to change shots into black and white (in our piece showing shots in the past). there were issues with the format of some shots when trying to import them into final cut and we did have to convert the ones we wanted to use. These difficulties were continued when trying to export the whole film and we ended up realising that it wasn't the correct format to be uploaded to youtube. 

          However, after a few minor issues we were able to piece together our footage nicely to make a consistent video.

Filming

           One of the main complications during term time with a project like this is trying to get all members of the group together for something as vital as filming. As we only had two characters in the video (one of them being myself) the actors were not really a difficulty and we soon realised that having everyone in the group present was not really a necessity and wasn't very realistic. However, we did make sure all members of the group were well informed regarding what was being filmed at which time (helped by the shooting schedule) and this allowed everyone to be up to date with what still needed to be done. 
           We managed to get the majority of the filming done over two weeks which allowed us plenty of time for editing. We were really quite efficient when filming making sure we didn't have to revisit locations more than once however this did add more confusion having to film things out of order. We had some other issues with strong winds when trying to create smooth pans, this was also not helped by a poor quality moving image tripod. 
          Other than this there were very few big issues and I think we were overall very successful, this was partly due to following the tip of shooting far more than we actually needed which allowed us to make the editing process a lot smoother. 

Final ideas for our music video

           After several lessons of storyboarding we decided on the themes we wanted to create within our music video (tragic love story) and that lead us to a particular genre of music (alternative/ indie rock). Lana Del Rey's début album stood out for all of us as a set of songs which suggest the themes we wanted to pursue. We then set out finding a song which had reference to strong relationships and found a song also released as a single "Born to die". 
           It was much easier to storyboard and get our ideas into some sort of format once we had the song for inspiration. The storyboard was not set in stone however as we had a few different ideas on how to order elements of the story. What we did agree on however, was that we wanted to start and end the video with the same shot of a girl in a bath tub fully clothed shown mid way through some kind of suicide attempt due to a break up. Leading on from this, obviously the video had to incorporate some kind of fight between the couple and also a scene showing the strength of the relationship pre-break up. 
          With regards to editing we decided that special effects would not really be relevant and would take away somewhat from an otherwise very serious subject. We did however want to leap backwards and forward from past to future, we wanted to show this by switching from black and white to colour footage. Other than this slight diversion from straight forward editing we decided on keeping the video quite simple because the music adds another complication to the video anyway.

Brief and masterclass

Our task for the remaining term time left (around 6 weeks) is to film and edit a music video of our own creation.
An ex-student from the school who has pursued video making at university was asked back for a double lesson, he was able to shed some light on the basics of music video making:

•  We first learned that there are three main types of music video:

 - Concept: Where there is more of a strong theme throughout the video rather than a 

   straight/ more realistic story being told, it often includes a lot of special    effects and also includes some animated parts, for example: 

         
- Narrative: This does have a story being told throughout, mostly this has some connection to    the lyrics/ theme of the song but not always. This can be realistic or completely fictional with elements of fantasy, for example:

- Performance - This style of video is one of the most common, it simply shows the band/ solo

artist performing their song normally in an out of the ordinary setting, for example:

He also gave us various ideas and tips for making our videos look as professional as possible:

• When shooting a band/ artist performing, make sure you shoot through lots of different angles and in lots of different lighting conditions. If you shoot too much it doesn't matter, but it is really important to have all of the footage you may need to keep the video interesting and dynamic.
• You need to keep your actors/ band happy! Bring food and water in order to make sure you can shoot as long as you need to.
• Plan for everything, you need to make sure you have permission to film where you do, and you must check the weather report if you are filming outside.
• Storyboards are the best way to plan your video and to be used as a reference when making a shooting schedule.
• Keep different locations to a minimum, simple is best with a music video to ensure it doesn't appear too cluttered and also to stop any unnecessary confusion throughout the filming process. Also, tripods are not always necessary, they sometimes make the production look too static and unrealistic.  
• Back lighting (having a large light source shining towards the camera behind the subject) always works well to create a quality finish in a music video.
• Use the hit points of the song to highlight important areas of the narrative and use the lyrics of the song to give you inspiration with regards to the theme of the music video. If the narrative doesn't match the themes of the song, you risk the whole production looking very disjointed.