Performance Cut VS Final Cut

Here is a comparison between our performance cut and our final cut. There are several differences that can be seen between the two. 

• The beginning in the final cut has been made a lot slower. This is to allow the audience to be introduced to the artist and have a feel for her character. As well as this, it also allows for a more impacted build up as the song progresses. After receiving feedback, we were also told that slowing the beginning down might be more effective as it was quite fast paced. 
• The colouring of the video has been altered. This is because we wanted to make the video more professional by slicking the shots up. We played around with contrast, brightness, saturation and more. 
• We spent a lot more time focusing on cutting the shots on the beat instead of on the lyrics. This was better as our song was very fast paced and it worked better by cutting on the beat.
• There was a section in the middle that cut to black on a certain beat. After receiving feedback, we decided to change this. We replaced the black shot with a moving shot so that we still had the same effect, but it still maintained the pace of the song.
• Finally, we were able to add in the dance element and the other lip sync which we had not been able to do as a result of the power cuts. Through editing we can see that the dance and other lip sync became crucial in maintaining the theme, concept and audience interested throughout. The dance was particularly effective as it showed both the story of the song as well as added something extra to the video. 

Editing the final cut

As we now had all of our footage. It was time to edit the final cut. It was important to make sure that all the repetitive bits be removed and replaced with the new footage to have a slick and effective final cut. To ensure this, we watched through our performance cut and made note of all the places that need to be replaced by the new footage. Once we got started, it was slightly challenging as we did not have a clipboard on the shoot day as there was another shoot happening on location that needed it. This proved to be more challenging when matching up the lip sync with the music as we had to take our time to ensure it was accurate. 

From watching the performance cut, we realised we should probably slow down the beginning as there was not much build up. This was where we decided to put the beauty light set of Genny. It worked well as it was vibrant and strong, but also gave the audience a moment to establish who the artist is. 

However, whilst editing the beginning we came across some problems. We found that we did not get enough footage of Genny and this new set on the shoot day. This was because we were finding it hard to create a punchy opening that wasn't too repetitive as we had not been very creative with the shots. As well as this, several were out of focus as there was a problem with the exposure which we did not realise on shoot day. However, after a few days we managed to edit an opening that ticked the criteria, by bringing in the dance earlier than planned. 

The next bit which we needed to change was the middle. We received feedback from our peers who all said that the beginning was great as there was a really effective build up that keeps you intrigued, but then it suddenly slows down and loses pace during the middle of the song. We found that the best way to solve this was to add more dance. However, this also proved to not change much as it was missing pace still. We then came to the conclusion that the problem was the pace of our cuts. We spent a few hours re cutting and making the edit more fast and slick. This thankfully proved to solve the problem. 

Our teachers watched the video and gave us several different pieces of feedback. One was the opening and ending shot. This needed to be changed as we want the audience to feel intrigued from the moment they watch it till the last shot. Another was our choice of cutting on the dance shots. We were told to change them so that the shot would cut before they finished their movement. Lastly, they said that we needed to make sure that all our shots of Genny were in focus as there were some that looked as though they were out of focus and not on purpose. 

As we had spent so much time on the edit this week, we found it was best to leave it till Monday and finish the edit then.

Pick Up Shoot Day

Starting on the website

Whilst waiting to film the next part of our shoot, we decided to work on the website for our campaign. After discussing, we decided to come up with the idea of 'LOVA' as the name. As we took inspiration from Yolandi Visser for our artist, we thought of looking at Swedish names. There were several options but we felt LOVA was the best suited to our artist. 

We then proceeded to think of a logo for her name that could stand out. I did some research and stumbled across the artist 'MO' who played with the symbol through the 'O.' I thought this was very effective as it was recognisable and the artist MO was very similar to the image we wanted to create for our artist. This was the logo we came up with: 

We felt that the font 'Raleway' was best studied to this logo as well as it was professional and slick. 

When you first enter the website, this white box will appear. It will have the producer logo (for the time being Hurtwood Film Academy's logo) and the artist's name. The name will appear from left to right as we felt this looked more professional than just appearing. Behind the white box, our music video will play. This will be visually stimulating for the audience and keep them enticed. This may change however after we have done the photoshoot for our artist for the Digipak and potentially the website. 

First performance cut

Here is our first performance cut. As we were only able to shoot half our video last time due to power cuts, we had to work with only 2 parts to our video as much as possible to try and create a professional video. From this, there can be seen that there are several areas that become too repetitive or need to be less hectic. This will hopefully be achieved when we film on Monday. It will be important to remember to film the still shots of the artist and to achieve as much as possible of the dance as we can. 

Time-lapse of music video shoot day

Although we only were able to shoot half of the video due to power cuts, it can be seen that we still got a lot of work done despite the challenges we were faced.

Shoot day

ROLES DURING THE DAY: 

ELOISE : DIRECTOR

BEN : CAMERA 

HAYDON : PLAYBACK

DASHA : FLOOR MANAGER

Overall the shoot day was a success.
I first started by helping set up the day before the shoot day. As seen in the video, I painted the DJ set and put it together, as well as set up the lights so that we could be ready to start promptly in the morning.

I was very prepared for the shoot day. The night before I had rehearsed with the artist Genny to make sure she knew her lines. We had bought food to make sure that we kept both the staff and the artists happy as it was going to be a long day. I also made sure that all the tiny pieces of the costume were there and ready to go. I also pre warned Genny to come in with no makeup, wet hair and no jewellery so that she could be made up in the morning by the makeup artist. This made organisation easier when we were faced with the power cut difficulty. Despite this being our biggest problem, as soon as the lights came on, we were prepared and ready to go as we were organised.

Once we got shooting, the studio looked exactly as we had envisioned it to look. Specifically with the artist set, we definitely achieved our concept idea as the corridor made her seem trapped and isolated, which was the main part of our concept.
I think one thing that I particularly excelled in on the shoot day was my direction. I had been pre warned that it was very important to make sure you know what you want and to help guide the artist as they need guidance as the obviously don't know what you want. I ensured that throughout the day I was always communicating with the artists and Ben(On camera), to help try and achieve the look/concept we were trying to achieve.

 I think the most successful part of our shoot day was probably the DJ set. As there was quite a lot happening during this particular performance, it was important for us to capture as much as possible. With such a short shoot time frame, we managed to capture more than enough footage and we even managed to get the crane out and shoot some aerial shots of the DJ set.

However, I do wish that we would have been able to shoot the whole of the video as the energy was very high on that day and it would have been perfect time to have shot everything. However this was made impossible due to power cuts and time limits.

I think we worked very well as a team as we all gave each other opportunities to make inputs and explore different roles. I would say that Ben and I worked particularly well together as we both knew the concept back to front and we both wanted very similar things. This meant that as he was mainly on camera and I was mainly director, the communication was very successful. 

Makeup Artist

We emailed the makeup artist to ensure that she knew what we wanted and to see what we needed. She replied and said that she did not have any glimmer eye shadow or fake eyelashes so I have decided to go and buy some in time for Friday. 

Dance rehearsal

Shoot Day Schedule

Set 1 - DJ Set Up - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - DJ equipment - Black Jeans - Jumper
Set 2 - Light Corridor - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - Heels - Make up - Satin see through top - Black lacey bra -Black jeans
Set 3 - Blinders/ Dancers - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - Make up - Addidas red trackies - Megan's red trackies - Black bando -Black t-shirt
Set 4 - Shadows Genny - Dolly - Crane - Long shots - Mid-Shots - Close Ups	Props/Costumes - Make up - Black Dress - Straightners