Music Video

My responsibilities during this project were ensuring all pre-production paperwork was completed before filming, directing the shoot and editing the final product. I tried to make sure I got involved in all aspects of the project, so in future projects I knew what to do for each section and could do it myself without too much help.
During the making of the project I felt that I contributed in everything and gave my opinion and help to our crew when it was needed. I did a lot of the filming and editing of the production, and felt I did a good job in getting our idea and plans across in the final edit using all of the footage we took. I felt that I used a variety of shots during filming to make it more interesting on screen, and I understood exactly what was wanted from each scene and thus tried my hardest to ensure this scene looked good and matched what we wanted it to look like. For the post-production side of things I wanted to keep things simple, yet effective in telling the story, so I chose not to include lots of effects, which I think was a good decision as we wanted our production to tell a story and I felt it would detract attention if we added lots of effects. I think that I could improve on the framing of some of the footage I took, as watching it back I could see that some shots weren't as "tight" or "neat" as we would of liked them to be.
I learnt a lot during this project as there was so much work to be done using programmes on the computers, which I have never come across before, so I definitely attained some new skills this term. I struggled with some pre-production aspects as none of our crew knew how to complete a stripboard and we relied heavily on the tutors to help us complete this, but having done it this term I feel I could go back and do another one without too much help. Another thing I learnt this term was how to use GarageBand to create our own music track to use for our music video. I was immensely surprised at how easy it was to use! I really got into making the music and knowing lots of musicians who talk about timings of songs, I understood how to make everything in beat and to a certain time pattern. I also felt I improved my knowledge of filming techniques (angles, shots, etc) during this term and can make them more effective in the future due to this. Post-production also taught me new skills as I haven't done too much editing before, and I was suddenly thrown into it and felt I did a good job. I learnt how to put our final product onto a disc after exporting it, and also how to compress the final product so I can upload it to YouTube to embedd on my blog. I feel confident that if I was to do this project again I could do it just as well, even better probably, as I now know exactly how to go about the project and the programmes used.
Looking back on the final production I think that we could have improved on some of our locations. Our original idea was to have the Indian scene in the dance studio and have lots of extras fussing over Arti, but this idea had to be scrapped and re-located at the very last minute because we could not book the dance studio as there was lots of rehearsals and dance students that needed it more than us. We should have had a plan B just in case, but poor planning in that area meant we had to use the photography studio which looked unprofessional in our production. A lot of our locations were based around the college because our crew live in different areas, and it would have been inconvenient for us to travel or stay around each others houses.
I think our ideas came across well on screen and all the feedback from our fellow classmates was positive; they all understood the story and what was going on in the music video. The flashbacks worked really well and looked really good in black and white with a soft focus effect, which we used to try to achieve the scenes to look more dream-like; as if Arti is looking back on her time with Dean. I also think that the stop-start photography and the scenes where photos are dropped in front of the camera were effective and helped to tell the story and give it a little more depth and meaning. The characters we came up with were portrayed on screen how we originally planned for them to appear; Arti was upset in her scenes by herself, but happy in the scenes with Dean. She comes across as heartbroken and struggling to know what to do with herself. Dean comes across as a nice guy, until he leaves her, and then it leaves the audience wondering why, and feeling sorry for Arti.
Overall, I think our production went well and that we did a good job in working as a team and getting our ideas onto the screen and making this project a success. I feel very proud of what we achieved together, even though we didn't think we would be able to do it and didn't believe in ourselves. I think our production went well and that we achieved what we were asked to achieve and did this to the best of our ability.