Rough Cut

Editing Tutorials

After we went to record the first few scenes of our music video we found that when we viewed it on the computer it look much different from what we thought it would look like. We thought using a good quality camera would bring great results, but not in this case. There was either a problem with the camera or a problem with they we ut the settings. We were not too happy about this, because it took us quite some time to get this together and because just a few weeks back we had changed our song due to some difficulties. After viewing the video, I was desperate to find out was in which the quality could be increased even though it was our first and rough cut. I decided to go onto youtube to search a few tutorials which would help us better the quality of our video on final cut express. Here is what I came up with:

Equipment Used

Before we started to make our video, we found that there we several things we needed to consider carefully. For example location, clothing and actors. In this case we needed to think about what type of equipment we would need to make our video shoot a success. I decided to do a little diagram showing the type of equipment we would need:


I think the most obvious piece of equipment we would need for our filming would be a camera. I guess were lucky that we have very good quality video cameras at our disposal, Good cameras mean good quality. As a group we were also lucky to have one member of our group who own a good quality camera, allowing us to take two different shots as we record one scene which I think is a blessing. Before we got to use these cameras we were pretty much ameteurs, some of us had no clue as to where the on button was (me). Luckily we had a way to overcome this problem, this was to do practice shots on other students, which allowed us to familiarise our selves with camera. For example, how to turn it on, how to zoom in and out and most important how to take care of it. After this was done we were ready to go!


Another piece of equipment we considered was a tri-pod. We found that this piece of equipment would be very necessary when making our video as we can not just stick our camera on the tripod and just reacord our actors, no way! that would be boring and poor. So what we did was to look at the original video and see when the tripod was needed. For example for tracking. In some scenes in our music video our camera needed to be hand held, so we did not exactly need the tripod for every scene.

Lighting... this was a tricky one for use. Not tricky as in we didn't know what to use, but tricky as we needed to get the exact lighting effect or the music video would not be as effective as we wanted it to be. We ended up using bedroom and lamps and two halogen light which I came across in my garage. These helped us a lot as it allowed us to adjust the lighting when it came to different scenes. For example if we needed a darker and not so bright lighting for a certain scene we would use the bedroom lamps. But if needed very bright lighting we would use the halogen lighting.

Animatic - They Making Of The Animatic (Melanie Fiona)

The making of our animatic was a long process, we didn't complain as wee knew the making of the real video was going to be 10 times harder. Me and sath first had to watch the official music video and then wrote down all the shots and camera angles that were involved in the video

It was a long process but at the end of it seemed worth it. We ended up with several sheet of paper with each type of shot included and what time it was shown

After we had all of the shots, we started analysing them to show which shots were most used and how effectively they was used.

After we had analysed the different shots involved me and sath started writing down possible shots for our music video.

Once the shots were written down, we drew them out so we can put them onto our animatic.

Once we finished the drawing, we had uploaded them onto the computer and cropped them out into smaller pictures of each individual shots.

Once all of that was done, we opened up 'Final Cut Pro' and inserted all of the pictures and the song.

Once we had all we needed onto finalcut, we started putting pictures onto the timeline according to the song.

Animatic - Melanie Fiona (4AM)

As part of the planning and making of our music video, we had to include and produce an animatic. An animatic consists of drawn images of the type of the camera shot, angle and content that would be going on during a certain part of a song. We had to put a lot of thought into this as we were going to use this as a guide to making our final music video. We made our animatic by uploading our drawn images onto final cut with the track we were going to use for our video.

Filming Schedule

Album/Single Covers (Digipak) - Research

Before making our Digipak, we thought it would be a good idea to look into existing album and single covers. We had to make sure we knew the difference between an artists album cover and single cover.

I thought i would start off with the Artist we are using for out music video and her Album/single covers.

We can see from this album cover that the lettering and font used is simple and clear.  The cover has a full image of the artist dressed up. She is on her own, outside. The fact that she is on her own and outside my relate to the title of the album which is "The MF Life" which could imply that she is lonely or heart broken. 

 This is the single cover of Melanie Fiona's - 4AM single. we can see that there is a significant difference in the way her single is set out to her album. In the is single cover the font and lettering is the same, simple and easy to ready. The image however is a lot more different than that of the album cover,. Here she is again on here own but instead of longshot being taken of her we have a close up of her. As a group this is what we will ahve to consider, the lettering, and the image as there is a different between the album and the single cover from melanie fiona.

This is the album cover of beyonces latest album "4". Beyonces album art is very different than the one of melanie fiona. In melanie fionas albuma rt she seems more relaxed where as with beyonce here she looks almost the opposite. Also in terms of dressing beyonce seems to show a lot more body than melanie fiona did which could be related to the type of music the both contain on there cds e.g Love on top by beyonce which is a fast paced song and very technical and 4am by melanie fiona which is a lot more slower and requires less effort. We can also see that the image is covering the album title which is okay as almost everyone is expected to know who beyonce is.

Here we have the single cover for beyonces single "Dance for you". If we compare this to melanie fiona, she had an longshot image for her album art and a close up for her single cover. I guess they use shots that favours the artist them self. Whereas here beyonce has a longshot and full body shot image for her single. The clothes shes wearing also relates to the title of the single "dance for you" as she looks to be wearing dancing clothes. Yet again the loettering and font of the single cover is kept simple and clear. 

Rihanna album art is very different from some of the album arts i studied. In this pic she is not wearing any clothes but is covered up by many words. The font and letting used in this album is unclear and quite hard to read. If you look carefully you'll find that the name of the album is located on the left side of the image under a black scribble.

Chosen Music Video Song - Melanie Fiona (4AM)

 

As a group we have chosen to pick the song 4AM by Melanie Fiona, as we feel it is an challenging yet an exciting video to make. Its a video we felt was not too technical but also not too easy. The video will require a lot of thought as they are some things such as equipment in the original video that we do not have any access to at the moment. So we would have to change a few things in the video to meet both our needs and the grade we want to achieve as a group.

Here is the song choice and the music video....Melanie Fiona - 4AM:

Before we picked the song choice we had to make sure that the lyrics were appropriate. We also made sure that most of the lyrics were able to link to actions easily, for example if she was talking about loneliness it could be linked to a sad/upset emotion. So there had to be a relationship between the lyrics and our desired actions.

Here are the lyrics of our song choice:



Sitting here feeling kinda crazy
But not just any crazy
It's the kind you feel when you love somebody
And I know that my baby
Is calling somebody else baby
And I can't sit still
Look how gone it got me

Who knew that my heart could ever bruise
You see this scar here on my chest
I'm hurting and he don't even care

It's 4 AM and my lover won't answer
He's probably somewhere with a dancer
Sippin' champagne while I'm in his bed

It's 4 AM and I think I might lose it
This motherfucker thinking I'm stupid
He must have bumped his head
I only know it's 4 AM

Standing here and I'm getting heated
Pour me up a drink I swear I need it
I think I'ma about
About to hurt somebody
Swear this man is begging me to leave him
Getting sick of being so mistreated
Another night without
Without his arms around me
Who knew that my heart could ever bruise
You see this scar here on my chest
I'm hurting and he don't even care

It's 4 AM and my lover won't answer
He's probably somewhere with a dancer
Sippin' champagne while I'm in his bed

It's 4 AM and I think I might lose it
This motherfucker thinking I'm stupid
He must have bumped his head
I only know it's 4 AM

I don't deserve this life
I'd make the perfect wife
And I know love's a sacrifice
But who's gonna sacrifice for me and give me all the time and

Who knew that my heart could ever bruise
You see this scar here on my chest
I'm hurting and he don't even care

It's 4 AM and my lover won't answer
He's probably somewhere with a dancer
Sippin' champagne while I'm in his bed

It's 4 AM and I think I might lose it
This motherfucker thinking I'm stupid
He must have bumped his head
I only know it's 4 AM

Sitting here feeling kinda crazy
But not just any crazy
It's the kind you feel when you love somebody

Song Choice And Lyrics Analysis

 

Song Choice and Lyrics Analysis

We have decided to create a music video for the song, Adorn by Miguel. We have chosen this song for multiple reasons. Firstly, we feel that this is a prime example of the male R&B genre without it including rap within the song. This will allow us to use conventions of the R&B genre within the video and it will turn turn out realistic and successful. Secondly, it is done by a male figure which allow us to interpret more views from both sexes which can often make a video more approachable to the real world if it was to be chosen. Thirdly, the song includes an older, new jack swing sound which allow us to more away from it being a typical R&B vulgar video to it being classy and looking a lot more naturally effective. Fourthly, the artist allows us to use his star power to bring a swerve and sophistication to our main character and the back up dancers.

Finally, the song allows us to include both performance and narrative and the performance within narrative, often seen in the R&B genre. This would allow our video to fit in with other videos around today successfully. the bet of the song would allow us to create close up of moving object even though there wont be a band present.

We decided to create a poster, displaying the lyrics, the analysis and what the artist wanted it to portray and the way we would portray it in our music video.