Recently we have not only been discussing ideas for our music video but have also been practising using some of the equipment. Me and Joely have had lots of fun testing out the new green screen using a number of different backgrounds in order to see if there was any particular colour which didn't come out well. We found that the white background made me become quite fuzzy and so we know to try and avoid using this colour when making our music video. We also found that the quality on the flip camera wasn't very good and made me become extremely fuzzy and patchy, therefore we had to re film everything with the new HD Panasonic cameras. The quality was a hundred times better, you can probably see the difference in the take out video that we also made.



Here is a little take out video we made, just for fun...

Recently me and Beste have been discussing some creative, fun ideas that we'd like to include in our music video. We researched our ideas on YouTube in order to find examples and to help us work out how we'd put these ideas into action. I came up with the idea of perhaps having a pillow fight and having feathers flying everywhere and Beste really liked the idea of filming underneath sheets which we'd drape around the room. The videos below are examples of these ideas as sometimes it's difficult to picture what we actually mean..

Last night I went to the cinema to watch Bridesmaids a 2011 American comedy written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, directed by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow, Barry Mendel, and Clayton Townsend. The plot centers on Annie (Wiig) and her experiences as maid of honor in Lillian's (Maya Rudolph) wedding. I really enjoyed the film, it just goes to show that not all chick flicks are bad, this one definitely had me in stiches. I loved it and have recommended it to all of my friends!

My favourite character in the film was Megan played by the talented Melissa McCarthy. She was hilarious, the film wouldn't have been the same without her silly, tomboyish character.

I also liked the fact that the cast were not well known actors as sometimes when they are famous it takes the realism and comedy away from the film. I thought they were all really talented actresses, everything seemed natural, it wasn't slapstick humour, it was funny because it was real humour, in the sense that we can all relate to it, it just seemed to come naturally as if it wasn't scripted.

During our free time today me and Beste imported all of our footage from yesturday onto our apple mac computer. We then began editing the clips together speeding them up and trimming them down in order to match the timing from the original music video. Luckily we had plenty of footage which we could split and use in later shots, for example when I filmed Beste eating crisps I filmed her eating them for about 20 seconds. This then meant that when we came to use the shot of her eating we were able to use it a number of times throughout, with the camera positioned in the same place, therefore making it look neater and more professional. We managed to actually finish the editing which we were both really pleased about.

We learnt a lot from making this prelim video, we found that our story board helped us a lot, as it kept us organised and made it clear as to what we needed to film, however at first we didn't film in chronological order as there were shots we needed to do before hand, in this case the shots with Beste's boyfriend, as he needed to leave early. It made us aware that this might happen when filming our real music video and that we in fact wont be able to do everything in order. We are also aware that if we film in one location we will need to do all of our filming on that same day despite whether some of the footage will be used at the beginning of the video and some at the end. This is because of continuity.

Here is the original so that you are able to compare it with our version..



Here is our version of Smile, we have literally just taken the first 32 seconds and copied the original..

Today Beste and I spent our evening filming in order to create our prelim video. We organised our camera equipment, props and costume, managing to do some shopping earlier in the day for the food in the video and also for some jewellery and clothes so that Beste could look as similar to Lily Allen as possible. We also had to make sure that Beste's boyfriend was available as we needed a male character to be in two of our shots. When we eventually got around to filming we found that our story board was very helpful, however we also watched the original version on YouTube over and over, shot by shot in order to make ours as similar as possible. We not only got all the footage we needed but also had lots of fun, especially finishing off all the leftover food!

In today's lesson Beste showed us some of the research she had done for our music video and we all particularly liked the song Potential Breakup by Aly and Aj. There are again two female singers and we have already come up with some exciting, creative ideas which we would do if we were to choose this as our final song.



We also spent our time practising to lip sync for our prelim music video of Smile. We had fun experimenting with different shots and then after importing the clips from the flip camera we edited on iMovie, which helped us to practise fitting the clips to the beat of the music for when we have to do it for the real thing. Practice makes perfect!



We then made another video using the Apple Mac web cam again to help us both practice lip syncing as we are both planning on being in the real music video that we will eventually make.

Me and beste have been discussing lots of our ideas over the last couple of days, we had pretty much decided on the song Beautiful liar by Beyonce and Shakira however our teacher advised us that doing a song with such famous people would need lots of big locations, flash cars etc which we would obviously find difficult to do. We were dissapointed as we did have lot's of really creative ideas, however for now we are keeping our options open and will continue to search and discuss ideas in our group as to which song we will choose.

Last lesson we spent our time planning and storyboarding our practice music video to Smile by Lilly Allen.

Here is our story board from the first thirty seconds of the music video..

It has come out slightly unclear in the photo however it is in fact very helpful and will tell us exactly what to do when we come to film. We are hoping to film this Tuesday if all goes to plan.

Things we have to do and be aware of in order to achieve a good grade!

FINAL A2 GRADE

q Ask friends or approach local bands and get permission to use their material

q Approach unsigned bands on ‘My Space’ etc and get permission to use their material

q Collaborate with music department/students in your centre on the project

q Create your own music or sound track

q OR…Use a music track by a well-known artist, but email the record label asking permission: be aware of the dangers of using a well known artist à your videos are more likely to mimic existing videos and not challenge conventions

Today we were given quite a big task as a group in order to help us practice filming and editing a music video. We were to choose a music video which we'd be able to copy and make our own version of, looking at the first 30 seconds or so from it. We spent quite some time choosing one from YouTube which we felt wouldn't be massively difficult to replicate. We eventually decided to choose Lilly Allen's song Smile and we cant wait to get started!