Editing - Contrast, Exposure, Brightness and Saturation

Above is a screen recoding of the editing I did in order to adapt a shot of the couple at the beach to look as though the weather is sunny. On the day we had scheduled to film this scene the sun was not very bright and the shot therefore looked quite dull. During the shots of the couple we want to connote happiness and love, for this reason it is essential that the weather looks warm and the shot is well lit. As the original shot is dull it would have connotations of sorrow and loneliness, so I decided to experiment with the levels of exposure, contrast, brightness and saturation of the shot, using iMovie, in order to make the shot sunny and more appealing.

Evaluating our recent days of filming

On the 21st and 24th of November filmed the rest of scenes for our music video and we will now be able to edit our video together and create the final product. The scenes which we shot were the bed scene, a conversation between Jess and Tom under the covers, and Jonny walking to Jess' house and asking her to get back together with him. These are key scenes in our video as the bed scene shows the separation at the beginning and the Jonny approaching Jess scene shows the attempt to fix their broken relationship.

Each day I wrote a diary within which I reflect upon the days filming and consider how we could deal with any issues with the filming we have done:

We will be editing our video over the next couple of weeks; creating rough cuts and receiving feedback from our teachers, peers and target audience as this will help us to ensure that our video is as entertaining, appealing and successful as possible.

How our audience consume media and how we would promote our video

If we were to create an official music video for a singer or band in real life, decisions about advertising and promotion would be essential in order to ensure that it was revealed to our target audience. This is important because if the video was promoted in the wrong places/websites then the number of views of the video would be significantly lower than they would be if the video was advertised to the correct target audience, and therefore the sales of the song would not be as successful as the artist and their team may have hoped. When creating and promoting a music video you have a responsibility to access the target audience and encourage people to watch and enjoy the video. Therefore if the music video we are creating was officially created within the industry we would have to carefully consider how our audience consume media and where would be the most successful places to advertise it.

 

In the video above I have interviewed a student in my year called Heather Scutchings, she is 18 and the A Levels she is studying are drama, photography and media studies. The questions focus on how and when she consumes media; this will help us consider how we would advertise our music video if it was to be an official video for the song.

I also did some research about the amount of time our target audience spend using different modern technologies. I found that young people,ages 13-24, spend an average of 16.7 hours a week online, excluding email, this shows that as we are targeting a teenage/young adult audience the internet will be a key place to advertise our music video. Additionally I found out that it has been suggested that teenage girls spend more time on social netoworking sites than boys, this confirms that using internet sites such as Facebook and Twitter would be successful places to promote our video because our target audience is predominantly female. It has also been estimated that on YouTube girls spend more time watching music videos whereas boys spend more time watching comedy or action short films, therefore I believe that YouTube would be a useful way to target our female teenage audience. I also discovered that young people spend an average of 13.6 hours per week watching televeision, therefore TV would also be an ideal place to advertise our video to our target audience. In addition I found out that over half of spotfy users do not pay for either unlimited or premium use, therefore over half of users listen to adverts between songs; therefore I also believe that spotify would be a suitable place to promote an atrists song, album or music video if we were to create an official video.

After carrying out these two forms of research me and Kaylee, my partner for this media project, we have come to the conclusion that the best places to advertise would be using websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. These websites are very popular amongst people within our target audience and they allow users to share, like and comment on posts, therefore if people enjoy our music video they can easily share this with their peers. Another form of promotion which we believe would be successful is during the adverts on television, from our interview with Heather we have concluded the best times to advertise would be between 5pm and 10pm as this is when the majority of our target audience are home from school and would be watching television. In addition we could advertise on Spotify and on youtube (as the video is loading) as these are both sources with the majority of music listeners use and our target audience will be very aware of.

In addition through deconstructing music videos and looking at album covers / adverts I have noticed that the majority of artists have a website where people can find pictures, videos, merch, and updates about the bands tour dates/songs/albums, in addition the majority of websites allow fans to sign up to a mailing list; this is a very useful way for bands to keep fans updated and advertise their band. An example of a website which our would be similar to is Lower Than Atlantis' website which is shown in the screen shot to the left. The address for this website is included in all of the bands advertising, such as magazine adverts, tour posters, and adverts of sites such as YouTube and Twitter. Therefore we feel that if the video we are creating was official we would always show links to the bands website in advertisements, for this reason when we create a magazine advert for the song we will ensure that a website address is included to show that if we this was an official video for the band we would show links to A Rocket To The Moon's website.

Therefore if we were to work in the industry and create an official music video for the song 'Like We Used To' by A Rocket To The Moon, we would advertise using social networking sites, magazine adverts, a website for the band and possibly television adverts in the evening, however we realise that this sort of promotion is very expensive for the majority of bands and therefore is not always an achievable way to advertise. In addition we would create video adverts to include on music websites such as SoundCloud, YouTube and Spotify as these are accessed regularly be music listeners and can be accessed on laptops, phones and newer technologies such as ipads.

Teachers feedback

I have recently spoken to my media studies teacher about how I can improve my blog, the feedback she gave me was that my blog is currently at a good standard, however if I wish to develop it further I should:

• Include more audience feedback.
• Put more pictures on of shot ideas.
• Include more pictures of myself carrying out activities such as editing and filming.
• Go into more detail about what I have learnt from the presentations I have put on my blog.
• Consider how your audience consume media and how you would advertise to them if the video was official.

In order to improve my blog I plan on making all these improvements and they will assist me in filming, editing and evaluating my work.

Filming Schedule - 24th November

On Saturday the 24th of November we will be filming the bed scene at Kaylee's house in Sidmouth, this filming will take place between 11am and 1pm, as this is when the room will be most well light by the sunlight. We will film Jess and Jonny in the bed and then Tom will swap with Jonny and pretend to lie next to Jess, we aim to edit this to show that Tom suddenly replaces Jonny is Jess' life, therefore Jess will need to lie very still and stay in the exact same position so that the editing is smooth and to ensure that the quality of this part of the video is good. We will also film the couples feet touching at the end of the bed to show intimacy.

We also plan on experimenting with filming a scene where Jess and Tom as sat under a white blanket and talking. This idea was inspired by the film 'Like Crazy' which I watched recently; within this film the couple have a deep conversation in bed, which shows love and intimacy and a concern for one another, this is the type of relationship we hope to portray within our video, therefore I feel that we should see if we could create a similar situation.

Throughout our day of filming we will take photos which we could use for our ancillary tasks, we will be looking out for any situations when we could photograph the cast for our album cover or poster as we would like to have a lot of choice of images when we come to creating our promotional products.

Filming Schedule - 21st November

On Wednesday 21st November we plan on filming one of the key scenes for our music video. We will be filming at my house in West Hill, which will pose as Jess' house, from 12pm-3pm; we will use this time to film Jonny (the ex boyfriend) walking to ask Jess to take him back. The weather on Wednesday is forecast to be rain and cloud in the location we wish to film, therefore this weather will be ideal for filming this scene. 

We will also be taking photos of Jonny which we could use for our poster or album cover, the majority of these will be taken at Exmouth beach as the beach is a key location within our video and if the weather is cloudy as predicted then a photo of Jonny playing guitar sat on the rocks would show how his character is feeling as there are a lot of sad connotations, in addition this type of photo would tie the whole video together as it would show the on of the key characters - the musician, his emotion would be clear, in addition it would show a key location but from a different perspective of the character who has not found a new happy relationship. I believe that this would be a successful way to promote our video and provide the audience with some insight into what the video is about.

Planning filming - weather forecast

In order to decide when to film each set of shots we will need to take the weather into consideration. We have looked at the weather forecast for the next few days and will keep checking it on a daily basis. This is essential as we may need to change some of the days which we have planned to film; on days where the weather will be dull and possibly rainy we will need to shoot the scene where Jonny walks to his ex-girlfriends house and asks her to take him back, whereas on sunny days we should film the scenes which take place at the beach and the parts of the video where Jonny will be pretending to play guitar in a field in Ottery.

Below is a screen shot of the weather predicted by the BBC for the next 5 days, we chose to look at Exeter's weather forecast as it is close to all the different places where we will be going to film. Taking this into consideration will be very helpful as it will aid us in filming efficiently and making the most of the time we have.

Organising filming times with actors

Below is a screen shot of a post which I put on Facebook arranging when we will do more filming for our music video. Facebook is the most efficient way to contact our actors as I can easily tag them all in a status and they all check their accounts on a daily basis. They can all talk communicate with each other as well as me as they can comment on the post and therefore they can ask me and Kaylee questions and tell us if they are unavailable on any of the days or times.

Ideal weather for the scene where Jonny approaches Jess

I have taken some pictures of the ideal weather for the scene in which Jonny walks to Jess' house. As our actors were not free at the point when it was raining, I felt that capturing what the weather was like would help us choose another day to film this scene. Although it will be difficult to organise filming for a day when it is raining like this as we cannot be sure what the weather will be like, I feel that rain as shown in the images below would be ideal for our video. We will have to check weather updates regularly to see when it is likely to be raining. 

Continuity Editing

This is a presentation from Tom Whittaker about how to edit successfully and use a variety of different types of shot and edit. It also taught me about the 180 degree rule and how editing can effect the quality of our final product.

Continuity Editing from Tom Whittaker

Adaptations to the shots we've planned

We have recently spent 2 days filming about 1/3 of the shots for our video, this was quite successful as the weather was sunny and allowed us to film many shots of the new couple. However whilst filming we realised that many of the shots of the new couple contain them doing the same sort of thing (hugging and talking) which would become very repetitive and boring within our video. Therefore we are going to film a lot of these shots again and ask the actors to do many different things so that we can choose the most suitable scenes for our final music video.

I have been inspired to include a wider range of shots by a film which I came across recently called 'Like Crazy'. Within this film a couple are attempting a long distance relationship and therefore they are very intimate when they are together. For this reason almost all of the shots of them are doing different activities together; despite this they have managed to keep it interesting by showing the couple not only cuddling but also having fun together. Therefore we plan on doing some more shots of the couple being active which we could include.


Another way they varied the shots within this film is by switching from a close up on the girls face as she looks at the boy, then the boys face as he looks at the girl, then back again. This is often known as shot reverse shot. This shows how they are feeling and moves away from having the couple standing and hugging in every shot. For this reason we are planning on including some of these shots in our video. One final way they made their video more interesting was by showing the couple in many different settings; this is one technique which we feel we have already planned to include in our video.
Watching this film has been very useful as it has helped us to improve our filming and making it interesting for viewers and showing more aspects of the couples relationship.