Music Video - Final

Myxx - I'll Be Waiting (Coursework Music Video) from Imani Pratt on Vimeo.

So this is the end result of my final edit!....
I am relieved to have gotten it finished after all that work, but it was a fun process most times, testing out all the different video effects, transitions and ways of using the Adobe Premiere software.

Filming session 8

Today I filmed the scenes where Rosemary and her friend are supposed to be hanging out. I say 'friend' because unfortunately the other character was too ill to be filmed today. In general I had to make changes anyway as I eventually decided to change the location completely. Originally I wanted to have it in Enfield town where the little outdoor mall is. But knowing that the scene is only a few seconds short, and that travelling would have been more trouble than necessary for the two characters - which would waste more time, I thought, no, why not do it somewhere closer, with less people to interrupt the scene and have it close enough so that I could easily travel to the next filming location (my house).
I did several walking outtakes with the main character and her friend. The idea was to have them casually walking and talking so that when I edit it, it will look like they are just hanging out and chilling out normally as friends would. I wanted to experiment with different angles so I filmed behind them and then back in front so that they would be walking away from the camera from behind and then toward the camera as I moved it in front.
After the 2 cast members arrived at my house I filmed the scene where Rose is rudely interrupted whilst having a conversation with her friend, as her friend's phone rings and he boyfriend happens to be calling. I had a close up of the phone and a quick cut to the friend going off on the phone to illustrate the sense of loneliness the main character felt.
Secondly I had the two characters walking down the red stairs and a close up of Rose's hand turning the door knob, as well as her doing her make-up in front of the mirror. The last scene I did was towards the end of the day at about 6ish when I saw the sky outside, I couldn't resist filming another time lapse just as the sun was beginning to set. I wanted to keep the scenes short and snappy but I am worried that they will be too quick for the viewers to digest.

As previously planned, I did have many other scenes I would have liked to do such as the 'waving a sign' scene where Rose sees a sign that is completely different to what is actually there, or the ending scene where she meets her prince charming and we see a panning up from his legs....but, I decided that as much as I'd like to really narrate the music video as much as I could through the scenes, that being literal isn't always the best technique to use. In fact, I think that the viewers probably get the whole concept of 'waiting' in the song as soon as the first chorus is sung. Instead I'm thinking of doing as I planned in terms of crosscutting back to the beginning when she was in the classroom BUT not including the other playful, really short scenes because they are actually quite unnecessary now that I think about it.
If it's anything new I've learned today its that sometimes simplicity is better when illustrating a music video.

Re-filming Scene 6

I re-filmed Kemi's part today. The weather was nice and sunny. I had her in a completely different spot from last time to eradicate space restrictions. There is a small area with a brick wall just behind the grass at one of the back door entrances in to the school. I had Kemi walk up the path to the school, walk across the grass and then I filmed her against the brick wall in different positions. I had her in the shady part of the wall because the intense sunlight on her just wasn't working on the screen, not only could I not see her because the exposure levels were too high, it was also probably uncomfortable for her as well standing in the sun. As a result I decided to limit her standing in the sun too much. So the final result ended up with her standing in the dark for the majority but one of the last shots standing in the light. It wasn't intended BUT...I think it highlights a concept in itself, her going from light to dark could visually link to the lyrics and the fact that time is going by gradually as she is waiting for love. "need love like yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that," so in my opinion it does work conceptually if not visually. Overall I think this filming session was a lot smoother, I wasn't constantly zooming in and out as she was walking and I kept the shots simple. This allowed me to be more steady with the camera and focus more on the variation of shots to take.
But when I edit the whole thing I'm thinking of cropping the edges because some parts of the mise-en-scene seem a bit necessary, for example when she is walking there are garbage containers evident, not exactly the look I was going for.

Filming session 7

Filmed the cafe scene today with Sharlene and Mikael, main character Rose and an extra as her friend.

Getting permission was easier than I thought, I just asked the man if I could film, and once I told him how long I'd be he let me but he said I didn't have long.
The layout of the cafe was not really as I expected. As soon as I walked in I noticed the seats were not at the front, and I originally intended to have an over the shoulder shot of Rose standing and looking at the couple from inside of the place. So instead I decided to film inside, with the 4 characters sitting parallel to each other and having their own discussions going on before they both interlinked with each other as Rose turns to see them.
I decided to have a shot panning of the inside of the store before it got to the characters sitting down in the frame.
The lighting was a downfall, it could have been a lot lighter and it was quite dark in there. But I did manage to get the short scene done even if I had to change the whole structure of camera shots to work around the layout of it.
Yes...I will admit there was an element of poor preparation in terms of working with the structure of the setting, for example, I could have gone after school to have a quick browse around the store so that I could see what kind of shots would have been suitable for the layout of the place. This wouldn't have changed the situation but it would have allowed me to be more prepared instead of having to think on the spot all time.
What I've realized is that although organization is KEY, it is not my forte!

Feedback from second cut

Things to improve on:

• Try not to use too much tilts/zooms
• Improve on the framing in scenes
• Kemi's scene I recently filmed has a lot of random zooming in and out as she is walking and not sure if it works
• Better stability in shots

But, overall, much better footage.

I am going to re-film Kemi's part even though I have a lot of scenes to film over the week because I want to get it perfect, I just won't stand for 'ok'.
I will probably change the location again, just because the location I chose was very awkward and this may have impacted on the footage and the accuracy of the lip syncing.
In actual fact, I am not sure how Kemi's part can be linked to the stop-motion clocks on the table in the next sequence. I'm not sure it flows...but for now, I haven't had any particular negative comments about it, so I'll leave it until I've sorted out the major scenes.

Filming session 6

Filmed Kemi's bit after school today. I used the area not too far away from the school as I wanted there to be a brick wall in the background. I didn't get ALL of the initial shots I wanted to use in the storyboard, by this I mean, proper close-ups on the artist's facial features or of the watch on her wrist... (although that was probably because I did not have a watch at the time!)
But I did have her walking in different directions as planned. And when I edited it I had the three scenes of her walking which merged together as I faded them. I tried stop-motion with Kemi but the third angle of her went wrong because the framing had somehow moved, and stop-motion involves the background in a scene to be at a constant angle all throughout, so that it remains effective, so I might have to re-film that part!
As usual there were quite a few disruptions during filming as we were right in the middle of a pavement in Palmers Green, deary me, I'm actually starting to doubt my choice of location! It was originally meant to be Canon Hill, but today is a school day, it's easier to get access to areas closer to the school for my actress so I decided to compromise.

Filming session 5

Originally intended on re-filming the bridge scene s mentioned in the previous post, BUT I realized it just wasn't working for me. The area was too narrow, I was getting far too many interruptions which pressured me to rush things and the lighting there was very dark even through the sun was out at the time.
Finally I came up with the idea of having the main character walk down the path of the field. It was an open area and allowed more space in terms of framing and the camera movements were not limited due to the size of the area. Personally I feel it's a big improvement from when I was filming on the bridge last. The steadiness of the camera has also improved vastly which was one of my main concerns. I filmed her from two different angles. The first was a (horizontal) long shot which transitioned into a mid shot of the character walking towards the gate and the second was a zoom shot where I zoomed out of the character's face as she began to walking through it.
I've decided to use the best bits of the bridge parts I had filmed to put in to the rough edit and sped it up. I'm not sure if it works. But I'll have to wait and see!

Filming session 4

Today, I managed to do the scene of Rose in the 'separate room' I mentioned earlier on in the planning stage. I decided to use my mom's bedroom because the Mise-en-scene includes the color red which can be used to connote the theme of love in the song.
I used a lot of variations in terms of the positioning of the character cause I just wanted to identify what position looked best in the frame. I had her lay down, sit up, rest against the pillows, stand by the window and look in the mirror. The lighting could be better as she is standing by the window but I can always make it brighter hopefully when I edit it all together.
I'm a bit worried about the lip syncing right now, I explained this to my character as at some points before I noticed her mouth movements were over-emphasized, making the lyrics appear to be coming out of her mouth much slower than necessary.
I did get a lot done in this session though. Right now I'm trying to focus on getting the short scenes of the narrative finished, I think I might even re-film the bridge scene if possible, because even though the rough cut I did didn't contain the better sequences that I had, even those ones could be improved more. I'll keep the scene short and snappy because I don't want the audience to get bored. I might even have a tracking shot at the beginning to include more of a variety of shots at the beginning to draw the audience in more and allow them to connect more with the singer.
I used a coin to tighten the tripod and reduce shakiness. To be honest, I wish I did that before, it would save me having to re-film the bridge scene! lol but oh well, re-filming is inevitable and vital for improvement.

Feedback from first cut

• The shots are too shaky
• There is not enough range of shot distances
• The lip syncing is out of sync with the music
• The intro is too long.

Overall, the first rough edit showed poor footage.
(the black gaps in the cut below indicate bits where inserted footage should be)
Most of the feedback I am not surprised with. I am aware that the rough cut of editing I showed my teacher did not include the best sequences, this is because even though I refilmed the bridge parts when the weather was brighter and when the ability of zoom shots were much better in the end I felt some of the old footage may have fitted in better. I even decided not to use the zoom shot I filmed and this jeopardized my range of shots. I do still feel I have considerably better control over the stability of the frame because even whilst tightening the parts tripod, it is easy for the camera to move and I have been having problems with this lately but this particular problem is easy to improve on...
I have noticed myself that in general the artist is not connecting with the
audience enough.
The style my music video is in is a narrative style, but now I'm a bit worried that instead of taking a literal interpretation of the lyrics, it should have been a bit more abstract maybe? I'm not sure...but I have much more to film, and I know I will include
various filming techniques in between the rest of the scenes so I probably shouldn't worry too much about getting a boring visual display, cause as my teacher said, objects and mise-en-scene are just as important when it comes to conveying the concept of the song.

You can already see it's pretty bleak and unclear in these snapshots, and that I've gotten a bit carried away with the zoom function! - whoops.

Filming session 3 continued...

Today I filmed the second part to the beginning of the music video where main character Rose is walking on the bridge and turns round to see a couple hugging each other.

I had a friend that offered to get a guy she knew to play the part for the boy in the couple but his schedule seemed totally out of sync with when I needed him so I finally decided that today I should just improvise and use someone I knew and had regular contact with (i.e. from the school) to play the part of the boy for me. So, I grabbed one of my brother's hoodies and his hats and popped it int he bag with the tripod and camera before I set off for school.

Success. I selected a boy and a girl and at approx 1:15pm I started filming the 5 second scene.
It was fairly easy, I decided not to do any zoom shots because I had to continue on from the scene where Rose turns around to see them and I felt at the time it would be more effective to have a long-shot of them hugging because it suits the character's perspective from where she was standing and also highlights her feelings of possible loneliness.