Using The Editing Software

Here are some screenshots of me using the editing software to create the final music video. Here I'm going to talk about how I used the effects on the music video, why I used the effects and most importantly what effects I used on the music video.

One of the main things that you'll be able to identify during the music video is the change of the color from the original filming. As you will notice in our final film, the color of the footage has been changed. This effect I have added for a reason because the theme of our song is a Gothic black and white theme. The effect that I used to make the black and white color was something called Extract. Extract changes the color of the original footage and I played around with the white/black color settings as well as the amount of sharpness that the Extract effect had. I thought that the effect looked well and suited our song and theme for our music video.

As  you can see in the first screenshot, I'm looking at video effects that I thought about adding to the music video. there was one effect that I was really interested in and that was the fast blurs. I thought it would be a good idea to add the fast blurs into the music video to emphasize the sexual emotion between the two characters in the music video. I used these effects during the shot of the guy sitting down in the chair while the girl was touching him and when the guy was laying down on his own singing towards the camera. I thought this would be the best parts to add the blur to the music video to show the sexual emotion. Not only did I do it to relate to the story-line of the music video, but I also added it because it went well with the beat and made the music video run more smooth and less boring with some of the repetitive scenes that were in the video.

In this second screenshot, you can see on the video timeline that I have added the effect "Dip to Black". I thought this was a very effective effect when changing shots and cuts during the music video. I did this because it went well with the beat and made the video and music in sync. I thought this would be important as it shows my knowledge of sync and not only does it show my knowledge, but it also give the music video a sexual atmosphere and emotion with the fast cuts with dip to blacks. As you can see with the dip to black effect, I have overlapped it on both of the shots so it fades to black on the previous shot and fades in on the next shot.

In this screenshot, this is the manager for the dip to black effect. To make the effect more precise, I made sure that I used the effect control to make it more in time with the beat of the song. I think it was a lot more easier to use this than the actual timeline to control the amount of time that the shot will fade in and out. By using the effects control, it allowed me to make the fades during the video run smoothly and not look odd, fade out too quick or fade in too quick.

In this last screenshot, you can see on the video timeline the cuts between the shots. This was done to make the flicker effect during the music video. I did it this way instead of using the effects that were given to me by the software so it could flicker on the beat of the song and make the video look more interesting  I thought this would be a good idea for the song as it has a lot of instrumental and beats through out the whole song.

The effects that I have shown I used throughout the majority of the music video so the effects didn't fade off making the music video look odd. I though it was important to keep the effects through out the music video as the song had a lot of beats to it meaning there was a lot of chances to make effects on these beats and the way the song flowed also allowed me to think of where to add the effects and what timing to add effects. I think effects are an important part of a music video as it makes it a lot more interesting for the audience to view but if they're thrown with too much effects, I think it can be a real put off to the music video so I was sure not to use too many effects but not too less.

Email To The Record Company

Today me and Lauren sent off an email to the record company on Moonbootica. With this email, it meant that we're allowed to use the song - Moonbootica ft.IAMX for our music video choice. We were really happy with the quick reply of the email that they sent back to us. Here are some screenshots of the emails that were sent back and forth from us and Moonbootica.

 Here is the screenshot of the email, you can see the reply from Phillip whom replied to my email saying that we're allowed to use the song as long as it's for educational purposes only. I'm really happy that Phillip replied to my email otherwise a lot of planning towards the music video may have gone to waste if we weren't allowed to use the song. (click on the image to enlarge it)

Now that I received confirmation that I was allowed to use the song in the music video that I was creating, this got a lot of thoughts off mine and Laurens mind as we were worried that they might not reply back to us so therefore we wouldn't be able to use the planning that we did for the music video.

Final Music Video

Here is the final music video that me and Lauren (the other person in my group) have created.



As you can see in the music video, me and my group have taken into account the inspirations such as the Marilyn Manson and Madonna videos. We've used a range of close-up shots to express the sexual emotion between both of the characters. This was done by the motion the girl was having on the guy while he was sitting down and when they were close to touching lips in the short cuts of the music video. I am happy with the music video that me and my group have created as we found it more unique compared to other music videos for A2 that have been created before. Even though that there's quite a lot of repetition, there wasn't much choice as the lyrics were also quite repetitive so me and my group tried to make it as interesting as possible. When editing the music video, me and my group used a program called Adobe Premiere which was a new editing software to us. I myself had to get familiar with the software in order to complete the music video. There were many effects that I added to the music video such as the extract colour over the original color of the film, motion blurs, dips to blacks, dissolves/corroding, disorientation and other effects such as the flickering which was made manually to the beat and different cuts. Some of the shots were also zoomed in to make the shot more interesting and to also cut out the parts that we didn't want on the music video.

Website Ideas

I have thought about what ideas to implement into the website that me and my group are going to create. Because we only have two in a group, we've decided to do the website together but have done the digital packs ourselves. On the website I thought about making a gallery to show the images of the music video and other pictures of the artist himself. I think this is a good idea because it allows the audience to become more familiar with the artist. Another thing that I've thought about for the website is to included some merchandise. This would include t-shirts and mugs where the fans of the artist can buy merchandise. I have looked at other websites before on my analysis and this has helped me get an idea about what to include on the website. Another thing that I thought about doing was adding the music video song to the main-page of the website which can allow the user to play or pause. I think by making the audience control whether they listen to the song or not, it makes it more user-friendly and some people might just get annoyed if they hear music on the main screen and cannot stop it.

Digi-Pack For Our Artist

Here is the Digital Pack for the artist which was performing in the music video. As you can see, I've included the front cover, inside the album and the back cover of the album. On the front cover to the album, I thought it would be a good idea to included a "parental advisory explicit content" label because of the sexual things that are going to be included in the music video. I've also added a bar code on the back of the album to make it look more realistic.

 Front Cover

 

 Here's the front cover of the album. I've included the main artists name on the front of the cover and a parentlal advisory label as there's some sexual motion in the song/music video that's included on the CD in the album. The album itself doesn't only include music but it also includes the music video for the main song Pretty Little Angel.

 

 Inside (CD Holder)

  

 Here's the inside CD holder page. Because there's not a lot on the CD holder page and only the CD is going to be in the album on that page, I haven't included much on it. I've kept it basic with the outline of where the CD is going to be held.

Back Cover

 

 Here's the back cover to the album for my digi-pack. I've included the song list on the back of the album as I have looked at other album art and found that the songs of the album are always on the back of the front cover. I've also included a bar-code on the back of the cover to make it more interesting and realistic.

Genre Research - 2

The genre of the music video that I am making for my project is based around Electronic/Dance music. Electro house is the subgenre of house music. The origins of electro house are obscure, with a varying influence attributed to the 1980s-electro music, synthpop, electroclash, techhouse and pop. Electro house was most common main stream during 2005 and the term electro house has been used to describe many famous DJ's around the world globally such as DJ Tiesto and David Guetta.

Here are some examples of videos that are electro house that I've enjoyed and been inspired by to make the music video that I'm working on.

Here is one of the first videos that I've enjoyed that is based around electro house. The song is Brian Cross - Soldier ft. Daniel Gidlund.

Brian Cross - Soldier ft. Daniel Gidlund

Dada Life - Feed The Dada

When listening to these songs, they didn't really sound similar to my chosen music video song but what I've learned is, even though the genre of the music video that i'm creating is electro house, everything can be different. It can be from energetic to calm with a nice beat.

Risk Assessment During Filming

There were some risks that I and my group had to be aware of when coming to filming, especially when using some of the props that were involved and the area that the music video was filmed. Here are some of the risks that my group and the actors had to be aware of when filming.

Risk Assessment 1:

One of the first risks that I immediately identified during the filming of the music video was the risk of choking on a pill. For the filming part of the music video, I wasn't going to swallow the pill, I just had to place it into my mouth and that was the shot over. But if I was to slip/fall, the pill might have got stuck in my throat causing me to choke on it.

Type of hazard: Choking on a paracetamol capsule/tablet
Probability: Low
Risk: Medium Risk


How to avoid risk:

• Carefully place the pill in your mouth with your head up straight to ensure the tablet doesn't slip/fall down your throat
• Make sure around you there's no objects that can make you slip/fall during the process of putting the tablet into your mouth.

Risk Assessment 2:

The second risk that I came across during the filming of our music video was the risk of Lauren falling when she was wearing 6 inch high heels. I thought that this would be a risk if Lauren was to trip and fall and injure herself. Lauren said that the heels were very hard to keep stable in so therefore they are a risk to falling.

Type of hazard: Tripping hazard (high heels)
Probability: Medium
Risk: High

How to avoid risk:

• Walk slowly in the high heels
• Practice with the high heels first in a safe area before performing the scene

Risk Assessment 3:

The third risk that I found during the filming was the exposed electric sockets in the room. Because the room is at my house and the room is under construction, half of the electrical sockets weren't screwed into the wall so there was exposed live wire in the room. If one of me or Lauren were to fall onto one of the live wires and touch them, we would've got a high electric shock that would have been dangerous. Even though most of the exposed electrical sockets were covered up, some of them were exposed.

Type of hazard: Live electrical exposed wire
Probability: Low
Risk: High

How to avoid risk:

• Keep away from the socket, try not to get too close in case you trip/fall onto the socket.
• If possible, cover the sockets before performing a scene from the music video/acting.