Introduction


Introduction:

My name is Ella Budgett and my candidate number is 8120. The other two candidates I am with in Group 1 are Eleanor Lynch (8450) and Pru Carter-Phillips (8128). Our group photo can be seen on the right. To see my portfolio evidence, please click on the three labels on the right named A2 Research and Planning, A2 Construction, and A2 Evaluation.

MiraJax Best Be Believing Music Video

MiraJax Best Be Believing Music Video:

MiraJax- Best Be Believing

Front and Back Digipak

Front and Back Digipak
Front and Back Digipak

Inside Digipak

Inside Digipak
Inside Digipak


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Tuesday 21 June 2016

Evaluation Q1: Did you enjoy the main workshop shoot day? What role(s) did you take? What were your best bits and why?

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop shoot day mainly due it being so energetic and everyone getting involved in order to create the best video remake that we could. Despite the day getting very tiring towards the end as we had all been dancing and singing for many hours on end, it still proved to be very fun and particularly rewarding when the director, Dom, finally called "And that's a wrap!!"

GIF of Street Taylor

The Taylor roles that I had to play were; Street Taylor, where I had to joke around and shake my hips pretending to be sassy; as well as Band Taylor, where I had to sing into a microphone with a band playing instruments behind me. I also had to be a back up dancer in the Cheerleading, Hip Hop and End Dance scenes. I enjoyed being Taylor as it meant I had to create an alter ego and work on my confidence in front of the camera, which is something I lacked before the shoot.

I particularly enjoyed playing the Street Taylor because it was funny having to create facial expressions that matched those of Taylor in the real music video and dancing badly on purpose to fit the theme that Taylor can't dance but takes the mick out of herself anyway!


Time lapse of workshop day to show how chaotic and busy it was. The lighting setup is also clearly shown.

Evaluation Q2: What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks 1, 2, 3 and 5?

Task 1: Complete an audition video


Twerking dance in Shake It Off video

From this task, I was able to gain a good understanding of what would be expected of us on the main shoot day in terms of dancing and energy. I  had to watch the Taylor Swift music video repeatedly in order to learn the lyrics and from this, I picked up an idea of the amount energy that is required from the performers. I'm not a very confident performer and felt uncomfortable about this lip sync task but I soon found that it was fun and built up my confidence performing and dancing in front of the camera, which would be needed in the main shoot.



Above is our audition video - Pru, Eleanor and Ella

Editing the video proved to be slightly challenging due to the amount of cuts that there needed to be and different shot angles, in order to make the video look interesting. As a group, we had to spend time cutting different clips and editing them together in a sequence that matched the lip sync perfectly to the actual Taylor Swift track. It gave me insight into how potentially challenging it would be to edit the main shoot in our A2 prelim final edit and taught me how to go about it, eg. editing back and forth between two clips of the same lyrics to create a nice flow.



Task 2: Learn and practice your performance

'Shake It Off' chorus lyrics
The first session taught me just how much effort and energy goes into making a music video as I found the dance moves and whole exercise routine physically exhausting. Despite not being a very good dancer, I enjoyed learning the moves to the last part of the video which is the final chorus to 'Shake It Off'. In Taylor Swift's video, there is a bunch of people free-styling and dancing however they like, yet for our video we have been given a routine as a guideline, which we can add our own moves to if we like. We also had to rehearse our lyrics over and over so that we were confident with signing them on the main shoot day and so that the words could seem articulate which would make it easier when it came to editing the lip sync clips.



Above is our dance coach, Tasha, doing the end dance routine to 'Shake It Off' that we all had to learn. It was difficult at first to get the moves but eventually we all knew the routine perfectly, it was just a matter of providing the right amount of energy. Our performance coach, Jaz, helped us to be energetic and focused by playing games with us that both worked on our liveliness and concentration, such as 'Woohah'.

Task 3: Help to plan and organise your costume

This task involved rummaging around our closets to find clothes that best matches the roles we had to play as well as begging, borrowing and stealing in order to find the perfect costume! It taught me how to analyse a specific role and what items/props are essential in order to bring a character to life. For example, when watching the street/twerking clips in the actual music video, I paid close attention to the heavy gold jewellery that Taylor was wearing and the sassy style of her clothes. These are things that I don't normally pick up on when watching a music video but be responsible for my own outfit meant that I learnt how to focus on small but important details, which will be vital when we come to male our own music videos in year 13.

Holding my street costume which consisted of a leopard print jacket, bralet and socks, along with small denim shorts and gold chain necklaces.

Task 5: Complete the remake edit


The editing of the remake video was quite challenging at times as it involved very frequent cuts between shots, as well as perfection on the lip sync clips. As a group, it taught us how to manage out time efficiently and how to work together as a team to make sure we completed the task as quickly and well as possible. We decided that we wouldn't work on separate bits of the video, but instead edit it in chronological order to allow us to oversee what each person was doing and made sure that we were all pleased with every edit that was made.


Evaluation Q3: Are you pleased with the footage and your finished edit? Is it how you expected it to look? What works really well and what would you change?

Finished edit of 'Shake It Off' remake video by Ella, Eleanor and Pru

When it came to editing the rushes that we had, we were all really keen to see the footage from the shoot day and to start editing them in sequence. We soon discovered that although the footage looked good, there were a few shots in the real 'Shake It Off' video that we didn't have and so we would have to work around this and put in other clips to replace them. The takes from the day prove our abilities to dance and act in front of the camera and we were all really pleased with similarities to the real video in terms of costume and style.




On the left is a shot form the real video and on the right is what we had to replace it with





Overall, I didn't expect the finished edit and the real video to look as similar as they do but as a group we used our editing skills to match the shots and lip sync as best as we could, in order to produce a good outcome. We had to pay specific attention to the movements of Taylor and match the actions that were the most obvious, for example in the finger tutting shot of Taylor, although her hands come up at different times, we focused on matching the nod. We managed to successfully edit all the lip syncs perfectly which was a key area of the remake, as we had previously learnt how to do this in the audition video.

Finger Tutting Taylor
The main area of our final edit that I would further improve, is the grading of it. The background we took all shots against in thew studio was white, yet in the real video the background colour is changing all the time. So if as a group we wanted to match the backgrounds more closely, then I would try to work on grading and build up my skills in this editing area so that the remake is as similar to the real video as it can be.



The left image is a still from our music video remake that hasn't been graded and right is the final graded edit. Despite the right image being closer in comparison to the real video, the background still isn't dark enough and the glossy feel isn't quite there. I would like to develop my skills in this area of editing so that for our coursework next term, all the grading is to perfection.

Evaluation Q4: How do you think your prelim experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?

Next term's coursework follows the brief that we should construct a band or a fake artist and create a 3 minute music video, an album cover/sleeve and a website.

This prelim task has therefore taught us one of the main aspects of next years coursework which how to bring an artist to life, as we all had to take on the role of Taylor (or in the boys case, the role of dancers) and we learned how to adopt a celebrity persona. Being in
the music video and playing such active roles has taught me how to lip sync well and raised my confidence hugely, so that when it comes to making our own music video, I will be able to perform in it without hesitation.



We also made maximum use of the Seaward Studio for our shoot day, using a white backdrop, lots of lighting and camera equipment, costume rails and the changing rooms. Discovering all the possibilities that come with the studio will allow for us to utilise these next term in order to create the right atmosphere for our music video.


Furthermore, the vast amount of preparation that went into this prelim task in terms of styling, dance, rehearsals, movement, influences, costumes and performance has made me realise just ho much time goes into music videos and how much work needs to be done for them, which has prepared me for next year. The performance aspect of the preparation is key to making everyone look comfortable and good on set, and so next term, myself and my group will have to help our actors/artists become performance ready, like Jaz did with us for the prelim video. This involves vocal warm-ups and playing active and energetic games.