Saturday, 24 January 2015
Monday, 19 January 2015
Thursday, 8 January 2015
Saturday, 3 January 2015
'Stay Awake' by The House Of The Old Boat: First Edit
Here is my first draft of the music video for Stay Awake by The House Of The Old Boat:
In terms of when my audiences watch this video, I want there to be an indirect effect on them and it to be their choice to watch this music video. As I'm basing it on an indie folk genre I expect this group of people to be the ones that make it their priority as an active audience, that use media to satisfy individual and group needs, to come and find this video rather than just force it upon them as passive audience. Like Bulmer & Katz theories of the 1970's suggests, I want them to use this video to not only entertain them, but use it as social solidarity and a form of reflecting on their identity through the use of micro elements such as costume and camera techniques that reflect who they are and their interests.
As I have created my video to have a strong narrative that shows the breakdown of a relationship in reverse, I would want my audience to have this as the preferred reading of the piece and be able to pick up the encoding I have included to show this intended idea (Stuart Hall, 1980). This way I would feel my music video has worked and been delivered successfully if my audience read it the way in which it was intended to from my perspective as the director. However how some people have described it so far, I am open to some elements of negotiated reading and that certain elements are read in different ways, as I think this still works with my genre being indie. My audience may read different parts differently as the way they read it may reflect upon who they are as a person and their social and cultural backgrounds. Indie music is all about relating yourself to the lyrics within songs so I want to push this further and make people relate with the video too. Therefore I have aim for the main reading of my music video to show the deterioration of a relationship shown in reverse and the different events and elements that lead up to it, shown in the timescale of a music video and ending at the same place it started.
I would say through creating this video I have challenged the conventions of a indie folk music video, breaking the grand narrative of the normal timescale of a video and the world in which it takes place in, creating a post modern product. A modernist view on music videos would say the video must be structured of events taking place in order of time. However like Lyotard's theories of the breakdown in grand narratives, my video is postmodern as even thought the scenes are played in current time, the events happen in a reverse timeline of their relationship, therefore starting with the breakup and ending with them meeting. This format challenges the conventions of order and therefore makes my video stand out against others. It is also postmodern through the whole thing being a hyper reality (Baudrillard), that the audience are engrossed in as this is the soul purpose of the video. Everything within it appears so real and like any other relationship, yet these people are just characters and just appear as a story audiences can relate too. Moreover this video mainly challenges conventions of videos through its lack of performance parts. As part of the genre is folk which mainly is known for performance elements, now I have removed them the whole video becomes more of a hyper genre, with audiences not seeing what they would expect to see but still have something that suits their preferences.
In terms of when my audiences watch this video, I want there to be an indirect effect on them and it to be their choice to watch this music video. As I'm basing it on an indie folk genre I expect this group of people to be the ones that make it their priority as an active audience, that use media to satisfy individual and group needs, to come and find this video rather than just force it upon them as passive audience. Like Bulmer & Katz theories of the 1970's suggests, I want them to use this video to not only entertain them, but use it as social solidarity and a form of reflecting on their identity through the use of micro elements such as costume and camera techniques that reflect who they are and their interests.
As I have created my video to have a strong narrative that shows the breakdown of a relationship in reverse, I would want my audience to have this as the preferred reading of the piece and be able to pick up the encoding I have included to show this intended idea (Stuart Hall, 1980). This way I would feel my music video has worked and been delivered successfully if my audience read it the way in which it was intended to from my perspective as the director. However how some people have described it so far, I am open to some elements of negotiated reading and that certain elements are read in different ways, as I think this still works with my genre being indie. My audience may read different parts differently as the way they read it may reflect upon who they are as a person and their social and cultural backgrounds. Indie music is all about relating yourself to the lyrics within songs so I want to push this further and make people relate with the video too. Therefore I have aim for the main reading of my music video to show the deterioration of a relationship shown in reverse and the different events and elements that lead up to it, shown in the timescale of a music video and ending at the same place it started.
I would say through creating this video I have challenged the conventions of a indie folk music video, breaking the grand narrative of the normal timescale of a video and the world in which it takes place in, creating a post modern product. A modernist view on music videos would say the video must be structured of events taking place in order of time. However like Lyotard's theories of the breakdown in grand narratives, my video is postmodern as even thought the scenes are played in current time, the events happen in a reverse timeline of their relationship, therefore starting with the breakup and ending with them meeting. This format challenges the conventions of order and therefore makes my video stand out against others. It is also postmodern through the whole thing being a hyper reality (Baudrillard), that the audience are engrossed in as this is the soul purpose of the video. Everything within it appears so real and like any other relationship, yet these people are just characters and just appear as a story audiences can relate too. Moreover this video mainly challenges conventions of videos through its lack of performance parts. As part of the genre is folk which mainly is known for performance elements, now I have removed them the whole video becomes more of a hyper genre, with audiences not seeing what they would expect to see but still have something that suits their preferences.
Editing My Video: Stage 4
After gaining feedback about my video and its appearance it came to adapting some of my shots and including more footage. Instead of the initial long shot of the couple sitting on the bench I thought I would replace these with establishing shots of the surrounding area.t his included close ups of bushes and pathways that would give a general idea of the setting for the first scene. When taking these however, the weather conditions were the exact opposite to the rainy day the main scene was taken in, therefore me making sure I shot frames that didn't include direct sunlight that would be a noticeable in comparison to the other shots. However this meant I could also explore more into post editing of my footage to make it appear the right weather conditions, furthering my development skills. I also took close ups of my clock that I would then speed up to create a time laps, not only showing the passing of time but the idea of the narrative going in reverse. I filmed two different clocks to give variation and to see which would fit better.
Now I had this footage it came to placing it in the video. There was one particular shot I wanted to use in the opening sequence that showed a tree swaying its branches in the wind, yet it had a clear blue background which I wanted to eliminate to make it appear cloudy and grey like the first day of filming.
To start I highlighted the sequence of footage I wanted to edit. Then selecting colour replace from the effects menu, I used the grab tool to highlight the colour I wanted to replace.
To change it to the grey miserable sky I wanted to achieve, I went on the colour picker and changed it to a grey that matched my previous footage.
Using the similarity tool, I could then determine how much the colour would be changed on the background, especially around the branches of the tree where some of the blue was still outlining the darker colours . Changing it to 43 gave a cleaner finish where no blue was then visibly outlining the branches, achieving the grey sky I wanted.
To create this time laps I simply filmed my clock for 20 minutes and sped it up 10,000 times the speed it originally was. I then reversed the whole thing that would therefore make the whole shot run smoothly and show a clear passing of time.
Now I had this footage it came to placing it in the video. There was one particular shot I wanted to use in the opening sequence that showed a tree swaying its branches in the wind, yet it had a clear blue background which I wanted to eliminate to make it appear cloudy and grey like the first day of filming.
To start I highlighted the sequence of footage I wanted to edit. Then selecting colour replace from the effects menu, I used the grab tool to highlight the colour I wanted to replace.
To change it to the grey miserable sky I wanted to achieve, I went on the colour picker and changed it to a grey that matched my previous footage.
Using the similarity tool, I could then determine how much the colour would be changed on the background, especially around the branches of the tree where some of the blue was still outlining the darker colours . Changing it to 43 gave a cleaner finish where no blue was then visibly outlining the branches, achieving the grey sky I wanted.
I finally wanted to remove the slight blue hue the colour replace tool gave the tree in the image, wanting it to look natural and an unedited shot. Using RGB curves let me change the colour balance individually and reduce the blues present to give the shot a natural appearance. Also this tool could make me lighten the shot so textures in the tree were more visible.
Doing this edit not only gave me a shot that would fit with the rest of the videos appearance, but develop my skills in editing that I could apply to future projects, knowing the functions that could create the image I wanted.
Further changing to this video was the removal of the performance shots. As my feedback suggested, it distracted the attention from the strong narrative and was unnecessary and out of place, therefore replacing it with alternative footage.
A final edit I did from feedback was including a time laps of a clock moving in reverse. By adding this in at different times in the video I thought it would particularly illiterate the idea of the relationship being shown in reverse time.
To create this time laps I simply filmed my clock for 20 minutes and sped it up 10,000 times the speed it originally was. I then reversed the whole thing that would therefore make the whole shot run smoothly and show a clear passing of time.
I also thought to include it over the top of the last three shots of the montage would be effective in showing the breakdown of the relationship. I achieved this through reducing the opacity of the layer of the clock and laying it over the other shots to create two images visible at once.
Adding the clock shots not only brought clarity in my narrative but added more technical elements and exploration into effects of post editing I could include within my video. now I had added and changed my video according to my feedback I could then upload it as my first draft to Youtube and then show it to my official focus group, who would give me more feedback as to my music video fitting with my chosen music genre and working as a professional product to promote the track.
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