MOCK EXAM - First Draft

. This first draft was a very early edit where I had none of the narrative clips, and so instead I experimented with chroma keying in order to get the 'ghost' in the backdrop of the lip syncing. It worked slightly better than I thought, however, wasn't perfect as it was filmed on a white backdrop and not a green screen as I didn't initially intend to do this. It gave an interesting effect, however, and could work really well with the theme of the song. . .
This second video is my 'real' first draft, submitted as part of a mock exam. This edit features the planned narrative scenes.  . The first few clips of Victoria walking to the door (approx. 0-8 secs) were slowed by about 50% and purposely recorded out-of-focus and wobbly as I aimed to portray the main character's 'drunkenness' through the cinematography. The slow motion doesn't work quite as well as I had hoped due to the frame rate that the clips were recorded at, although it arguably adds to the effect. . The next clip begins the main character's lip syncing. These clips were evidently underexposed during recording, and Victoria is standing too close to the backdrop as it casts a shadow, which are both things I didn't realise until the editing process as I wanted to make the background entirely white however adjusting the light exposure would start to wash Victoria out. For this reason, I might want to consider re-filming these clips.

Set & Costume Design

Mise-en-scene: lighting, costume, location, make up, props, choreography.

Cast list: photos of cast and why they were selected.

Filming diary: talking to camera (video) updated regularly an on location.

Communication: e-mails, letters, texts messages, summary of phone calls to show organisation skills. 

Behind the scenes: evidence of preparation of production e.g. setting up tracking, tripods and directing cast. 

Mise-en-scene



Casting

In regards to the casting, I decided to have Victoria as the main character in my music video. The main reason being that she fit the ideas that I had for a narrative/main character - a female who could play a young adult. Not only this, but she was the artist that I used for my foundation portfolio, and so I thought it would look good to have the same artist and continue the same style/persona in my advanced portfolio.

One of the chosen locations was the green room/studio so that I could record shots of her lip-syncing the lyrics against a white wall. For these clips, I asked her to wear the same/a similar top to what she wore on the cover for my AS media music magazine because I wanted her outfit to be quite minimalistic and by continuing the same outfit and style from last year created consistency.

As it turned out in the final studio shots since the top she wore was a cropped black off-the-shoulder top, the way I framed the shots meant you couldn't see her clothing. Although this wasn't planned beforehand, I decided to purposefully frame the shots this way on the day of recording because I thought it looked better and drew more attention to her face.

Communication

When recording the studio shots for my first mock draft, Victoria and I decided we would share the studio space and film segments for each other's videos together which we thought would work out more time-efficient. Below is a screenshot of the texts which we exchanged the night before asking each other about clothes and makeup.

I asked her to do her hair however she liked because I wanted the look to be quite natural, asked her to wear the plain black top as mentioned beforehand and to do her makeup slightly smoky. The reason I asked her to do this was to hopefully draw more attention to her eyes, and I asked her to leave her lip colour undone so I had the option on the day of recording and could decide whether the shots looked better with a nude lip or bold lip colour.

Weather Forecasts 

Health & Safety Grid

Before filming any of the clips for my music video, it's important to carry out a health and safety risk assessment on the locations that I will be using to minimise the chance of injury. Attached below is an analysis of the two locations I'll be using: the green room/studio and my house.

Cinematography Development

For cinematography development, we were given a list of shots to demonstrate a good knowledge of the different basic shot types and editing techniques which we may use in our media product.

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The shots were as follows:

• Pan
• Dolly
• Tilt
• Handheld
• High angle
• Low angle
• Establishing shot
• Close-up
• Extreme close-up
• Pull focus
• Shot-reverse-shot
• Match on action
• Graphic match
• Eyeline match
• POV
• Cut away
• Montage

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I used variety of clips from different video shoots to demonstrate each of the cinematography techniques listed above, and presented them in a 3 minute long video, shown below.
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. A while ago I also made a video with my cousin when she came to visit, the purpose of it being to test out a profile on my camera that would make colour grading easier. This video (below) is another example of cinematography development, showing a number of the above listed techniques (pull focus, pan, tilt, handheld, POV, etc.) as well as testing colour correction on Final Cut Pro and the capabilities of my camera and how any recorded footage could potentially look. .

Storyboard & Animatic

Medium long shot, MC walking up to front door (two shots in time to music)
Medium shot, MC turning key (two shots in time to music)
Medium shot, MC walks through door (two shots in time to music)

[singing begins]
"I don't need no, no. No no" Medium close up, studio, slow zoom out
"No" close-up of MC looking down at floor
[instrumental] pan down to floor level with bottles strewn everywhere
"I don't need no ghost" Back to medium shot, studio, slow zoom out
[instrumental] Close-up looking up from bottles
[instrumental] Over-the-shoulder shot tilts upwards to see bottles scattered everywhere
[instrumental] Floor level shot again, MC kicks bottles out the way, walks through hallway
"Everybody has a past" studio shot
"But I'm hoping that my past..." Medium shot across table, FS sat at table with bottle in right side of frame, low opacity, MC walks through door in left
"...was not bad" Close-up 'swirling' bottle around
"I don't need to justify" 

Audience Research

Demographics

What are demographics? Explain
Social class - A, B, C1, C2, D & E
What social class are you aiming your music video at?
How will you adhere to their needs?
Genres of music that generally appeal or relate to that social demographic and explain why.
Show music videos and pick up on the key aspects of why it appeals to each demographic
What is the ideology behind the product and why can the audience relate to this?

A demographic presents the various characteristics of a population such as age, gender, education, subcultures, geographical location and lifestyle in statistical data. An example of this is a social demographic table that describes the different social classes, shown below.
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Numerous studies into musical taste and social class show a clear correlation between the two. Our social class continues to influence our likes and dislikes and the way which we listen to music. People of middle/upper middle classes might be expected to listen to genres such as classical and dislike genres such as hip-hop, for example. 

Institutions

What is an institution?
Explain different institutions/channels/radio stations that distribute your artist
Who is the target audience?


An institution in the media industry refers to a company in mass media (such as television, film, radio, etc.) that owns a large number of other companies and caters to a mass audience.

The artist which I am researching, Higher Self, largely produces house music. His remix of 'Save Me' by Listenbee was premiered on BBC Radio 1 with Danny Howard, arguably one of the largest radio stations. Very often, stations such as Capital Xtra, Kisstory and Hallam FM will distribute house music or similar, more broad genres and songs that come under 'dance'. Many 'famous' house music artists are heard frequently on these radio stations, such as Oliver Heldens. The target audience of these institutions are generally young adults and teenagers as they largely play chart music, dance and urban.

Audience Research Questionnaire

Below is an embedded version of this questionnaire, which I made to gather information about the general audience of who I should be targeting my music video at. It includes 10 questions, 4 of these are demographic-related questions and the remain 6 are in relation to music videos in general.

Create your own user feedback survey
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After leaving my questionnaire open for a number of days and gaining a response from eleven participants, I analysed the data and presented it in a Prezi presentation,attached below.
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