Evaluation of camera work, editing and video

Our music video consisted of working in an area that was not most suitable for steady and precise camera shots so we had to work with that and incorporate it into our video. This was easy due to the theme we had chosen at the start. e.g fear and confusion. we could capture this idea by shaking the camera alot more than it naturally would when walking or just holding it. for example in a shot we used in the video the main character holds the camera in position for an extreme close up and looks around whilst moving the camera which gives the impression of him being followed or watched. at points in the video when we wanted to film a tracking shot, we did bring along a tripod but we found it easier to hold the camera and film as it allowed us to follow faster and capture the correct amount of the characters body in the frame. Even though we worked with the movement of the camera the best we could, we avoided using the zoom controls as it enhances the shake even more. When we needed to lay the camera low, and keep it to the ground it was impossible to hold and control so i used natural support such as someones bag, so the camera was kept safe off the ground and steady. Despite only using the tripod once or twice, we were told how to set up and attach the camera to it. Although when outside it seemed to be a more difficult task, setting up the stand of the tripod was easy, pulling out the legs until they were full and of the same height. But then attaching the camera onto the stand was more complex as getting it into the grasp until it clicked firmly was hard as if it wasn't attached, it would not be firm and would move as much as if you were to hold it by hand. Another downfall to not setting up the tripod correctly, was that it stopped you from using the handle to move it around slowly and smoothly, this it what prevented us from using the tripod as much as we may have wanted to. So if i was to do this project again, or alot of camera work i would focus on understanding how to set up the tripod correctly.
Camera Settings

When filming we had to change the camera settings depending on how light or dark the area was. this was changed by the white balance, as this changes the consistency and tone in the footage. If we wanted to adjust the effect of the exposure to either darken or lighten footage, or impact the sharpness behind the footage we could change the shutter speed and this also allows a narrow or wide depth of field, depending on how you use it. another tool on the camera that can be used to control the amount of light coming in to the camera and also used for adjusting exposure so its darker or lighter, is called the aperture.
if we did not want to change the cameras setting to how it automatically turns on from not being used, it will be auto focus settings, this is manual focus. this setting can be problematic when filming because the camera does not know what you are aiming for and will shift focus to whatever comes into frame. manual focus allows you to set the focus precisely before filming the shot, and when mastered it allows you to shoot more complex shots such as pull focus or to achieve a narrow depth of field.

When our group were filming we had to make sure we setup the camera well, we did this so our shots could appear darker as when we filmed it was not dark outside. we tried to film in the evening so there was less light, as light on the camera interfered with certain objects. i.e sunlight shining through trees gave the idea of it being happy and bright. This was not the look we wanted, also if sunlight was to shine onto the characters face it would interfere with the lense, and maybe cut off certain points in the shot.

Communication on set
Before shooting our video outside in the woods, we had to sort out a way we could keep our shots in order so that when it came to putting them together it was easy to understand how they had to be edited. e.g shot 1, shot 2 and shot 3. take 1, take 2 and take 3. this helped because at the beginning of playing the tape you could see what take worked and was the final shot. although at times it was not ideal to be using these paper clappers as the weather was not always the best and if there was rain then they would get wet. and we would want to move around as quickly as possible meaning we were more likely to get the shot right first time. another thing we used before filming was a shooting script. this is very similar to a storyboard but it does not involve images, more just writing out plans for the picture, audio, time and the number shot. i.e shot 4 will be of establishing shots, will last 13 seconds and run through the first 2 lines of the first verse. this is good to have as its more organised than a storyboard, as a storyboard involves drawing a lot of images that most of the time are irrelevant to how you want it to look and how it does look at the end.

(My storyboard can be found in a separate blog) Before filming we did make a storyboard this was helpful when it came to filming as we needed to fill up 4 minutes of footage and at points we may run out of ideas, as we chose to film purely in the woods. we were originally thinking of using the college's studio, to project images onto the wall so that it has a change of set. but the we realised it seemed irrelevant to our storyline so we did not do it. in terms of following the storyboard i think we did this. before we changed our ideas completely we did have a storyboard that we would not have followed. but in making this new one we followed it pretty much shot by shot. although there were shots we could not do such as, a shot through another persons legs. this could not happen as there was only 2 people out filming and one had to be in it and the other had to film and as we were in a woods it was not practical to put the camera on the floor, so we had to miss out that shot. but the storyboard helped when we got a mind block, as we already had loads of ideas written down. for example at the beginning of each verse, it starts with a word being repeated 4 times, so this was a part of the video where we saw potential for repetition in the shot. we chose to do Matt from each head angle in a close up. before we filmed this we could not think of what to do, but then looking back at the storyboard we realised we already had ideas, so we were able to film quickly knowing it would fit with the music and work. we over estimated the amount of shots we would need so we had extra footage we did not use, which was okay as it left us choosing shots which look best rather than just using stuff that didn't look good. We managed to film our video over three shoots, one was just to get a feel of the area we had chosen. at this point we also took our establishing shots as it was flooded so it looked interesting and unique. then the second time we went out was a week after and this time was used to film half of it. then the following week we were able to film the rest of our video. we found it hard to pick times when all of our group wanted to film, so each time we found it was just 2 or 3 members of our group. which was not ideal as it gave us less chance to produce more complex shots, and also left us with less ideas from more group members. my job as filming and Matt's job was being in the shots, as he was the man in mask. when the camera was recording we tried not to talk but this was hard if we wanted to cut the shot early, or something went wrong or just generally when i was filming if i was to trip or something. before we recorded the shot, i would speak to Matt and make sure he knew what he was doing, or if it was his idea then he would talk me through it and this way i would know when to stop recording or to zoom in etc. although most of the time it was self explanatory, if Matt was far away or walked out of the shot, i would follow him. i had to figure out for myself what was the best way to film it as Matt could not see for himself.

As we wanted our video to look scary, there was not alot of music videos that we could get ideas from, it was more from films. above you can see i have matched clips from our video to clips from other films. the films i was able to use for examples were: The Blair with project, Halloween 1 and kidulthood. the first image you see of Matt standing at the top of the hill, is from Halloween i used this as its a long shot taken from a low angle, this shows him having power and being higher than the person watching and looking up at him. which is good as the man in the mask is following and scaring the person not in the mask. (matt) we wanted this so he seems superior. another shot is the one from kidulthood and from Blair witch project, in both of these films the shots are extreme close ups we did this filming ours too and we got Matt to hold the camera himself so that it shakes and moves. we wanted this to happen so that he seems scared and portrays the idea of being alone. in kidulthood it is filmed at night and uses light to emphasise the shot, e.g cars going past creates the idea that alot is going on and the audience may appear confused. this shot is a good way to show emotion to the audience as they have to think about what is happening and why the camera has cut to this point of view. the final shot above is of the woods, we used this in our establishing shots also in long shots taken from a point of view when walking around. we got this idea from the blair which project as this itself is a scary film, as they are trying to run away from something in the woods. so we wanted this idea to set the scene. we sped this up so we could fit in more footage to show that Matt is completely alone.

Final cut pro

When we had finished filming we had to put all of our footage onto the apple mac computer. we did this by using the leads to plug the camera into the laptop. then we used the log and capture tool to upload it. this capture all our footage and places it into final cut pro. at this point you can play your footage in the programme. you pick out the bits you want by pressing 'ctrl i' to start capturing and then 'ctrl o' to stop capturing and dragging that over into the 'overwrite' box uploads it onto the timeline. you do this will all the parts you want and drag them into the time slot you want them play. below is a print screen of what film cut pro looks like on screen.

As we uploaded the parts we wanted into film cut pro we found it easier to edit them as we went, because if we wanted to speed them up it would change how much time it took up. i.e a shot is 13 seconds with 100 as a speed setting. (this is the manual normal speed of which you would film at) then if you were to change that to 300 it would dramatically speed it up making it appear 1/3 of the time. so would make the shot around 4seconds. if i was to decrease the speed from 100 to 60. it would increase 13 seconds up to 25 seconds.

So we used the speed tool as we went along. we also used the 'cut' tool to decrease the length or cut off parts of the footage we did not need after we had put it into the timeline. When we opened up final cut pro we had to add in the audio. this was the song 'ares' so we did that by: file>import and clicking on the song. when filming if we happened to speak in the footage we were using we could still upload the footage and delete the audio, as that appears on a separate timeline. problems we found were that when speeding up selected parts, we had to move them up the timeline to a place where there was no footage, in order for it to allow us to change it and then place it back where it was supposed to be. this was inconvenient as sometimes we lost where to put it. towards the end of editing we thought about using other tools such as putting the footage back wards so it seems like Matt is walking backwards, but we were unable to find the tool that allowed this. we tried mirroring the image, as there was a distort tool under effects. we also tried 'fish eye' this made the image appear bolder and closer in the centre. this was not a good tool for us as the image did not have a centre to it. this tool would be good for an image that held a strong rule of three, as it would have a distinctive middle point/line. at 2.34 of our video there is a slight editing fault in the way we have joined the shots together this was a fault in cutting the first capture too short; which should have been changed. but as the next shot is a still image of Matt's feet, it is less noticeable than i could have been. also in film cut pro you were able to copy and paste footage from the timeline, this was good as we could use some bits again so they look exactly the same. for example. at 2.07 of the video we use the same shot four times in a row to fit with the music and create an effect of repetition. this is of Matt looking around and turning away. i like the way this looks; it seems like a record that is stuck but visual. also in film cut pro we were able to make certain shots darker or lighter, we chose not to do this as we liked the lighting as it was. this was so that we could clearly see Matt because if we changed the lighting to look too dark it may lessen the impact of the colour on the mask. the colour on the mask is good because its unrealistic. at the end of our audio for the song it appeared to carry on into another song, so we used to cutting tool to cut the audio where the song ended so that our last shot which we timed with the end beat had full impact.

Throughout our music video we did use examples of films scary scenes, but we did not use any ideas from many music videos, which i think was a bad idea for us as it meant we came to a mental block at some points. but in a way as we chose to do a video with a story line, the films were helpful. if we went for more of an abstract theme i think music videos would have helped us more. as our song is quite aggressive and has alot of depth so appears fairly abstract in the lyrics itself we could have used modern day music of different genres such as: drum and bass, dub step and dance. as they have more edgy videos, so their camera angles and techniques would have been interesting to look at. they would have also been fun to recreate. although in our video we tried to include as many camera techniques as possible, such as: rule of three, establishing shots, mid shots, close ups, long shots, point of view shots, low angle shots, high angle shots, and we tried to incorporate canted and titled angles. our music video has a strong story to it, alot like other videos of Bloc Partys this is good as it follows their ideas and would fit in. e.g videos such as Flux and Talons. they work with very dark sets and rely on lighting to make it interesting. so maybe if we did it again with another bloc party song it would be better to have more footage that made it even more confusing and harder to keep up with. this is another thing i learnt from the audiences feedback, that there was not enough happening in the video, that it was all too much the same. looking back on the video i can see this. i feel we were limited with the location we chose and the lack of help from our group. so with what we produced i feel was above expected. the link between our video, my digi pack and advert i think is very clear and relevant. i have kept the mask in all of them, also they were all made in the same location. if someone was to see my advert and then see the video they would recognise the themes and images and instantly put them together. the only thing i may have made a mistake in doing is putting some of the images in grey scale.