For Unit 3 we were asked to create a music video in groups. I think as a team we worked well, we shared the tasks between us and helped each other in the different areas. As a team we managed time well and met our deadlines. I don't think I worked as well individually in this unit. I struggled to meet the deadlines of my individual work and didn't always manage my time as well as I could have. If I had spent more of my own time working on the individual pieces of work then I could have met all of the deadlines and finished my work to a higher standard. As a group we mainly communicated well, I think there may have been a little less communication during the editing of the music video when Paige was doing most of the editing.
Our final product was finished to quite a high standard and as close to a professional product as we could do on our budget and equipment. We went through all of the professional processes and planned it all so we knew exactly what to do. This made it a lot easier when it came to filming the music video. We also took into consideration the clients needs and their audience. This was the main thing we based the music video on, the artists previous style and genre and their audience age and style.
Our original proposal is quite different from the final one we came up with. We first decided to make the music video with a narrative running through, and most of the lyrics would be acted out to Katy Perry's 'Last Friday Night'. But after watching current music video's we felt this may not be the sophisticated but upbeat music video that we wanted to create. So we felt it was worthwhile to rethink our idea completely and find a new song and write a new treatment for it. So we then decided to use Kesha's 'Blow' which was a more upbeat song with a slightly more clubby feel to it rather than the more poppy feel that Katy Perry's song had to it. We then looked at some of Kesha's other music video's, as well as looking at music video's from artist's of a similar genre and audience, for inspiration. We found that a lot of these music video's didn't have much of a narrative and were more short clips of club type scenes and the artist singing. So we decided to base our music video on these different aspects of the similar genre music video's. Once we had filmed all of our footage and had uploaded it onto Final Cut, we realized we needed a few more shots to break it up a little more as we only had three main different types of shots, one of my dancing in front of the green screen, one of Alex Dj-ing and one of Paige miming also in front of the green screen. So we went out and got some really simple but effective shots, one we put the camera on a track and just had a shot of my feet walking along an urban backdrop in time with the music. We got as many different angles as we could and experimented as much as possible so we had lots of footage to work with. Also we got footage of just Paige's hand against a brick wall clicking her fingers in time with the music. These shots helped a lot and looked really professional once they had been edited and fitted into the music video, they added a lot to the video. We felt although changing our ideas a lot did use up more time, it was definitely worth it as our final product looked professional and fitted the clients needs.
Although we got inspiration from other artists videos and Kesha's previous videos our final outcome looked original and unique. We did things like, for the green screen background we filmed different patterns and then put a kaleidoscope effect onto it and put it onto the green screen. This was really effective and looked really original. We used a lot of different effects and editing skills to make our music video look as good as it did when it was complete. All of the filming and editing techniques we used were all appropriate and fitted the artist genre and what the audience would want to see.
When it came to the legal and ethical requirements we made sure not to use any work of other artist's or directors or any copyright material. This is why we created our own green screen background effects, which I am glad that we did, as it came out looking unique, also I learned new skills by doing this.
Overall our music video is very strong and looked professional once completed. I think this was due to the range of shots that we used and also the way we cut the footage together. Also the editing of the music video was crucial to the high standard outcome that we achieved. All of the different editing techniques we used made the video look sophisticated and professional. We made the video to fit Kesha's quirky and misbehaving attitude, but also put our own interpretation on this which came across well.
After realizing that Katy Perry's 'Last Friday Night' wasn't what we wanted, we looked for a remix of that song, and came up with a new treatment, which was a huge party scene, but after some thought, the party scene would have been too difficult to film and we had some issues with finding a location to film the party in. So when we came to our final conclusion of Kesha's song 'Blow' it felt like we finally had what we wanted and it was the right decision to make.
