Ria Timkin- Final Major Project Journal
10th April 2017
Today I spent writing up a research essay into the different types of music videos and their codes and conventions. I learnt the different types of music videos- conceptual, narrative and performance- and looked into what all music videos of these styles use in their codes and convention. By analysing these, our music video is roughly planned to be a performance based video with many close ups of the artist and a relationship between the visuals and the lyrics. This means that the videos analysed could all fit to the style of the song we are creating the music video for other than the narrative videos. With all of the knowledge gathered from doing Shoot the Moon's music video and the research we have gathered from that music video, we know how to film a music video and know we are a lot more prepared to take on a music video of this difficulty.
11th April 2017
Today we looked at the lyrics to be able to compel the footage to the lyrics. By doing this, we also managed to create a very rough storyboard of our idea to put alongside it and to help us envision the look we wanted to go for. We learnt that the video would take a lot of doing the same shot over and over to cut between the different styles of costumes. This meant that it will be easier to make the video by recording through the whole song over and over to cover enough ground with the footage. Running through the lyrics we managed to link the fairy lights with the line "Life is not like a fairy tale, they say." This means that there will be correlation between the lyrics and the visuals to keep the audience as entertained as possible and allowing them to link the visuals with the lyrics. Doing this also makes the song much more memorable.
13th April 2017
Today we wrote up the proposal and treatment of our music video, allowing us to present our idea properly and to help us understand our idea better by writing it down. We also managed to figure out that our target audience is teenagers to young adults but could be on much of a wider spread than that.
We also wrote up the risk assessment today, us looking at the studio and figuring out any dangers that could come from the location. This helped us cover lots of ground on the health and safety of our location and what we should inform Ria on to be wary of or for what equipment she would bring along with her and what we could provide.
14th April 2017
Today I wrote up the camera shot list to help us have a better understanding of what exact shots we would like to get and which movements could be added to them. This gave us better detail of each shot and how we could perform the shot to make it the most cinematic shot possible. We have to try and make this music video much more professional as it is for a client and will become an official music video for their song.
17th April 2017 and 18th April 2017
Today Anna and I produced a mood board to help us gather ideas for how to use the projector and what colour schemes to follow. We sat down and wrote about each idea, choosing images and writing down what we liked about them and if we are going to use something similar to it.
We also spent our time to complete a location recce before we film on the 21st April. This was also to go alongside with the risk assessment, helping us develop in the problems with the location and how to resolve them. This will help us set up the studio easier and to perform smoother on the day of filming the music video.
20th April 2017
Today we set up the studio, ready for filming tomorrow. We created a little station for Ria's make up artist and created a changing room for Ria to change outfits in. We also set up all of the coloured screens we would like to use and changing the lights. We had to move some of the lights on the racks to angle them better for the camera lighting and to cover as much light as we could get. We also tried to reduce the amount of shadow casting onto the background.
We have four different looks and three different sets. For the first two looks we have the same projections playing but with different makeup. For the next look, we use a glitch effect to project onto the background as it fitted well with her outfit and also presented energy well. For the final look, we have fairy lights hanging off the back wall, representing energy for the video and to bring in a different look to the music video. We also use a black background for when Ria had the lights around her arms and in her hands. This is so the audience will focus onto Ria and the lights and not the background. The idea came from Ria for this music video, many inspirational videos being linked to me to make sure we had the same visionary for the final video. We did this as it made the transitions feel much more natural and that the changes in costumes worked well enough and that some were so subtle that the background is the only thing to make you notice, such as the black dress and the gems on Ria's face.
21st April 2017
The filming process went amazingly, the whole day being productive from start to finish. Ria, her makeup artist and her photographer all working well and worked well with us. They brought some of their ideas to the table, us working together to choose the best possible shots to put into the video to represent energy in the video. The team worked well together, all of us bring ideas to the table and trying many ideas to see what worked well and what didn't work so well throughout the day. My friend, Anna McGuinness, helped me with the shoot by doing close ups. She also helped by being the Director of Photography whilst I was directing Ria on what actions and movements to do. Anna also helped me change the sets when the makeup artist changed Ria's makeup and outfit.
24th April 2017, 27th April 2017 and 28th April 2017
The editing process was a long 13 hour process but was fun and easy enough to do. The most complicated part of the editing was lining up all the footage and making sure all of the audio was synced otherwise all the clips would of looked out of place. I then went through and removed any clips where she was speaking or not knowing what action to do, making sure the video blended well. After this, I then went through each video clip and chose the best parts, putting them together to create the final video. Finally, I added close ups and other shots into the video to break it up a bit more and to give variety in the video itself.
I did also do colour correction, making some of the lights stand out much better. The shots I colour corrected the most was the fairy light scenes, making the background darker to make Ria and the fairy lights stand out better and to get rid of the grain in the video. It made the backgrounds become darker and make the projectors and fairy lights stand out from the background. I had to be careful with how dark I made the backgrounds as Ria still had to be the main attraction to the eye. Most of the colour correction was to get rid of any noise in the footage that could be seen in the black backgrounds. This made the image look much more complete and work much better visually for the cinematic effects that we wanted to create. It also made many more of the colours stand out from the background and make it more visually pleasing for the audience.
2nd May 2017
Today myself and Anna wrote up our peer assessments on each other, speaking about how well we both performed throughout. My friend, Anna McGuinness, helped me with the shoot by doing close ups. She also helped by being the Director of Photography whilst I was directing Ria on what actions and movements to do. Anna also helped me change the sets when the makeup artist changed Ria's makeup and outfit.
4th May 2017
Today I sent the video to Ria and I got a huge email saying thanks and discussing some of the shots that I put into the video. It was positive feedback and she loved the video, myself then taking the time to re-run the footage and try to fix any issues that Ria had noticed and to re assess my own work before the release date. The video is being released and will be released in blogs and magazines. She's going to be using it as her official music video for this song and will be releasing it as a single, her having her first ever official music video and the first to be more than just a studio or stage performance like her other videos. Ria was very thankful for our work and praised us on a Facebook live stream.
Ria is an easy client to work with, implying her own ideas and trying to help out as much as she could to help with the process. She gave a lot of leverage in the ideas, myself and Anna turning some down and her accepting the reasons easily and coming up with another. She had the same idea of the projections as myself before I even messaged her about the ideas, both of us being on the same page since day 1. This made the process much easier as we both had the same vision and this allowed us to work very closely. When Ria came down to work with us, she worked well and performed well. She also followed my directions correctly and gave her own ideas for what she could do. We gave her some free will on the actions and sometimes she would ask for directions or our opinions on what she would like to add into the video. She even brought the idea of the "ball of light" with her that we implemented into the video and worked very well.
5th May 2017
Today I created a behind the scenes video, explaining what decisions we made and why we chose them. We also explained the idea behind our music video and talked in detail about what myself and Anna did throughout the process of filming. This was an easy way to document what we did and how we both contributed to the music video. We had four different looks and three different sets. For the first two looks we had the same projections playing but with different makeup. For the next look, we used a glitch effect to project onto the background as it fitted well with her outfit and also presented energy well. For the final look, we had fairy lights hanging off the back wall, representing energy for the video and to bring in a different look to the music video. We also used a black background for when Ria had the lights around her arms and in her hands. This was so the audience will focus onto Ria and the lights and not the background. The idea came from Ria for this music video, many inspirational videos being linked to me to make sure we had the same visionary for the final video.
8th May 2017
Today I contacted Ria about the music video, talking about the music videos release and what time it would be released for us to also promote it as much as possible. We talked about the music video and what we liked and disliked in the video and how well the filming process went. Ria was very happy with the result of this music video as it was her first actual music video that was completely different to her other music videos. She also said that this was exactly what she envisioned for her music video and how she wanted it to look.
10th May 2017
Today the music video was released as a final and official music video for Ria's song. We are both exponentially pleased with the result of this music video. It needed a lot of time put into it to get the product we wanted and we managed to come out with the video we wished for; maybe even a bit better. This video was fun to do and turned out to look amazing in its aesthetics and transitions. Overall, this video went well and was easy enough to do. It needed a lot of time put into it to get the product we wanted and we managed to come out with the video we wished for; maybe even a bit better. This video was fun to do and turned out to look amazing in its aesthetics and transitions, just as we wanted it to. This is probably my most cinematic piece of work that I have done so far and took the most time to edit and to pace in the order of the editing of the clips. Although it was also the most time consuming video for the post production side, it is probably one of the best pieces of work that I have done overall. I have learnt how to use a projector correctly from this project and how much it can take to put a cinematic video together.
References
"Simon Frith’s Theory". A2 Media Studies. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Area 11 - Heaven-Piercing Giga Drill". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Area 11 – The Contract (Official Music Video)". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Area 11 - Versus (Official Music Video)". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Bruno Mars - 24K Magic [Official Video]". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Enrique Iglesias - DUELE EL CORAZON Ft. Wisin". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"David Guetta - Lovers On The Sun (Official Video) Ft Sam Martin". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Fall Out Boy - Centuries (Official Video)". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Little Mix - Shout Out To My Ex (Official Video)". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Michael Jackson - Scream". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"MIKA - Lollipop". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Red Hot Chili Peppers - Can't Stop (Offical Music Video)". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Shawn Mendes - Treat You Better". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"Taylor Swift - You Belong With Me". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"The Hoosiers - Goodbye Mr A". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
"The White Stripes - 'Seven Nation Army'". YouTube. N.p., 2016. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
Feed, Tap. "Ria Timkin Displays Beauty And Mystery On 'Energy'". Tap The Feed. N.p., 2017. Web. 16 May 2017.
"March NEWSLETTER Why So Quiet, Ria?". Shoutout.wix.com. N.p., 2017. Web. 16 May 2017.
