A2 Preliminary Evaluation: Post-Production

The program we used to edit our preliminary video was Final Cut Pro.
I felt that this program was easy to use as I had used iMovie before and it is very similar.

We found that we did not use the storyboard very effectively whilst shooting, as we were missing a lot of shots that were on the storyboard. This became a problem, as we had to use some of the same shots twice and we were missing a lot of the lip-syncing as well.

'Orange' looking shot

I think that another type of shot that we could have done with more takes of are the lip-syncing shots. This is because we were struggling to sync Meg's singing accurately to the singing on the song. We could have solved this problem by asking Meg to emphasise the words when she's lip-syncing, as sometimes you can't clearly see that Meg's singing the lyrics.

A problem I tried to correct using this editing software was the colouring of the clips. I thought that some shots looked very over saturated compared to other shots. This was because we used different lighting and positioning whilst shooting the video.

I think that when I'm editing my future video, I will ensure that I have all the correct shots from the storyboard to cut the editing time massively. Also, I will watch the clips back during the shooting to assess the lighting to check that it's going to look consistent on the final product.

A2 Preliminary Evaluation: Production/Shooting

Whilst shooting our preliminary video, our priorities were to make sure that we made the most of our time in lessons to shoot and trying to stick closely to the storyboard.

During the shooting of our video, we encountered numerous problems. Most of them involving the mise-en-scene. We often found that we couldn't shoot in our location as we had not booked the hall out in advance, this is something that I will learn from and make sure that this does not happen on the filming of my video, as this wasted a lot of our time.


Also, another problem that I thought was effecting our productivity during shooting was if we were missing costumes of the actors in the video. This meant that the costumes throughout the video were not consistent and that we had to shoot different shots instead of the ones we were planning to do, which again, wasted time.

Yet, as a group, we were very well organised when it came to getting all the props there at the beginning of our shooting time. We found that the drums were very difficult to get to and from the music room where we were borrowing them from, so we ensured that we had plenty of time at the beginning and then end of or shooting time to move them.

In conclusion, I feel that the shooting did not go as smoothly as it could have. When I shoot my video, I need to establish a thorough schedule which will help me to make sure that I am not wasting mine and other people's time.

A2 Preliminary Evaluation: Pre-Production

As a group we decided to use Daft Punk's Get Lucky, as it was a popular song at the time and the mise-en-scene of the video was easy to replicate.

We had to assign roles within the group - director, cameraman, story boarder, location/mise-en-scene/props scout and actors. I was a story boarder and hand-drew the storyboard which I feel could have been more thorough as we were missing some shots during the post-production. When storyboarding, I was always asking the director (Sophie) what shots she can imagine will look good. I felt this approach was very flexible as the directors input allowed me and the other story boarder (Yasmin) to discuss what would look best.

We found that casting the right people for the parts very straightforward, yet the lead singer (Pharell) was quite hard to find the right person to play the part. This was because we did not have long to shoot the video, so we had to ensure that the person we chose was willing to lip-sync, dance and know the song well.

The director wanted to shoot against a black background like they did in the video.
We had to base the filming around school as that made it easier for the whole group to be together when shooting. We found a black background behind the stage, yet we missed a lot of opportunities to film as we did not think ahead and book the hall out. An advantage of using the stage is that we got to use all the theatre lights, this helped to make the video look more polished, professional and more like the official video.

 We decided to use motorcycle helmets as costumes as they were quicker to get hold of. We did throw around the idea of making the video have a more light-hearted feel by using cardboard boxes instead of helmets. The director felt that this would not be as effective as using cleaner looking helmets.