Monday 15 July 2013

Holiday Work - Oh No! Oh Yes - relax - it's watching and reviewing music videos...

Your task over the holidays is to start your basic research. You should watch lots of MVs and choose 10 that you like best. You need to write no more than one paragraph for each one of the ten you choose. You must EMBED the videos in your blog.

Please comment on the following:

1. What you like about it; what inspires you, what is 'good' about it?
2. What makes you keep watching?
3. What interesting techniques/ideas/shots have they used that you might use? (use prompts from all the reviewing we have been doing...performance, camera, editing, content, lighting etc)
4. What have you learnt in relation to Music Videos generally from watching this particular video?
5. Is there anything you should AVOID?

Tuesday 2 July 2013

Evaluation Tasks...THREE in total

There are a few of these for you to do:

1. Review the previous music videos on the sheet you were given (and which you started in class). Rank the videos then BLOG why you think some videos were more successful - you're looking at WWW and EBI - "what went well?" and "even better if?". The sheet is HERE.

The sheets were given out in class. The videos are (from 2011-12) 13B1 (Rewind), 13B3 (What we started), 13B4 (Lost), 13B6 (Ike & Tina), 13E7 (12 Rounds) and 13E9 (Today I cried)
(from 2012-13) 13A1 (Sparks Fly), 13A2 (Life Happens), 13A3 (Nine2Five), 13E4 (If you wanna) and 13E6 (Go in, go hard).

All the videos on are COOMBEMEDIA youtube

2. You should also evaluate and review your foundation production, again started/explained in class and for which there are two sheets to help you. You need to look at ALL aspects of your production, planning, research, blogging, organisation etc as well as your actual film. You should cover each area and think through what went well and how you can learn from your mistakes (as well as repeating what you did well of course!). The sheet is HERE.

Areas to cover: research, planning design (incl storyboards etc), planning production (incl costumes, MES, continuity, equipment, lighting, actors), classwork and independent study, personal organisation (incl group work issues, meeting deadlines, working on blog AND filming at the same time etc), filming (practical issues with hardware), editing issues (incl hardware, software, time needed, collaboration, recording editing progress, working together), organising the blog (incl keeping it up to date, tracking progress, labelling etc), evaluation skills (incl addressing the questions, using evidence (did you have any??), how can you use the Yr13 evaluation questions now) and technology for evaluation (this year you must be better and ready - what went wrong last year? what took a long time? do you know how to actually use the software we have - if not, what are you going to do about it??)

3. Evaluate your 20 secs Music Video - process and product. Don't write loads, just write focused, analytical comments. Try to think 'what went well?' and 'even better if?'. Use the areas you've used to review the previous videos and your AS production in tasks 1 and 2 above to help you. The videos are all up on coombemedia youtube and linked on the main blog - everythingmediastudies.

Remember these are most of the core things we have been discussing:

Track choice
Instruments
Green Screen - keep it tight
Ultra Key
Lypsync
Lighting
Cuts to beat
Enough pace
Disappearing
Camera Movement and performance
Multi-screen
Choreography and dancing
Cropping
Partial Framing - use of out of focus shots (deliberate)
Extreme Close Ups
Text - use of
Bright Colours
Tint

Brief details...

Max 20 Secs of Footage

Editing Properly - showing the skills and completing what you submit is more important than meeting the 20 secs.
You must demonstrate decent skills in:

LIGHTING
PERFORMANCE

It should be LIP SYNCED!!!

You must demonstrate TWO of the following FIVE (examples we showed you in brackets)

MULTISCREEN - you could either have many diff screens running at once (Benny Banks - Trouble) or perhaps on top of each other - layering - (Akala - Lose Myself)
GREENSCREEN - have a look at Erna, Sophie, Bariya and Tiffany's video from 2012-13 (13e5 Kate Nash - Foundations) to see how they used greenscreen - remember the cloth must be as smooth as possible when stretched on the frame
COLOURISATION
- an effect put on in the editing suite - you can heighten colours or improve lighting (for example). (Little Mix - How ya doin' ft Missy Elliot or Benny Banks - Trouble)
For a video that needed the light and colour enhancing, see 'Lost' 13B4 - Tyra and Sophie (from 11-12 yr13 playlist on Coombe Media).
JUMP CUTTING
- cutting MUST be on the beat exactly - expand the timeline in Premiere to see the audio waveforms so you can literally see where the beats occur - this happens in many videos - remember how will.i.am used the motif of a set of dancers to jump locations (will.i.am #thatpower ft Justin Beiber)
DISAPPEARING
- with this, people or objects disappear or reappear. Remember using this effect relies on your having filmed the footage correctly - you must film the same scene 'bare', from exactly the same shot distance and position for it to work.

Monday 1 July 2013

Evaluation Sheet

Welcome to Music Video 2013-14!

Welcome Year 12 - the mayhem starts here!

Following our 'Lighting' and 'Performance' workshops last week, we are moving on to the Summer Brief - a cheeky little assignment, carried out over 2 weeks.

You will be making a 20 second (max) music video with certain conditions attached. You will work in groups but these groups do not need to be the groups you work in for your coursework in September.

You have a quick deadline. Your planning, video and evaluations will go up on your new blog and will count towards your coursework marks.

The deadline for the videos to be finished and exported with Michael is Weds 10th July (end of the day) and the showcase will be in your Thursday lesson of 11th July.

Over the holidays you will be researching music videos and writing about them on your blog - so not too harsh!

BLOGS/ADMIN
Make sure you have started your new blog and have invited* coombemedia2014@gmail.com so we can admin your blog. This will then enable us to link your blog to this hub. You must do this now if you wish to continue the course (if you wish to keep your options open and don't know if you want to continue with Media :(  you must still do this - the blogs are an entry requirement for A2).

*Invite us. We accept. You grant us ADMIN rights (rather than Author). Everyone is happy :)