Pre-production was a very challenging stage for my group, as we had originally thought about creating a more in depth music video which explored a range of camera skills, as well as taking into account the quality of the framing and the environment. To begin with we planned a story board for a song called Youth-Daughter, which we successfully created enabling us to understand the framing and structure of the music video in detail. We therefore thought when it came to actually re creating the video, the space which we had found would be suitable for the video backspace. We added the lyrics to the song onto our storyboard so that the actors would know what to lip sync if they suddenly forgot. However, we had multiple issues during filming and therefore had to change song. We chose to recreate Be My Wife- David Bowie instead which we thought would be slightly easier. We made the storyboard fairly easily which would allow us to know the different camera angles and how each frame was meant to look. During the video the camera angles change a lot and there are a lot of different frames, so therefore the storyboard was very helpful. The props needs in the Daughter Video (a drum kit and two guitars) which we had already brought in when attempting to film this music video were much more extensive than those required in the David Bowie video (a single guitar), which was another reason why we decided to pick this fairly easier music video instead.
Production
When we attempted to film our first song Youth-Daughter it didn't quite go to plan, this is because the video itself is set in quite a dark room where only prominent lighting strips and spots are seen in the video, this was not achievable in the space where we had previously organised to film in due to a full blackout lighting backdrop not being achievable. After numerous attempts trying to configure an effect lighting look for the shot, we as a group decided that it was not possible to re create the video to a high standard. This is when we sketched up our plan for the David Bowie video and decided it would work well with our group as only one actor would be required and we had a white room in school to actually shoot the music video. Firstly costume and make up was hard to provide for the Bowie video due to the style that he had during the original video. However, we made do with a striped vintage shirt. This worked well. I was selected as the actor as my group felt I was confident and would be able to recreate the actions, however I didn't feel very comfortable wearing a lot of make up, which the group thought was understandable, so they therefore only applied a small amount. The camera which we used for the video was not one which we would of liked to use, as it was a handheld school camera which didn't adjust very well around some of the lighting which we filmed in. When we actually filmed the video, the frames weren't very difficult to shoot in general, however we were only in a small white studio which limited us to space and distance in the angle shots. In the time which we had left to select another music video, we didn't have enough time to find another location or the correct props for a more advanced and skillful music video, therefore this resulted in our groups potential not being shown.
Post Production
After filming the footage needed to put the music video together, I think the post production process went successfully well as we had all of the necessary time and angles to create around 1 minute 30 seconds of the full original video. We decided to edit on Final Cut Pro which I had only used a few times before however had used plenty of similar software programmed which operated in a similar way, this therefore made it more easy for me to understand and use. The most difficult part of the editing would of been matching the syncing in time with the backing track song, as I noticed when I was singing some of the words were mimed at a slightly slower pace to the original tune. Transitions from each clip into the next were also another part which I felt were hard to recreate in a similar way to the original video. Next time I would take plenty more footage of the actor(s) and make sure that the lip sync is perfectly in time with the song so that editing is more effective and can be more flexible in terms of transitioning.
