Evaluation

Our group decided to reconstruct and deconstruct 30 seconds of Rihanna’s ‘We found love’ music video; the song is from the ‘pop and r&b’ genre, although I am not using this genre for my own music video I feel it is a great way to enable me to become familiar with camerawork and editing techniques and well as other difficulties such as lighting and mise-en-scene too. Firstly we set about on deciding which section of the video we would reconstruct, much of the video seemed difficult for us to film within the two week limit we had, so we concluded on filming from 1.16-1.46 as it seemed to be the most feasible to remake. We watched the video many times initially to look at which locations we would need to go and film at and what props we would need too. The skate park scenes where what we considered to be the most challenging part of the video because of the amount of continuity editing we needed to recreate and therefore the vast amount of filming too, therefore we decided to film these scenes first. After watching the video again we all came up with what props we would be able to provide too; we shared it out so we each all had 4-5 things to provide and by then we felt we were ready to start filming the skate park scenes. 

People in the skate park.

After college on Monday 1^st October, we travelled to Beverley to go to the leisure centre, as there is a skate park there; it was also convenient to go because both of the actors for the video live there too. We knew we needed at least 3 hours to film so we began with filming outside in the skate park. We had the video on an I-Pod so we could referring back to it for each individual shot and angle as we felt that when working as a group this was easier than using a storyboard. Ruby and I took it in turns to film the shots and helped each other when doing so, so we replicated it the best we could. When shooting these scenes we left 10 seconds either side of the shot, as we felt doing this would be easier when editing the footage together. A difficulty in which we had to overcome was the amount of people at the skate park; unfortunately they kept running into our shots and asking us questions which delayed the filming time, but we eventually overcame this and continued shooting to the best of our ability. As it had just rained and the sun was setting too, the lighting was great and I feel the shots replicate Rihanna’s original video really well. We also filmed each shot 3 times to make sure we had versions that were perfect to edit.

We then proceeded to film in the takeaway; we approached the owner and asked for his permission and showed him the video to let him understand what we would be filming too. Approaching someone in such an unforeseen and bizarre situation has enabled me to feel more confident when I will eventually film my own music video it has also given me a wider range of ideas that I feel I can explore too.

The day after we filmed all of the scenes outside, we had to film using a projector, so we researched clips on YouTube, such as a corn field, clouds moving and a pupil dilating.

We used these clips as a back drop for Chelsie (our actress) to perform in front of. One issue in which we were confronted with was the lighting; we found it incredibly difficult to adjust so we could see her face as well as being able to see the projector too. I feel some shots are better than others such as the first shot you see in the video and the shot at 11 seconds too; this is probably because the shots are close-up and where easier to film. The shot that I feel lets the video down and is not as effective is featured at 23 seconds, when Ruby and myself where filming we found awfully difficult to not get the edge of the board for the projector in the shot as well as getting the lighting right too, so we had to compromise and loose the quality of the lighting in order for the framing of the shot to be correct.

We continued to shoot the footage in our lunch hours and free periods in order to leave ourselves more time to edit the video. We began to edit with 3 college days left before the deadline-leaving us enough time to perfect each shot, its colour and continuity. Collectively we decided that it was unfair to leave just one person to edit the whole 30 seconds so we all contributed and let each other become familiar with the editing suite and what we need to do when editing, I believe that doing this helped us as individuals in preparation for when we film our own music video.

Each time we edited we made sure we had the original video set up so we could keep pausing it and referring back to it for the colour of each shot and also the timings, this was because our storyboards was in black and white and we couldn't look at the specific detail we needed.

In total it took us about 9 hours to fully edit the footage and put the sound track on.

I've learnt a lot from producing this video that I feel will benefit me greatly when producing my own video; some of which are: to ensure the lighting is correct, film the shot at least three times, shot 10 seconds before and after the actual footage I’m going to use, plan well in advance, be organised, always have a back-up plan, keep referring to my storyboard, keep saving the work I've edited and make sure my actors are willing and committed to helping me out. It’s also important for me to note that because, as a group, it took us approximately 9 hours to edit 30 seconds of an existing music video, how long it is going to take me to edit 4 minutes of my music video.