Evaluation of our Rough Cut

During our rough-cut process we have faced a few issues, one of the main being choosing which shots to use. For example sometimes the artists become out of character and ruin the illusion that they are pop stars. Therefore whilst cutting I had to choose their best performance bits only. Another issue was to do with timing and choosing where to cut; we tried to make it as slick as possible, zooming in and trying to find the correct beat to cut on by listening to the music in slow motion. This was particularly tricky right before the drop in the music, as there are lots of fast beats; we decided it would look good to cut to every single beat. This proved to be difficult and time consuming but in the end it looked professional and slick.

I felt that I was good at picking the correct shots that made the artists look like real pop stars. I also managed to edit very quickly meaning that I had plenty of time to go back over the shots and find mistakes or something that doesn’t quite fit or look right.

I definitely feel that it is relative to our original plans, of course it does not exactly stick to our storyboard, but the concept and scenes we planned are all in the video. The only thing we had to adapt was the speed of the cuts compared to our storyboard. Our cuts are now much faster to keep the audiences attention,

Our only postproduction work so far is to edit the song to more appropriate length, around three minutes ten, so that our viewer’s attention doesn’t linger towards the end.

Evaluation of the Shoot Day

For me, the day prior to our shoot was mainly focused on organization. I spoke to all the cast members so they could show me their costume to check it was appropriate and their makeup plans, also giving them a schedule of the day. I also checked I had all the necessary props, and that all the items of the set were in place to set up.

Before we began shooting, I helped construct the first set, black walls all round and some blinders behind the artist. We did find a different DJ table, a box that held lighting equipment in, which looked far more realistic. We also had  to do the artists makeup, and direct them and explain what we wanted them to do in each scene and placed them in the space ready for the camera.

Each scene that we shot worked very well and felt that the shots we got really embodied how we had imagined the video looking. We found that the performance element was slightly away from our vision, but was in fact better, as it gave us more of a range of shots, as we could play around with lighting.

Throughout the day my group played various different roles. I was directing the people in front of the camera and motivating them making sure they were lively and confident. I also worked on filming, making sure we had enough interesting and usable shots for edit. I mainly used extreme close up, medium close up, wide shots and tracking.

I felt that my directional skills were particularly good. As a dancer I was able to physically show them what it was exactly that they needed to be doing. Therefore they were never dull to watch on camera and always had something to do. This made them feel more confident therefore their were more convincing as their character.

The main issues we had on the shoot day were to do with costume and the amount of people we were working with. We had issues with costume not staying on or being too uncomfortable, these were soon solved with safety pins and slight alteration to the material or a change in outfit, the other issue with the amount of people in a small space meant that they were difficult to keep control of and not distract the people who were currently on camera. This took effort from our whole team but eventually they were co-operative and we were able to direct them well in the auditions and party scene.

I think that the most successful part of the shoot was the performance element. Our female singer was a great performer and easy to direct. We got lots of usable shots very quickly and finished that scene ahead of schedule, setting us up positively for the rest of the day.

I felt that we could have got more shots of the auditions, as there were so many cast members to get through we did not spend much time on each member individually as we wanted to fit them all in. therefore we may not have got every person in detail as much as we had hoped.

I felt that we worked very well throughout the day and prior. We split our duties, so one of us as on camera and directing, another monitoring the cast, costumes and props, and the other organized the schedule and planned the set, making sure that everything ran smoothly.

We can now add pictures form the shoot day to our website for ‘fans’ to see. We also got the artists to take ‘selfies’ to go on the website. Whilst they were performing we got a photographer to take pictures, so they look professional. We will put them in black and white and use them as backgrounds and covers on the site and twitter feed.