Advanced portfolio - Making the Ordinary Extraordinary

"Autumn song"

Camera shot, angle and movement- The first shot i found the most representative of making the extraordinary ordinary, was the panning shot of behind the girl (18-21 seconds), the slow motion of this creates almost an angelic shot although the music contrasts with this.  The natural light from the sun passing over her shoulder into the camera, captures the 'in the moment' feeling and feels like we are in her world with her. As this music videos focuses on the relationships between the youth and feeling comfortable in yourself, it has quite a basic storyline, however the use of editing creates this into something exciting and touching to watch.

The rule of thirds was included, particularly in the shot below of using the mirror as a prop to make the ordinary extraordinary. This use of the mirror creates dimension and an abstract viewpoint to this 'ordinary' shot. 

Editing - There's a moment where the place starts to quicken, the editing involved when this is starting until its peak, was used through cutting shots and jumping to the next shot on the beat. This helps involve the audience and make them feel as though they are feeling the rhythm too. (47-53 seconds). The use of high contrast to add colour and atmosphere, helps emphasise the everyday struggles and highs of the youths lives more compelling and aesthetically pleasing to the eye, this helps us stay focused and interested in the video as well as the music.

Similar editing is used near the ending of the video when the boy band in the garage is performing and the shots are slowed down yet are still cut on the beat to create drama and a sense of unity within the band.  Performance- Performance is a ket element to making a music video engaging and realistic. If the performance is poor, the story line of the music video can automatically become unconvincing. The characters relationships seemed genuine and realist which always helps with storyline. Romance between the boy and girl as the end creates a fantasy and happy ending which is very generic in most love storylines. The close up shot highlights their connection and the slo-mo helps seal the moment and make it worthwhile. 
Mise- en- scene- The following shots are how the idea of the ordinary can be created into something more fascinating and extraordinary just by camera shots, lighting, and positioning of camera. As you can see, the setting and place where this was shot, is in an abandoned, not very interesting place that you would visit unless you were into ruins of buildings. however, the way the camera represents it is in a way that creates this setting to look majestic and almost like an escape place. The use of the rule of thirds helps emphasise the sizing go the building and how small the teenagers seem compared to the world that they have yet to face.

I chose this next shot because it is simply a scene of police officers and youths in the dark, however, the way it is shot makes it looks like more is happening. The use of lighting with the camera facing directly onto it, helps create a more creative representation of a dull situation and turns it more exciting just by lighting and positioning of the people in shot.

Final product evaluation

To recreate this two shot, we had to shoot it from a lower angle and place the models in the right position to keep it precise. However, we could have gone further out with the camera and zoom in to create the shallow focus of the building in the background. 

This shot of the the card was probably the most difficult to shoot as we had to keep the hands of the model and the background exactly the same as we had to remove the card and edit it to make it look like it was 'disappearing'. In the same shot, we had to move the camera to the left quickly. 
Mise-en-scene was quite important as it helped create a more precise representation of the original. For instance, the shot of the feet with the heels was quite important to shoot it on a concrete floor. Also, the props were important as there was a lot of props we had to include to make it accurate and not make it not look too off or like we just used random objects.

This is a list of the props we used throughout the whole video, For an example, we used lollipops instead of ice lollies just because it would be inconvenient and hard to bring ice lollies into school without them melting.

Most of the editing that had to be done was cutting because most of the shots were simplistic and followed one after the other. However, as well as the shot of the card disappearing, there was another shot of the cowboy where we had to turn the camera to the left really quick.

For the first shot of the sky, the video we took wasn't long enough so we had to slow it down about 60% to make it fit the time frame of the original shot.  Acting wasn't a major part of our product as the people didn't really have to make convincing facial expressions as there wasn't many close ups of people, However the part of the lady singing had to be convincing as it included a dull expression on the woman's face.Overall, our planning was good as we were equipt well and we had the video with us while recording and the storyboards on hand. We shot the hardest scenes first and then the easier ones. To plan better, we could have found a few better props, but overall we planned well and made sure we got it all filmed in time.

What i have learned by being involved in this task, is that you have to be well prepared and on task to make sure you get the best results. Also, i have learned some technical things through the editing process that my group did like slowing shots down and combining shots seamlessly to make them flow. Overall my contribution to this task has been effective with ideas and solutions, like the locations and camera shots to help make our final product better.

Final product

planning for preliminary task

These storyboards focus on the main points of each scene which helped us sort props in the most accurate way and help match the props and people involved as best as we could. We focused on the first 1 min 30 seconds of the original music video.

CD cover

My album cover was based around acoustic genre by the name 'Loveless' which i chose to fit with the genre i chose. To create this i used to the masking tool to create the effect of the roses to add a more bunched, fuller effect. I also rearranged the size and angle of the rose. As well as other editing, i changed the colour balance to a pinker tone to add warmth and to create more connection with the artist and her work. The artists eyes are closed because i wanted to create an innocent look in her and also, if she was facing the camera, i think her face would look too stern for the type of music she would create.

These were some of the other potential pictures.