Re-draft Editing - 19/11/12

I had a double lesson today which I spent in the iMacs, having planned that I would allow my media teacher and a target audience member to view my first draft. Before this, I watched through my music video again and noticed a few errors that I hadn't picked up on before the weekend - which is why it is useful for me to have breaks in between editing so with a fresh mind I can pick out things I can improve on. Although, I decided that I would keep it the way it is and allow my friend Tayla to watch the music video as it is. 

Target Audience Viewing 1
I chose my friend Tayla Powell to view the first draft of my music video and outline her favourite parts and scenes she thinks I can improve on. Looking back now, I realise that as Tayla was actually part of my music video she already knew some of the scenes and this first draft wouldn't be completely new to her. Also, as she is a fellow media student it meant the way she views it would be more critical than an average person, although this helps when I attempt at trying to view it from the moderators point of view.

Tayla watched the music video all the way though and then came up with 3 of her favourite parts that she thinks I did well on:

• The journey scenes that I shot from inside a car that are featured at the beginning and end of the video.
• The scene where Ted is facing in different directions and the scenes are faded into one another. 
• The jump cuts at the beginning between the scenes of Ted.

I agreed with Tayla on all of these as I think the car scenes at the end and the beginning reflect the journey I am trying to create from my characters, and the jump cuts at the beginning and large fading scene were also some of my personal favourite clips so I am glad that she appreciated the effort that I put into them.

She then watched the music video again and paused at several moments to offer some advice for possible improvements:

• Use some black and white editing in between the fast cuts in the middle, to show the link to the past and how the characters have improved.
• Play around with the angles on the inside spinning scenes to make it more interesting and keep the pace fast.

I completely agree with both of what Tayla had said and using the black and white editing between the scenes was something I had already considered to bring the video to life slightly. Also, I found that I had another shot which was much closer than the other shots of Tayla spinning around which I could add in so as she spun more the camera jumped closer to her which created a much neater effect. Taking both of these into account, I added the black and white editing straight away to the scenes and narrowed down the other clips to go to the rhythm so I could fit the next shot of her in. 

Having a second opinion on my music video was actually very helpful and I'm glad that I chose Tayla to help me improve as even though she offered just a few suggestions, I already believe it has uplifted the quality of the overall video.

However, I decided that just Tayla's opinion on my first draft wasn't enough and have already planned for a non-media student (that wasn't involved in my music video) to view it and offer some advice for me as well. 

Media Teacher Viewing

After Tayla had finished watching, I then asked my media teacher to view it with the changes that I had made from Tayla's help. Again, he gave me both good points and pieces that I could change to improve on. He really liked my:

• Narrative and thought it was really strong throughout the video.
• Variety of shots and angles.
• Changes that I had already made today due to Tayla's feedback.

I thought these comments were very fair and actually made me very happy as my narrative was a major part of my music video anyway so I was glad the importance of it came across. Similarly, I'm glad my hard work in deciding on the types of shots and angles was appreciated and that I had been acknowledged for my improvements I had made already.

The same as Tayla, he offered some constructive criticism to help me make my project even better:

• Use colour correction and colour filters on the scenes of Ted against white background to separate it from the narrative and make it stand out more.

At first, I didn't understand what he meant by this so he decided to show me himself. He used a filter called Colour Correction and added a Desaturating effect so the clip first turned to black and white, and then changed once he fiddled with the settings. He made the black and white effect really bold which was quite a dramatic change from what it was. At first, I didn't really like the idea he was trying to get across as I liked the white scenes as they were and didn't want to change all of them in case they ruined the effect. However, he told me that improving this will separate this performance scene from the narrative which is very important and the effect will also make my video stand out much more. Taking this into consideration, I had my own go with the Colour Correction effect to try and create a similar concept. I managed to produce something that both he and I agreed on, as shown in this picture:

The picture above is such a great example of what the clip used to look like (on the right) and to what I changed it to (on the left). The clip on the left, before much editing, was only what I had changed using the Brightness and Contrasting tool to make the white stand out slightly more. However, looking at them both against each other you can see that the clip on the left is much more effective than before as it stands out and immediately captures the pop artist concept that Ted is playing. 

This picture also shows 2 clips that I have edited to make the black and white colouring much bolder and clearer and I really like the way Ted now stands out against the background, compared to before where some parts of him merged against it. 

• Brighten up the colour in the setting of the outside scenes to match the beginning and ending car scenes shot in sunlight.

It never occurred to me that much before that the colour of the shots I had taken at Dunstable Downs portrayed a completely different message to the ones at, for example, St. Albans Park due to the difference in weather on the days. I immediately knew how to change this and I used the same Colour Correcter and Brightness and Contrasting tool to match them the same for continuity, and also brighten up the Dunstable Downs scenes. He gave a very good suggestion of matching the other outside scenes to the journey scenes I had shot as both of these were in bright sunlight. This gave me something to work against and compare to. 

Here is a video of a scene taken at Dunstable Downs, and then the editing I had done to change the saturation and brightness:

The change in colouring is just so amazing and the effect of the clips after editing is so much better than before that I was really thankful I was reminded about this. I definitely think this improves the whole video as before the scenes were almost depressing looking, which is completely the opposite tone and atmosphere my video is created around. 

I also did the same to the other outside scenes I had taken to try and match them the same as the shots from St. Albans Park and keep the colours very vibrant: 

• Incorporate some more black and white editing into the ending to add some effect to the seats/benches as they go on for quite a long duration. 

I really liked the black and white editing I had already added after valuing Tayla's suggestions, and my media teacher also liked them. He thought that because they were so effective that I should incorporate some more of them throughout the video and that it would help break up some of the scenes in the latter part of it. Near the ending, there are a few scenes of the empty benches and seats and these go on for quite a long time which is only because I didn't have enough of the other scenes to take up the time. I had been wondering how to solve this for quite a while now, and after being inspired by this idea I think it really completes the narrative and makes the ending much better.

As shown in these screen shots, the difference in how the empty benches and chairs look makes it more appealing to the eye, and breaks up the duration of just watching a bench/chair. This also improves the last 30 seconds of my music video and keeps the narrative interesting even after the climax has occurred. 

• Add some sort of filter or effect to take away the slightly wobbly effect of some of the scenes, especially the tilting up scene of Ted at the beginning. 

This was an understandable piece of feedback as I had already noticed that a few of my scenes were quite shaky from either it being free-hand or the wind for the outside scenes. My media teacher told me the importance of having a strong opening 30 seconds to capture the attention of the audience, and suggested that I improved this one specific shaky scene just to match up the standard of the rest of my shots. To do this, I decided to play around with a few of the different filters and effects, and finally found a Strobe effect to use that created a distorted image and not show the shakiness that was once before.

This image shows the scene that I am talking about, with the added effect I talked about earlier on top of it:

• Reference the car journey more to make the meaning more apparent.

I think this was a strong point that he made about the car journey as even though the concept of a metaphorical journey that the characters are taking is a very good idea, I think it needs to be shown more for it to be made aware to the audience to avoid confusion. I haven't yet gotten to the stage of doing this as this will be an action plan for the rest of the week when I have any spare time to complete it. I haven't yet decided in what places I am going to reference the car journey as there aren't any specific scenes that I want to remove, apart from the one that is discussed in the feedback given below.

• Replace the clip of Tayla on the grass as the layout of it is wrong. 

This clip is actually my least favourite part of my music video as not only is the quality very poor as I took it on my mobile phone, but also because unfortunately it was taken in landscape so the editing process I had completed on the other mobile clips wouldn't work. As my mobile clips didn't have the two black strips on the top and bottom of the scenes, I had to edit these into all of the scenes by using the Widescreen filter. This was fairly easy for the other clips, however, because this one was shot in landscape and the others were in the proper horizontal way, I am having to find another clip that may need to take the place of this one. My media teacher has already suggested that I maybe use a clip of Tayla's dog again, or possibly use this opportunity to add another car journey scene. 

These are the possible scenes that I may have to add to replace this one:

Conclusion
Today can be summed up as 'helpful' and 'beneficial' as it opened my eyes up to possibilities of my music video that I didn't think of before, and improvements that I didn't even think about doing before. This shows the importance of getting multiple opinions and gaining feedback on my work so far and I am glad that at this stage I have advice that I can use and help to make my music video better.