Evaluation

Final Pieces

Copyright

The song I have chosen is called 'Ones' by Kaytranada and Mr Carmack which I initially found on Soundcloud but also listened further to on Youtube. I really want to use this track as my song for my music video, so I looked into the channel owners to see if they were a professional company.

The channel is called 'Husk Sounds' and has a designed logo which initially made me think they were a record company or singed by a record company. After looking further into the channel I found out their email address and emailed them asking for permission to use the track, however have not got a reply as to if I can use the track. I further emailed them the final video itself and am yet to hear back from them.

Looking at the channels information, they state that they are an underground channel based around hiphop/ house style music which tells me they are not connected to a record company and after looking at their email ' HuskSounds@gmail.com' it further shows me they are not professional as they use a general email type. This shows I have taken every reasonable step in trying to gain copyright permission to use the track, however will still like to wait for their reply for final conformation.

Results

Evaluation Questionnaire

I have created a final survey to collect results and feedback of the final product I have created. This is so that I can use the results for the evaluation questions to conclude this project which I will then be presenting to an audience.

Final Music Video

         

This is the final video which brings everything I wanted into play. In this final cut I experimented with finding the correct fonts to use for opening and ending title sequences to match my digipak and magazine advertisement. I also found a san serif font to use for the credit titles which looked good in conjunction to the digital looking main title font. I added fades in and out of black to these titles which made them pop out at the viewer as the bright white and black contrast can be seen. This then fades into the main video which flowed the opening title sequence and video together nicely. I further edited some of the clips which were in the main first draft to then match these fades and break apart the straight cut shots. Some of the clips swoop away from the rider to the floor in which I then added fade to black transfers which makes these shots better as the focus of the floor wasn't very interesting although being a main filming technique in BMX style edits it didn't work by itself in music video. 

In the final trick sequence I wanted to draw upon the constant same shot style of the tricks which became repetitive and didn't match the cinematography of the rest of the arty shots. To break this apart every three or four trick shots I added close ups, for example a spinning wheel on the floor which adds more detail and focus to elements of the bike which then looks nice to the audience. This worked well and keeps the pace of the video flowing, which then links to the flow of the riders subliminally.

I finally added a shot of the two riders together looking at a camera, which is very different to the rest of the shots as the impression given throughout the video is point of view shots from both riders and generally filming what they're up to. However I really like how they almost are looking over clips together and it presents more of the efforts of the sport of getting footage they are proud of, and almost as if the whole day that was filmed was successful and enjoyable that it was all worth it. This then cuts to a shot of them riding into the sunset as a slow fade to black comes into play which finishes the day in the life off artistically and nicely which as a viewer is happy to end the video off on a high. The backing track gets quieter till there is no sound left as the ending credits fade out which slows the video off well. 

Music Video Edit 3

Edit 3 really starts to tie the video together where I went back over edited sections and really focused on timings of cuts to match music pace to further keeps interest of the audience and to present flow in the video which metaphorically can link to the flow of the riders and sport. 

The ending of the video is now put in where the riding sequence of tricks is evident. I like the way the ending trick sequence looks, however watching one trick after the other  starts to get repetitive so I want to add more arty shots in between the riding clips to match the pace and cinematography of the rest of the video. Adding in more close up shots and still video will break this apart and will add more background detail to the sport being presented. 

Music Video Edit 2

In this edit I start to progress into adding colouring filters and adding the transition of travelling to the final spot where the last third of the video is going to be filmed. I added a grey saturated tone to the video which I liked in my research. I did this to emphasis on the meaning to the sport and the riders and how its not about competition but more the individualistic elements and hard work which the riders put in for the enjoyment they get out. The grey tones also add a gritty raw feel which I personally really like which I have seen in other videos from my research, and is also presenting the themes of riding, friendship and hard work in its most natural way. 

Towards the end of this edit, I bring into play the quick change of the hand covering the lens and then it coming away presenting a fully re built riding spot, which we thought of on the day. I like this as it shows progression over a period of time in the matter of seconds which keeps the audiences interests and the videos flow in tact.

Music Video Edit 1

After collecting all the clips I needed I moved onto editing together my video for the music track I have chosen. Earlier on in my project I made a questionnaire and collected results around what my video needed to include so I wanted to re look at the results as reference. My feedback told me that a narrative style video is preferred and to rap/ hip hop genre music so the way I have filmed my clips have helped to follow this preference.

The video above is the result of the first section of clips I gathered and started to edit together. The narrative really starts to come through in this first draft where the 'day in the life' style is noticeable as the main actor 'Tom' is getting ready and going out riding to meet myself who is his riding friend. Throughout this narrative I really try to think about the cinematography I am using, and the ways the low angle shots present enjoyment and excitement and how the surround areas and mise en scene have a play into the look of the video. A lot of my shots vary in angles and are similar to many shots used in typical BMX style videos which from research I know work very well. Many of the clips are straight cut together which I like for this video as it keeps the pace of the clips following and keeps the attention of audience. These straight cuts mixed into the thought process of camera angles, lighting and cinematography make my video narrative interesting and work well together.

Editing 2

Another part of the video which I had to learn was how to make my footage black and white. After experimenting with the 'dip to black' filter I looked through the colour filter section and stumbled across an option called 'tint'. Using this I dragged and drop this filter onto every clip which brought them into the gritty colouring I desired from my research.

Tint feature for raw edgy footage effect.

The final thing I had to learn was about title sequencing. I have already got experience in Photoshop which is another programme by Adobe, In which I opened a new document which had the same dimensions as my video. Using this new file I dragged and dropped my desired text and saved this file and re opened it in Premiere Pro, which allowed me to then set a duration of this as a still image and then I faded this out to start and finish the video.

Ending shot and Photoshop file text ending credit sequence.

Editing 1

Prior to editing the final video together I had already had experience using Adobe Premiere Pro which is a professional video editing programme so I decided to use this piece of software again to edit this piece as I was familiar with the majority of the tools and so that I could improve my prior skills.

I started off with importing all the clips and dragging and dropping all the final shots one after one so that they were all in chronological order. This then allowed me the go through each clip and use the razor tool to cut all the unwanted footage off of each clip so that they all flowed smoothly together. Later on in the process of editing I zoomed out on the timeline and fine cut all the clips again to ensure the best flowing footage possible.

All the footage together and cut.

I use straight cuts for the majority of my video due to this being a key element of pace and the interests of the audience in multiple rap music videos but also a standout feature of BMX edits which I had analysed in depth prior. Some of my shots finish with the lens swooping away from the rider into the floor which decreased the pace of the shots. For this I had to research about transitions where I looked into a range of different ways in which the clips could flow a lot better and resulted in finding out about 'dip to black'. Dip to black made the videos transition fade to darkness in synchronisation with the swooping camera effect which then solved the pace problem. This was something key to improving the video which I found through a Youtube tutorial.

Dip to black found in the bottom left hand corner. This is a sequence showing the fade and its effect.

Test Shots

Here is a  video of some of the test footage I have created to show how we shot some of the clips in multiple ways to make sure the best shots were used for the final piece. When filming my video I had to make sure continuity was correct so that the video would flow properly once the clips were together and also my video was supposed to use a certain type of arty cinematography found in high profile BMX style videos ( my favourite Videographer would be John Hicks and his styling). Making sure the videographer and shadow was not in shot, shaky footage was avoided, natural lighting matched well creating lens flares, clothing and actor positioning matched was key to the success of the final clips.

The clips put together here show how certain angles and multiple attempts have changed the result and how from doing so I could choose what would work well for the final video.

Animatic

Here is my animatic. I took all the drawn out storyboard thumb nails and edited them together to get an idea of how they would all look in sequence. I personally like how they would look one after the other, however this animatic is very basic so all the shots are 5 seconds long which it obviously wouldn't be in the final video.