Re-energise Evaluation

After completing my first film Energise I carried out a survey using a questionnaire that I had devised. With these opinions in mind I decided that for the re-submission of my work I would reshoot the film using the same actor but in different locations. I would be able to use some of my original creative ideas and the same soundtrack that I had composed. From the questionnaire answers from my Energise film I set about looking at how I could keep with my original main idea but make adjustments and alterations to my film edit in a variety of ways as well as reshooting film in different locations.

I received many positive reactions to the original film. The comments in the questionnaires were positive in terms of content, mood and length. The changes that I set about to make included making the visuals and the music fit tightly. Although some of the reactions to the film expressed an opinion that the essence of the film was about the 'Day in the Life of…' one of the comments received stated that the theme was ‘hard to follow.’ Therefore in Re-Energise I tried to keep with the same pace and style of editing as the original, whilst trying to improve on conveying the story theme more overtly to the audience. I also wanted to modify the ending to ensure that the piece was not hanging in the air and that it felt complete. Several of the audience surveyed commented that the 'visuals fitted the music.' The most positive reaction was for the food colouring in water piece. ‘The dye marked the tempo and style of music,' said Pete.

I used a 7D camera to shoot both films. Nearly all of the shoot was without a tripod and was freehand. This was a deliberate choice, as although filming freehand can look very choppy, this is quite usual in music videos, particularly in terms of cutting speed. My decision to do this was in order to make the film match the pace of the music.

For my research this year I have found out more about music video and sound production by making contacts with professionals and being able to visit studios such as the prestigious Sawmill Studios in Cornwall. Here I was able to spend a day with the production staff. Details of this can be seen on my blog pages. I also had the opportunity to visit a music producer, Kam, in Slough. Details of this day can also be seen on my blog. My blog pages show how I have been inspired by the work of various music artists. By visiting music professionals and finding out more about music production skills I have gained an insight into developing my music production and editing skills with a view to entering this side of the profession.

With my storyboarding complete I decided on my target audience. It is important to bear in mind when filming which target audience would be interested in my genre of film. Although I had decided that my target audience was 16-25, older people have viewed my film and have said that they enjoyed watching it. Diana, who is over 40, commented in her questionnaire 'I felt that it told a story in a very creative way as it left the viewer to make their own mind up about the character and what he was doing during the day. There was also very creative filming using slow-motion and the passing of time from day to night. I really liked the traffic light changing in time with the music and the ending where the character looks up. The ink in water was very mesmerising and the red colouring looked quite sinister, but when it changed to black, green and blue I realised it was just a creative feature.'

Filming

The film shoot went really well. I filmed over a three day period exclusively in Bristol with the intention of shooting enough film so that I could have sufficient film to tell the story and also enough footage to edit an ending that would be a resolution to the story. I wanted the whole story to be interpreted by the audience and I also wanted it to portray some mystery by not giving too much away by literally telling 'a day in the life' throughout the film. I also filmed some of the footage at night and this really gave the video that mysterious quality and style. It also gave the story line depth in terms of the progression of time. As I filmed on two separate occasions I had to make sure my actor was wearing the same clothing as before. Some of the shots contain him wearing a grey jacket over the top of the shirt which I incorporated into the story line by shooting a scene at the start of the video where he puts the jacket on.

Problems - Sound

The sound clicking was a problem when it came to importing and listening back to the final video. I'm not sure why it has a slight clicking in the background as I exported the mix down of my song in AIFF format. I understand that this is what Final Cut finds friendly to use. At first when I was cutting the footage to the Mp3 soundtrack I didn't realise that Final Cut had problems understanding the format. I looked up the problem online and discovered that AIFF is the best format for Final Cut to understand. The clicking sounds have been reduced but I can still hear it faintly in the background at points where the track is in its quieter sections with less instrumental features. Although this has happened and there appears to be no way to fix the problem, with the limited access I have to additional equipment such as a newer versions of editing software and computers, I am very pleased with how full the track sounds in the mix and how it works with the video.

Problems - Equipment

The first edit that I had completed was on a Mac Book Pro laptop that unfortunately broke. Luckily I had a copy of the draft export of the video which the technicians helped me save onto a new laptop to edit back into. I imported all the newly shot footage for Re energise onto the new laptop and added once again to the broken edit using the exported draft edit underneath in Final Cut as a reference.

Problems - Software

I had a major unresolved problem in the final stages of the editing. Final Cut understood that I had cut the raw footage and placed it in the timeline at a certain point, but when exporting the final video out of Final Cut, it had taken the wrong timings out of the raw footage, meaning that the cuts that I had made were not in the places where I wanted them, therefore changing the whole choice of shot completely. Luckily this was limited to only several places and not the whole video. I sought technical help from the internet and the technicians at university but no one had heard of this problem before. I therefore had to bite the bullet at this point and accept that the video would not completely be the way I wanted it to look.

Cutting techniques - Desaturate filter

In some of the cuts I used a desaturate filter to make the footage black and white. I split the clip that I wanted, to show the effect, into two parts, cutting to the beat. I then placed the desaturate filter over one of the sections of the clip I had cut into two parts so that when the drum beat hit, the clip would switch to black and white.

I also used the desaturate filter on the introduction to the drop of the main beat in the song. Using the key frames feature in the filters section of the clip I could control the amount of the filter used. I then used these key frames to slowly cut out the filter, which meant that the clip would fade in with colour as the key frames dropped in amount. This made the footage of the ink in water look like it was filling with colour.

Cutting techniques - slowing and speeding clips

For the cross angle shots of the pillars I increased the footage speed to match the pace of the music. One of the shots was a twist angle shot from one corner of the frame to the other. The other was a pull into focus shot of a pillar overlooking a river. I think the fast paced footage looks a lot better this way at double the speed. I also increased the speed of the shot of my actor walking up the train station stairway. Other shots such as the ‘ollie’ of the skateboard through the light I decided to slow down by over half. I did this as I wanted to accentuate my actor and the skateboard hanging in the air. I also used the same shot but in reverse for the part before the main melody and beat kick in. I incorporated this reverse technique into where the footage of the colouring in water was desaturated. This meant that when the beat kicked in it felt like the footage was going a lot faster and brighter than before, giving the following shots more impact on screen.

Colour correction and grading

I corrected the footage so that the finished effect was crisp and clean. I then set about grading the footage to the style I wanted for the finished film. When grading the footage I wanted to create a colourful vibrant look by pushing the blues, oranges and reds. I pushed the reds more in the sunnier shots to give it that Nashville old worn super 8 type look. I found this challenging when I was trying to create a reflective and soft mood, but didn't want the footage to look like it had been obviously graded for this, so I kept the colours down to what I felt was the maximum I could push without making it obvious to the viewer. In order to keep to the style I wanted I found that I had to colour correct and grade a high percentage of cuts in the edit. This was time consuming but I am very pleased with the look and the general feel of the final piece. 

Cross dissolves

Depending on the change of mood that each part of the track was portraying, I used a cross dissolve where I thought it necessary to make the cuts bind in with each other. I used straight cuts and jump cuts where the shot only varied in angle or, if I had used a desaturate filter to make the beats in the song more prominent to the visuals.

Locations

I selected and filmed the areas that reflected my storyboarding, closely referring to the main ideas. With this in mind it really helped me find the shots I wanted. The train station played a key role informing the ideas of travel and movement and also provided me with a useful amount of movement shots across Bristol. I stayed on the train through Bristol to get a variety of high rise flats, buildings and panning shots of trees, wildlife and people. My original black and white photograph of a tree was a lucky find, as I managed to get some footage of a tree like my photographic idea from the train.

Production Skills

The production skills that I have developed are particularly in editing using Final Cut. I have learnt on my work experience visits the importance of levelling sound tracks.  From the experience gained I made sure that the sound track was long enough when I exported it out of Final Cut. I would not change my creative ideas but by learning from the problems that I encountered, detailed above, I feel that I could go on to make other music videos.

Cover

I used software called Pixlr which is an online simplified version of Photoshop. I think the software is great as you don't have to download it and it can be accessed by any computer with an internet connection. This was an ideal solution as the laptop I used for a large part of my work didn't have Adobe Photoshop on it. I decided to make a DVD cover for the Re-Energise music video using some of the recce shots I took. The cover consists of two photographs. One which is an out of focus light photo and one is of Oldfield Park train station, in Bath. I cut out the platform edges and merged them into the background using the blur tool. I then used the eraser tool to feather out the train track so that the other photograph would show through underneath.  The simple effect of the out of focus lights shining through the track looks attractive to the eye. With the arrangement of the photos I also designed a dark cream and brown banner at the bottom. I liked how the colours complimented the orange scheme of the DVD cover. I wanted to put more emphasis on the ‘Energise’ instead of the 'Re' out of the title Re- Energise, so I coloured in the 'Re' in a light grey so that it was less prominent on the cover. I also decided to make the title in lower case.

I am pleased with the final film Re-Energise and I am looking forward to making more music video films in the future. 


I will be posting the Video here soon.