Music Video Preliminary Task Evaluation

Our workshop day on Friday 12th June involved us remaking Little Mix's music video 'Wings'. Our cast and crew was made up of Year 12 media students, the media teachers and media professionals, most of whom have gone to Latymer.

1. Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?


Moving the camera on the track

The workshop day was really enjoyable because even though it was a very long day, I was always doing something, including performing and helping out behind the scenes, meaning there was never a dull moment. I was a principle dancer and Jade's dance double, which involved learning all of Jade's moves in the actual video, and ensuring that Arianna (playing Jade) did them on the workshop day. I particularly enjoyed performing as a principle dancer in the video because it really helped build up my confidence, especially as
the cast and crew were incredibly supportive throughout the day. What I found really interesting was just being on a set similar to what a real music video set would be - I helped move some set pieces, and had the opportunity to move the camera on the track to get the tracking shots of the band. This was a good experience because we may use tracks and other equipment in our music video, and now we have some knowledge on how to use them.


2. What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks?
Our first task was to analyse a performance music video, and so I decided to analyse OneRepublic's 'Counting Stars' video. This analysis allowed me to explore the conventions of a performance music video, and how you can follow but also challenge them. The 'Counting Stars' video also included some narrative, highlighting how some music videos are hybrids; they can be performance, narrative and concept. I found this interesting as I was considering doing a performance/narrative hybrid for the music video next year. We were then instructed to create an audition video on finding out that we were going to remake Little Mix's 'Wings'. We had to lipsynch and dance in the video, which helped to build up our confidence and to learn the song in preparation for the workshop day. Ultimately, the workshop day was the most informative prelim task as it allowed us to get a feel for a real music video set, perhaps similar to one we will be creating next  year. I also learnt about how allocating roles is very important when it comes to a group project - as we had a large cast and crew, we were able to share the jobs between us, depending on poeple's strengths. Hopefully next year we will do this when creating our music video in order to work more productively. Editing the rushes for the music video helped me to better understand the idea of sound/vision editing and discontinuous editing, which is essential in a performance music video. What made the editing a little easier was the fact that the original video was on a video track on Adobe Premiere Pro, and we edited to the video, enabling us to see where the cuts were.


3. Are you pleased with the footage and your edit?

A screenshot from our edit

I am very happy with our finished music video remake. Our shots are incredibly similar to the ones in the video, and in some cases, ours look a little better, especially as our sets looked more authentic. I am particularly pleased with our edit, however, as we had a more prominent role in this stage. We worked in large groups for the edit, meaning that we could split a lot of jobs between us, making it easier to complete the edit in a rather short period of time. The part of the edit I was most responsible
for was Leigh-Anne's solo and grading. The real music video has shots of very short duration, and lots of cuts, which is quite hard to edit, so I am very happy with the finished results as ours looks very similar to the original.

The camera ops filming the dance scene

4. How do you think your prelim experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?
I think this prelim task really helped to underpin who is good at what, which will help a lot during the making of our own music videos next term, as it will make it easier to delegate roles in our music video groups. Some people, for example, were really good at performing in the Little Mix video, and so they may be the main performers in our music videos next year - and others were good at using the technical equipment. Personally, I thought I was quite good at directing Arianna when it came to her solo bits, so I would like to take more of a director role next year. We were given the opportunity to use lots of equipment on the workshop day, including lights and tracks, and so this will help if we decide to use some of this equipment in our music video next term as we will have more experience with it. We also had to do a lot of planning in the build up to the workshop, like learning the dance routine and Jade's moves in my case, to ensure that everything would go right on the day, and next year planning will be incredibly important for the success of our music video - especially as we shall be doing more directing and producing next year rather than just performing and helping out on set.


Here is the final cut of our remake: