(Also found on Media Magazine)
Step 1 Research
You need to watch a lot of music videos – and tape a lot too – so you can really analyse the language of the genre. A student video can never be entirely like a real video. They have budgets of thousands of pounds, you have some borrowed equipment and enough for a round of sandwiches – but you do need to consider exactly what you are planning to deliver before you start the whole process.
The video, as a look at any real example will show, has got to sell both the music and the artist, and be worthy of plenty of replays. Different music genres will have different conventions – some feature musicianship, others dance routines; some will have stories and some will concentrate on atmosphere; some will be comic and some will be serious. It’s up to you to start examining how they work and have examples to draw upon, both for your production ideas and for your eventual write-up.
Step 2 Getting in a group
Who you work with on any project is a crucial decision. Sometimes it is good to work with your mates, but sometimes it might be best to avoid them, as having a good time might get in the way of the work.
Step 3 Choosing a track
If there is a choice, narrow it down not on the basis of your personal tastes but in terms of which music or lyrics stimulate ideas. Consider the genre for each and what a video for that kind of music is likely to entail. Think about possible locations, performers, even shots which might be evoked on initial listenings.
Step 4 The pitch
Even if your teachers haven’t set it, you should be prepared to ‘pitch’ for the track you have chosen. This should involve a single page of ideas, simply expressed, which would enable anyone reading or hearing it to envisage the potential finished video. In the real industry, this ‘treatment’ would be presented to the record company, often in competition with treatments from other potential directors. If it is to work, it needs to stand out, with a ‘hook’ in the first paragraph, a clear idea of location, narrative (if any) and something which will make it stand out from the crowd.
If asked questions about it, you must be clear as a group exactly what you are intending and how and why you are going to do it. The key word here is: simplicity. Your ideas need to be clear and simple and your process needs to be simple. The more complications you set yourselves (with location, actors, narrative detail, etc.) the more can go wrong.
The pitch is part of your planning and will count towards your marks. It will also form a useful document to look back on when it comes to the writing and reflecting upon what has – and hasn’t – changed and why.
Step 5 Look at previous student work
A look at any professional work will identify conventions but you need to look at material from a similar context to your own to see what can be achieved and also what can go wrong …hopefully your teachers will have examples you can look at, but, if not, then take a look at the work on our website at www.longroadmedia.com. There are over 50 music promos from 2003 on view, as well as many from previous years. You can leave a comment about any that you look at – indeed, this will be welcomed.
Step 6 Planning and shooting
Timescale is crucial here. In the real world of the music industry it is very likely that a director would have no more than six weeks from being given a brief, or first hearing a track, to plan, shoot and edit the video, then deliver it ready for the record company to despatch to MTV. Quite possibly he or she would be working on other projects at the same time (maybe shooting one in the same week as planning a second, then shooting the second while editing is being done on the first). If you have significantly longer to work on your project it may not be a good thing. Often the most professional-looking work is achieved by students working under pressure to strict time constraints, so you should not complain that you haven’t got long enough. Use your deadlines and time constraints to focus your thinking and working practices.
Storyboard as much as you can. Plan ahead all your use of props, costumes and locations; double-check that your performers are available and know where to meet for the shoot. Keep written records and sketches of everything so that nothing is forgotten. Don’t just have performers wearing their normal clothes but get them to have some costume changes so you can add variety to the video.
Check that the tape is in the camera, that it is the right tape, that you know all the basic controls of the camera and that you have a working tripod before you go off to shoot. Make sure batteries are charged; that you have adequate lighting (remember if you shoot in the dark your footage will be impossible to see), and that you can switch date and time off the camera! Whatever happens, don’t forget the CD! If the performers have to mime from memory, the speed will be all wrong, and harder to put right in the editing.
On the shoot, make sure you have a CD player which is audible for the performer to use for miming and for you to hear when you come to edit, as you’ll need to match up their performance with the original and this is harder to do if you only have lips to look at and no audio record. Shoot the performance all the way through at least three times from different angles to ensure you have coverage. Cutaways can be inserted much more easily from such a starting point.Shoot more than you need and more than storyboarded both for cutaways and because sometimes the most interesting shots are just spontaneous bits!
Step 7 Editing
Loading your footage into the edit program needs to be done sensibly. If you just leave the computer capturing everything you’ll find it harder to work with when you start the edit, so break it down into chunks or load some footage then chop away what you definitely don’t want before loading more. No-one wants the computer full of useless footage, so start to edit straight away. Be a good housekeeper – name your files so you can find them and make sure everything is filed in your folder. If in doubt, ask for help from teachers!
Use effects sparingly and in a planned fashion. Occasionally it may be for disguise purposes, but you can’t produce a whole project on that basis. Generally my advice would be cut and cut again. Sometimes you can extend the ‘natural life’ of a shot to make it more gripping, but only if your footage and performance is really good.
Your first step once you have got rid of the most obviously ‘excess’ footage is to line up your material for lipsyncing. In some programs, such as Premiere, it is possible to magnify the audio tracks and match up sound waves by going in as close as a single frame, but, in others, such as iMovie, it is more of a mathematical process of counting frames and substituting bits of black with matched up vocals. It can be very time consuming, but is crucial to the effectiveness of a finished piece.
Once you have achieved lipsync you can then start choosing which bits of the material will go into the finished video. This can be very difficult if you have lots of material of which you are quite proud or which took a lot of work, but sometimes you have to be ruthless with yourselves in order to get a finished result. Cutaways can be inserted in awkward bits where the miming has gone wrong or the camera is out of focus, as well as in planned moments which you had designed to go with the lyrics. Expect to make compromises – if you have planned well, you will recognise most of it, but some things just have to be done to make the final product ‘work’!
You may need to apply some filters to even up the lighting or just to soften the effect overall and you will need to consider your transitions – you may need more than just cuts, but, whatever you use, make sure it is justified.
Step 8 Screening and feedback
You will doubtless have the opportunity for classroom feedback on your video. Be ready to ask questions of your peers rather than just have them say it was good or bad (they’ll usually be kind on this one). What sense did they make of it? Why did they think certain decisions had been made? What impression did they get of the artist? Was it appropriate for this kind of music? Did it remind them of any other videos or indeed any other media texts? Take detailed notes of the feedback.
Try to get other forms of feedback too. If you can have a VHS copy of your video to show further afield you can take time to get more responses. If you are very lucky you might get your video displayed online in something like the iCritique program we use at Long Road where you can get feedback from anyone who looks at your video. Feedback is interesting even (especially?) if it appears to be at odds with your intentions, as this is a point you will be able to discuss: why does the audience read our video like that when we planned it like this? Is it due to some technical decision or the nature of the performance or something else?
Step 9 Writing
Follow the guidelines given by your teachers according to the A Level specification which you are working towards. Certainly you should start the writing early on, but if you are like the majority of students, you’ll probably leave a lot of it till the end.
Don’t fill your writing with excuses – blaming the equipment, the teachers, the actors, the audience, the other members of your group will not gain you any sympathy or any marks!
Your writing should:
– cover the whole process;
– use technical language accurately;
– include the feedback and your comments on it;
– place your video in relation to the industry (for example, what is a music video for?);
– relate it to real examples and their conventions;
– include an analysis of the finished product using the tools you would use to analyse real examples.
Step 10 Marking
Check your footage early on in the shoot to ensure that it has recorded properly (at some time we’ve all taken twenty minutes footage of our feet going between locations and then switched to pause when we thought we were starting to record …).
No comments:
Post a Comment