Editing: Finishing the rough cut.

Today we finished the first rough curt of our music video.

The last thing we had to do was to edit the final section of the song. To bring the song together we wanted to to a fast paced montage of the scenes from Brighton. We put it together with each cut lasting about 2 seconds.

We then cut in some scenes where Jem is silhouetted against the projection dancing, which added a more fun aspect to an otherwise serious and dramatic video, we did this as we wanted to show the fun side of our artist. As some of the projection footage was the same as the footage from Brighton, we tried to do it so the same scene linked up with the projection, this worked really nicely and looked really cool.

For the last few seconds we used some footage of the projections without Jem in front, this gave it a grainy 'vintage' feel which we really liked.

In the last shot we used, there was a seagull flying through the shot. At first we tried freezing the frame, however this looked weird and stiff, so instead we slowed the shot down so the bird was flying in slow motion, this worked best as at this exact point the song slows down, the movement of fast paced cutting to slow motion really worked with the change of pace in the song.

Now that we have finished the rough cut, we can show this to our audience focus groups and recieve feedback which will help us to further improve our video.

The Copycat Theory.

The copycat theory is the belief that individuals imitate what they see in the media to get the same attention as given to the media they copied.

The film Copycat (1995) is about a serial killer who kills a police officer by copying the techniques of other serial killers. This film reflects what the copycat theory is all about - imitation.

There are real life case studies that support this theory - such as the James Bulger case where two ten year old boys copied the behaviour that they had seen in the horror movie 'Childs Play 3'.

Another example is the London riots of 2011, what started out as small disturbances turned into a full blown riot - possibly due to people imitating the behavior that they had seen on media outlets of young people robbing and breaking into shops.

Another thing that has a big influence on behavior is exposure to violent video games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, constant exposure to violent behavior causes desensitization and normalization of such behavior, especially prevalent in young children. People who may see this behavior often may want to repeat the behavior, especially if they see they behavior being rewarded. For example, in Grand Theft Auto you get points and positive attention for killing someone, which may lead someone to believe that they too will be positively reinforced for repeating this behavior.

Editing: 23/11/16.

Now we have completed the first two verses and the first chorus, we need to do something that is exiting to keep our viewers interested.

So for this chorus, we decided that we wanted to make the editing slightly more fast paced. We used faster and more choppy cuts, we included some sharp cuts of the scenes from Brighton, however we only used a few as we feel like we have used enough of these already, we cut this in with shots from the roof and lip syncing from the projection room.

The process of editing as been a learning curve; as we have become more skilled at editing through this process we have become slightly quicker at editing so we got this chorus done quite quickly.

After this chorus we realised that there is a section of 'waves' in the song, where the music cuts out and there is just the sound of waves breaking. We didn't actually realise this at the time of filming, as at that point we were using a version of the song that didn't include this section. However the version that the artist sent us had this section in it, so we decided it would be best if we left it in and used it to our advantage.

Luckily, we had filmed footage of waves breaking while we were in Brighton, which fits perfectly with the sound of the waves breaking, so we put this in and tried to time it perfectly.

This was all we had time for today, we were all really happy with the outcome of this session.

We all think that we should have finished the rough cut video in the next session.

Editing: 18/11/16.

Today after school, me, Wini and Sophia returned to the editing suite. Now that we have the first section of the video roughly edited we needed to move onto putting in the footage from the rooftop.

Before we started we had a discussion about how we wanted to incorporate this footage in a way that would make sense and flow nicely with the rest of the video.

We decided that it would be good if the footage came in right after the end of the first chorus and that we wouldn't use any more of the Brighton footage for now. We needed the first shot to be an interesting one, so we chose quite an abstract shot of Jem walking against the harsh grey sky. We felt this fit quite well with the tone of the song as the juxtaposes the 'romantic' footage, this is key as we wanted it to be clear that he is reminiscing about a past love.

We wanted to use a mixture of shots where he is lip syncing and when he is dancing/playing guitar on the roof.

We all made a unanimous decision to cut some of the shots of Jem dancing as he looks slightly awkward. It is of vital importance that he looks natural and cool, as he needs to be convincing as a polished mainstream artist.

 We continued to cut in the projection shots to make sure that the video flows and that it keeps the interest of the viewers.

At the end of this session we got to the second chorus and we were all really happy with the work that we have done today. Watching the video coming together is relieving as we were all anxious that it wouldn't make sense, however i believe that, so far, it makes sense and flows really nicely.

We need maybe two more sessions to finish the rough cut of the video, so we will try and complete these sessions by the end of November.

Theorist: David Gauntlett.

David Gauntlett is a British sociologist and media theorist. He specializes in studying contemporary media audiences, the every making and sharing of digital media, and the role of such media in self-identity and self-expression.

Gauntlett published ‘Media Studies 2.0’ online in 2007, which argues that classic media studies fails to define when the categories of ‘audiences’ and ‘producers’ unite, and that new, altered teaching methods are needed.

He states that because of web 2.0, we as audiences can become our own producers thanks to websites such as YouTube. Through this we can create our own identity and even influence other peoples.

Through this, gender identity for example, has become less constricted to previous representations. Web 2.0 allows us to create our own unique identity that doesn’t necessarily follow traditional understandings of gender. The ability and freedom that web 2.0’s allowed means it is now far more acceptable to be different and accepted for our individuality.

Editing: 15/11/16.

Now that we have completed all the filming that we needed, we need to start putting everything together.

The three different options for shots that we have are:

• The 'love scene' shots from Brighton
• The projection shots of Jem
• The rooftop scenes

Before we start putting it all together, we need to decide on the basic order of how we want the storyline of the video.

We all agreed that we wanted to start with the scenes from Brighton, to set the mood of the video, as we thought that this footage was most illustrative of the lyrics of the song (tying in with Andrew Goodwin's theory).

We wanted to incorporate the projection shots throughout - this was in order to break up the music video to make it more interesting and eye catching for the duration of the video. Furthermore, we didn't want the shot to get too 'same samey' as we fear that could be boring. This also stems from inspiration from other music videos, as many videos cut between a storyline and a performance from the artist.

Finally there is the rooftop shots, we wanted to incorporate these about halfway through the video to keep our viewers interested and to change up the vibe of the video so its not just a cheesy typical love story.

Now that we have a plan for the outline of the video, we can put the shots together. Obviously we intend to stick to this plan, however we also want to see what looks right so this plan may change slightly in the process of editing.

At the end of this editing session - we have the beginning of the video together with the shots from Brighton. I am extremely happy with how it is looking and it is less cheesy than I imagined which is good - I think this is partially due to some of the more 'artistic' shots that we took using the coloured lights in the arcade, also the projection shots tie it all nicely together. In our next session, we will begin editing the shots of the rooftop that kick in after the first chorus - we made the decision to put the shots in here as we feel it will fit in with the change of tone in the song.

This session was highly successful and enjoyable and I am looking forward until the next one! 

Filming day Three: Projections.

Today we did our final day of filming with Jem using the projection video that we made in the black box.

We had to song playing in the room in order for Jem to lip sync efficiently, we found that if he was actually singing along to the song rather than just miming, the quality of the lip sync was better and more realistic.

We did four alternative shots with the projections:
-Infront of the white screen
-Infront of the black brick wall
-Super close up in front of the black brick wall
-From the side infront of the black brick wall

We did these shots so we had some veriety in our video to make it more viusally interesting. Also, we did the song all the way through in each shot so we had the choice of which footage we wanted to use at each point in the song.

Overall, the filming was very successful and we were really happy with the footage. Jem's performance was great and he really knew the song well and therefore could give an competant and emotive performance. Now that we have all the footage we need we can start the editing process.

Making the projection video.

 As we are filming our final pieces of footage next week with the projector, we needed to decide exactly what footage we wanted projected onto Jem.

As a group, we went through all the footage from Brighton and decided what we thought would look best on the projector.

From our screen test we knew that bright colours and blues looked especially nice so we wanted to focus on that. As some of our footage was quite gloomy looking, we played around with filters and colour correction.

We turned up the saturation on some clips and slowed some clips down for dramatic effect. We even decided to put the clip of the wave backwards as it looked really cool and artistic.

After editing our short projection video, we went back to the black box and tested it out, thankfully it looked great and we all feel prepared for our filming next Monday.

Screen testing with the projector.

Today we went into the black box to test out some projections.

Unfortunately Jem was not available for the screen test, it would have been better to use him as we could have got a better idea of how it will look.

Instead we used Wini as a test subject, and she did some lip syncing in front of some of our footage from Brighton.

We especially liked how the blue toned footage looked on the projector, which we will keep in mind while editing our projection video.

We wanted a dream like feel to the projection scenes, so the bright, more abstract worked well with this concept.

The overall feel of the screen test was a positive one, we are all feeling optimistic about the music video.

Day Two: Filming on the roof.

Today we went to our second location which was the jealous gallery rooftop.

We arranged to arrive at the rooftop at 11am and asked Jem to arrive at 12, giving us enough time to set up and go over what shots we need to get done, this is where our shot list came in handy.

Once Jem had arrived we started filming.

The shots we needed were:

• Lip syncing shots in front of the painted wall
• Lip syncing while performing/walking around the roof
• Playing guitar on the edge of the roof

Those were the basic shots that we needed, we also intended to shoot some pick ups and whatever we thought would look good at the time.

The filming went very well, Jem gave a good performance despite needing some encouragement to perform with a bit more enthusiasm at times.

One really good aspect of today is that we got a really nice sunset which we were not expecting, this meant that we got some extra shots for the video, also the 'Jealous' sign lit up really nicely as it got darker which meant we got some really nice shots of Jem in front of it.

Overall, today was far some successful than Brighton, we felt much more organised and under less time pressure.