YouTube reviews

Recently we've had a few comments under our video on YouTube , commenting on the good aspects of the video and we had some minor criticisms . We are planning to get a focus group together to discuss the video and how we could improve. We also aim to email a range of people for more comments .

To the comments that suggested that the narrative was unclear , there was no real narrative or story , the video was a minor representation of a youth culture .

In what ways do your media products use , develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ? part1

For this evaluation task I am going to discuss the conventions used in our media product , whether they challenge or follow the usual and expected conventions of a dub campaign.

These two images I have chosen as they show the artistic camera work we used in our video , inspired by Travi$ scotts video 'upper echelon' we wanted the video to involve a lot of smoke and dim lighting . For the beginning of the video we used a gopro attached to a drone , which we held manually and followed our two actors, this was a very experimental and new technique we attempted for an artistic shot . Already we have broken the usual conventions of a dub video , you tend not to see this type of camera work in a reggae or dub video as they are more concentrated on the music .

We mixed up our shots and incorporated a lot of close ups and extreme close ups . This is commonly used in a pop video to establish the 'star'. In our case the girl was our star and so we concentrated on her, we also practiced with her lip sync which synced perfectly with the songs lyrics , this is also a common convention to build upon the stars image.

Here we used a 35mm lens to get the clearest image , the lens created a very different shot to the go pro . We used a lot of slow motion which worked well with this type of lens , as it is very high quality . This is quite a common feature in pop videos. We changed the lens to a 50mm for the extreme close -ups of the boxers hands , the 55 is meant for close ups and so gave us a very clear and artistic image .

We used a wide range of camera lenses and camera , including a flying drone for ariel shots and a 55mm lens for extreme close up and slow motion. This is a challenge to the usual conventions of a dub video . I struggled to find a comparison video but here is Stand High Patrol's new video. As we can see it is very basic , they have used a cartoon sketch instead of a choreographed video.

This is the initial draft of our video

We have come to an end of our post production , i filmed our initial draft , shown below . The group sat down a few days ago and we reviewed each shot from beginning to end , naming them , filing them and we began to sync the performance shots with the song . Within our evaluation of shots we wanted to use ones which reflected the theme we were going for best , i found that we used more performance shots than we originally planned but i think it was for the best .

Second stage of editing

We began laying down shots , using the 'I' key and the 'O' key to cut the shots down . We finished the initial draft after a good few hours spread over a few days . The hardest part was matching the singing shots with the song , and I tried to match Ali's boxing shots with the lyrics , so that his punches were in sync . Below is a photo of the draft timeline.

Initial editing

We have begun editing , starting by naming each shot , giving names relating to the shot angle , shot type , who's in the shot and whether we like it . After naming each shot we placed them into different log files . We had six log files for each scene or camera type . Shown below.

Photos from the shoot day - pt2 evaluation.

The cast before departing to our location.

                                   The team and cast carrying props through the muddy field .

                                             Before setting up props and creating our set.

                                                    The big man starting our fire

                                             Flora doing make up before Romany's scene

                                           Experimenting with smoke and positioning cast

                                            Practicing with the drone before our first shots

                                                   Shooting extra shots with the drone

                                                          Setting up for the boxing scene

                                                                       Cast during a shot

                                                                 Romany before her scene

Shoot day evaluation

I asked myself some questions about the shoot day and preparation leading up to it .


-What did you do the day before , to set up for your shoot day ?

Personally I had to make quick corrections to props , such as the printed money which I had to cut out and print on both sides , in the end we didn't use the money which ended up being a waste of time . I had to contact each cast member to organize a meeting spot and a departure time from school.

-How did you feel when you woke up on the morning of the shoot day ?

I was excited but anxious , the night before I was worrying about whether we had missed out props or costumes , whether everyone would meet our deadline and if we would work well as a team . in the end I was very pleased with our overall effort.

-How well prepared were you when you arrived for the shoot , what did you have to do before you could start shooting ?

Overall we turned up with our exact cast and more than enough props than we needed to create a homely environment in the woods , I was pleased with the team effort leading up to our shoot. We worked very efficiently to move or props , set up quickly and give out roles to our cast before we could begin shooting , as a team we decided upon costume and outfits on the day which worked well and smoothly . Flora managed to do makeup in a very short time which meant shooting could start very early .

-Describe what the location and set looked like when we began shooting , how well do you feel you manage to create the look of your concept ?

As a team we collected props which would create the feeling that these people had been living and hanging out at this hut in the woods , we scattered old cans , drinks , food packets , cigarettes and personal objects around to create this homely environment . Also setting up chairs , a fire , candles and sheets which added to the effect. Overall our set up was different to how I planned , but it was more efficient and gave us more of an area to shoot , by spreading out the props into different areas where as we originally planned to have a tight and small space.

-How did you divide the roles on shoot day and what role did i play ?

On the day we quickly split our roles up , i coordinated shots and followed the camera men foe the best shots and scenes , Dayo and i both set up props and created the set and i created roles for the actors . Dayo ran the playback and flora did makeup .

-What do you think you personally did well?

I felt that i acted as a leader on the day , a sought of director . I enjoyed the day alot and i put in alot of effort as the idea was originally generated by me , overall the team worked extremely well together and each of our efforts would have been pointless without each other putting in effort.

-What problems did you have on the shoot day , how did you solve them ?

We struggled with time , at the moment it is getting dark at around 4:30 , originally we didnt plan to shoot at night but some shots will include night scenes as the video goes on . We overcame the issue by carefully setting up flood lights which acted as a sought of sunset . The smoke machine and smoke grenades were difficult to time as well , with the wind against us and the long beginning shot we struggled to have the right amount of smoke in our shots , In the end we kept practicing and got a good amount of shots .

-what part of the shoot do you think was most succesful?

The shots of Romany our main character were definatley the best , she was the perfect girl for the role as she was confident and enthusiastic , at the time of those shots we had the perfect lighting and smoke levels . 

-Which part of the shoot do wish had gone better? 

Sadly we were unable to shoot one of our shots , luckily it was only going to be a small section of the video but we ran out of time and had to leave due to light and the temperature began to drop very low . It was the scene involving a guy wearing a clown masking , painting as Romany danced around the site . It was sad as this shot would have really added to the wild and creepy effect we were going for .

-How well do you think you managed your actors ? 

 I found that we chose exactly the right cast , they were enthusiastic and perfect for their roles which created a lot less stress on the day , making everything quicker and more realistic . Overall the team managed the well , we got them into roles , their areas and their outfits quickly and efficiently .

-What was the part of the shoot that you enjoyed the most? 

I had a great time on the first shot , experimenting with the smoke machine , bombs and the drone with he gopro camera on it , this was a very tactical scene as we had to shoot a very long lasting and complicated shot in a very short time , as we plan to slow this long shot down by half its speed .