Pre Production Work 

Reflection on Presentation pitch 

I made a PowerPoint presentation pitch on my initial music video ideas. I created this presentation on google slides and by the end I was reasonably happy with the layout and design but I feel as though  could have made more of an effort with it. This presentation included Billie Eilish branding and research about her but the whole purpose of The presentation was to showcase  two different types of styles of videos I wanted to go for with my song which were lyric video and narrative, but my narrative idea I was always going to go for. I then had to present it to my teacher Paul online on a conference call. I got my slide up and and talked through both ideas, I had a lot more ideas and went more into depth with my narrative idea which was my favourite. Paul agreed that this idea was better as he could see I had put more work into it. I think the presentation went alright but it could have been alot better. I didnt go theough it as much as I should have andafter watching it back you could see how I was just reading word for word off of the slide. Doing presentation can help build up confidence for later on in life when I will be needed to do them. 

Final edit of music video on youtube

Music video reflection 

At the beginning of our project we started learning about the technicality of music videos  so that when it came to filming and editing we knew how. We had lessons on the different styles, codes and conventions, and technical and symbolic. We then made pages on our blogs dedicated to each one to show we understand and also to look back on in the future.  

First of all when getting ready to film my music video I already had a feeling that it was going to go well as I had quite a good plan on what I was intending to do. I filmed in one day on the 22nd of November and I was the only person doing the filming and Amy was the only actor. Amy has been in quite a few of my other projects including GCSE projects and she is always wiling to help me, so I wasn't worried about her not wanting to do it on the day. I planned on using my new IPhone 12 pro to record the music video instead of a camera. I recently got a canon camera, however It is better for taking pictures and not long videos as the quality isnt as great. We are also able to access all of the college equipment such as cameras and gimbals but my phone was a better option.

 I had already completed all of my pre production, so that I knew what I was going straight into. I firstly explained to Amy the plan, the shots, costumes and actions she was going to do.  I asked her to wear a full white outfit and I helped her choose as-well so that there would be a big contrast between the second half of the video where she is wearing all black. We were filming in the day, however it was about half 3 and was short of time due to the sun going down very quickly in the winter. We managed to film very quickly and get a-lot of shots even though we didn't get a-lot of time. I filmed shots that I didn't use and thought I wasn't going to use anyway but I thought its better to have more than less. 

The first part of my video was in our driveway so there was no one around us to get in the way, however when we went into the forest for the second part as it is a public walkway, there were a few people walking by that we had to stop for. After I got all the footage for the white outfit, I then went and filmed Amy doing a bit of her makeup as I didn't want it to jump straight from a white to black outfit. As we were right next to the house anyway, it made it easier to change and do makeup instead of bringing it all out to the forest. Then when filming the footage in the black outfit I found it easier to think of shots because they were going to be in slo motion the same as the first chorus. The black outfit shots out in the forest took no time at all and I had a-lot of footage in my camera roll that I knew would work well. 

Me and Amy sat down and watched all the clips and it was good to hear from Amy that she really liked how some of the clips turned out, and that I got a second opinion as-well. In my opinion, filming went really well and it was good that I had someone like Amy in my video as we are quite close and it makes it easier to let her know what to do. I think Amy was a great actor in the video and played both parts extremely well. In conclusion, I think the only thing I could have improved on was maybe playing the song on another device whilst recording so that It all lined up and Amy could have lip-synced more of the lyrics. I feel as if there wasn't enough lyrics lip-synced as there was only a couple of clips like it but I think that is my personal preference and it wouldn't have changed much. Whilst Filming I tried out a-lot of new clips that I hadn't used in any other projects before and I really enjoyed using them and will definitely try them again, such as the dolly zoom. 

I then went onto uploading all of the clips onto my college one drive. I did this on my phone so that when I next went into college I could access them all easily. The only issue I had was the fact that I took so many video that I had over 200 to sort through. We got taught a way on how to sort our footage out and this really helped. In my video I have about 5 separate parts and so I made bins for all of these parts so that when it came to editing I knew exactly where I needed to find my footage. I already had an idea of how I wanted to edit the first cut which I did quite quickly but then editing effects in and everything in was the longest part. 

The first thing I noticed when editing was how clear and high quality the clips came out on the mac. This was good as it looks alot more professional. I wanted to edit the clips to the beat of the music to make the video flow better and be more visually pleasing instead of randomly edited. On one part of the edit in the chorus there are three beats in the song which I did a edit in which looks cool. I also did an inverted fast edit where it switched from normal to the inverted really fast when the song changed from the chorus to the verse. I then searched up on YouTube how to overlap clips so that you could see one beneath the other as they play at the same time. This was very easy as all I had to do was put the clips on top of each other then change the effect on the top clip to soft merge and then when it was played it had two layers. 

After all my research about Billies music videos and target audience, I think I did a good job and creating something that related to the song and her style. The vision I had for this video came out better than I thought. This is due to taking inspiration from Billies other music videos and seeing what works well with her style of music. The fact that I have taken inspiration from Billie means that this video will appeal to her targeted audience as well. The contrast in clothes from White to black portrays Billies career from when she was quite innocent when she first started out compared to how she comes across now to her audience. My video is different to the actual 'Bellyache' video, which is good as it shows a different side to the song however I did take inspiration from some parts including the plastic bags, gum and slo motion at the chorus.

In conclusion, I am extremely happy with the outcome of the video. I feel as though I put alot of effort and planning into this project, more so than the previous one and it paid off. I went into it with a plan and without stressing if things were going to turn out bad. I enjoyed creating this project too which helped as I was excited to film and edit to create something I really enjoy doing. For my Final Major project, I hope I will be able to make another music video, with the skills I have now and make it even better.