As part of my research we were given the preliminary task of re-making the first 25 seconds of Britney Spears’ music video ‘Baby, one more time’ in groups of three.
Evaluation of Preliminary Task
Equipment - I had not previously used the video camera so it took a little while to get used to it's different functions and making sure that it was recording properly however I am now confident in using it. We used a tripod in some of our shots which made sure that the footage was stable and not shaky however if i were to do this task again I would find a way of incorporating the use of a tripod whilst filming a moving shot such as the first shot of the preliminary task which was filmed handheld and the result was good but a bit shaky. It was very useful that a member of our group owned a smartphone which enabled us to watch the original Britney Spears music video at the same time as filming so that we could match the angle, content and length of each shot to the actual video making it as precise as possible. We used an apple mac computer and the 'imovie' software installed on it to edit our footage. I had used this software along with another member of the group so we quite easily uploaded our filmed material onto the computer and then began editing it until we were happy with our finished outcome.
Setting up the shots - For each different shot we did about 4-6 takes to make sure that when it came to the editing stage we would have enough footage to choose the best from incase there were any problems with the others. The location of any music video is very important and we were very fortunate that the Britney Spears music video that we were re-creating is set within a school so we found it quite easy to match the setting as well as possible. We were not able to control the lighting for the shots we took and instead adjusted some of the shots lighting on the editing software on the mac however in my music video I shall take the lighting into much more consideration. Within the 25 second clip that we were allocated to film there was only 2 words in which we had to mime however there were visuals of the foot and pencil tapping on the table, the clock and the bell which we had to sync in time with the music for the video which we downloaded and imported onto the editing software.
Working in a group - For this task I enjoyed working in a group because we had organised ourselves well so that we each got a chance to try out each stage of the production and editing for the video. It was good to have different opinions and feedback from the other members of my group which sometimes altered the decisions that I would have instinctively made. Despite the benefits of working in a group I am going to work alone for my coursework music video as you have to come up with a completely new idea for your music video instead of recreating one that already exists and I feel that there would be certain limitations of working in a group for this as everyone else will have too many different ideas and therefor I may not be completely satisfied with what we produce.
Overall I felt that our preliminary task outcome was quite successful considering the time in which we completed it. It was helpful to do this task as I am now aware of what differences I shall use when planning, filming and editing my music video.
