Shot 1: Boys parking.
(when play has been clicked, the video will take around 20 seconds to begin).
As you would have seen from our actual video, we have used a duplicate of this shot. The above shot was our first take and there were a couple of reasons as to why we chose to not use this particular one. Firstly, you will notice the camera movement is quite jolty in some places. The shot was filmed handheld and this caused slight movement in the focus. To overcome this problem, we should have used a tripod. This way we would have been eliminating any jolts in the camera movement which would have provided us with a clear and precise shot. However, when it came around to filming the shot again, I managed to keep the camera steady by resting it on top of my shoulder, this made it far easier to keep the camera still and made panning far easier! Another reason for us not wanting to use this particular take, was because of the amount of people that walked into the frame. In total, four people did in the space of five seconds. On the above clip, you can see two people walking directly in front of the camera, but you can also see the shadows of two more people about to come into the frame. I can see that this may have been good to include, as it shows ordinary people going about their business, which could add realness to our video. However, we wanted our audiences attention to be focused on the boys getting out of the car and begin walking off into the distance and had we included people walking into the frame, it may have drawn attention away from our characters.
Shot 2: Becca and make-up
We initially wanted to include a clip like this as it illustrates Becca getting ready to go out. However, as you can see, right at the beginning Becca begins to laugh, which ruins the shot. We originally wanted Becca to just look in the mirror and apply her make-up, as the shot was only going to feature quickly in the video. In addition, at approximately 9 seconds into the clip, you can see her begin to talk, again as stated above, we wanted to avoid this, as the shot was just meant to show Becca doing her make-up. A further reason as to why we didn't use this clip, is the slight jolts in the camera movement. If a lot of action had been taking place this may not have been as noticeable. But considering Becca is the only person in the frame and the camera demonstrates a low angle shot, any camera movement is apparent. To overcome this problem, we could have perhaps rested the camera on a hard surface, i.e a book and titled the lens. This is something I have become aware of for future projects.
Shot 3: Poor lighting
(when play has been clicked, footage will take a couple of seconds to begin)
This clip shows the girls on part of their journey to Brighton. As you can see, the lighting conditions are very poor! Having already included one poor lighting shot in our video, we really wanted to avoid including more. By filming in such bad conditions, our footage is very hard to see and this would have made our video look unprofessional. This is why we decided to scrap this particular shot and film a better take, when the sun was out, so that our footage would be clear and better understood. In addition, had we used more poor lighting shots, the continuity of our video would be very bad, which we definately want to avoid as it will bring down the overall appearance of our video.
Overall, these shots consist of poor filming techniques. In order to prevent these types of shots we should have considered our surroundings a little better. However, with that said, without making mistakes and having to do more than one take on some shots, I would not have learned how to adapt to such problems and what could be done to overcome and correct such problems. From analysing some of the bad clips we took, I am able to see just how these can be avoided in the future and have learnt the importance of being organised when embarking on such a project!
Editing:
For me, editing the video was the most difficult part of this whole project. To start with it took me a while just to understand the basics of the Mac programme we were using, "Final Cut Pro" and to follow, we had so much film to arrange it got very confusing as to what we wanted to use.
The easiest part of the editing process was to cut certain segments out of the video, or cut particular shots in half to use them at different times. To do this, I had to use the 'razor' tool. At first I wasnt aware that you could use shortcut buttons that made it quicker for you to use certain tools, but after practising and once I got into the swing of editing, I learned to quickly press the 'B' button to open the shortcut for the razor. This made things a lot easier.
As well as cutting, I also had to make sure that the continuity of the video ran smoothly and avoided any jolts in between each shot. Being that we could place each clip on a timeline, so that it was easier for us to conjoin each shot, it became easier to avoid jolts, as I was able to precisly match up the clips, so that they formed a continuous pattern. If after this had been done there were still any slight jolts between certain shots, I would then use the 'razor' tool in order to cut away the slight segment that was causing it to do this. One shot that does question the continuity of our story, features near the beginning when you see the girls leaving Becca's house. It was around 8pm when this was filmed so the lighting was very poor. However, we decided to include this clip, as we were not able to re-film that particular scene again due to timing, so rather than have nothing in the video, we chose to use it. In addition, we only realised this problem after we had completed editing the rest of the video and due to timings issues and deadlines, we were unable to re-shoot it. A further continuity problem that arose, was in regards to the group of girls. At the beginning of the video Becca's friends agreed to feature, but due to other commitments, they were unable to finish filming. To overcome this problem myslef and Vickie agreed to play the remaining parts. This slightly effects the continuity of the video, as at the beginning there is a shot with one of Becca's friend in, although we tried to narrow these shots down to as little as possible, some we needed to include as we were not going to be able to re-shoot them.
To enhance our video, visually, we decided to speed up particular segments of the video in order for it to compliment the beat of the music. We used this technique several times and found that it added emphasis to the overall video. To accomplish this, I had to click on the clip I wanted to adjust on the timeline, then simply right click and then go to the speed option and type in how fast or slow I wanted the clip to be.
Another part of the editing process was when we managed to achieve the effect of the boys sitting on the bed, to standing up, to sitting back down etc. Again, we chose to do this as it fits the beat of the music and I am really happy with how it looks. I found this quite difficult to do throughout the whole of editing, but Becca on the other hand quickly got the hang of it, so she then helped me improve by showing me what to do. It involves having to cut the particular clip up into small sections (this part I found hard) and then going into the speed option again, however this time changing the speed and also clicking the reverse box, as this is what gives it the effect. This effect was also used when the boys got out of their car later on in the video.
I enjoyed editing the video. Although I found it difficult at times, I have been able to learn new skills and techniques that can definately help improve my work. Also, it allowed us to see how well we worked as a group, as it was crucial we decided on the right clips to include. Fortunatley we all agreed with each other, so our abilities of working well together were very evident.
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