Whilst I aim to evaluate the video in as much detail as possible it is noted that some shots have been used more than once to match either lyrics or instrumentals for that certain time span so i will only be covering this video on a shot by shot basis as i see fit.
Yet before i go into description of each of the shots used and how they work with the song i am first going to explain the camera settings and how we used them for certain effects. With the camera starting off on the auto settings we had to change these settings to match the situation of the shots and settings around us.
White Balance-This was changed to an outdoor setting, with this set it allowed for consistency of colour, image and tone of our shots when shooting outside, and as none of our shots were filmed inside it meant that we didn't have to keep switching back between the two.
Shutter Speed-The shutter speed is mainly used to effect the exposure and can be used to drastically or subtly modify the lightness and darkness of your shots, our shutter speed was set to 1/50. This speed allows for more sharper shots as well as a wide depth of field which we attempted to use on a few occasion in our shots.
Aperture- This setting controls the amount of light that is seen on our shots and is the prominent setting for altering exposure to be either lighter or darker. We had our aperture as closed so that the shots would consist of the same amount of light (weather depending) which makes the video seem more fluent and professional.
Manual Focus- The main reason for the use of manual focus is that it allows us to focus on exactly what we want. With auto focus the camera cannot properly identify what is meant to be in focus and will automatically focus on the first thing it can find. However with the use of manual focus we can choose what is in focus and allows us to perform shots such as the depth of field. This shot requires
the white balance to be appropriate to where you are filming (in our case outside) as well as having a closed aperture and the use of a shutter speed on 1/50. With this now set we can then zoom in and focus before slowly zooming out and changing focus or visa versa. This allows for a shift in focusand creates an effect of drawing the audience as to where you want them to go in terms of concentration. Our group each attempted this shot yet it was Katie who actually used in correctly in our music video it occurs on the image below at in the video it is timed at 1:25 in our music video and is combined with a panning shot from left to right, yet it is only a narrow depth of field and isn't easily recognisable as the foreground appears blurred with the background in focus before switching to the foreground being in focus and the background appearing out of focus. PRODUCTION SCHEDULE
As a group we largely stuck to these camera setting to show continuity throughout the shootings and whilst i was only able to film some shots, (POV etc) the rest of the group always checked that when they filmed that the settings were correct for how we wanted them. With the settings of the camera now firmly established we could begin to film, and specific dates were used in filming. This is where good communication on set would prove vital so that group members knew what they where doing and how they were doing it. Unfortunately for us this was where we suffered the most. There were numerous times when the group had booked to film yet with only a few members turning up it was made difficult. The first time that we had arranged to meet up was: Wednesday 20th of January, yet neither me or Hannah showed up, i don't know why Hannah didn't and i forget why i didn't i think i had a Uni interview, yet both Katie and Amber showed up yet due to poor communication couldn't find each other, so Amber went out and shot the POV shots seen at the beginning of the film.
We then waited till Monday 1st of February when the whole group went out to film, yet due to the good weather conditions most of the stuff filmed couldn't be used with only Hannah's filming of the flooded establishing shots used. It is also worth pointing out that we couldn't really have started filming too much earlier than these points due to the amount of rain the the fact that we were also undecided on a place to shoot the film. Many of the cancellations also occurred due to rain and haven't been mentioned in this Production Schedule.
We arranged to film again on the 3rd of February yet only me and Amber showed up at 10 o clock when we had arranged to meet, with Katie in lessons till 12 and Hannah may have been on holiday? Yet unfortunately both me and Amber had forgotten to bring the props, i was meant to come in costume and she was meant to bring the mask so we had nothing to film.
Wednesday 10th of February was another scheduled day to film with Wednesdays being ideal as no one had lessons after twelve. Katie couldn't make it this time due to a driving lesson and it was me and Amber left to film again, yet we decided to cancel before hand as Katie had the mask. We then decided that we wouldn't film until March as I had Uni interviews every Wednesday until March and they couldn't film without me as i was playing both characters. At this point the three girls had managed to edit around a minutes worth of footage together, which i had taken no part in as i wasn't in the Monday lesson.
Yet on the Wednesday 3rd of March we had all scheduled to film and attempt to finish filming. Yet only me and Katie showed up but managed to get a large amount of the filming done.
In fact we thought we had finished but on Monday 8th of March after the whole group had edited what we had filmed we realised that there was still some more shots to fill.
Yet for some unknown reason we all delayed finishing the filming as we couldn't find a time when everyone was three so
me and Katie finally went out on Thursday 25th of March and completed the filming, it was at this point when I, who was the only member who hadn't filmed yet due to being in the video, took some footage of myself walking through the woods in a close shot in which i held the camera and walked forwards creating a track shot.With the filming now completed we spent Monday 29th finally completing the editing in which myself, Katie and Amber were present. The video was completed with each member of the group contributing to both filming and editing yet some largely more than others. The reason that i felt that our group struggled so much with the communication was that there was a real lack of motivation. As far of getting hold of each other Hannah was almost impossible to get hold at times even though me and Amber both had her number as well as Amber's phone at times being switched off. Me and
Katie were the only ones who really properly communicated and i personally felt that we were the ones who had to take charge and made sure that the filming was done on time. In terms of the filming we did we originally had a shooting script and we had originally used Clapperboards which clearly labelled what shot we were doing, yet due to the weather these clapperboards and scripts (that were very basic clapperboards and scripts) would either blow away in the wind or get ruined by the rain and mud. In relation to paper on set we found ourselves only loosely applying our storyboard to our music video. As mentioned earlier there were some shots that couldn't be applied from our storyboard due to significant amounts of people on set, yet whilst many of the shots were followed, during the editing process we decided that the way they had been shot would look better in different positions such as the jumping of the camera showing me moving forward was placed further along to match "Set it, set it set it up!" yet other than that most of the shots used in the storyboard were followed by the group.Every time that we did go out filming, apart from when Amber went out on her own, we took the tripod to use to steady the shots, however we rarely found ourselves using it. On the shots where i am in the mask and jump forward towards the camera was the only real time we used the tripod. The thing really is quite annoying to use as whilst unscrewing the upper sections to get the legs extended were easy placing the camera securely onto the top of the tripod was quite hard and most of the times during that shot we found ourselves having to have one hand on the camera as well. However we weren't too worried about this as the occasional shake of the camera were at times accidentally and at times deliberately used to connote fear into our music video. It was for this reason that we were comfortable with using zoom and depth of field as whilst both do edit the focus at times creating a blurred impression, they both also shake the focus a bit which provided another form of fear into our music video.
DETAILED ANALYSIS OF SHOTS
With the beginning of the song opening up with a slow tempo, low pitch sound we decided to begin with establishing shots. These shots were of the flooded woodland surrounding our area to film and were filmed by Hannah. They consist mainly of various short timed long shots that zoomed in and out in time with the music. The use of the camera was handheld to show slight shaking to embed the idea of something not quite right about the tranquil setting, a themes matched by the eerie sound of the song at that point.
When the guitar kicks in it cuts to a sped up pointing of view shot taking by Amber walking through the woods. The use of the POV shot sped up was to match the tempo of the song as well as well as showing the violent movement in the camera which embeds that the camera is running from something and is extremely scared. I personally feel that this is the most effective of the shots used as it matches the song really well as well as the simplicity of just speeding it up using Final Cut Pro making it effective and easy to create.
This shot is eventually followed by a pan shot around my face, whilst it isn't the most graceful of pans we wanted it in time with the lyrics (unfortunately it is just off) and meant that in order to keep the shots steady we would just film close ups before switching to a close up from a different view creating a distorted pan. Katie was filming this and we used the camera hand held as the shots only last a second if that. The following shot is a long shot of me walking and looking around. At first, however, it didn't match the tempo of the song so had to be sped up to match. This shot was used using the tripod yet as we had problems attaching it Katie had to keep one hand on the camera.
Many of the POV shots used also involve panning, high and low angle shots the one seen below shows the camera tilting up slightly to reveal the mask hidden in the tree. I feel that this accura
tely impersonates someone looking all over the place searching for something and it really makes the camera seem like it is coming from the eyes of a human. There is also emphasis placed when the mask is found with the zoom being used to emphasise its importance before zooming back out to portray how dangerous it is and that it should be kept well clear of. These shots are also extremely easy to produce and whilst not having to worry about the shake of the camera. All of these shots have been sped up to match the tempo of the song yet with slight camera movements being magnified it merely looks like a turn of the head.After this point came one the most annoying shots to produce but also one of the best to watch. The lyrics are "set it, set it, set it up" and we decided to use the shot of my getting closer to the c
amera with out walking, it is based largely on the film The Ring. It is quite hard to show this to you using stills and there is also a link further up in the blog, yet the still below show the change in distance between characters without one of them motioning to move. Originally we had hoped in incorporate an other the shoulder shot much like in the clip but due to only having one actor we just left it as it walking towards the camera. This isn't a POV shot merely a long shot that
turns into a close up without the camera moving. It required the tripod in order to keep the 
camera still for so many shots, and required a few takes with the positioning of the character vital. It is filmed by just keeping the camera in one place (Katie was overlooking to make sure the shots were fine) and recording before pausing the character would then move forward a few paces before recording, with this repeated a few times. The resulting effect really is quite eerie but took a lot of time when editing as well due to the extremely repetitive task of trying to accurately time each character movement with each "set it up". Yet the final result worked much better than we thought it would and really embeds the idea that this thing isn't human.The next shot we used in the video was an attempted depth of field shot. It was Katie who actually used in correctly in our music video it occurs on the image below yet is more obvious in our music video and is combined with a panning shot from left to right, yet it is only a narrow depth of field and isn't easily re
cognisable as the foreground appears blurred with the background in focus before switching to the foreground being in focus and the background appearing out of focus. This basically emphasises that the camera is looking for something and when the character comes into focus it is an indicator that it is the centre of attention and should be noticed. We attempted this shot a few times with the desired affect that Katie would get behind a bush with a high angle shot looking up at the characrer with the focus origionally on the leaves before switching focus to the characters. Again using a handheld effect helped out it as when the camera shakes slightly after spotting the character it represents fear and since this is a POV shot it works. The next shot worth mentioning is the track shotn that i did of myself walking through the woods. It was done by me h
olding the camera and Katie checking that the shot was fine. Then when she pressed record i would walk around moving my head as if looking for something. Whilst i think this shot works well and when sped up to match "we dance to the sound of sirens" creates a distorted abstract effect that matches the song, I do feel that i have ruined it a little with my inability to keep a straight face as i am not demonstrating much fear. However whilst techniqually it may not be a track shot the as there isn't anyone holding the camera tracking back with me i feel it still passes off for one. The reason that Katie didn't hold the camera and walk back was that there were sticks and bushes everywhere and she wouldn't have seen where she was going and may have fallen over with the camera. Also by me holding it it creates a high angle shot which embeds my emotions better, unfortunately the wrong ones.The rest of the song mainly consist of similar or slightly modified shots that link with either the tempo or lyrics of the song however the last real change in shot occurs when the tempo of the song s
lows right down. It is just after the indie kid has fallen over and the camera switches to a POV shot that sees it lying on the floor, origionally we had hoped to place ot at and anlge or on its side to create an extreme canted shot. The image here is a failed canted shot, and the reason we didn't use it in our video was that we could only really take a still of this shot. The floor was quite muddy and we had to rest the camera on Katie's bag with a jumper over the top to stop it getting wet, yet on its side the camera wouldn't stay up so we had to resort to the origional positioning of the camera which could stay up unattended. This low angle long shot eventually ends with me picking up the camera and turning it into a close up of my face. It is meant to be another POV shot with me picking up the indie kid who has fallen over. In terms of the song, the shot is long and matches the slow tempo extremely well. After this shot more POV shots are seen of the character fleeing the area yet it isn't established which character it is to make the storyline of the song seem more abstract and ambigouos. The audience are then left to think that the video is finished when the screen blacks out but it ultimatley cuts back straight away with a medium shot of the character. This was used to attempt to scare the audience in time with the last drum beat, but i feel that there needed to be a longer black out.UNUSED SHOTS
During filming of the video we ended up a number of shots that we felt weren't quite good
enough to be placed in our music video. The shot below was a shot that we origionally wanted in our music video as it was a rule of three shot. This means that you have a horizontal divide and a vertical divide that that leaves a space to put the character which will draw attention to it. The reason we didn't use this shot is firstly that the sun glare made it an awkward place to put a character as the sun would make that shot harder to see; but also that the horizontal divider occured in the middle of the shot which didn't leave hardly any room for a character or object to be placed. This was unfortuante as we weren't really able to get another rule of three shot in a part from 
the shot based on The Ring in which there are two horizontal dividers, which does have the same sort of effect. Another shot that we chose to discard was this pan/track shot of a duck. We had origionally hoped to use this in the beginning of the song with the slow tempo, and wer going th have the duck swim then fly away in slow motion when the drums kicked in. This took patience and we have quite a lot of film, and ultimately after some rather inhumane attempts to get it to fly away we missed the shot and therefore were unable to use this shot.FEEDBACK
After thoroughly analising my groups video, i would now call on other people to give feedback as
to what they thought of the video much like how i did with both the digipack and the advert. The people who actually commented on the video were overall impressed. Especially in terms of how the shots matched the music. They liked the editing skills used the shots making the quicker, slower how they were put together. Although there were comments stating that they felt the timing at times was either brilliant or poor switch i agree with too. They commented as to how the video really matched the digipack and advert in terms of themes, motifs and simplicity. One person commented that more planning could have been spent on the custome to make it look scarier, and whilst we as a group did have orgional plans for this, we never got round to actually making or buying these costumes and had to settle for what we could find. So overall the feedback from the video compared to the other two tasks has been more positive and as a group i am proud of the effort put in by most of us, and happy with the overall outcome of the video as well as the personal outcomes of both the digipack and the advert.On a personal level i feel that the simplicity of our video, combined with the editing that we put in really does pass off for a good video, and whilst more time could have been spent on setting costume and the shots, i feel that the video really does match the simplicity of Bloc Party and their albums and songs. We started off by wanting to make an abstract video and i defiantly felt that we have done just that. In combination with the research that the group put into the audience and other bands or artists from the rock genre and in combination with my digipack and advert, i feel that i have successfully created a cohesive Promo Pack and video. In terms of personal development i also feel that i have become much more organised and assetive, in terms of work i'm usually quite passive and don't get too worked up if something isn't done at a specific time, but as our time on this task got shorter i had to be the one to push forward and help get thing done. However the timing of my work could have been better, as you can tell by me posting this blog on the last day. Yet the fact that i have finished and that i feel an adequate job has been made of the task by my group i cant really have any complaints, apart from having to use blogger to do the whole task on. In terms of the technology i have already commented on Photoshop and InDesign which i found just about managable, and whilst other uses of technology such as Powerpoint and the cameras used were relitively simple, the two i had the most trouble with were Final Cut Pro and Blogger. Final Cut Pro is a very useful piece of technology and allows for easy editing however it can get extremely annoying when trying to edit small pieces of film into a sequence, with the layout of the programme unclear you really have to ask for help and keep saving so that you don't loose your work but towards the end of editing it became a lot more fluent. Blogger on the other hand is utterly useless! The sugarcoated version to my complaint about Blogger is that it looses your work, rearranges it the site shuts downs from time to time, i couldn't upload this post for ageeeeees! and it wont upload half the stuff i want to upload.
Yet Blogger aside I feel that the effort put into this production towards the end of the time span definately accounts for the lack of effort shown at the beginning and that overall and extremely well produced finished piece has been created.
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