Monday, 27 March 2017

Audience Feedback On Final Cut + Questionaire

1) Does my video have a strong narrative?
Yes
No

2) Does my video look like an old silent film?
Yes
No
Slightly

3) Do you think my video suits the overall song?
Yes
No

4) Would you watch a similar video?
Yes
No

5) Were you aware of what was going on?
Yes
No
At parts

6) Did you think the video was entertaining?
Yes
No

Sunday, 26 March 2017

Final Cut- Production Diary



After three Rough Cuts I have finally created my final cut for my A2 media coursework. It is a narrative video using the song Bad Company by JAWS. The narrative will follow the life a one man creating an idea of having his own "monster" or "company" which eventually is the death of him.

From the previous Rough Cut 3 I have made some improvements from colour correction, to adding in titles and ensuring the final improvements like font corrections.

Firstly, I made several adjustments with the matter of colour correction. However they were not major as it was just me going through each clip and double checking all the clips had the same look due to some lighting being changed. So I overall I feel this has had a good effect as it has meant all the clips even if they started out looking completely different all now merge together which results in more pleasing viewing.

Secondly I have finally completed the titles for my coursework production and overall I'm very happy with them. The intertitles have turned out just how I first intended as they add to the general aesthetic of the silent movie I wished to create. To choose what my titles said I had to research into intertitles, and I found that they conventionally use text to display speech in the scene. So I copied this and added in the following titles. All these titles ensure a clear narrative and the enhancement of the aesthetic.

Finally, I had to choose the correct font I wanted to use as previously I had only used random font to fill the space. I then took to the internet to research silent movie fonts and found a font on dafont.com called Silentina font which looks like a almost exact replica of ones seen in adaptations of Frankenstein and Nosrefatu.

Overall I'm very happy with the music video, and to see in-bias opinion look on the audience feedback section of my blog.

Rough Cut 3- Production Diary


This Rough Cut has had several changes compared to the last one such as the new added bars at the side like the traditional silent film and of course the removal of the bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Also obviously the titles I have added in in order to follow the conventions of normal silent films as well as further developing the narrative of my story line. And not forgetting the artificial camera movements I've added in.

However, first I will first talk about the cinematic bars I've added in. This was done to more accurately replicate the look I wanted as it ensures that the video appears as if I have a scale of 4:3 instead of 16:9. So we see very significant changes in this department because I really feel it has helped complete the over all aesthetic of the video. We can see the new borders in the image to the right of the text an below we can see what the video used to look like.







Secondly as I mentioned before I have added the intertitles I've previously blogged about. This has allowed me to create a full video that is on the beat of the song. As seen by the way the shots will cut or transition on beat of the song. I did this by using the ripple tool on premiere pro which allows the dragging of the size of two clips simultaneously. By using this tool I also made sure to zoom in on the wave forms of the music file itself to make for accurate cutting on the beat.






Finally I also added in some new artificial camera movements that I learnt how to do on YouTube by watching several videos on the matter. To add more context when I say artificial camera movements I mean when I have take an ordinary shot place it in a premiere pro timeline and make sure that the effect controls panel is open. Then I would go to the start of a clip and add a key frame at the scale position and any other variable I want and then move over to the last frame of the shot and then change the variables to where I want the shot to end up. Then all there is to do then is to render the file through and review it and depending on the variables you change you may create a zoom as we see in the shot of just the protagonists face or even just a pan. Below you can see the effects panel and program monitor so you are able to see some values to give more idea of how it is  done.

Friday, 24 March 2017

Rough Cut 2- Production Diary


Here is my second rough cut, I have made several developments that are noticeable including the use of Luts (Lookup table) which are simply just a preset collection of colour values that create certain Luts. I used the Lut seen in this picture in the effect controls- Creative section. It is called SL NOIR  TRI-X, I was lucky in the fact I found one that already sat within premiere pro.

They make a very significant difference to how the music video looks. As seen by the difference in the overall appearance of my 1st rough cut and this one.




Rough Cut 2 with LUT
Rough Cut 1 no LUT, saturation value 0
The application of the LUT as can be seen has made a huge difference to the quality of the footage as we can clearly see how the whites instantly look less blown out compared to the first rough cute. Furthermore it also enhances the blacks and shadows in the clips as seen by the larger shadow created by the shelf behind the protagonist. Finally, when you take a look in and around of the glasses it brings out more reflection and detail to the point you can almost pick out the pattern on the glasses. It also helped with a certain level of colour correction however this happened at a later point.

I also made several changes to the edit by creating much shorter cuts especially at the start, furthermore I worked to ensure it was more on the beat then previous times. This made it seem more like a music video then just a short film which is often hard to distinguish with my strong narrative my production relies on. In fact if you watch my video compared to my first rough cut the story is much further ahead than before with it being several shots ahead, but of course this had to be done to prepare for my third rough cut with titles inserted. This will then mean I will near a final cut however there is still along way to go with every clip to colour grade using the scopes I previously learnt to use.  

Thursday, 23 March 2017

Rough Cut 1- Production Diary


Above we see my first rough cut of my A2 music video. It is a basic culmination of all of my shots, it has no special effects apart from the fact I created an adjustment layer and adjusted the saturation value to nil, and added in cinematic bars at the bottom and top. I'm happy in general with the edit as it has the start of what I aimed to do. However it is still without the intertitles I plan to insert, but in the time being I shall just add dummy titles in so I can edit to the beat of the song as at the moment there is no point of accurate on the beat editing as I will only have to change it in later edits. Furthermore, I plan to colour correct my whole video by adjusting the basic settings such as highlights, shadows, blacks, whites, saturation and exposure. I may also look for a more appropriate lookup table (LUT), in order to improve the general aesthetic of the whole production as it produces a more cinematic look compared to the use of saturation which I currently have in place. I'm also considering changing the bars at the top and bottom of the screen and instead moving them to the sides to replicate the 4:3 frame old silent films have. Finally I feel the use of some new transitions at the end of the production would help tie the narrative together as it will bring a sense of continuity, as at the moment I feel the cuts feel robotic leaving a narrative which is unclear.