Top Tips - Director of Photography

• 2 or 3 lights to light an artist
• More lights for a group or band 
• Use digital camera graphs to check the exposure of the shot
• All about timing 
• Filters can be used
• Keep it simple, use smaller lights
• Outside, use the sun

Top Tips - Directors

• You have to have a clear vision
• Focus on the set, shot, lighting etc - bring everything together
• Think about what your strengths are
• Pay attention to detail

Top Tips - Choreography

• Work on angles, silhouettes
• Movement shows a story
• People who deliver the performance have to look right with the choreography
• Change something that has been done before
• Film it then watch it back to see if it looks good on the screen, you see what other people see

Top Tips - Make up & Costume

• Be observant 
• Dark lighting means stronger make up so the features of the star stand out 
• Go for a style e.g. shocking, beautiful, unique
• Have fun with the styling
• Plan time carefully
• Look for references in style e.g. out of magazine
• Research and develop outfits
• Simple idea, executed really well

Top Tips - Art Director

• When making a music video you can either go to a location and change the way it looks using props etc or build a set in a studio and dress it exactly how you want it
• Think how it would look on screen when filming and setting up location
• Have a lot of style references 
• Have a clear idea of what you want to film 
• Be realistic within time frames
• Cast someone you know will give you a good performance and look good in the video

Post Production (Prelim)

After filming we uploaded the footage to an apple mac and added the files to a new project on final cut pro. Because we had filmed everything we started adding and clipping the videos in the right order in correspondence to our storyboard. We added the downloaded version of our song onto the soundtrack layer and this then allowed us to insert the clips in the right places with the song.

We encountered a problem when editing the series of photos taken in the sweet shop, as final cut pro would not easily allow us to select every photo and set them to around 0.2 seconds each, so they would flow in a recorded video style way, with a slight cut , showing the fact they were actually photos. As a group we each had a go at trying to work out how to do it, and in the end we had to try and do it at home, using Windows Movie Maker. We created the video and it was the exact length we needed, however we then couldn't import it into Final Cut Pro. In the end we had to drag the photos on individually and set the time for each one. A better knowledge of final cut pro would have been more helpful, however by testing things out and working on our prelims, I feel I am gaining more knowledge about how it works, and this will obviously help me when completing my final music video.

This is our final video:



It could be vastly improved by the use of more interesting camera shots, more developed ideas and better dance moves.