There are several features to our production which were included based on research in past examples. To try and create authenticity with our production became one of the aims because of he style of research done and its extensiveness on past examples. One key feature was the speed of the edited scenes. Researched examples always included a fast paced style and this was incorporated. This not only meant scenes of shorter but it increased the length of times given to develop the story.
The increased number of scenes due to the nature of the music led to a development in the story which could be told to make up this number and to make up the duration of the track. One of the key strengths of our production I feel is the way in which it closely relates to its genre. With the speed of editing, the urban locations chosen and the ethnicity of the characters involved, it was a very genre specific video. One weakness however I feel is the lack of varying camera angles. Close ups were used a large percentage of the time.
Understandably, due to the videos narrative nature and the fact that there are no scenes which involve speech embedded in our video, or cut-scenes, it is difficult to correctly convey feelings or reactions without needing to focus on a characters expression. However, there are more ways to do this. High angle shots can signify authority and low angle shots the adverse. Establishing shots could be used to set a whole scene to the audience. If we were given the chance to do it again, I would greatly vary the amount of types of shots used.
It is important to add variety to the style of camera work to increase the size of the parameters for creativity, which is what the narrative style of our video did indirectly. An example in our video where more camera angles could have been incorporated is the scene which shows the phone call between Tariq, the main character, and his pregnant ex-girlfriend. Although the camera work here is good and it conveys successfully the message it wants to, it doesn’t vary in camera angle between the two characters. It tends to stay with medium close ups.
In a video I analysed called ‘Stand Up Tall’ by Dizzee Rascal, the artist is in a majority of the shots but is seen from different angles such as over the shoulder, long shot, medium close ups and close ups. I think our group could have worked better as a team. The main flaw was our inability to meet up, discuss ideas and become all aware as to which stage of production we are at. We at times thought different things were occurring and we didn’t all pull in the same direction until towards the end of production when editing. These are the sessions where we worked well as a group.
When editing, we looked at the production and any idea brought up by one of our group members were considered. This process happened several times and this ensured us that we were all happy with the final production. Another disappointing thing about our group was the lack of met deadlines. However, this directly came as a consequence as a lack of deadlines set. Although the work was shared between the group, it was very disorganised as to when it should be done. It was very difficult for this reason to know whether we were ahead or behind schedule with the only dates determined was the final deadline for all work.
Although I have no first hand experience as to how a real film production team works, I assume due to the scale of their work and the time they spend on it that they would be much more organised than we were. I feel a real film production team would make a priority a schedule to refer back to as to what should be done before a certain stage but we failed to do this. BBFC’s film classifications detail parameters to meet a certain certificate. We wanted our production to be available for viewing pre-watershed and this meant it could not involve any swearing, scenes of nudity or scene of extreme violence.
Our production met these criteria. I had decided to show ten members of our audience a screening of our music video in an attempt to establish how these members would appreciate its qualities and informs us of some flaws. I was happy with many of the responses because they were intelligent answers. I decided to outline nine features of our work and asked then on the questionnaire to circle one of the words excellent, good, satisfactory, disappointing and poor. And then there was a tenth open ended question asking them to detail how well they felt it went with the genre of music.
The results of this investigation were positive. According to our results, our camera work and mise-en-scene features were very good. This could be down to the emphasis this took when deciding to produce a narrative music video with the absence of speech. The quality of our editing was though of well also. This could be down to the way we each combed through thr music video when editing and discussed ideas thoroughly during the editing process. However, one thing which disappointed was the lighting. It was at times unclear as to what was happening due to the poor lighting at times.
The responses to the open ended question at the end of the production was positive. The most mentioned feature which related it to past examples was the use of scenes, synchronised which changes in the beat of the music and mentioned to speed of the editing. The synchronization of the beat to scenes was apparent in the very beginning when the door closes as the heavy beat drops in the music. And the fast paced editing came about as the research into previous examples showed us that it was important to music and music videos of this genre.