Preliminary Task Evaluation

I recently, successfully completed the preliminary lip sync task, which can be seen on my previous post. This task required to to film someone singing (In my case Kareem Tamam) in various locations with different camera angles to create an interesting music video to an existing song. I chose the BeeJees classic Stayin' Alive. This we filmed in Centenary Park within a one and a half hour time period and took around 3 hours to edit. This included simpering the recorded clips, syncing the lips of the singer with the soundtrack, adding appropriate transitions and exporting the completed video.

This little project gave me a brief insight of what is to come in the near future when I make my final music video. Producing this short piece made me realise the extent of work that goes into producing a professional looking music video. These realisations I will now list as 3 key points, all of which I will consider for my final music video.

The first point I found was how much preparation would need to go into producing a high quality music video. Unfortunately, for the preliminary task we had only a small amount of time to film the video. This meant rushing around Centenary Park looking for interesting filming locations. This lack of time was evident in the end result, as the music video is not exactly perfect and a little 'rough around the edges' so to speak. Thankfully I believe this can simply be cured by time. For my final piece I will have plenty of time to prepare and film the required shots, resulting in a far superior result. With the extra preparation I will know exactly what shots I want to get and where I want to get them before I even start filming. This means I will be able to achieve the exact shots that I envisaged. In short, if you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.
  The second realisation of the task ahead came across in the editing stage of creating my preliminary task. Editing the video hilighted the importance of matching the audio with the visuals. As this was a lip sync task, it required me to match the movements of my singers mouth with the lyrics on the soundtrack. Despite initially thinking this was a relatively easy aspect of creating a music video, I soon realised how fine the margin of error is between the song and video matching. If the two do not match, even if they are just a few split seconds out of time, its easily noticeable, and detracts from the entire professionalism and standard of the video. What at first seemed like a simple task, turned into a vital job that required pin point accuracy and a high level of concentration.

Another skill within editing I came across was editing to the beat. This is where transitions and cuts are used within a music video in order for clips or scenes change in relation to the rhythm of the music. This is a technique commonly found in most music videos, and I found it beneficial to use in my own preliminary task. By placing markers to the beat of the music on the soundtrack, I was able to snap my video clips in place so that is would match the music. I found this technique very effective especially near the chorus, where we cut to different locations on the queue of “Ah ah ah ah”. I believe this is a method I will almost certainly be using in my music video, as it creates a clear link alongside lip-syncing, between audio and visuals.

The third and final challenge I came across was the fact that at some points of the song there was no lip synced footage to match it with. As I filmed the video in fragments, I unknowingly missed a small section of the song. This posed me with the difficult job of filling the void the lack of footage left. After much experimenting with different clips, I managed to fill this time with a slow motion shot of my singer mid-jump. Originally filmed as bit of a joke, the cringeworthy shot made its way into the final cut, as I was left with little other choice. This taught me an important lesson that I will take into my future projects. This is to always film the entire song at one or two filming location so you are guaranteed to have covered the whole song and never be left searching for sub-standard filler footage.

These three points are important areas of improvement to carry on to my upcoming music video. I now know what is required of me to create the high standard of music video I plan to produce, and what I need to successfully achieve a professional looking piece to be proud of. The best thing about mistakes is that you can learn from them, and now I have some level of experience of creating a music video, I am more confident in making another which is of a higher standard. In conclusion, the preliminary task has been undoubtably successful in preparing me for the task ahead and even exampled some recognised music video conventions as shown below.

My preliminary task follows music conventions like Goodwin’s Music Video Theory. The music video is quite clearly a performance video, as Kareem is singing to the camera throughout the entire song. Here are a list of reasons why my preliminary task follows Goodwin’s Music Theory:

1.My artist is walking throughout much of the video, relating to the lyrics “Well you can tell by the way I use my walk”.

2.Lip syncing and editing to the beat ensure a clear relationship between audio and visuals.

3.There is intertextual reference present, as my artist walks across a zebra crossing, similar to the one seen on the iconic Beatles album cover.

4.There are many close ups of the artist, often demanded by record labels in order to create the ‘Star Image'