Feedback from the rough cut

We showed our rough cut video to the class recently and asked for their feedback on the video. The bits they liked, we could improve on and most importantly the bits they didn't like. Myself and the group were happy with some of the comments we received, for example they thought the pace of the editing fitted the music very well in most parts of the video and they also liked the black and white effects used. However there were recommendations made to use by our class mates that we will definitely listen to. The two parts in the video that came up on more than one occasion was the amount of time spent on the bullying Facebook messages and also how the camera was sometimes shaky in scenes. Myself and the rest of the group will certainly look at the recommendations and create ideas for how to rectify our mistakes. But the main point made about our rough cut was the mount of gaps we had parts. Getting lots of good footage is our main priority at the moment!

Roles and Responsibilities

These are the groups roles and responsibilities when filming, constructing the video and the two ancillary tasks. The roles and responsibilities stated below are what we all want to do and our skills match our chosen areas, obviously we will all help contribute different ideas to what we think looks the best when filming, editing and constructing the two ancillary tasks.

Rough cut

For some strange reason the Rough cut of the video refuses to upload onto my blog, I have tried it many times but there has been no successful outcome. However below I have produced a link to Alysha's blog to her post of the rough cut.

Rough cut.

Editing the video.

Myself and Claire are editing our footage for the video, we will be using Final Cut Express. We have picked up the editing techniques fairly fast in my opinion, just by experimenting with what each tool does and how it can help our video. We first had to capture all of our footage onto the computer and into Final Cut Express using the capture button located in the File drop down menu, this was quite a challenge to start off with but after some guidance and practice, we soon picked it up! An example is below.

The Razor Blade Tool is what we are using when cutting away the parts of the video that we don't want. We both found this very easy to use after some practice, of course! Another tool we have familiarized ourselves with is the Crop Tool, this allows us to cut away edges of our footage that we may have accidently filmed and for obvious reasons we don't want it anymore. This tool has become very useful, when filming our video we obviously line up all the shots so that there are no doors, light switches, bit's ofcarpet and unnecessary scenery in the shot. This has happened on two occasions so far, one when filming Claire supposedly dead on the floor, we covered the red carpet with a white sheet, on the camera it look very nice, framed well and we were happy with the result, but after placing our footage onto the computer it seemed to expand slightly, the edges of where she was laying there was red carpet. And also the clip where Claire pick's off the rose in the shadow, on the camera it looked well done, no errors, I myself actually framed this shot, but when we placed it onto the computer Claire's head was in her way, so the cropping tool on this occasion was very useful.

Our song is called the funeral, which has some obvious black and white connotations connected to it, we discovered the desaturate tool in the effects column. This turns the piece of clip highlighted all into black and white, so for us this is perfect, we will be using this for the funeral scene towards the end of the video and also when Claire has the flashbacks of when her relationship with me was a happy one.

At the moment the editing stage is a slow process, seeing as we have limited footage. We know what we want we know where to put it and we know it will work with the music, we just need to get all of our idea's out and get on with filming it. We are filming again it in two or three days, we have to make sure we film our missing parts.

Here are a couple of editing screenshots.

Shotlists

This is the group's shotlist below, it was produced by the whole of the group with all of our idea's combined into the shotlist. We had a rough idea of how we wanted the scenes in the video to be placed. After talking with one another we put together the final shotlist (below). We feel that the scenes on the shotlist will work well in timing with the music and most importantly will look good in the order that they are in. Obviously we put together our shotlist before we started filming. After filming out on location I definitely feel that we have been a bit adventurous with our timings from one scene to another. For example close up to dead face 0:09 to 0:17 and also close up to Facebook wall posts bullying messages 2:28 to 2:42. These two scenes in particular in my opinion are to long. To solve this we can obviously add new editions to the video and also during the filming we can use different effects, for example lots of quick cuts.

Filming. Day one

All being new to filming, we were all a bit rough to start off with. We all knew the first time we filmed the video it wouldn't be perfect and that there would be some school boy errors. We started off by filming the main parts of the video. The argument, picking off rose petals, the romantic scenes, the Facebook and text messages and Claire laying out the pills.

To start with we filmed the Facebook messages and text messages without the use of the tripod, this didn't give us very good footage as you can imagine. When i was holding the camera it seemed fine, but when we transferred it to the computer all the clips were very shaky and a lot of them out of focus. From then on we used the tripod for every scene necessary!

We then moved onto filming the argument scene, this was a complicated one for everyone to film, as it was with two people. We were unsure how to film this scene, the main idea we had was to film who ever was speaking from behind the shoulder of the person not speaking. This was a good concept but when we came to filming it i was a lot bigger than Claire, and the audience view of it would just look stupid. However me being a lot bigger than her it did show my dominance in a way, almost like i was towering over her. The other problem we had was that the argument scene was filmed in the snow, and the rest of our video isn't. So i think we will definitely be filming this scene again. We have already developed some new ideas for how to film this part of the video. In the video Love the way you lie by Eminem, the argument scene in that video is filmed handheld and when the girl is thrown back the camera goes with her, i think we should definitely try this when filming next! Losing the tripod for this scene takes away the stillness and the formality of an argument scene, we need to be angry and i really need to push her around and show my emotion. I also had the idea of filming the argument scene from far away to set the scene of the argument almost, then just have close ups of mine and Claire's faces during the argument that we will cut to.

We moved onto filming Claire picking the rose petals off one by one then suddenly losing it and ripping the rose apart, throwing the petals everywhere very aggressively. She was in a corner all on her own and we filmed it with the camera above her so it was like looking down on her and also showing how vulnerable she is. I think we filmed that part very well, the scene was well lit with the natural light coming through the window and the camera angles we

re spot on for what we had in mind. This part of the video could be played all in one with no cuts between, but i think this part would work very well if we played a happy romantic scene between me and Claire and her picking off one or two petals, then the argument scene where she could pick off more petals at a faster tempo and finally show the Facebook me

ssages and text messages from my character and her ripping the rose to shreds!

We had many ideas for how the happy scenes between me and

Claire could work out. We were really keen on the idea of us laughing and joking on a sofa or a bench somewhere and then film Claire after we have split up on her own in the exact same place. We also thought about filming us playing a game and having a picnic together, with the same idea of her being on her own in the same places. In the end we filmed us laughing and joking with my arm around her on the sofa, it was well lit when we were there, but after transferring it to the computer the scene did look dull, so i think we will be having to re film that part again. We filmed it using the tripod, a handheld camera for this scene is unnecessary. I think we do a need a lot more happy/romantic scenes with me and Claire because the audience need to see that dramatic change in the way i treat after the argument. We had the idea of us holding hands while walking past the camera. But i think there is still a lot of work to do on this scene.

The final part of the video we filmed was Claire's intention to commit suicide. When filming this part we used a lot of close ups of the pills and Claire's hand picking them up, but we didn't actually do any acting, so for example Claire popping out the pills and looking very anxious to whether or not to take her own life. We also filmed it using the tripod, i think for when Claire is popping out the pills this is the right way to film it, but when she is deciding whether or not to do it and also taking some of the pills it should be handheld, this adds to her decision making being blurred and her shaky emotions!

Filming. Day two

We have been filming the video recently and I think I should right up what exactly we have been filming. We have been filming in one main location of Horton Kirby, the location has everything we need. We have done most of the filming in Charlotte's house. It has all of the necessary backdrops for what we want, they are also well lit, however we have used artificial lighting for the singing parts and the happy scenes. We were in a small dilemma for the parts we had filmed outside already, the snow on the ground would look stupid during an argument scene if we then cut to Claire running away in a green lane. So we decided to re - film all of the argument scenes again.

We started the day by filming a part we haven't filmed yet, it is a vital point in the video, where the drum beat really hits hard simultaneously for about 4 seconds, we all agreed that it sounds like running away very frantically, so that's exactly what we filmed. We found a quiet lane and filmed Claire running away looking back occasionally with panic on her face. We made the mistake the first time we filmed of only filming from one angle, this time we filmed the same clip from different angles and using different methods. We filmed it once using the tripod from a stationery position with her just running past it and into the distance. In this part of the video Claire is supposed to be under threat and very panicky, we had the idea of filming her running away using the camera just handheld. This gave the shaky scared effect that we were looking for, we filmed it from her eye line so it gave the audience a personal view in what she's going through. I then ran behind her Claire with the handheld camera, so it looked like I was chasing her, and it the final result looked really good, hopefully it will appear in the video.

We then moved on to filming the funeral scene, where i as the boy goes to the graveyard of where Claire is buried, we filmed me walking in through the gate and approaching the graveyard, with the look of panic and fear on my face, we also filmed me opening the gate above the symbol of Christ. The two clips were really well lit with the natural lighting of the day and it produced a good outcome in the end. We then moved on to filming Charlotte and Alysha has mourning friends standing by her grave, i then approach them and they both look at me in an angry and blaming look. We filmed this part from over my shoulder and also from a long shot, it was vital we filmed it in different angles. We think that this part will be to end the video, it's an emotional time and it suits the soft ending of the song where there are almost coral parts to the music.