Production

Day One

My first day of production involved me taking the camera to the river location and city location. I was lucky that it was a nice day therefore it was fairly busy by the river and extremely busy in the city. I gained footage for 12 minutes by the river so I could cut and change the order of the footage for my video, utilising the parts it was busy, to then time lapse it. When I moved to the city I noticed I wouldn't need to cut any parts of the footage, expect perhaps when people walked entirely in front of the camera. I was filming this location for around 10 minutes before the camera died. I thought this would be fine as I gained a substantial amount of footage but when I returned to college the clip hadn't saved to the SD card. This issue means when I go to film my park location in the upcoming production days I will have to return to the city location as it is important I vary the shots and locations in my video.

Day Two

I opted to begin my editing process of the background videos as it is important that I understand the length of each shot to fill the whole 4 minute song but mainly so when I film with my character I know the positioning they need to be in relation to the camera so that they look as though they are in the location as opposed to being edited in via.

I began by altering the black and white filters on the video, where I used the tutorial previously researched as my basis for my decisions on the effects controls such as highlights, contrast and shadows. Due to the brightness of the environment on the day of filming, there wasn't much darkness in the shots so I enhanced the blacks, reduced the whites and altered the amount of shadow.

Following this I opted to use my left over time to experiment with graphics for a title for the music video as the opening of the song has a long introduction before any lyrics. This is to set the aesthetic of the music video but also allow the audience to take in the title of the song.

Day Three

Having had issues with the filming process previously, I ensured I brought multiple batteries for the cameras so I could sustain filming for longer as this increases the likelihood of me picking up busy crowds to enhance the contrast between the background and the character.

I began with filming in the park for 13 minutes because there moments there were large quantities of people walking past followed by moments of no one. In the editing I will ensure I cut out the parts where there are no crowds, so my character seems to be crowded at all times in the video, highlighting the theme of standing out and individualism.

Following this I went into the city centre as the previous time, I went failed to obtain the footage as the camera died. The location I went to this time was far busier than where I intended which means I won't need to cut as much footage as I expected. Due to the lack of cutting necessary for this location I opted not to film for the usual 12 minutes; instead for 9 minutes. The busyness has allowed for a great contrast between the crowd and the

Having now gained all the background footage for my music video I will need to edit it before I continue with the filming with my character, so I can instruct them on where to stand in front of the green screen so it looks as natural as possible.

Day Four

Once I had uploaded my footage, gained the previous day, I opted to sort out the colouring of each location. At first I edited the locations into the shades that I thought fit the shot however when I placed them next to the shot previously edited there were significant differences in darkness and contrast which made the shots look as though they're not intended to flow. To adapt this, I used the river scene's colour editing as the reference for the other scenes by experimenting with the blacks, whites, highlights, contrast, shadow and exposure. This process was trial and error until I found the shots had equal features. Once the correct combination had been found for each scene I applied the same corrections to each time the shots were used to ensure they were all equal throughout the video, as this allows the contrast between the background and my character.

After adapting the colouring of each clip, I altered the speed to add to the contrast between my character and the people in the clips. The speed and frame rate was once again the same as the clip I had edited previously in the production phase. This was to allow for a smooth transition between walkers in each location. The issue with this was that the clips didn't fit the time of the verses where the location was needed for my character, due to being sped up. To resolve issue this I duplicated the edited clip and placed it in time with the music to fill the verses and cut down the footage where necessary, keeping the parts where they were busier.

Below is the colouring I have used to ensure the 3 clips look identical to ensure the contrast between the background and the character are constant.

Day Five

As previously discussed in my project, I aimed to use a green screen behind my character so they can be simply edited in front of the background which has been edited to create contrast and highlight the individualism theme. I had opted for this method over roto scoping as it was less time consuming when I researched and practised during the action research phase.

I had booked the equipment, ready to film at home over the weekend, as the person that agreed to be in my video was only able to commit to filming over the weekend. When I went to collect the equipment I needed to use I was refused access to the green screen, as the rules state I am unable to take the equipment off site, however I was unaware of this. I made the decision to take home the other equipment and work with what I could. Luckily I have the knowledge of roto scoping so was able to utilise this issue. Because of this I am glad I researched other editing techniques as it means I can remain on track with my production.

On the day of filming I was well organised with my character. She brought multiple outfits with her which I then chose from which fit the vibe of the music video as I intended. The first outfit used a bright blue t-shirt with a textured white skirt. This outfit is to be used for the park scenes as it has connotations of a summers day, which is the opposite of the outfits those are wearing in the video, as most are dressed in coats that have been made to look dark. One of the outfits my character wore was a red top with white linen trousers and sunglasses which matched the shirt. I chose for her to wear the red outfit for the river scenes as it contradicts the colours of what the river would be as well as the trees before being put into black and white. It was also important red was featured in the video as it has been my colour theme throughout my project. The final outfit was a pink fluffy jumper with stars complimented by a fluffy bucket hat as this outfit would stand out in public.

The process of filming was good; I had a set location that my camera was placed with a set location for my character so that when the editing took place, there would be the same shot type of my character in the scenes that have the same shot types. The filming process went well because of this, which can ensure the final product is as realistic as possible.

One thing I would change about the processes of my filming is only running the camera for as long as the shot, to reduce the size of the files. For the red and blue outfits which used no-to-little lip syncing I ran the camera for the whole 4 minute song where as upon reflection I should have only filmed my character for the verses that were necessary. This would mean the process of uploading the footage would be reduced as less storage is needed. Similarly between time where my character was rehearsing the song lyrics and performing the lip syncing, I should have once again stopped recording to firstly, save storage but also to not waste time in the cutting down of footage during the editing process.

Day Six

I spent a short amount of time revising the techniques of how to rotoscope using different tutorials on YouTube as well as help from a peer who has experience using the technique. Combining the skills I had learnt from these tutorials I began attempting to rotoscope. The easy and non-time consuming part was the cutting out of the character as all the tutorials made it clear the best way to do this. The technique I found difficult to understand and execute was the refinement of the brushing tool where I had to render the videos. Tutorials were telling me to use the space bar and drag the time stamp however this was loading some parts of the video and not others. It also took me over an hour to get to this stage, and with limited time left on the project I wasn't able to afford to lose time on waiting for the clips to only potentially load. Instead my peer told me I should freeze the video, which in turn would take around 40 minutes to do so for a 4 minute clip however would have 100% success rate in working, for me to be able to export the clip to premier pro for me to add to my already edited background clips.

Upon reflection one thing that would have sped up this process, as I have already discussed, is if I had kept my recordings shorter, by only recording the necessary parts of the song to fit the video. Instead I recorded my character for the whole 4 minutes which in turn has resulted in the process of editing to take a long time.

As it the process of completing one clip has taken close to 2 hours, I am having to spend more time than planned on the editing process, which may leave me with less planned time to evaluate the whole project but also get participant feedback on the final product.

Following using the YouTube tutorials, I had outputted the clips incorrectly which meant that when I tried to layer the character onto the background, only the character with a black background was visible. I had no option but to restart the process again. I began but cutting the video down in premier pro so that the video was the length it needed to be for when placed in the music video. After this I rotoscoped as normal, and instead of rendering the entire clip I froze it, once I had turned on the toggle transparency grid. Once this was completed, I exported the video by turning it into an image sequence and then rendering it as this was the only technique that allowed for a transparent background. Between myself an my peer, we experimented with 4 different exporting techniques, none of which were successful however having imported the image sequencing to Premier Pro and layered it on top of the background.

On this day, I started with the blue top scenes which would be placed on top of the park background. As this was the clip I heavily experimented with, I was glad to have resolved all my issues and finally put it in place in the music video. I then proceeded to do the same with the lip syncing of the lyrics 'don't ask' where my character is wearing her red outfit for the river location. The process of this took a significantly shorter amount of time due to the clip being smaller as well as the fact I knew what I was doing.

Once I had imported it to the music video and lined it up with the lyrics of the song I chose that I was going to leave it for the day however I noticed the blue outfit had been imported slightly transparent, as you could see a building behind my character. I will work out whether the issue can be fixed easily next time I work on the process of roto scoping and importing, to complete my music video, if not I will have to deal with the issue and explain in my evaluation of the project how this issue could be the difference between a poorly executed production or a successful one.

Day Seven

Following on from the previous day, I worked on the rotoscoping and exporting of the character clips to add to the background. I began the day with editing the lip syncing clips together so they were apart of one sequence. When filming, the character recorded one line at a time as she was learning the lyrics on the spot. The issue that is now apparent with this technique is that whilst the character was learning, she had changed her stance, which has meant the cuts where the lines change isn't smooth. This has resulted in a poorer quality music video as it doesn't look as though the character is naturally in this location. Similarly, the lip syncing of the first clip isn't completely in line with the lyrics of the song. Due to the lack of time I have left with this project I firstly, am unable to refilm the scenes with lip syncing, so the cuts are going to have to remain they are. I will however attempt again to get the lip syncing to match perfectly by placing the song under the editing of the clips before rotoscoping to ensure that there are no issues there. I didn't do this on the first attempt but thankfully, learning from my mistakes will mean that the other lip synced clips will be perfected.

As predicted, lining the lip syncing up with the audio has allowed for much better synchrony with my characters attempts and the music. The clip also fit better into the slot with the city background.

Day Eight

Similar to the previous few days I worked on the completion of my roto scoping for my music video. I began by using the same technique of cutting the lip syncing videos and placing them over the audio, so they were in time with the music. An issue I faced in this stage of the editing process is realising one line of the audio was missing from my shots, therefore I had to compromise by placing a clip of my character in the sequence where she is stood with no movement of her mouth. This looks like a mistake with the editing but I cannot leave a gap where there is no clip to insert so this was the solution I opted for.

Once I had rotoscoped all the clips I needed to add to my project I aligned them all into the video and began to render the whole video as if I didn't, the video would lag, with the lip syncing out of line with the song. I realised that parts of the lip syncing during the red river scenes were not fully in time with the song therefore I had to re adjust these clips to ensure they are as perfect as they could be. In previous production days I noticed that in parts of the song, it went silent, so I also redownloaded the song to prevent this from occurring when uploaded to YouTube. Following this I re-rendered the video to once again make sure there is no lag in the video.

Later in the same day I returned to the video as I intended to upload it to YouTube. As I was waiting for the video to export I received a notification explaining that the frames were aborted due to an issue. I had to investigate why this issue occurred and discovered that the park footage had been captured with a different camera setting to the rest of the video. Due to this issue I had to put the video into Media Encoder to change the status of the clip.

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