Final Major Project Evaluation by Emily AldredFor my final major project, I have been working with Shauna Leacy in creating a music video to Years & Years’ electronica song, ‘Desire’. We wanted to create a music video of the kind that looked home-made like a friend had videoed their summer and what activities they did with their friends, and also for the video to have a slight off-balance/grainy effect to add to the home-made factor. Originally we chose ‘Hold Back The River’ by singer-song writer, James Bay but felt that the footage didn’t suit the song and then we opted for a different song. I have completed a rough edit of the video, which has been uploaded to YouTube, and then created a final edit of the video, which has also been uploaded to YouTube. I will discuss some positive things I like as well some things that I think could of slightly improved the video. The first shots are of someone sitting on a sofa, playing a video that is on the TV. The video on the TV, is of someone else getting a vinyl of the song out and playing it on a vinyl player, to which the song starts playing and the video begins properly. I think with these shots, we could have edited the part where the camera zooms into the TV screen, to which then the TV screen footage, becomes the footage on the actual screen you would be watching it on. During this part, we could have edited the transition to be a bit more smoother and less obvious, but we tried the best we could. I do think that the vinyl was a good idea as it gives the video a story and a proper introduction to the song. I do like how the title appears over shots of the vinyl playing as it appears like one of the bands actual videos. One of my favourite bits of the video, is at 0:33 seconds in, where three separate shots of me, Shauna and our friend Sarah appear in a line in time to the beat kicking in to start the song properly. After this, scenes of being in a car appear, which includes a lot of scenery of roads and trees and motorways passing by. I like these shots as they are layered over each other, which keeps the video moving at a good pace. the next few shots are of me and Shauna, and our other friends on a bike ride/ by a river having a good time such as dancing etc. I like the scene of me and Ryan dancing, as during editing, we got the same clip and we flipped and sped it up to it was overlapped so we appeared on both sides. We wanted the overall video to have a feel good vibe and have fun to which these clips certainly do. I think the editing for these clips was done well as it showed the same scene twice, but doing different things like at 0:57 seconds and 1:02 seconds in. During these clips, we used a lot of layering with boards, so the viewer could see the clips behind as well as the ones infront, which at 1:11, shows me and Ryan running with glitter sparkling behind us. From 1:16 to 1:22, it shows a time lapse of 5 of us sat by the river just talking and relaxing, I think this works well as it keeps the pace of the video up as well as everyone being in one clip together. From 1:28 is where a new scene arrives, it is still on the bike ride but in a yellow

flower field. I like these clips as the field is bright and keeps the viewer feeling uplifted as well as the clips of my friends were quite funny which gives across the message that the people in the video are having genuine fun. At 1:37, shows a nightclub, which shows a different setting which means that the friends do all sorts of activities to have fun. These clips then go on to show friends dancing in the club with blue glitter layered under the footage which contrasts with the red lighting at the club. The footage then goes on to show the friends in a taxi, which is layered to show everyone in the taxi together at once. I think this clip could have been edited to last a little longer as you don’t get long to look at everyone’s faces. It then goes on to show driving down a road at night, which suggests that the friends are on the their way home. From 1:49, it then changed the scene to Lymm Dam, which is a massive river surrounded by bridges and trees and paths to walk around on. We edited this footage in as we wanted to show a range of different places that the friends would go. I think these clips aren’t really on the theme of friends hanging out but they were good quality clips and we didn’t want them to go to waste so we included them to separate the clubbing clips to the concert clips so they didn’t look like the same event. at 2:00, the scene changes to at a concert. Is starts of with shots of Ryan drinking a beer, with clips of the opening shots of the concert layered over the top, so the bright white flashing clips clash with the dark colours of Ryan’s clothes. I think these were edited well as it is fairly easy to pay attention to both layers and shows the view from the cameras point as well as the friends who were there. At 2:13, the scene changes again to an abandoned country club, where there are shots of being on top of the building and inside, where it was a lot darker so we had to use torches and phone lights. These clips shows a different group of friends but keep 3 of the main friends from other clips, this group of friends are into skateboarding and scootering which is also shown in the clips. During these country club clips, we layered a few clips together as they were the same situation, such as at 2:22, where one friend is seen rolling a cigarette and then layered on top of that clip, is him smoking the cigarette and blowing the smoke into the camera. Because the lighting inside the club was very limited, we had to layer a lot of the clips to make them out. I think with these clips, we could have used big flood lights to get better lighting or visited the club earlier when the sky was lighter. At 3:20 to the end, it shows the skatepark friends all walking/scootering away from the camera, this could have been done earlier in the day when it was lighter so that the viewer can see them clearer and make out better where everyone is. These clips have been edited so that the first clips jump to the friends getting further away from the camera and the second clips are layered so that the bottom layer are the friends walking away, with the top clip the same, but slowed down so that it appears there are ghost type figures of the friends walking behind. The technical quality of this final video, id say, wasn’t the best it could be, but on all of the clips, we added a brightness /contrast effect on to give the video that home-made/vintage effect that we were going for. I would say whilst editing this video, I

have acquired new skills of premier pro such as the technique of layering and contrasting. I would say that we completed this project with the same intentions that we started with, our outcome is fairly similar to the project proposal that we had ideas about. Compared to our scheduling and project diaries, I think me and Shauna kept well to the time managing with the filming, editing, researching, proposal of the idea etc.. if we were running behind at all, we simply took a step back, and wrote lists down of what needed doing and put the list in order of what needing doing most to what could wait a day or two and then starting completing the list. For the target audience research, we conducted a survey asking some students if they liked the overall idea, if they had any ideas in how to improve it and what their favourite music video was to get ideas of what would appeal to them. If I were to do this project again, I would stick to the schedule tightly and stick to the final idea of where to film and what dates to film on.

I created a facebook group where I added some friends to the group, posted the final video into it and asked them to comment on their view of the video, such as their positive and negative views and their suggestions to how we could of improved the video.

This first comment is from Joe Carroll, he said that he thought our clips worked well and the clips that we chose specially I overlap with other clips, were chosen well. He thought that the cut from the TV to real video could have been smoother, which I agree with as it could have been smother by taking more time to edit. He also said that the slow motion clips were a little bit laggy, which I agree as I can see from an audience view of point, that it doesn’t appear to match the overall theme of the video.

The second comment is from Ryan. He thought the song worked really well with the video idea and again, he liked the use of our editing of overlaying the clips. He thought the only negative side was that some of the clips weren’t matched in time to the beat, such as when the beats kicks in in the beginning, he thought the 3 clips of me, Shauna and Sarah weren’t in time, which I agree as we spent a while trying to get it bang on to the beat, but we did the best we could and during the rough edits, Shauna managed to get it bang on but during the final editing phase,

This third comment is from Sara. Sara only had positive opinions of the video such as how she liked the beginning of the video and the various shots of the same scene that we filmed. She also liked how we didn’t stick to a narrative video, it’ s just about

having fun which Sara thought we had portrayed. Sara didn’t really comment any supportive criticism, but I do appreciate that she got the theme of friends having fun.

The fourth comment is from Irina who also liked the start of the video. She also commented that she liked the overlays and liked the contrast of events that the friends do in the video such as going from a bike ride to being in a club/concert. The only supportive criticism Irina gave was that when the clips go to a darker setting, there is a clip that is of a lighter setting, that it could have been moved to match the settings. I do agree with this as it doesn’t follow the light to dark theme and if I could change it during editing, I would defiantly take this comment on board.

The fifth comment is from Sarah, she also agreed on liking the beginning of the video and the build up it creates to the song starting. She also liked the use of editing the clips as overlays as she thought it kept the video exciting and fast pace and kept the audience interested. Sarah commented that her favourite part was towards the second half of the video where the setting of the clips goes darker in the abandoned building. We editing this part of the video to match the song as the beats stops then starts again so we wanted to created a sort of false ending. She suggested that we could of moved the concert clips to when the beats starts back up again for more of a visual kick and I agree with this as I see what she means, it would get the audience going again . Sarah thought that overall the video was aesthetically pleasing to watch.

The final comment is from Sarah. She also thought that the video was well suited to the song. She also liked the varied locations as it showed different groups of friends but some of the people were the same. She also really liked the 3 split screen at the beginning. She thought it was cleverly timed to the music. One of her favourite parts was the layering of Lewis stood in the doorway with an overlay of Shauna looking behind her in slow motion. I appreciate this comment as during rough editing, I was playing around with these clips and ended up with this and was un sure about its outcome. Her supportive criticism was the video quality as some of the clips were filmed on an iphone due to not having a camera t certain points of filming, eg. At the concert/ in the clubs. I do take this on board as if I could go back and re-film, I would defiant use a high quality camera for equal footage.

Overall, the comments we received were mainly a positive feedback. People were commenting that their favourite aspects of the video was how well the song matched the video/footage as well as the editing of the clips overlaying, which proved to be quite popular. Also the 3 split screen proved popular, if I were to do this project again, I would defiantly take some of the supportive criticism on board, such as the quality of the footage, the layout of the clips, such as keeping the lighter clips together and not mixing the darker clips with a random light one in the middle.

In conclusion to my video, I think that if I was to do it again, I would defiantly stick to using a schedule as it keeps things in order and you can list down the things you have to do and put them in their importance. I defiantly would use the same people and or maybe some other people that aren’t camera shy so therefore the footage would look more professional such as getting close up shots of someone’s face without them being too shy or anything. I would of liked to have gone to Liverpool to get more shots filmed of the Liverpool Docks and the city centre, the Central Perk coffee house etc. it would of defiantly added more to our video having another setting but we didn’t have time and during the final editing process, we didn’t have enough room for it anyway, but if it was to do it all again, I would defiantly make enough room for the footage as well as enough time to go to Liverpool to film. I think that doing our own rough edits was a good idea because we have different ideas of how we edit, and then I think going through each other’s rough edits and picking out

their best bits for the final video was great because we picked out each other’s strengths and used them to our advantage in our final video. I think that we could’ve stuck to the storyboards more stricter than we did, we had a set idea at the beginning of what we wanted the video to look like, but during filming, we didn’t always have the opportunity to get the shots we wanted and or the setting such as the weather we always wanted. We did come to a stop during the filming of the vinyl shots as we didn’t know how to get the footage onto the TV to then film the TV but we then overcame this by the use of an Apple TV. I am happy with how the video turned out, but I do think there is always room for improvement, but only minor things that maybe me and Shauna couldn’t decide on what clips to fill in in little gaps here and there so we added spare clips, which could have been thought through more. I felt more confident this time around making a video because having done one before, I knew what needing doing and what was more important as well as knowing to keep to a time schedule tight and not let things fall behind. I am also pleased with the response that our friends gave us, it was mainly positive with supportive criticism which can always help me in the future with other work.