Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Friday 25 May 2012

HWK: Learning from mini-vid

This is the 1st of 3 practical exercises this term, each one getting larger in scale and complexity, culminating in the challenge of Music Video Day on July 12th. There are a lot of things you can be reflecting on having completed the first of these, the mini-vid; illustrate each point with examples from your work on/experience of the mini-vid project, including screenshots and perhaps some vodcast/podcast material. You could collaborate on this as a group if you wish.
Consider questions such as:
  • what makes for a good pitch?
  • what are the key steps involved in R+P?
  • if this had been the actual coursework, what would you have to add/improve (look at the assessment criteria) to get good marks for R+P?
  • what can you say now about the roles of cinematographer, director, producer? is it important to have one person taking responsibility for each of these roles?
  • related to the last point, was your shoot well organised?
  • what can/did go wrong on a shoot, and what steps help you overcome such problems (better still, prevent them from happening in the first place!)? 
  • did shoots take more/less time than you estimated?
  • what difference does working with HD as opposed to mini-DV make?
  • is it necessary to stick to a genre you're familiar with to have a good idea?
  • what issues are raised by working within a group?
  • do you think you could manage a full music video production single-handed?
  • what more have you learned about Final Cut Express?
  • how many shots do you now think a good music vid will have for every 30 seconds of screen time?
  • did you shoot each planned shots repeatedly (from different angles)? did you need to shoot more sequences repeatedly to create better shot variation for editing a dynamic video?
  • anything else that occurs to you (eg importance of mise-en-scene and locations; pre-preparing cast with lines + basic direction; having loud portable media player to play track when shooting, dance choreography if relevant etc etc)?

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