Video Skills Audit

The five skills I believe I need to develop further to achieve a high grade in the video coursework are Creativity and Originality, Research, Actors, Performers and Models, Camera Skills and Editing. Together, I believe these skills, if developed to a high standard, will create a good graded music video.

Creativity and Originality.

The majority of my ideas come from existing products, and altered (sometimes drastically to ensure they are different) to the criteria and my personal liking. An example of this would be my Metal magazine from the AS year. An exterior image within this magazine included my model stood up on a wall outside. Previously, I had seen images in Metal magazines of exterior images with rain, snow, thunder and lightening added behind the model to make it look more 'metal' and 'hardcore'. I decided the lightening idea did indeed make my article look more 'metal'. Although this is using real media conventions within my magazine, it also emphasises that I get my ideas from elsewhere, and change them (I made the colour of the lightening stoke grey, to compliment the exterior dull blue sky) to fit the criteria and my liking.

For my music video, thankfully we will be working in small groups, which means we will have more ideas flowing to add to the creativity of the video. Also, before creating the music video, I will do loads of research of music videos within that genre so I know what is already existing, so I know what to avoid.

Research.

Since the AS year, I have found out how important and vital good research is to the overall product. It is always good to see what is already existing, so you know what to avoid when creating your own products. Because of this, I believe this skill is an important one in gaining a good grade at the end of the year. However, within this skill, looking outside the media for inspiration is something I never do, as I never thought it to be important if it is outside the industry. With my upcoming music video, I will ensure I get lots of feedback from people who are not in, or wish to be in this industry, to ensure a varied audience.

When creating my music video, I will thoroughly analyse the genre I am working in, to ensure that I use some generic conventions of that genre, but also to ensure difference within the music video, to keep audience interest.
Actors, Performers and Models.

When creating a music video I realise that actors and models are vital, as it is these that will grab the attention of the audience; whether it be the 'band' performing, or the background actors. To ensure my actors will perform to the best they can, I will ensure that they are well aware as to what they're doing and what I am trying to achieve by them doing this. I hope that this will make the performers aware as to how they should act/perform, to ensure the music video looks as professional as possible. I have already had some experience with actors and models during my Film Studies AS coursework, where I asked my models to pose in certain ways to achieve certain shots. In this case, it was to create a horror movie sequence, but all of my actors knew what they were doing and what I would be using the images for, which I believe allowed them to get in to the mind set of the sequence, which made the images and overall sequence more believable. Because of this, I will ensure my actors know what and why they are doing what they're asked to do for my music video.

Camera Skills.

I believe another important skill to make a good music video is good camera skills, since this is what will capture the performances of the actors and performers. Thankfully, I have had some experience with this, as I re-created the first 50 seconds of Busted's- That's What I Go To School For before this academic year began. As this music video included many different shot types, I was able to test my camera skills when recording. After completing the video, I asked some people to look at the video and give their opinion. The majority of the feedback said that they believed it looked close to the original music video. This gave me some confidence about my own camera skills for when I create my own music video.

Editing.

The final skill I believe to be important in making a music video is editing. This is because I believe this is what creates meaning, and if the editing isn't invisible, it looks unprofessional. Thanks to my Film AS work, and the re-creation of the music video, I have also had some experience with Adobe Premiere Pro which has helped me get used to the basics of editing videos.

However, during the editing of the first music video, me and my group did not keep the camera recording long enough so we had a jump cut when it came to editing. Although I have learnt from this, attempting to fill in the 3 or 4 seconds which were left blank were a nuisance and in the end, we had to settle for adding a blank tile. This made the video look extremely unprofessional and amateur like.

Thankfully, since then I have learnt some tricks to prevent this from happening next time, such as moving the camera 30 degrees, and/or record much more than needed. For example- in planning, if suggested we record the first 30 seconds of the band performing, we will now record 40 or 50 seconds to ensure we definitely have enough tape to work with. Also, I will allow extra time in planning, to go back and re-record if need be.

To conclude, if I can use all five of this skills when making my music video, I believe it will make a professional looking music video, and keep the audience interested throughout.