Evaluation Q1: Did you enjoy the main workshop shoot day? What role did you take? What were your best bits and why?

In the main workshop shoot day, we were performing our dance routines in costume and make up for the remake of Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off' music video. Below is a timelapse of the actual day of shooting, showing the high quality set we were working on.

A timelapse of the shoot day

I enjoyed:

• Being part of a professional shooting environment on set.

• Dancing behind camera with a choreographed dance routine with my hair and makeup done.

• Learning how to operate expensive lighting and camera equipment.

• Meeting young working professionals that have had experience working in the media industry, e.g. our director Tom, assistant director Amy, Eddy on lighting and Ed as the camera operator

My role:

• I was given many dancing roles as a hip-hop dancer, a robot dancer, contemporary dancer, a dancer in the end scene and even playing the drums for the band.
• I volunteered to assist the director as a clapper loader for the cheerleader dance shots.

Best bits:

I enjoyed my role as a dancer behind the camera, dancing as a robot, hip hop dancer, contemporary, band drummer and part of the end dance sequence. Below are examples of dancing moments I had.

Conclusion

I was nervous that I wouldn't enjoy the shoot day, as I had little confidence in my ability to perform on camera, but everyone on the set was encouraging and it ended up being a very fun day although I'm still not sure about the quality of my dance moves. It was a valuable day as well, it was enjoyable understanding the make up of a professional set and the multiple roles needed.

Evaluation Q2: What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks 1, 2, 3 and 5?

Task 1 - Complete an Audition Video

Alex Nicolaides and I both auditioned for the roles of the robot dancers, directing and performing in our audition music video to the song 'Uptown Funk'.

Our audition video for parts in the 'shake it off' music video remake

What I learnt from the video:

• To lip sync in time with the music by revising the lyrics of a song and actually singing the lyrics, so that it shows that you are.
• Creating an entertaining music video with multiple shots, angles and dance moves.
• The great importance of just loosening up and not being shy on camera.
• Editing the lip sync at the same time as the actual song for the music video.

Task 2 - Learn and Practice your performance

For the music video, I had to learn a choreographed dance routine for my roles as a contemporary, robot, hip-hop and end dancer. It was important to rehearse these dance moves before the music video shoot day.

One of the dance routines we spent 2 weeks learning and practicing

There was only a short time to practice the choreographed dance routines for the 'Shake it Off' music videos. We all practised the dance moves at home as well as with our dance instructor Tasha at school.

What I learnt from this practice:

• We spent time with our dance choreographer Tasha, who taught us how to do the dance routines well together on time.
• Our performance coach Jasmine taught us how important it is to give it your all on camera, be fully expressive and not take yourself too seriously.
• It was important to learn to work independently at home on the routines, so as to make sure everything was smooth.

Task 3 - Planning and Organisation of Costume

There were multiple costumes that I needed for my dance parts in order to suit my roles a hip hop, robot, contemporary, end dancer and wearing all black as a band member

My four costumes

As well as being able to borrow clothes from the media department, we had a responsibility to find clothes suitable to wear for the parts that we were given. I was given parts for the band, which was all black, as well as the robot dancer, contemporary dancer, end dancer and hip hop dancer. We were given a costume sheet telling us what we should wear for the different roles and we were given a date to organise these costumes for. A fashion student and former Latymer pupil called Olivia helped us out with organising the perfect looking costumes for the parts we were given.

I learnt a lot from working on organising the costumes, e.g. seeing the great attention to detail needed to get the costumes right, getting the best costumes from your budget and resources, understanding the level of organisation needed for everyone to bring in the right costumes and finding creative solutions for the different costumes you need.

Task 5 - Complete the Remake Edit

Me editing the music video

Myself, Georgina and Gabriel were put in a group to edit the music video. I'm pleased to say we bonded well as a group and uploaded our edit onto Youtube first. We were editing shot-by-shot with a busy schedule.

What I learnt from the editing:

• How to zoom in and out, inverting shots, changing the angle, changing the speed of a shot and changing the levels when colour editing.
• It was a completely different task editing the film opening. Instead of focusing hard on continuity, the focus was more on resembling the 'Shake it Off' video, making the shots look as polished as possible with the timing exactly the same as the original Taylor Swift video.
• I saw the importance of breaking up editing duties within the group on specific sections of the opening itself, e.g. robots, cheerleading, finger tutting, etc. This dramatically sped up the pace of the editing, making sure we all had responsibility and committed to our individual roles.

Evaluation Q3: Are you pleased with the footage and your finished edit? Is it how you expected it to look? What works really well and what would you change?

I was greatly pleased with the quality shots we got from the shoot day and our successful edit of these shots to create a high quality shot-by-shot edit music video. As a group we successfully edited together the shots to create a sleek, professional quality remake of the famous 'Shake It Off' music video. Our director Dom said, "It's great!" Also the performance director Jasmine said, "It's incredible!"

Our group's finished edit

What worked well:

• We edited accurately shot-by-shot to match both the lip-sync and the frames with the original.
• The colour grading looked similar to the colouration of the original video shots and brought a sleeker, more beautiful aesthetic. We used the 'levels' tool to make the colours richer and changed the colours on the three way colour tool as well as changing the light, saturation and contrast to suit the aesthetic we wanted. 
• It was an entertaining video with successful shot reconfigurations, e.g. mirroring the angle of a street dance  shot as well as doing a zoom out for one of the cheerleader shots.

The Adobe Premier Pro workspace colour grading a shot with me in it

The 'Levels' tool allowed us to make the colours richer

What I would change:

• Not all the shots were the same as the ones we were trying to mirror.
• Some of the colour grading shots were too intense and so some of the skin tones appeared off-colour.
• Despite shots being colour graded similarly to the shots we were trying to mirror from the original music video, due to a limited budget for set lighting and a lack of professional quality editing ability it was difficult for us to grade the shots identically, using the three way colour corrector and other features of Adobe Premier Pro.

The three wheel colour corrector for colour grading

An example of a shot that was not of the same level of sophistication as the original video

Evaluation Q4: How do you think your prelim experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?

Through doing this prelim I have learnt how we are able to use the Seward Studio set, operate professional film making equipment, perform and dance in front of the camera and style our actors to fit the genre of music that our video will have.

Pre-production & Production

• It will be important having organised and detailed costume lists, make-up lists, prop lists, shootboards and call sheets.

My costume list

• Must spend time at choreographed dance routine practice sessions.
• Before this prelim, I had no experience performing on camera, but through our performance sessions with Jasmine my confidence grew and I realised how important it is to loosen up, have eye contact with the camera and be expressive.
• Ed (the camera operator), Chris (the assistant director) and Dom (the director) taught me the importance of playback when they were filming the lip sync shots in the seward studio.
• I learnt the importance of keeping all the set members organised, making sure everyone was briefed, aware of the timings of the day and having a fun environment around set balanced with punctuality, organisation and a good work ethic.
• I learnt that the Seward Studio space was available with a lighting desk and a cyclorama for us to use on camera.

The Professional set up of lighting, camera equipment etc.

• I am now knowledgeable about the conventions of a music video, e.g. including close-up beauty shots and jump cuts.

Beauty shot

Jump cuts

Post-production

• I learnt how to cut the shots to the beat of the song with rapid shot transitions.
• I also learnt multiple editing techniques that will be useful, e.g. how to zoom in and out, invert shots, change the angle, shot speed and the levels during colour grading.

Conclusion

I have enjoyed this whole prelim experience and I am certain that all the skills of organisation, performing, editing and knowledge about the lighting and camera equipment will be very useful for my approach to next term's music video coursework.