The Skints - Up Against The Wall - Music Video

Below is Our group's completed Music video, this was the effort of many month hard work and we hope this is reflected in the quality of the product.

Posted By Bradley, Louise and Michael

File Compression

File Compression is the process in which any item from a computer is reduced in memory in order for it to be sent with greater ease onto the internet. By doing this files can be uploaded to sites like Youtube at a considerably faster rate. The problem with our finished product is that due to its length and resolution, it is very large in terms of the amount of memory it uses (currently it's 2.4 gigabytes) therefore compressing the video is paramount to being able to transfer it from something like a computer to the internet. Having found out such a large file would take around 8 hours to upload to Youtube we went through the repeated process of compressing the file. Eventually getting it down to 300 mb. By doing this we risk the quality in the music video resolution and sound, however it seems to have been a risk worth taking.

Posted by Bradley

Colour Grading

Colour grading is the process of altering and enhancing the color of a motion picture, either electronically, photo-chemically or digitally. Due to the abilities of Final Cut Express we were able to colour grade our work. Just like professional music videos we did this for a number of reasons:

• The Use of colour Grading makes a film look physically better, this is often the difference between amateur work and that of professionals. Therefore it was only natural we wished to mimic this professionalism.

• Colour correction can be used to establish specific metaphors and symbolism in a music video. For instance the juxtaposition of naturalistic, bright colouring in scene with the people who skip school is juxtaposed by that of the person who has stayed at school. The character who sticks to the rules seems to have a terrible time, this is referenced by the use of dark colour corrections, and un-natural lighting.

• A rarely used reason for colour correction is due to continuity errors. One of the clips we wanted to include due to it's content had a clear continuity error. If you look below at a screen shot of the clips you can see circled as 1 clear shades of blue, these are shadows caused by the lighting, this was completely different to the other shots, to stick to continuity, By adjusting certain aspects of the clips colour I was able to create the illusion that red spotlights are being shone at the audience, thereby sticking with the correct continuity. This is shown in circle 2.

By Bradley Merle

Features of music video's/post modernism - discussion in relation to our music video [By Louise]

• Non linear narration = temporal leaps/fragmented storyline is a common feature of post modernism films.

This is incorporated into our music video as the gig, which supposedly happens at the end of the day, is shown all of the way through the video as the narrative characters are travelling towards this.

• Copious references/allusions/pastiche/bricolage to other media texts.

It could be argued that we have alluded to the teenage drama 'skins' at the beginning when the narrative characters awake in a place of disarray and mess created by the mise-en-scene etc. We have not alluded to many other texts however as we wanted our music video to be quite realistic in terms of content, which could allow us in the editing process to be more experimental and creative. The reason for being that the other 'east London ska' video's we have watched have followed a similar pattern and thus we are following the conventions of this genre. However we did feel that these video's did not seem to maintain the audiences attention very well and so we have ensured that our editing and footage is enjoyable to watch and allows the audience to focus. We are also following conventions of music video's on the whole, what with fast tempo/falling on-the-beat edits, de-focusing etc.

• Unusual yet realistic Dialogue - throws the audience out of sync. Also, not necessarily used to further plot or develop character - simply to entertain.

This is somewhat the case with the characters in Camden (skipping school) as the audience do not really engage with them emotionally and just view the fun time they are having (almost like a montage) The dialogue is majorly realistic and not too unusual but, again this fits the genre.

• Mocking conventions of media texts e.g. cinema. E.g. camera movements may be unusual - i.e. not following two people as they are walking/talking, but letting them walk of screen, yet still allowing the audience to hear diegetic dialogue.

We do refer to other forms of technology during our music video such as the social networking site 'facebook' and the use of mobile phones as a form of communication as well as to record on, however this is not mocking and is more of a neutral pastiche element. We often allow the camera to shake in this music video to allow the audience to realise they are viewing a piece of media text, however this effect is also used in the gig part of the video which we, personally, believe allows the audience to be more drawn in as they may feel as if they are in the gig/crowd themselves. We often bisect our characters bodies at unusual parts in order to confuse the audience once more.

• Main characters may not necessarily be stereotypical hero's. E.g. they could be a violent criminal but features such as humour/dialogue could still encourage the audience to sympathise with these characters. Perhaps also as the film treats such behaviour as normal and lets you into the characters world.

Our characters are rebellious teenagers who bunk school but i believe the audience is able to sympathise with them.

Evaluation

Yesterday our group showed the class a rough version of our music video. This allowed us to attain feedback and see things from a fresh perspective so that we could realise the things that may be good or bad about the video such as non-continuity features and narrative errors. Here is the feedback we attained from our teacher...

Our teacher suggested that we include more footage of us ending up at the gig. We did have some shots of this but we thought we may have needed to film in our drama studio and imitate the lights to make sure that this is clear to the audience, however due to a lack of time and paticular members not having free lessons or time after school to do so we have had to make do with the shots we had. We have however edited these successfully and believe that they look effective.

Here are evaluation sheets from other members of the class...

It was clear from these evaluations that our music video seemed to confuse some as the narrative was not finished. Also the sound of this video was incredibly bad quality and so some people may have marked us down on this aspect. Also there were some clips in the gig where I (Louise) could be seen to have been filming but we have edited that out now.

Shot Lists

For our narrative filming we also created a shot list which allowed us to drag and drop clips into final cut easily and find, to the exact second, the shot we wanted to use.

Posted By Louise, Michael and Bradley

Update on editing/filming

We have a vast amount of footage at the moment and are well on our way with editing, however following our show-case we were given feedback which suggested that towards the end of the music video the characters get somewhat 'lost' at the gig as we do not see them enough at the end. We have discussed today that it is, of course, very hard to be able to return to the exact same gig at the exact same venue in the time that we have so we have tried to resolve this by having the characters in our schools drama studio and try our best to match the lighting to that of the gig. We will of course have to use close-ups predominantly so that the audience is not aware of the fact that we are not actually in the gig. We hope to film this tomorrow with all of the characters. We planned to film on the 19th of march but this fell through due to two people not being able to attend due to being ill and other reasons. Here is our Facebook group reiterating this...

 Our filming day in London on the 26th of march went very well in terms of footage. We made a list/sketches (which i will scan and upload) of what we wished to attain such as extreme close-ups etc. and as we filmed we stuck to this list. We also made sure we reviewed all of the footage every single time we filmed. This footage has given us a lot to work with in terms of editing and we have progressed a lot this past week.


Posted by Louise

Update

At the moment we are converting a lot of our footage. The reason for this being that during our last (long) converting process we made a mistake in the settings and did not change one conversion setting to 'apple intermediate codec' this has set us back a lot in terms of editing and in the meantime we have had to progress with other things and so during lessons we have been filming in and around school as well as focusing on album art/magazine advertisements.

Filming (Posted by Louise)

Our group planned to film narrative in Camden...

We used Bradley to film as Michael, myself and two friends acted out some of the features that we had planned. I am not 100 percent sure about the filming we have attained as i don't believe the characters 'jolly' facial expressions are seen enough in Camden town and there is not enough action in this part. However we did manage to attain some good footage in nearby Regents Park. I believe we should have definitely looked at the footage more, straight after we'd shot it, however as a number of us were on camera and did not personally film we didn't do this as much. I was disappointed also at the lack of establishing shots, and if the footage is not up to scratch when edit we may have to rearrange another filming day and make a list of all of the shots we have yet to obtain. We need to focus on underlining the large juxtaposition between the two main groups of characters in the narrative (i.e. the 'good' rule abiding student, and the other students who skip school to have a laugh/fun day out) and I feel there definitely isn't enough shots to make the audience realise this. We are now in the process of looking through footage and categorising each clip in terms of the shot (low angle/medium/long etc) in order to make the editing process faster and easier.




We have decided to re-film since writing the paragraph above. We will film:

• Close-ups of happy faces/pulling silly faces 
• Establishing shots of Camden (i.e. shops, stools, people)
• Characters smoking sheesha
• Relaxing in a park with cans of beer

School filming will include:

• Receiving bad grades (done)
• Character being tripped over (done)
• Character receiving text on phone (close-up) dumping text followed by upset expression.
• Character leaving wallet on the bus -  a shot of wallet on the seat matching a shot of the character checking inside pockets and searching.

(Brainstorm/notes = Louise)

• The character having paper chucked at him in lesson and being told off by the teacher (who thinks he has thrown it at him/her) character flips out. Slow motion - destructive - chuck papers into air. Tips bag onto the floor of person who actually threw the paper. Kicks over chair.

Editing and filming

We have begun to edit the footage we have filmed of the gig on Final Cut Express. As well as this, we also filmed another part of the narrative on sunday, from which we obtained the beginning sequence of our video. However, we still have a lot more to do in terms of filming the main bulk of footage in london and also some more footage in school. 


Our to do list includes

• Filming two other characters from the narrative waking up at the beginning of the song.
• Characters meeting and going on the train. Establishing shots of the underground.
• Filming around Camden - establishing shots and action:

Eating exotic food
Sitting on the Lion in Camden market
Having fun on the bike seats in Camden (where food is eaten)
Trying on funny hats/clothes in vintage shops
Messing around in a playground - smoking etc.

• Filming Other character having more unfortunate events occur in his school day:

Missing the bus
Losing wallet on the bus
Receiving a text (being dumped)
Breaking phone
Paper thrown at him in lesson
etc.


With regards to editing we have:

• Uploaded one of the 3 pieces of main footage we have for the song (Bradley's long shot footage)
• However, we have encountered problems with this as it appears the footage is out of time in relation to the pre-recorded version of the song.
• In order to overcome this we have had to create a new sequence and then render/re-render small parts of our footage many times in order to modify and adjust the speed in a bid to make the two fit together. We are still in the process of doing this and when we have done so we will continue to render the whole piece of footage. If we were to have done this to begin with we would have wasted a lot of time as we would have to re-render once we had obtained the correct speed anyway. The process takes hours due to the waiting process of rendering and then adjusting the music to whats appropriate, then repeating the process.

However we have learned to use Final Cut Express more effectively from this.

[Posted by Louise]

Planning

In the past few lessons our group have been planning what we are going to do in our filming on sunday in terms of shots in the montage. As well as this we have been analysing the footage we have already filmed in detail, noting down the best clips in terms of seconds. We have filmed part of the narrative already but will do the main part of it this weekend. We have taken into consideration costume and props as well as timing and locations. 

Filming today (posted by Louise)

The group filmed a sequence, of the 'protagonist' of the narrative, being tripped. This is only one situation used to highlight the bad day he's having. We placed our camera a good distance from the character and began filming with the camera zoomed in on his bored face. The use of the classroom setting creates a mundane and boring atmosphere. We filmed the camera zooming out as the character stands up from his desk an walks through the classroom. We carried this out a few times to get the right positions and went on to film the character being tripped over. We filmed the character walking towards the camera and then tripping. We then showed a close of another pupil sticking their foot out and another of their sneaky/amused expression. This will be followed by the 'protagonists' clearly annoyed face.

We are going on to film another sequence during lesson of the protagonist receiving bad grades from the teacher on a test. We will try to film a lot of the in school sequences during lesson time as this will be the most simple way of doing things. We have to arrange for the class to participate as well to create a realistic classroom setting. For example we should place the teacher at the front of the class, teaching/writing on the white board, whilst students sit on desks and chuck paper/annoy the protagonist. 

Basic pretense of music video (Posted by Louise)

Our video will include 2 separate narratives:

• One of a boy who has a very bad day despite the fact that he does everything right and follows the rules, i.e, he goes to school whereas his friends bunk. He misses his bus, gets a low mark on his test paper (for copying? even though he didn't) which we'll make obvious with a close up. He is tripped over in the canteen, drops his phone, leaves wallet/money on the bus and gets something chucked at him in class but gets told off by the teacher when she turns around. Suddenly this character is seen in the gig which creates a temporal leap in time and shocks the audience, and at the end we see how he ended up there and show how he has flipped out following being sent out of the classroom.
• Meanwhile, the friends of this boy have bunked school and are on the way to the same gig. The use of montage will be predominant as we depict these people having a good, care free time. We will perhaps show them doing things in the area of Camden as this fits the genre of this song/band well and is where the venue of the gig is. We will show these people perhaps trying on clothes in shops (with the owners permission) laughing often, generally messing around (e.g. on the lion statue in Camden and the scooter seats) We may show them relaxing in the park and maybe playing some football too and perhaps, if feasible, present some form of illegal drugs as this relates specifically to our reggae/ska genre. Other idea's include eating food from Camden market stalls and including LOTS of establishing shots of Camden and the different people there. We may include other things as and when we actually film this part. Eventually this group end up at the gig and meet the boy who went to school.
• Cutting between the two will be the band performing at the gig which presents another temporal leap.

PLANNING PROOF...