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