From the 5th July the group was set a task to practice the methods and production skills needed to make a music video by recreating an existing music video shot by shot before making our own original video. The music video chosen was the first minute of Busted's 'What I go to School For' as it takes place in a school with students, teachers and a classroom/ lesson setting and so the location could easily be recreated.
To begin with the group watched the actual music video several times and created a storyboard recording all the shots we needed to film, this was an effective task as we no from the start exactly what we needed to do. We then planned what props, costumes and locations we would need. Props would include pencil cases, writing pads, phones and school bags- which may feature in the video to create realistic students and a believable school environment. Costumes would include shirts, ties, blazers and black trousers to create a uniform and the locations were a classroom and outside in the sixth form courtyard (the latter was the closet to a good outdoor location we could use in a short space of time). We then chose who would play each of the band members and other characters in the music video. We chose myself to play Matt due to me also taking Drama so people believed I would be more confidient to play the part where he pushes forward arrogantly to the front of class. Although in the end I was self- consicous because of the audience we recieved whilst filming. We then chose Adam to play Charlie and Oliver to be James as their appearance slightly matches the actual band members. We chose Sophie to be the teacher as she is confidient and pretty enough to be believeable as a teacher pupils would fancy and the rest of the group would play the class. Once began filming we used our storyboard and the actual video constantly to film all the shots we needed. We filmed all the indoor shots within one and a half lessons and the outdoor shots in another lesson. The production took a little longer than we had hoped due to when we were supposed to film the outdoor shots rain hindered and held back the process.
The group worked well together throughout the task which really helped us to get a feel of how to make a music video and how much time an effort it takes for shots that last only a few seconds. Everyone in the group brought something to the task whether it was acting, filming, support or bringing in costumes therefore the dynamics and teamwork were very good. The challenge of the task but also the most enjoyable aspect was trying to make the shots as similar to the actual video as possible and I think we have pulled this off to a high degree particularly regarding the angles, movements and positions of the camera coupled with the lighting effects. The criticism of the piece would be certain continuity issues for example there is a shot of the classroom from the back (at 0.14) where the teacher stands beside a computer which is on but the next shot where two girls walk to their sits in the class (0.16) the computer is off and the teacher is not there. We can learn from this when making the actual music video and try to prevent this from happening by checking footage and leaving enough time to re- film and edit, however this was only a practice and there was only a short amount of time. Although even in the actual video there are certain continuity errors, such as when the pencil is thrown down the teacher picks it up from much further away from where it was likely to drop (we 'faithfully' recreated this in our piece though!) Another criticism would be that during the outdoor shots we did not have many people behind us and the few that were there were not dancing as energetically as in the actual video and so did not look as good. Overall the task really helped prepare us for when we make our own music video as we have practiced creating music video specific shots and editing them together in time with music. An enjoyable start to A2 Media!
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