Prelim Edit

Audition Video

Costume

For the photoshoot section, my character wears all black in a "rock chick" style. In order to imitate this, I will wear a leather jacket, high heels or Dr Martin boots and black shorts as well as tights. My hair will be out as my character throws her hair about during this shot.

Although my character's clothing is more revealing, I do not feel comfortable wearing a bra and underwear as she does and therefore this will be changed to a top and shorts.

For the lip sync section, I plan on wearing bright red lip stick as the woman does in the music video in order to be as accurate as possible.

I will aim for my lips to look like they do in this picture

My Characters

For the remake of the "Girls" music video from The 1975, I have been cast for a few different roles, which means that overall I am able to develop various skills, including my camera presence and lip syncing.

One of the characters which I will play is the Photoshoot Girl 1. Photoshoot Girl 1 is, in the original video, one of the main band girls during a photoshoot set up. She is the longest haired girl of the three and the characterisation requires a considerable amount of confidence and "sexy" poses and facial expressions such as pouting.

For this role, eye contact with the camera is vital in order to create the desired impression of an extremely cool and sexy female character.

This is an unusual change for me in terms of the roles in which I am usually cast. I am used to playing a more comical character who provides the light hearted element of a play or am the moody teenage girl. I think this role will challenge me to act in a different way and gain more experience in the acting world, particularly for film which I do not do often.

As well as this role, I also have to do a portion of the lip sync in which only my lips along with the lower part of my face are shown. This will again challenge me as I have never acted without words before, though I have acted in musicals so I have some prior experience of acting whilst singing. It will be an interesting challenge for me to try to match my lips to the song and I hope to learn a new skill.

Personal Achievement

For our A2 prelim, we are filming a remake of the music video for "Girls" by The 1975. Being a drama student, I am used to acting for stage and therefore I think this activity will be an experience for me to learn to act in a different way and use entirely new skills which I have not used before

One of these skills is the ability to lip sync to the song. This involved singing along to the music as opposed to simply miming the words as I first believed, which then enabled us to match up the sound during the editing process in order to make the lip sync as accurate as possible and develop my skills in editing a music video.

In terms of acting, I am used to acting for the stage and sometimes for film, both of which are entirely different to acting for a music video. When on stage I have to make my actions and facial expressions extremely exaggerated and project my voice. When addressing the audience, I have to make sure to make eye contact with as many people as possible and look around the whole room in order to make the whole audience feel included. However, for the music video it is entirely different. I have a fixed point to look at  and it is important to maintain eye contact with the camera as much as possible. Actions, while still exaggerated, do not need to be as big as they do when on stage as the audience is not as far away as they are when in the theatre and I do not need to project as the sound will be cut in and replaced by the track during the edit.

I find this task particularly interesting in terms of finding out how a shoot for a professional music video works as a whole. I have been on sets for Hollywood films in the past and from my experience it seems to be repetitive shooting for many days and a large budget. Even when speaking to directors of Independent films, I have not encountered a film which has been filmed entirely in a day. However, for the music video prelim, we have to shoot the whole video in an entire day, which we soon found out is a norm.

Building contacts is an important aspect of any industry and in particular the media industry. I have already spoken to the crew and befriended them as I find them to be extremely interesting and fun to be around. As well as this, I can use this as an opportunity to gain contacts and find more about them and the different roles needed for a successful music video. They are unusual, unconventional role models and I would like to learn skills which are transferable.

1. Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop day as it challenged me to act in a field that I have never experienced before, helping to make a stylised music video. As well as this, I found the experience to be a unique learning curve, enabling me to learn more about what it is like to be on a professional set.


One of my favourite parts of the workshop was helping out behind the scenes with make up and setting up the miscellaneous shots like the "GIRLS" shot and the pills. It made me realise that I have the potential to work behind the camera as well as in front of it, making me understand the importance of the different jobs the crew and how each one is vital for a successful shoot and a polished-looking final product. Although before I had understood that the crew was important, helping out gave me a new found respect for the skill and pressure of life on a professional set.

Being a drama student, I revelled in my opportunities to perform in front of the camera, in particular during the photoshoot part of the video in which I had to be a model. It was important to appear confident and I enjoyed trying different poses.


I also enjoyed watching the process of shooting a music video and cheering my classmates on whilst they were acting and shooting their parts. It was fun to try to help people replicate the actions and facial expressions used in the original video to try and get it as close as possible to the real thing.

One of the processes I wish I had been able to witness and help with is lighting the music video as I would have liked to have experienced a completely rounded picture of the processes involved in making a successful music video. However, I found the workshop day extremely valuable and fun and I am glad that I was able to be involved in it.

2. What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks?

Prelim
At the beginning of the prelim, the most valuable skill I learned was how to lip synch convincingly, which involved actually singing the words and editing the sound out later as opposed to simply miming as I had once believed, which is less realistic and convincing.

Rehearsal
In terms of the rehearsal, it was extremely useful for me to be able to watch the footage live as it made me realise the importance of making sure to get the actions as close to perfection as possible and how this effected people's confidence. When we were completely sure of our moves, it showed in the fact that we were less likely to laugh and, in particular during the "photo shoot", were able to focus our attention on trying to appear as confident as possible as the actions became a second nature to us. However, I also realised the importance of sticking to a time limit as it is a lot more rigid when shooting a music video than when shooting a film (or a film opening as we had previously done). When shooting a film, the filming process is spread over a longer span of time and therefore it is easier to take care of unforeseen issues. When shooting the music video, it was even more important to make sure that we had thought of every possible problem and be practical and keep a level head in the event that something did not go the way we planned.

Workshop Day
The skills learnt in the rehearsal then transferred to the real shoot as we were more prepared and confident and had learnt that it was particularly important to remain calm under the pressure. As well as this, it was different in the fact that we had not all performed in a group since the auditioning workshop. Therefore, teamwork was particularly important as we were working in an area which got very cluttered and hot and it was easy to misplace things. Therefore it was vital that we all communicated with each other well in order to, again, refrain from panicking and making the whole experience unbearable. Also, we made sure to cheer each other on in order to make those who felt self-conscious at the start feel more confident and happy with their role. This meant that they were more likely to be happy and proud of their end result.

Edit

Matching the guitar strumming as
closely as possible to the real music
video.

Editing a music video remake was a completely different skill to editing the film opening for the AS coursework. First of all we had to try and match each shot as closely to the one in the real music video, which was a challenge as it meant I had to go through frame by frame and try my best to match movements as well as making it match the music. The actions weren't exactly the same as they are difficult to replicate exactly so I learnt how to improvise to make the shots look as close as I could to the real edit.

Flashes

As well as this, a new skill I learnt was how to make convincing camera flashes during the edit by keying the desired frame and changing the brightness and contrast.







In General

Improvising when we did not have the
car.

One of the biggest things I can take from the edit is the skill of improvising when met with difficulty. This is seen in the music video when we could not bring a car into the studio and therefore had to use a bike instead. Some of the shots changed, which may have been complicating both on the day and during the edit if it had not been for the sufficient planning that occurred before the practical side of the shoot.

3. Are you pleased with the footage and your edit? Is it how you expected it to look?

I am extremely pleased with the way in which the prelim remake turned out. I believe that we successfully achieved a music video of extremely high quality, even if it was not exactly identical to the original. The video we produced was synced extremely well and the level of acting was very good from all members of the media cohort. This is due to the dedication that we put in and the hours that went behind the shoot - both from the cast and the crew. We managed to successfully replicate the majority of the shots and completed the task to a very successful standard whilst also learning from the experience.


In particular, I thought the fact that we were able to add our own personality to the shoot whilst also making it look like the original was exceptional. This was due to the fact that we had planned so well, managed to get such a range of costumes and were so confident throughout the process.


The actual footage is better than I expected it to look, which is due to many factors including the use of, different, better equipment such as the Canon EOS 5D camera, which was better than the cameras used for the film opening: the Canon HV30. Also, the grading for the music video was of a high quality and therefore I am pleased with our efforts as a whole.


I am proud that we were all able to complete so much in such a short amount of time: a skill that is particularly useful in the media industry as a whole. It is also a skill that is transferable for other areas of life and shows a more mature approach to the practical side of the media course than during the AS film opening. It has thoroughly prepared me for the next year as well as later in life.

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

Changing costumes due to the way the girls are represented
in the original music video.

• Lipsynch - Before the prelim, I was not aware of the fact that you had to sing the words instead of miming. This will be useful for creating a music video in which the singing looks believable for next year.
• Acting for Camera - As I am used to acting on stage, this is a skill which is not only useful for the music video in case I am acting in it, but also later on in life as I wish to be an actress and the vast majority of acting jobs are in front of the camera, such as in films and in television dramas.
• Representation - During the music video remake, we changed the costumes of most of the female characters as well as the hot dog to the burger during the poolside set-up. This was to prevent the people in the media department from being depicted as overly sexualised as they are in the video. However, the fact that we were forced to think about this in order to change it has made me realise the different representations which are common in music videos and how sexualisation is used to sell artists and their music.
• Working to time - Time constraints will be even more strict during the actual A2 coursework when we have many other commitments and are working to a more strict deadline. We will have to be creative whilst also doing what we can to use all the time given in an effective way. The fact that we filmed the whole remake within one day makes this more real as well as proving that we are capable of doing it.
• Structural - It was interesting to learn that there are different ways in which music videos can be made and it opens more doors for next term when making our own music video.
• Working to a schedule - due to the lack of a large budget when making a music video, in the industry the time spent shooting is kept as short as possible in order to try and save money. It is usually completed over one day with a strict schedule in which you cater for the possibility of the shoot running over. We had this experience during the workshop and we will have a similar one when doing the coursework. I learnt the value of the schedule as well as the fact that it is unlikely that we will stick to the times on it.