Preliminary task of music video

So, for our preliminary task this year, we were told to create a music video for the most annoyingly-catchy-yet-beautiful New Zealand song 'Why does love do this to me'. We had to get into groups of three or four, so I went with Hazel and Nicole. I've never really worked with them properly, whereas they are always together in practical tasks, but everything went well and we all took an even part of the work with no problems.

We were given a brief of what we needed to include:

• Everyone in the group needs to lip sing
• Use split screens
• Use green screen
• Use key framing
• Use colour manipulation
• A variety of camera shots
• Edit to the beat
• Use transitions 

Filming went very smoothly for doing it without much planning, as everyone who was part of it was enthusiastic about performing and enjoyed being cheesy and over the top (which is what we aimed for). What we have learnt from filming for a music video however, is that you need A LOT of filming. If you thing you have enough, your wrong and you should film another hour just to be safe. The amount of filming we had done for this task was about 23 minutes and we still needed to cut the song short in editing. Another thing I have noticed is that we didn't use enough camera angles and movement, which doesn't make the music video as entertaining as it could be. I've also considered that maybe when it comes to filming my music video that I should get the person to sing the whole song every (or most of the) time when I film from a different shot or place, that way I will be able to have enough footage if I want to change views (but this all depends on how I want my music video to be).

When it came to editing, we had two weeks to get it done. I really hope that I will get more time for my music video, as some of the more fancier editing techniques take more time and precision - which is what is lacked in our preliminary (key framing and split screen part with the group running). However, our green screen worked really well, the only improvement that could be made would be having better lighting when filming so we don't have to deal with shadows, and also considering costume a bit better (as Dom and Liam are wearing hoodies on the beach).

Using green screen is an interesting technique to use and can be very good for music videos if done probably. It seemed complicated for me to begin with but after a while, it became easy to use chroma key. We decided to use the beach to keep to the official music videos style and also using the video's footage on the instrumental part, as we aimed to make a parody/tribute music video.

I found key framing a bit fiddly to do, as I kept forgetting now to do it. We got there in the end and managed to use it a few times in the video (when the people are running). However it wasn't used perfectly and would definitely need more time and thought spent on it.

Split screening went ok, and as it was my group who mastered the technique, we got it done easily. However, one of the parts with split screen wasn't too good as the key framing used wasn't perfect. I do like using split screen and would definitely incorporate it some how in my music video, as it will make it more entertaining and interesting to watch (hopefully).

Colour manipulation was fun to use as we decided to use the green and pink like in the original video to fit our parody/tribute theme. We where also able to overlap footage of Nicole and Hazel crying to give a dizzy look by having a seconds difference and using the colour manipulation to have the bottom layer black and white and the top layer pink and green.

Lip syncing was a nightmare to do, as sometimes we would sing either too fast or too slow, or we just struggled getting it perfectly with the music. Sometimes it was easy to fix, as we were able to use other footage but other times we just had to make-do.

Overall, We were quite pleased with our music video and have learnt a lot from it.