Preparation: Planning for my production

I have completed my animatic and now I need to get started on the other areas of my production process. Below I have listed the research that I need to do before the beginning of my filming, also the order in which I will complete them;

• Location Planning
• Casting
• Costume Planning
• Props Planning
• Lighting and Camera Equipment Planning
• Shot List
• Filming Schedule

For example, for my location planning, I will make photos of the potential locations in which I will base my music video.  I will be going into to detail about what each location will be used for and the benefits and negatives of using these locations.

For my other 6 research posts I am going to go into the same amount of detail. I am going to make sure that I justify how they will suit and appeal to my target audience.

Animatic

Here is the completed animatic of the song 'Summer'.

The process of completing the animatic instead of just taking some photos of a storyboard was extremely important because it helps us to visualise what the music video is going to look like and now we just need to replace the drawings with actual shots. Making this animatic also gave me the chance to practice with Premiere Pro beforehand. Practicing cutting to the beat and other effects for this animatic is very helpful as these effects will be used for the final product.

Now the animatic is completed I will move onto the other parts of pre-production. I will now do my location planning and casting etc. for my final product.

Planning: Storyboard Animatic - Process

Now that myself and Tom have thought of the idea for our music video we began to put together the storyboard animatic. Firstly, we needed to do the story board part which is easy as we need to put our thoughts onto paper in drawings. We got several paper cards and drew on them with the shots we wanted for our music video. We then made a timeline in which we placed the panels along to clearly show in which order we want the shots.

Making the animatic requires good artistic skills to clearly represent what we want the shots to look like, however the drawings were not very good but they still got the idea across to the viewer. Whilst editing the animatic I needed to make sure that if the were cuts to the beat at points in the song then I had put them in. Throughout the production of my animatic I put in a lot of cuts to the beat.

Here are all of the panels that were used for the animatic. We used some of the panels several times to give a feeling of memories etc. These are not in the order used in the animatic.

Here is the timeline with the panels placed across it, this is our first thoughts and therefore the finished animatic will have developed and changed to make it better, changes that we needed to make were found in the editing process.

Research and Planning Self Assessment

Research Into Existing Music Videos
For the research into existing music videos on my blog I would give myself a 'good' mark on my blog because I have made two posts that have a good level of detail about existing music videos. To improve on this I could potentially go back and add another existing music video and research into that, therefore making it three instead of two.

Research Into a Potential Target Audience
For my research into a potential target audience I would give myself a 'good' as well.
I have done a detailed mind map about the target audience and also explained the mind map with three detailed paragraphs. I am happy with this part of my blog and it is not an area that I seriously need to address but if I have the time in the future I could go back and improve it.

Work on Storyboarding
From what is on my blog I cannot give myself a mark at all as I have not published anything to do with storyboarding.
I have done a lot of work for my storyboard; with several storyboard panels, a timeline showing the points in which the panels will come in and also an animatic that I need to post onto my blog. The work that I have done but still need to post about would be 'good', I am going to make sure the post about it is as detailed as possible.

Time Management
My time management has been extremely poor, there are several tasks that need to be done and I have a long time to do them therefore I have been putting them off for a while but need to get on with them. To improve it is very simple, I need to start doing my work more regularly and stay on top of it otherwise I will do it all at the end at a poor standard.

Use of Digital Technology or ICT
I would give myself a 'good' mark for the use of digital technology or ICT part of my blog because every post has a form of digital technology or ICT, being a picture, video or even Prezi.
To improve for this there is not much more that I can add, however I need to make sure that I keep up the amount of digital technology that I am using in my up coming posts.

Communication Skills
For my communication skills I would give myself a 'good', this is because I feel that I have gone in to a lot of detail for all of my published posts at this point in time.
I have tried to explain everything as well as I can to tell the reader exactly what it is I am doing. To improve there is more detail that I can add of course, I also need to make sure that I keep this standard of communication skills as I continue on with my next posts and even try to improve the level of detail.

Level of Care Taken in the Presentation of Work
For the level of care taken in the presentation of work I would give myself a 'good'.
I think that throughout the posts in my blog that I they are all laid out very nicely to give the reader a clear idea of what I have done and when. For example for both of my researches into existing music videos I have kept the same layout with text next to a picture of the existing music video to clearly show that is what I am talking about. I need to make sure that I keep this level of care in my future posts.

Green Screen Practice

As I am having the green screen effect in my music video I am doing some practice today with editing it. I have a clip of Ellie from my class singing in front of a green screen with Adele's song behind her.

In this first screenshot I am picking the parts of the song that I would like Ellie to be singing and what part of Adele's music video I want playing behind her. I am making sure that she is lip syncing correctly also.

Now, went to effects and put the eight point garbage matte on there and dragged the green screen to show the least amount possible.

At this point I dragged on the ultra key effect and then used the dabber to click on the green screen behind her, therefore removing it.

Here is how it will look with Adele's music video behind her on the green screen.

Here is the finished product, I am happy with how it came out as you can clearly see that she is lip syncing almost perfectly. The only problem that I have come across is out of my control, the footage of Ellie singing was rushed and the green screen not lit up evenly or ironed out therefore making you able to see it slightly against lighter backgrounds.