7/31/2019 Write-up for Kills Video

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The Kills: No Wow: Remake: Media studies:

Pre-production:

For the pre-production, I had to prepare for the filming via creating a media film storyboard and shot

log. This is where I had to, in the storyboard; draw our every shot and its basic details such as

duration, sound, etc And in the log, I had to list the shots included in the music video, and was

asked to separate the list of shots by content and who it featured, the girl, the boy, or both.

Throughout this stage of the project, I learned various skills. An example would be planning. A key

part of a videos production is planning beforehand what needs to be done. In this case, the planning

involved how I and some other people would create a copy of the Kills No Wow video, the 1

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90seconds. Me, and the other class members, had to plan carefully and consistently, how we would

film the remake of the video. The duration and sound had to match each shot, and when it took

place. We all had to do this for the next stage

Another thing the class did was create other practice videos in small groups as preparation for this

project. Other preliminary tasks involved filming a person singing to a song, and this helped us to

practice lip syncing. Besides this, in groups we also created a short school film which focused on the

practice and use of different camera shots and angles, and the effect that they have in filmed

footage. All of these subsidiary tasks all contributed as preparation for the main production task of

our project. Preparing accurately and correctly is a very important quality to have as a film producer.You practice how to produce your films, instead of just rushing into it.

7/31/2019 Write-up for Kills Video

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The videos created as part of the preparation tasks have their own representation to the project. For

instance, in the movie we made based on camera shots, we used the shots that seemed correct and

appropriate for the situation, in other words, we followed media convention. For instance, when I

and another student were being filmed, the group decided to use over the shoulder shots to

emphasise that we were in a confrontational conversation to each other. Another example is the lip

sync video, where despite the song being a male sung song, and being based on a perverted

teenager, some of the participants in our mimic videos were females. This itself is a subversion of

media stereotypes via gender switchover. Viewers do not expect females to sing male songs often.

Production:

In other words, the filming itself. In this stage, the group worked together to produce a film based on

the Kills No Wow music video. Throughout this section of the production, we all learned various

skills.

For instance, the group learned how to co-operate as a production team. After we agreed on

designated roles, we all arranged the filming. Ultimately, I was the camera man to begin with; I

shared this role with another student. I then became the video master later on. Meanwhile, Sian was

the director, Alice and Jack M were the stars of the video, Michael was the predecessor of handling

the video timings, and Martin shared the camera role with me. This worked well to begin with, with

most of the shots being accurate and similar to those of the real video. However, while this was

working well, eventually Martin and Michael had to participate in other projects. So Charlie took

over as camera girl, and I became the second video master. Therefore, I had to 2 jobs within this

stage, and learned multiple skills. With less people involved and reduced complexity in the situation,

we were able to speed up the process of filming. The teachers were surprised with the time it took,

with this extended time to edit; we could now make our videos look better. All this came fromeffective team work and preparation.

Individual tasks I had included camera man, so I learned how to film shots accurately and using the

correct and appropriate camera angles and movements. I was also the 2nd

video master, who

basically played the video to show the star, Alice, what shot she was performing and how to do it.

This means I received some skills on how to guide movie stars in their performances. All of these are

needed skills in the industry of media production. These skills, added with the teamwork and

preparation tasks I took part in with groups, enabled me to learn valuable skills and abilities that will

hopefully assist me with my actual project.

Overall, the video filming we did was generally successful. All of the needed shots were completed

before planned to, so we saved some time. Also, most of the shots were increased in accuracy via

the performers knowing what to do by looking at the shots displayed on the computer screen by the

2 video masters. However, there were some issues, such as equipment shortages, and flexibility of

using them. Most of the props we sued, such as the guitar, and microphone, were gathered by

students in the group, and could only be used on certain days. So shots couldnt be filmed in order.

The clothing of the stars had to be the same every day during filming, and this was hard to handle.

Finally, there was never an accessible mic stand to use like in the real video, so some shots were not

entirely precise since Alice and Jack had to perform without it when it was needed, so some shots

look slightly different. Despite these flaws, the filming was overall, successful.

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Post-production:

This is where the magic happens. After we filmed the video, we individually had to edit it in our own

ways. I finished my video using nothing more than lesson time in one week, and it was edited to as

good of a degree as seemingly possible with both the time limit I had and the limited resources, such

as seemingly missing shots, etc

Skills I already had but improved on were those such as accuracy in film editing. At home, I have lots

of experience in film editing, but not quite as professionally as this. Throughout this stage of

production, I had to accurately edit each shot so that it was in correct timing, and was simultaneous

with that of the actual video. Also, once I added the music, I had to make sure that Alices mouth

movements matched the musical lyrics as much as possible. This is generally a long, repetitive

process, but it is required if time slots and lip syncing is to be accurate.

Another new skill I picked up here is to how to substitute for certain shots. The truth is that some of

the editing was not as straight forward as hoped for. I found myself looking through the list of

recorded shots, only not to be able to find the first shot of 6 seconds, with the microphone and then

the girl walking up to it. In which case, I had to find a replacement, which ended up being 3 different

2 second duration shots, one of the empty microphone shots, one of the girl walking from left to

right of the shot, and one of the girl picking up the mic and putting her head forward. This was as

accurate as a substitute could be, and the action and movement still looked similar to that of the

real video.

While the previous statement is an example of, it was not the only problem of the production. Due

to a lack of flexibility and use of props in the previous stage, the shots were not taken in order. This

made it extremely hard to find certain shots for the editing, and considering the time limit I had, it

took away available chronology for the actual editing of footage. The search for clips were

frustrating, and required me to use time wisely. Since I had little time to actually edit anything,

sometimes I had to make time by merely adding shots and using my judgement based on duration of

each shot as well as mouth movements, at what time in the video this shot should appear, and how

long I should set it to be. This generally worked, with a few fixable mistakes at the end. Basically, the

skill I learned is to use judgement based on various logical factors in order to save time for the

editing itself.

Overall, the finalised product itself is mostly a remake duplicate of the original counterpart, with a

few differences. Overall, the video itself conforms to the stereotype that it is teenagers who

preferred The Kills style and genre of music, since it is teenagers from our group, not much younger

than how the band members themselves actually look, who took part. However, this video subverts

to the stereotype that only large, successful bands with bug budgets can make music videos with

great precision of lip syncing, camera shots, etc because here, it is a group of school students who

worked on this project independently.

Generally, the result of our pre-lim project has been successful, with a few issues along the way.

Hopefully, this side-task will prepare us all for the major, actual coursework of year 13