Evaluation

For the start of video we used the generic convention of having the titles come up somewhere in the video space, with the artist name, song name, album and record label




For our audience feedback stage, we handed out sheets with the sections titled “what did you like?” and “what do you feel can be improved”. We learnt from our class mates that our video contained good syncing, feel thought out shots and band performance sequence, and although we had all the generic conventions of a rock video in our piece, there were comments regarding repetition in the narrative, as the locations are limited, along with the acting in the shots. To improve on this we could have filmed in more than a few locations for our narrative part of the video.

We were also asked about the narrative and “does it really develop?” The answer to this is no. When planning the video we decided we wanted the outcome of the story to be unclear and have the audience come to their own conclusion, due to the fact that the lyrics of the song do not provide a final answer.



Another criticism was of the guitarist, James, suggesting that he was moving around significantly less than the other members of the band. This point was again raised following the final draft. However after researching the movement of band members using music videos on Youtube and music television shows such as Kerrang! and going to gigs first hand we found that James' movement was sufficient and managed to draw parallels between his movement and professional bands.




After showing the first draft of the music video, a criticism mentioned by the class was that some of the shots were too long and drawn out. We took this into account and combated this issue by adding clips from the storyline section to reduce the length of some of the shots. In the feedback from the final draft, it was said that the improvement had been highly noticeable.

One point that was heavily raised was the difference in quality between the filming of the narrative scenes and the band performance scenes. We had realised this ourselves in the editing stage but felt that the video still worked really well shot how it was, and the lower quality helped to differentiate between the narrative and the performance. The reason for the quality change is the use of 2 different cameras, we decided to use a different camera for the narrative sequence in our video because it was always available to use, this gave us more flexibility in the times that we could film, which was important because the actress, Georgia, was unavailable for filming much of the time.



When we filmed the narrative, we did not use a tripod. This was an issue raised in the feedback that the camera was shakier than that of the performance (where a tripod was used). When editing the narrative we noticed this but drew the conclusion that it worked to our advantage. The song is about a relationship that has gone sour and we believed that the shakiness of the camera reflected the rocky relationship between the two characters. In addition to this, it had also been said in the feedback that it helped to differentiate between narrative and performance, and therefore we used this to our advantage.

It was suggested to use the non moving camera for the majority of the song and then use the moving camera for the breakdown to emphasise the heaviness. This was something we were cautious about doing and following the positive feedback it, we made the decision to use it in the finished video.



Another positive point raised in the feedback was that the synchronisation between the visuals on screen and the music. We found that there were no issues in the final edit, in regards to lip syncing and this was positively highlighted in the feedback. However there were 1 or 2 drum fills that could have been better highlighted in the performance sequence, however we did not have a shot of these to use.




Another point that was brought up was a simple, yet important one, that the band does genuinely look like a band. We knew this was important from the start and when casting our actors, we chose people who could not only play instruments, but also had experience in bands. In addition to this, their costume fits the stereotype of the genre.

The shot used in the piece that was most highlighted was the shot of the band from the side, with the sun shining down on them. I lined this shot up purposely to accentuation the location in the background. We felt that the shot was aesthetically pleasing so we persisted to use it heavily throughout the video.



A common generic convention in music video's of this genre is insert shots of skilled technical performance. We highlighted this in our project by putting in the shots of double bass drum work, finger tapping and complicated drum fills, this was complimented on in our feedback session.