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Hello, I'm
Matthew Romo (1660) from Group 2. The other embers of my group are Harry Kettenis (0390), Josh Stevenson (0796) and Ysabel Hudson-Searle (0331).

Hopefully navigation should not be an issue on my blog; 'labels' on the right hand side near the top will direct you to groups of posts from specific areas. Research and Planning, Production, and Evaluation work should all be available to see under their respective A2 labels. The other labels will direct you to work from my AS level and preliminary activities for A2.

Also, by clicking on the "Latymer Music Video Blog" link above the labels, you can go back to Latymer's main music video blog where all other blogs from my class can be accessed.

Finally, I hope you enjoy observing and assessing my work as much as I did creating it.


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Thursday 10 July 2014

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


This task has refreshed and further enlightened me to the level of effort and preparation required in the industry to produce anything of high quality. On the day there was certainly no lapse of effort and it will show in the final product the degree of professionalism with which we completed this task.

Tasks 1 and 2: 
Audion video and rehearsals - filming a short audition video gave me an incentive to learn some of the lyrics in advance, as well as how to lipsynch convincingly. It also helped me get into the spirit of performing, and I realised the importance of this in the latter stages. Despite not having a role that was particularly heavy in performance, the fact that everyone auditioned and everyone acted on shoot day was vital in reinforcing our confidence. To have any success in media it helps massively for all cast/crew to feel comfortable with what they are doing and I implemented this knowledge in auditioning with a peer with less confidence on camera than myself by acting eccentrically so that she could not only feel light-hearted and high spirited but more comfortable in knowledge that she would not be laughed at as she feared, if we all took the same attitude towards this task.




This continued into the rehearsals, where the crew (which partially consisted of trained/training actors) aided us in losing our inhibitions with acting exercises to prepare the whole cast for the camera. I improved my acting on camera in music video context by being taught the importance of eye contact with camera, which is very different to performing to a group of people on a stage as I had done with guitar on other occasions. Most importantly, as a class we have learned that a motivated, relaxed and happy workforce in any context in life means things run smoother and this is evidenced throughout our final video where most would not expect the actors to have been largely untrained and previously uncomfortable with the idea.


Task 3:
Planning and organising costume - although this was not the aim, getting people in costume even just to try them on prior to the shoot actually had a great effect on confidence. I and others felt an excitement in getting into role in anticipation of the shoot. Fortunately not from my own experience but that of others I found you cannot always solely rely on friends to borrow costume as they may forget or when you finally get to try on the item of clothing they offered, it might not fit well or look right; it accentuates the value of good planning and organisation, and the need to always have a backup plan.


Task 4:
The Shoot - b
y taking a little more responsibility on the technical side, my learning came largely from this area, but I also learnt about attitude, and as well as this found myself thinking about the music industry as a whole and how these productions reflect it.

Lighting - Just as I have every single time I have produced and been involved with any visual media from posters to film intros to music videos - I have been reminded of and further learned of the complexity of lighting. Even a simple plain white set up with infinity backdrop requires a great deal of effort and skill. I had experienced a very similar experience a few months ago in assisting an A2 group with their own coursework video, also characterised by high key lighting but their video only used one single lighting set up, whereas there were multiple arrangements in this remake. The pre-constructed lighting set ups were something new for me to be exposed to, having only my basic lighting knowledge and experience and previously lighting shots at the time of shooting them, but given the intricate nature of the red and blue lighting in particular, I could understand how important this was, especially in a remake where accuracy against a professional music video is difficult to achieve. 


Camera - another learning I made was that different lenses were used on more advanced cameras for different shots, such as the 35mm for group shots and 85mm for our closeups, both of which we used frequently, whereas before when I have worked on more simple cameras such as the Canon Legria HV30 which do not require this. Even with this great attention to detail in achieving high image quality there were still minor issues on some shots with focus such as the shot of 'GIRLS' spelt out on a white background.

Music Industry - one person being late has the potential to delay or damage a production regardless of their role. In the real industry you would be fortunate to get even one chance as well connected organisations can find someone else. Punctuality and good attitude on set are vital in any successful media production.

Having guys wear makeup and well planned lighting to be as flattering as possible to the cast (which we achieved with success) opened my eyes to the artificial nature of visual media. Presenting a group of people whether it be a band or model is done in a way which provides the most positive impression possible, all with the objective goal of promoting a product and maximise profit in the process, something which is interesting to philosophise.







Task 5:

The edit - I further developed many key skills in editing and learned new ones throughout the process of editing our remake. My confidence in editing went in leaps and bounds especially when halfway through I was separated from my group to edit alone, a challenge which I triumphed with, and was very pleased with as I had rarely edited with much independence before. By creating a performance bed and implementing non linear editing by set ups I could edit with more time efficiency. This technique taught me how different editing a music video is from other productions I have previously worked on, as all the audio was separate and far more cross cutting was involved. Grading faster and with more conviction was another important piece of progress for me as it will aid me hugely at A2, and grading in combination with key-frames to create the 'flash' effect has opened a lot of possibilities and ways to use grading creatively such as changing colours mid shot. 

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