My Group's Final Edit

Here is my group's edit of the 5ive workshop footage:

Prelim Evaluation

1. Did you enjoy the workshop day? What were your best bits and why?

I very much enjoyed the day, despite how tiring and difficult it was. I think the best part of the whole day had to be the end. Feeling sad, relieved, happy, tired and somehow still having the energy after 12 hours of working under burning lights to dance with everyone around the hall to the last ever playing of the song... until the edit.

I also loved the harsh reality of it all. This shoot was almost exactly like others I had been on with jake (except more fun). It gave everyone a real taste of what their future could be like and that is an unmatchable gift. It was also great working with all the crew, and being taught by a professional director was especially beneficial.

 

2. What did you learn from participating in the workshop?

I learnt a lot about the many jobs that have to be done to keep the day running smoothly. Runners, cable bashers, camera operators and grips, the director who takes care of the whole shoot and the assistant director who takes care of the director. I knew all these jobs existed but seeing them all work so hard gave me a new found respect for everyone in the industry. I also learnt a lot about how things can go wrong, even professionally; cameras breaking or not connecting, lights not working, a shot not lined up in a way it can work. This makes me feel more confident in my future shoot, because its not about avoiding these occurrences, its about how you deal with them.

I also learnt a lot about the technological side to the shoot, got to understand how the jib and camera work properly. I also saw Jake's attempt at lighting which was good despite not being his forte.

3. Are you pleased with the footage and your edit? Is it how you expected it to look?

The footage was just fantastic. The 5D truely has one of the best quality pictures I have ever seen. The camera makes such a difference, as even if we'd shot the exact same footage on a standard video camera it wouldn't have looked anywhere near as good. Watching it for the first time on monday was such an amazing moment, when I realised this was going to be a really, really good video.

Our group decided not to edit the footage into an exact replica of the original 5ive video. We decided to do this because when attempting to match up our footage to their cuts it didnt feel right. I wanted to make it more our own work and so we spent our time editing what the footage we shot wanted us to. The video we made has some of teh same feel with the choppy editing, jump cuts and slow-motion dancing. However the feel of the shots we chose (I think) is more friendly and "poppy"

 

4. How do you think your workshop experiences will impact on your approach to next term's music video coursework?

I now know just how hard it can be to do take after take after take and have learnt, from watching Jake, how to appropriately deal with actors to get the best performance out of them i possibly can. I know not to be too ambitious when shooting, because even when we knew exactly what shots we were meant to get we still couldn't quite manage it all. I think I shall try and go with the flow more during my shoot and obviously make sure I have absolutely everything ready with backups.

Everybody Get Up Re-Edit

A task was set to re-edit a cut up and mismatched version of the music video. Due to complications arising when video files were transferred from one computer to another, we found that not all shots matched up perfectly (no matter how fantastic an editor you are). However looking at our final cut; the main video with the original top right for comparison, I feel we did a very successful job. The purpose of the task was to demonstrate just how many cuts, in such quick sucession were needed for such a small section of film. task was fairly challenging, and showed us just how hard it will be to edit both the coming music video, and our music video next year.

Lipsynch work

Here is our attempt at a lipsynch of 'Five's 'Everybody get up.' I think we did well to put energy and enthusiasm into the piece. In my group were James, Frank and myself and although a lot of the footage was unusable due to background messups and a habit of forgetting words, I think the edit really does us justice in terms of how effective and entertaining we can be in media work.

What did I learn from this?

I learnt that when filming it is important to get several takes of the same shot, rather than relying on other shots to overlap and compensate. Each runthrough should be done to the best of our ability until we get a near perfect take then move on. This wasn't really possible with our time restraint however.

I also learnt that when editing it would be good to organise the different shots into bins; not just "Frank" "Eoin" and "James" but groups like "dancing clips" that would be good to cut to in instrumentals and a "gimicks" bin where we put all the silly stuff we got up to, so we can add it where it's appropriate rather than just where it falls with the music.

Finally I learnt that filming these can be a lot of fun so long as you find the right balance of sillyness and seriousness. I hope I can translate that to the big shoot as well as my coursework in the near future.

My Audition

My biggest hope is to be cast as "Abs" the first member of the band to jump offstage and rap at the camera. I feel I have more than proved my worth in terms of enthusiasm (having actually completed homeworks on time) and showing a great deal of commitment, having learnt the dance and all the words in time for the lipsynch work. I also feel that I am an avid performer and will bring great things to the table as a member of five. As an added incentive to choosing me for this role, it will deffinetly boost my love of media and my comitment to continueing this level of work that I have been putting in so far this year... If I'm not chosen, my confidence will surely be shot and I might not feel so inclined to keep working nicely in media...

Only joking! No matter what happens I will be thrilled to be taking part, even if I am unable to be a member of five (or to a greater extent Abs)