BTEC Media Extended Diploma Mr.

Sleeman Bradley Bablee

1




Evaluation

Storyboard
My music videos narrative is of Kendrick Lamar, trying to progress in his music
career. He tries to get himself out there to the public but his keeps getting turned
down, we got this initial idea from the title of the song, Cut You Off, where we get
people to cut Kendrick off when trying to progress. However we then see that
Kendrick finds two people who happen to be interested in his song and help him
become the star he is now. The lyrics of the song talk about various things like
how no one wen to see his uncle in jail apart from his mum, and how family can
also be cut off if they dont treat each other properly, this section, I had the idea
of showing Kendricks new family, Dayo and Bradley; They begin to work with
him and get close to a point where they become so close they consider each other
family. Kendrick also goes on about people talking rubbish, and this relates to
him being turned down by people, telling him rubbish and lies. Through my edits
I have shown the music video in a non-linear format, this is because I wanted the
audience to see what Kendrick is doing/ performing the song and where
Kendrick stands currently, musically and status wise then how all that built up
and we go back to the journey which he had to go through.
I believe that my edits match the meaning of the song; literally and physically. By
this I mean that the action in some scenes relate to what is being said, through
meaning and some scenes match the lyrics through the actual action, and
example of this is at 3:41 where Kendrick says, Every time you come
around I chose to show a shot where Dayo, after finding out he has helped
Kendrick, is turning around on the chair, which matches the lyrics. Also the
example where the action matches what the meaning of the lyrics are, is at 1:53,
where Kendrick is saying doing what it T A K E just to reach the T O P this to
me gave me the idea of him starting at the bottom and doing what it takes to help
him progress, like asking random people to listen to help and help him build a
reputation and progress further.
Overall, My final edits does stick to my storyboard however there are parts in the
video that have been included and some parts replaced. In my storyboard, I
started with showing the title screen, the title of the song and then leading onto
showing everyone in the studio, which relates to the original music video, which
I thought, worked well. There are parts like during the end, instead of having a
long shot where Students that have turned Kendrick down before while trying to
promote my mixtape will now be celebrating that Ive finally made it. I have
chosen to show just Dayo, one of the producers celebrating, this is because I
thought it worked better with the story line and made more sense rather than
having people who turned Kendrick down celebrating.





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2

Influences
The original music video inspired my music video because I think that it all
worked well and it also told the story of the actual storyline well. I also looked at
other video realized by Kendrick to see similar styles that he has used
throughout the music video. I looked at other music video like, Dont Kill My vibe
I also looked at other artists such as Chip- Pound Cake, this music video also
influenced me because this song is a cover song, and the music video isnt
complex, the music was simple but was very effective and professional, which
gave me the idea and helped me to keep my music video simple but effective.
This music video also helped me with ideas in what I could do in my music video
such as having people in the background but making the focus solely on one
person, which seems to be popular in recent music videos/ most used and
trending technique being used.
My edits in the Music video relates to my research because I have used some
ideas I have researched out, such as the ideas from Pound Cake, I have chosen
throughout my music video to only show the main person, at the time, doing
something important or different, my proof of this is when Dayo is celebrating in
the class room for the promotion and success of the music he helped produced
further. Other influenced music videos include
songs like, Krept and Konan- Otis and also
Dont Waste my time (Remix), Beautiful People
by Chris Brown and Lloyd Feat Ja Rule
Caught Up.
Firstly I was influenced by the likes of two
artists, Krept and Konan with two of their
videos, the first was Otis, and this was because
of the use of slow motion for the intro. The
slow motion was of them jumping off a railing,
however I thought the idea of having slow motion for an intro was good and
worked well, however I had chosen to use slow motion numerous times in my
music video because of this. The first idea when
using slow motion was to use it for the outro,
this is so that the scenes look more important
and also to show a difference between the main
story and the outro because they also use a
different song for the outro. The next music
video to have inspired me was a collection of
Dont waste my time (Remix) and Beautiful
People, the reason being because these two
songs were both popular when they were
released at their time and both used a similar
scenery; both music videos had scenes of them performing on stage, Live at a
concert. This
made me
believe that
my song can
also be
successful if I
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3
included something similar, where I could get
found footage of my artist rapping on stage.
The screenshot on the right is of the concert
idea being
used in
the music
video for,
Dont Waste My Time (Remix) performed by
Krept and Konan. This is also the case when I
researched into beautiful people performed
by Chris Brown, they had used a concert scene which I thought went well with
the type of feel the music video has on the
audience, making them happy and bubbly.
Another idea I wanted to use from studying
this music
video was
the use of
studio
recording.
While in
the studio, Chris
Brown is
surrounded by his friends and having fun, which
also helps give this music video a bubbly feel.









The next music video to have inspired me with the footage I recorded was, Ja
Rule Feat Lloyd- Caught up. The reason being so is that the introduction, both
artists are recorded in the studio with clips
happening in-between their performance. This is
a much older video however a lot of recent
music video as mentioned above, are also using
this method and footage when producing their
music video. I also had the idea of showing
studio parts within the music video to give the
whole video a friendly feeling and because I
thought it made the video stand out because not many people decide to use or
show the smaller details behind how the music is produced or get a feel of how
songs are recorded when watching a music video, so I have decided to show
equipment being used throughout my music video to help show the audience
scenery and whats happening behind the scene, however I dont want this to be
the main importance of my story/video.
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4

Image/Style/Purpose
I believe that my video does work successfully with my music video however I
still believe that I could have made a few adjustments to make it more fitting and
that my video can also apply to other songs also. My video has a similar style to
other videos such as Chris Brown- Beautiful people. This is because the story is
about them having fun and is also studio based, this all relates to my music video
where most of my video is studio based also and of
the three main people having fun. The screenshots
are the most important shots because I believe that
they are the ones most similar to the music video I
researched and relate to how my music video was
done.
The first shot is of Chris Brown performing on stage
at a concert, this firstly relates to my music video
because I decided to use this idea at the start of my music video. I showed
Kendrick Lamar at his highest point in his career because I chose to make my
music video follow a non-linear format.
The second shots shows the scenes in the music
video where Chris Brown brings his friends into
the studio to have fun and listen to his new song,
at the same time, tis motivates him to continue
because they like it, this then gave me the idea for
my middle section where I decided to twist it and
go back to the start of Kendrick Lamars career
journey. I chose to make people he meets with
turn him down because the name of the song was cut you off and because the
opposite to having seen this, I thought that the idea would work great and be a
great story line for the viewers to watch and understand Kendrick's struggle.
The third screenshot then gave me the idea of
him achieving his dream, wherein Chris Browns
video, he continues to dance and be happy even
by himself. This then made me think of ways to
express the artist in my video being happy no
matter what, and at a certain part of the my
music video, the lyrics say, family is all I need
which made me chose this part to show a
different meaning to family, and that family
could mean that a closeness in friends could lead to them being close like family.
This also gave me the idea of making my video, not so serious and more playful,
including footage that seem to be, behind the scene footage, which I another
reason why I had chosen to include clips in the studio and to show equipment
being used.
My music video also follows similar edits done in the music videos I have seen
however, the man edits used is mainly cuts and little to none, transitions used so
I have decided to come away from that concept and used a range of different
transitions throughout but with cuts being my main edit technique. I have
included techniques such as, lip-syncing/miming, greenroom editing, and a
range of different camera angles with different movements.
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5






Peer Feedback
These are screenshots of my peer feedback. They overall said that my music
video is effective, good and fun to watch however there are a few downfalls, such
as the greenroom section. One peer mentioned that the backgrounds used didnt
look believable which let down the whole music video, and made it look
unprofessional; another point which let my music video down strongly was the
fact that some lip-syncing was not correct however, this feedback was countered
with another peer mentioning that the lip-syncing was okay. So I feel that I need
to polish my lip-syncing parts so that it covers the feedback and makes my video
more enjoyable.















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6

Construction
The main parts that I found hard were recording in the green room, the green
screen sections in my music video. I found it hard to control the lighting which
was a huge factor in my section because the shadowing then applied onto the
scenery did not match, also when recording in the green room, I found it hard to
vary myself in what actions I can include and found that my space was limited,
this is because during my first recording, I recorded a scene where I needed the
camera to be placed further away than usual which then resulted into me
recording the black metal frame above the green section and made it hard for me
to get rid of, so it then led to me having to rerecord but changing the action
which the talent did in
that part. So overall I
found working in the
green room a bit difficult,
however working in a
group made this section
much easier to
understand and achieve
our recordings in there.
While working in a group,
the decision in what is
done in each scene was
easier to come up with
because there was two other people there to contribute to what should and
could be done; in terms of the lighting, I was able to get assistance from my
teacher and he was able to set up all the equipment's for me ready to simply use
and record. I also found it hard to record footage at certain angles at the start of
the recording because I wasnt too sure on whether the shots I used was correct
because of the space in the studio and also whether it did stick to the storyboard
I had made. The best way I got around this problem was that Dayo helped me
recording the footage and where he was taller than me, it made it easier for him
to record the shots that where high up, Dayo was able to show an even high shot
then what I could provide which made the video look better, he was then in
charge of recording the main
parts where I directed him what
shots was needed and judging
from my perceptive if the angle
matches the angles we
intended to use. The key
elements of final cut
that I have used would
be importing and exporting my
footages, along with creating a
new project and event for me to
work with and to place all my
relative footages and materials
into, using final cuts features to
help tidy up my material into one
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7
specific place, which helps me know where all the material I need to work with
is. When using Final cut X, you can import media through two different ways, the
main way is by clicking an Icon at the bottom left of the screen, with a film reel
slip and an arrow pointing down, the icon can be found just above the timeline
on a new event/project. The other way in which users can import media is when
the start/create a new project and event, the icon will appear on the center of the
screen, left to the preview screen. The way in which users can export their work
is by going to the file tab and clicking on Share, the options then inform users
they can share or export in other words, the work straight to the apple mac as a
720p or 1080p video, .wav format as standard, because a .wav can hold more
information on them compared to a .mp3 where the information is compressed
and the video becomes slightly pixelated. Users can also export the video straight
onto their YouTube account and have it uploaded onto the Internet this way.
A new event is creating a new/blank space where you can import medias to
work on; to create a new event in final cut, users must first click, FILE at the top
and go down to New Event as the diagram shows or simply by pressing and
holding the ALT button and pressing N on the keyboard. The New event will
appear on the left of the screen under the Event Library, where users can rename
the event to what they need it to be.
A timeline is what film reels were referred to as when the production was done
or in the editing process, the collection of film clips would be on a timeline (I
mage below). The term timeline is still also used in this program however to get
a timeline, users must also
create a new project in final
cut and in the specific event
they wanted to. By also
pressing FILE then New
project or Holding the CMD
button on the keyboard and pressing N, users can create a new project and also
select which event they want the new timeline to appear in. so for example, I
created a new event called, Process when working with Final Cut X and now to
create a new timeline so I can start editing clips together, I will need to create a
new project, after doing this a timeline will appear at the bottom of the screen.
Final cut, automatically saves all their files and medias into a specific folder. Each
event and project is recorded and saved in these folders which can be found
using finder at the dock of the desktop and selecting, movie. Under the Final Cut
Event or Final Cut Project folder, all the related medias and edits that has been
done will automatically be saved into these folders and be in the correct folder,
for example, all the medias I would have uploaded in the new event, Process
when working with Final Cut X would all be saved in, the Final Cut Event Folder
in the Movie folder and within the
Final Cut Event Folder would be
another folder called, Process
when working with Final Cut X and
all the original medias would be in
a separate folder to the medias that
have already been edited.
The edits I had chosen to use where
edits such as transitions, this is a
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8
feature that will allow me to go from one scene to another in different styles
rather than a simple cut. I used transitions such as, wipes, Gradient image, zoom
and pan and flashbacks. Flashbacks effects where important in my music video
because it was a non-linear music video so using flashback will help the audience
to understand this and understand that the music video is in this order.
I also decided to add effects like glory at a scene where we all got to the studio to
show the importance of the scene and that this is Kendrick achieving his dreams,
the image to the right shows the effect added to the scene, and a window which
opens to the right of the screen which allows users to control the effect as they
please. I also chose to slow the time of the footage down by 50%, this is to show
an important part in the green room section where myself and Dayo meet to
show the relationship between us.



File Format
My video format is a .mov file format; this is because whilst using a apple mac
and final cut to create my music video, the out come for my final exported video
will automatically become a .mov file format. The main way to check the file
format for all the files would be to go to the final cut folder; on a mac, this is
located through finder, movies, final cut events and then checking inside the
folder of your even name under, original media and Transcoded Media.













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Time management
My group has worked to our schedule however there have been a few times
where, as a group we have to reschedule our recording dates, this was mainly
due to the studio being booked by another person or the date panned was either.
Also the deadline for the official music video to be finished was the half term for
Christmas and I have met my deadline and finished my work before then.