Professional Blog Post: Music Video

Music Video:

Process

This is my shortened music video to Taylor Swift's song Fifteen. This is an extension of a project that I already did. The first project I did was a 2-minute section of the song. We spent a few days creating the storyboard and mood board; after we decided which song we were going to do. Then we filmed for about a week, and then spent another week editing. After I finished the first video I worked with the original clips and story to make a shorter version. 


Experience Gained

I learned a lot by editing the same clips twice. I learned how to mark the clips so they transition with the beat of the music, so the audio looks like it goes with the visual. I also learned how to use final cut pro a little better.

I learned a lot about collaboration during this project. I worked with three other classmates, and one of them didn't do very much to contribute to the project. It was kind of hard to come up with ideas and decide what we were going to do because two of the people never contributed any ideas or spoke up if they thought something should be changed. 

For the Future

On future projects I will make sure that the lighting is about the same in all the shots by using the iris ring. I will also try to get everyone in the group to participate. Next time I will make sure that when we plan all the shots, they are long enough to line up with the lyrics. 

I will use the markers and the other skills I learned in final cut pro on future projects. I also will make sure to use a story board and mood board on future projects. 

Reflection

I will use the experience I gained from this project to collaborate better with future groups, and take shots with better lighting. I think this project is alright, its not the best that it could be, but I know that I learned a lot of valuable things that will make my future projects a lot better.

Shadows Tutorial

This tutorial taught me how to create realistic shadows for objects. I chose to do a penguin. It was kind of hard to extract the penguin from his original picture, but when I got rid of the pixel fringe it looked pretty good. The shadow was relatively easy to create, all you had to do was copy the penguin and then slant the shadow. I probably should have slanted mine a little more to make it match the trees in the background, but I didn't find the background until after I created the penguin. To make the shadow look realistic you have to add a gradient overlay, to make mine fit into the snow a little better I made it dark blue to light blue instead of black to white. I think my penguins shadow looks pretty good.

Realistic Shadows

Kacie's Mountain

I learned a lot with this tutorial. I learned how to take sections of images out of a picture and put it into another one. In order to make it look like they go together, you have to use the refine edge tool to get rid of the background that might be around the object. I also used the content aware tool to block out some text that was in the sky. I worked a lot with layers in order to make the mountain look like it was floating, and I used layer masks to make the bottom of the mountain look more realistic. I used hue and saturation to make the mountain look like it was actually in the sky, I gave it more blue hues than brown hues, I also used hues when I added the planet and unicorn. I really like this tutorial because I learned a lot of useful skills and I think it looks really cool. I would have probably picked a different mountain so that more things would fit on it. I think the end product looks really cool and I am glad that I learned more skills to use in photoshop.

Extra Credit: Pictures in Words Tutorial

I used a beach picture as the background and then added a clipping mask so that the text would show through. This was an extremely easy tutorial, and I think it looks pretty cool. I didn't know how to make a clipping mask before and I am really glad I learned how too. I didn't really learn anything else, but it was really quick, and it turned out really cool.


Pictures in Words Tutorial

Shortened Music Video

This project was to shorten our first music video, and edit it a little bit better. I think my second one is better than the first, because it has less filler and is only the important shots. The first music video the only thing I was worried about was the shots lining up with the lyrics. The second time I just made the story complete, and didn’t add in extra shots to make it longer. I learned how to edit on the beat and use markers to make the clips transition at the right time so it looks like it goes with the music. The other thing that I changed was the color on some of the shots. Some of the black and white shots were kind of dark, so I had to adjust their coloring. To make them look like they fit in the video better. I really like the re-edited version of my music video.

Extra Credit: Photoshop Tutorial

I picked this tutorial because I really like the way the text looks, it is really easy and I learned something that I can apply to future projects. I really like the way it turned out and I like the font that it had me download. I learned how to add textures in the background and how to change text into a path and apply a stroke. I also learned how to edit brushes.

Fireflies Text Effect

Music Video

I had a lot of fun coming up with our music video. I learned that you have to put a lot of time into planning the video and making sure that the audio matches up with the video. I will apply the planning process and the mood board to the next project. The beat sheet and the mood board helped us come up with ideas for the story of our music video, and I think it turned out pretty well. The six shot sequence that we used throughout the video added variety to the shots and made it more interesting. The biggest challenge that we encountered was the audio not matching up with the video. Some of the shots were shorter than we planned, so we had to get creative while editing to make it match up better. I really like the story of our video and I think it turned out pretty well. Next time I would make sure that my group planned everything out better, and accounted for how long each shot was so it flowed a little bit better.