We Love Christmas! Evaluation

In this music video project, I volunteered for many different roles. My main responsibilities were, Director, Producer, Camera Person and the editing. Also everyone in the group, starred in the music video. I played a day dreaming girl. As a Director, I made sure everyone in the group knew what they were doing in each and every take. I also made sure that we did everything perfectly in each shot, by telling them to improve a certain action, if something wasn’t exactly right. Another responsibility I was willing to do was the ideas into the music video, such as the story/narrative and cinematography. The narrative was about a Girl (Abby) daydreaming about a perfect Christmas. I also was responsible for the recording of the singing in the music track, also along with Hannah.

I think my contribution was very effective in this project, simply because I was responsible for the ideas, which went into the video, and got the project finished. I thought my hard work, was acceptable in the group, as I created the “Cheesy” storyline. Although, my performance within in the video could have been 10 times better. For example, at a few points in the video, I didn’t really act as if, I loved Christmas. I showed no enthusiasm in the shots, where we were playing the guitars. If I had shown enthusiasm, the audience might of engaged with this music video much more, as it would give a happy mood to it. Another performance error, which everyone in the group made, was that sometimes the lip- syncing was slightly out of time with the lyrics. This was probably because we did not play the music, as we were filming. Apart from those few errors, I thought overall, I gave a funny and appealing performance, by creating amusing dance moves and actions.

From creating this project, I have learnt a lot, both theoretical and practical. Practically, I learnt how to direct people, how to use the camera techniques at a better standard, and using the editing program, ‘Final Cut Pro’ more confidently. A weakness I did pick up through this project was to work well with my group. I found this difficult because we didn’t agree to the same approaches, and I also grown very impatient with them too, as they complained quite a bit. Theoretically, I learnt that the lighting and colour of the shots in a video production reflected a genre. As we used all natural lighting, some of our shots were quite dull. Using the Colour Corrector 3-Way on Final Cut Pro really helped me solve this problem. I used this in most shots to create a more brighter and cheerier music video. This matched our genre very well. Before doing this project, I didn’t really know how to use colour editing, but by learning how to increase the saturation and mid colours in shots, helped me use the Colour Corrector properly.

I think the overall technical quality is reasonably okay because the images and sound matched our genre, but the camera work could have been much better, as we didn’t use many various shot sizes and camera movement. If we were able to do this project again, I would use more shots to flow along with the quick music. For example in the instrumental bridge, only one shot was used, which didn’t really match with the fast percussion instruments. The content and structured shots worked well though, as they related to Christmas and told the story, in a happy and funny way. Another technique I would use, if I was to do this again would be, to use more CU’s on everyone in the group, to really show our creativity, performance and our image. The only thing I would change about the quality of the editing would be to get our lip-syncing in time with the lyrics ore accurately. To give a real feeling of music video, I would of liked to use different lighting.

I think the editing was very effective in the music video. The fading in and out transitions highlighted the circular narrative of the Girl (Abby) going in and out of the daydream very successfully. The black and white filters also were very effective in the first and last shot, as they conveyed that those shots were they were in reality (not so perfect), and colour in the shots for the daydream, to make it seem more bright, happier and perfect. I think the shot sizes and other cinematography, was okay. Mainly LS’s were shown in this video because we wanted to really focus on all of the Christmas props and the very Christmas environment you would have. This obviously helped represent the genre more successfully, which would be more appreciated and liked by the target audience. The props were very useful in our video, to present a Christmas set and to represent actions in our video, with more interest. The clothing we wore didn’t really add anything exciting to the video, as we made a mistake and wore very dull colour clothes. Ideally bright coloured clothing would be acceptable, so it adds a happier mood. Although, we did wear Christmas Santa hats. Last of all, the music related to the genre very well, with clips of sleigh bells ringing. This definitely would be likeable to the target audience of Children and ‘Christmas Lovers’.

I think my ideas came across in the finished piece well because mostly, all the ideas were mine! I really liked the idea of the narrative, as it seemed magical, which relates to the genre of a “magical Christmas”. I wouldn’t want to change the circular narrative, if I was to do this exact project again. Although, I would consider a range of different lighting, such as red and green lighting to make it seem like a more perfect daydream. The clothing/costumes would be brighter coloured clothes, to make us stand out more. I think the idea of wearing Christmas jumpers was a good idea, but not everyone in the group wore them. The scriptwriting ideas were a bit silly but we needed to show this to highlight our genre successfully. In my opinion, I thought the video related to the assignment brief very well. The music video followed the “generic conventions and themes particular to the music genre”, being the various references to Christmas props. For example, tinsel, mince pies and an inflatable snowman! The video demonstrated the synopsis perfectly, as no changes were made for the outline of the narrative, during the filming. Although, the video didn’t relate to the treatment as much because, we intended to use various LS’s, to reflect a typical Christmas scene, but we failed to use lots and lots of CU’s. Im certain that the video approached the appeal by its target audience because the story was easy to understand for Children and also included Children’s favourite Christmas characters, this being Santa Claus.

The feedback we received from the class, were both positive and negative. The positive feedback we got was that the video “gave a smile” as it was very cheery and humorous. This matched the codes and conventions of a typical Christmas music video. I was happy with all the feedback, but I was most pleased with the feedback, that it was memorable. This is what we wanted to achieve as a group. The negative feedback we collected was, “the lip syncing could of been better” and my “not so looking like I love Christmas performance”. The class also did mention that the camerawork “wasn’t great”, but we could get away with it because it relates to the humorous genre of the video and song. We would need to consider better quality camera work, if we were to do this exact project again.

Throughout the project, most things turned out right, such as completing the filming and editing with the deadline. We had no problems with the locations, as there weren’t too many crowds to delay us from filming. If anything went wrong on this project, it would probably only be when we had to redo all of day 1’s filming, because my tape time code wanted to reset after everyone bit of filming. This stopped me from batch capturing the footage onto Final Cut Pro. In the end, I thought the second time we filmed day 1’s footage was much better.

Our music video compares to real examples of Christmas music videos, because we included Christmas props, a story and “cheesy dancing”. Examples of Christmas videos we researched on, and some elements in the videos we took from were, ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ by Wizzard, (playing instruments in Christmas hats shot), ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey ( CU’s of Christmas decorations) and Cliff Richard’s, ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ (the cheesy dancing).

All in all, I thought the music video is very funny and enjoyable to watch. It obviously doesn’t have the best camera work included, but we wanted to keep it simple, and most of all memorable.