A2 Advanced Portfolio:): October 2012

For this task, I was required to deconstruct and reconstruct 30 seconds of a music video of my choice. Working in a group of 5 people, the music video we decided to reconstruct was Miley Cyrus – Party in the USA.
The task in my opinion was a great way to gain confidence editing the video in preparation for my future music video which I will be creating, and also it boosted my confidence for performing in front of the camera for the project. This was a good aspect of the construction of the video.
However, we did experience a few problems as a group trying to shoot the video. When watching the real music video in which we were basing ours on, we realized that the video had to be shot in sunlight, therefore it was very weather dependent.
In the music video, Miley Cyrus wears a short t-shirt and shorts, with brown cowboy boots. Therefore, to make the video look as professional and as near to the real video as possible, we had to ensure that the cast looked as similar to the real cast as possible. With me being the main performer in the video, I brought the clothes which I filmed in to college every day so we could film, and so that there wasn't an issue with continuity, which was a good aspect of the group work.
Also, the video had to be shot in a car park, using someone’s car for approximately 5 seconds. We realized that if we used a car park, we couldn't use the college one because all of the cars were other teachers’ cars which we couldn't include in the video. We also had to ensure that the car park looked fairly dusty and full – which we thought would also be a problem. We finally came to the conclusion that we could shoot the video in several different locations depending on the type of shot, and edit the video making the continuity look good – which is another good aspect of working as a group. We met up at the KC stadium car park on a Wednesday after college, which is when we all finished early, ensuring that the video got done, and all of the cast and the extras came along to film and perform, which was a really good atmosphere. We then had to use our media teachers’ car, which is exactly like the one in the real music video, which he helped us to film one lunch time, which got done very quickly as we were aware of what we had to do.
The editing in total took approximately 3 days, for 30 seconds of footage. We split the tasks up within the group, and all got to experiment with the editing and filming etc, which gave us all an idea of how to work both the camera and the editing suite – which was the good thing about working in a group, was that we all shared the tasks equally. There were luckily no problems with editing our music video, because we had storyboards present whilst we were doing it, ensuring the two videos looked as identical as possible and all of the shots were in sync with the music and timing.
This also helped develop our time management skills, because we prepared well and decided each day what we were going to be doing. This helped us a lot, as we finished on the deadline which was very important.
The camera setting didn't take very long, as we tried to get as much help as we could. We got information on how to set up the camera, how to use the tripod to gain still shots, and how to do tracking shots etc, which came in very useful.

We also had a low angle shot at the beginning of the music video where the main artist steps out of the car, and we had to hold the camera really high up when it was attached to the tripod, which was a new experience for us also and gave us experience of using the camera. In total, the camera setting took about 5 minutes every time we set up and used it, which didn't effect the time we had to film or the filming itself really, as we were eventually aware and confident in what we were doing and how to set it up.
I learnt many things from this process of reconstructing a music video. Firstly, I learnt how to edit the music video, as I thought I wouldn't be good on the editing suites. I had practice, and eventually learned how to do it, which gained my confidence and now I feel I have learnt skills in order for me to edit my next music video in the future.

The main thing I learnt during this process of creating a music video is that planning is the most essential factor in getting the task completed on time and to a good level. Because our group planned the storyboards, setting, and time management so well, we got the task completed on time and to a very good level which we were all very proud with.