The document summarizes the process of producing a music video, including research, filming, editing, and creation of supplemental materials. Key points: 1) Research involved analyzing music videos on YouTube and websites to understand genre conventions and target audience preferences. 2) Filming used a Sony Handycam and tripod, and additional footage was captured with a Sony Cybershot for behind-the-scenes shots. 3) Editing was done in Final Cut Express, applying effects like chroma key, desaturation, and speed adjustments to achieve a professional look. 4) Supplemental materials like a poster and CD packaging were created in Photoshop using techniques like desaturation and layering

1. In producing the video and during the research and planning stages, I
used a fantastic array of equipment that that I had never experienced
before. Firstly the research and planning stages, whilst constructing
my research on music video's the internet was a big help. I visited
many websites which host a whole load of music video's from our
chosen indie genre. The main one being YouTube, I used YouTube
when i was constructing my analysis's of music video's that fitted our
genre. It was a very big help for when it came to searching for video's
that I may not of found if it wasn't for YouTube's Suggestion tab on
the left. I typed in the artist or the band that I knew my target
audience would listen to, and it produced a lot of very helpful
suggestions for me to analyze. To view other current music video's
that our target audience would listen to i visited some indie
magazines websites. They frequently post new videos, their best of
their month, their favourites and the video's to look out for. In my
opinion the best music video analysis that i did was the song Lies by
Fenech Soler, the band first came to my attention when i visited NME
magazine's website, they had the song and some information about
this new band. Also the social networking website Facebook was a
very big help for when we wanted audience feedback on the video.
The internet has also helped us research our target audience, we had
a rough idea of what our chosen target audience like, dislike and what
they expect from a music video. However I myself thoroughly used
UKtribes.com to get a real understanding of what our target audience
like and what to expect to see from a music video, this information
has been very important and helpful towards the final cut of our
video!
If i didn't have the use of the internet whilst constructing my analysis
of music videos, it wouldn't be to much of a problem. I can watch the
music video's on my television, there are many indie music television
channels at the moment so that wouldn't be a problem, for example
NME and MTV Rocks. However i wouldn't have the luxury of picking
what video's i wanted to listen to, stopping them half way through to
analyze a cross dissolve or a cut, and most importantly i wouldn't be
able to take screen grabs of anything.
During the process of filming our video, Alysha brought along her
Sony Cybershot camera to capture some of the action as it was being
filmed. The camera had a high resolution LCD screen and also a zoom
feature which was paramount to getting the correct shots of Claire
and the rose at the right level. This worked very well for us because
the pictures became very natural to Claire because she was already in
the character, but most importantly we kept the continuity and the

2. house style from our video running through to the ancillary tasks
because what she was taking pictures of, was used in the video.
During the filming process of our video we used the Sony Handycam
to film all of our video, along with a tripod for added stability. During
our first day of filming and being the amateurs we were at that time,
we filmed without the tripod and this ended up in a lot of poor film and
a waste of time. However for some parts of the video we did just use
the camera on it's own without the tripod, this was particularly useful
for when we were filming Claire running away to make it look like the
camera was from her perspective and her feelings and emotions at
the time.
The Sony Handycam was particularly useful when filming a handheld
scene for the video, it's small and light structure allowed who ever
was filming to pick it up and maneuver around with it very easy. For
example when we filmed Claire running away along the narrow
country lane i ran behind her, the camera was particularly useful for
this scene.
Once we had completed all of our filming we uploaded all of our
footage into Final Cut via an Apple Mac computer. We then locked
the footage and deleted any of the sound from the footage, we then
imported our audio and locked it into place. We then captured all of
our footage and dragged it into the time line to be edited and then
make the final product. We then double clicked on the footage that
we wanted to watch and viewed it in the viewer. Using the video
layers we could experiment with two clips merged into one, this
worked particularly well when Claire was lying dead and when she
was picking the rose in the shadow, it had the look of past and
present to it. Using Final Cut Express instead of iMovie for example
gave us a lot more options when it came to editing certain parts of the
video and also when it came to layering certain parts of our footage
on top of each other.
During the editing stages of our video we used many effects to give
that professional look, we wanted to give it the look that our target
market would expect if they turned on NME or MTV Rocks. For
example the Chroma Key effect, the chroma key effect was very useful
for when we wanted one image or one part of the footage to really
stand out amongst the rest of it, this effect was very important when
making the rose head stand out. We wanted this effect so much in our
video because the rose plays an integral part in the video, it is all
Claire has left of me to remember be my. We selected the footage that
we wanted the Chroma Key to work on, then chose the Effects tool

3. bar, Video Filters, Key and then Chroma Key. Then we selected the
eye dropper tool and selected what part of the footage we wanted to
keep in the original colour, we then increased the softening bar to
about 3/4 of the way along to give it a clean, crisp finish, we then
clicked the trapezoid shape and selected our clip and pressed Alt,
Shift, and then we dragged it up to the above layer, we then clicked
the trapezoid shape again to remove it. After that we desaturated the
top layer, by going to Video Filters and then Image Control. The
Chroma Key tab is below, along with how we used it in the video.
Desaturation, we used the desaturation tool
a lot in our video, the song is called The Funeral, so straight away you
have the obvious black and white connotations, this tool then was
very important to the final outcome of our video and how
professional it looked. It looked especially good during all of the
graveyard scenes with myself and Claire, if we had kept the original
footage in full colour it would look vibrant and happy, this wasn't the
effect we were going for!
Brightness and contrast levels, we wanted the dark feel in our video
to be through out, not just the footage indoors where we could
manipulate the lighting to how we wanted it to look, so when filming

4. outside which is quite a large proportion of our video we simply then
highlighted the chosen clip and adjusted the brightness and contrast
levels of the clip up or down depending on how it looked, this was
particularly useful when editing the clips of me receiving the text
from Claire saying she was "ready for the funeral", we made the
whole clip a lot darker and then gradually brought up the contrast
levels to make certain parts of the clip brighter.
Speed levels, the speed levels option was very useful for our video,
with the slow pace of music and also the choral notes to the music at
the start and at the end of our song. We didn't want dramatic slow
motion in our video, but the pace of the footage along with the pace of
the cross - dissolves used I think gave us a very nice balance.
Alysha and Charlotte used Photoshop CS4 during the production of the ancillary tasks,
using Photoshop it enabled them to explore lots of different effects and techniques to
produce the best ancillary tasks possible. We used mainly Claire and the rose in the
production of the advert and the digipak. When producing the black and white rose with
the red petals in colour alone, they desaturated the whole picture and then used the
History Brush tool to go over the bits that they wanted to remain in the original colour.
The back of the digipak was a long and complicated process for Alysha and Charlotte.
The first idea we had was to have a single rose just laid out to represent how much the
rose meant to Claire. But after placing it onto the digipak and comparing it with our other
panels that we had produced we all agreed that it didn't fit, Alysha then duplicated the
single rose around 50 times and placed the new roses onto a black background, this
produced a wonderful effect, almost like hundreds of roses had just fallen.

5. To remove any parts of Claire's skin and also any imperfections on the rose, Charlotte
and Alysha used the brush tool, smudge tool and the eraser tool to remove any parts that
we didn't want. This gave us a clean crisp finish to all of the final pieces of work they did.
Without the use of these different effects on Photoshop i think our final digipak and
magazine advert wouldn't look very professional. Whenever you see magazine adverts,
the artist or bands skin is without any imperfections. If we didn't have the luxury of
Photoshop during the production of our ancillary tasks our adverts and the digipak would
look unprofessional, and we would of had to make sure the photos were exactly how we
wanted them.
When producing the two back panels of the digipak we were quite stuck for ideas, we
didn't want anything to busy, during the research into digipak's we mainly saw that most
back's of the digipak's were quite soft and mellow. Alysha had the idea of using two
photos that we took whilst filming the graveyard scenes, they were simply the graveyard,
but when spread across the two panels it gave us a fantastic effect and really related to
the overall video. Alysha obviously took these pictures outside, so it was very hard for her
and my group to manipulate the lighting for this picture. So to overcome that problem
Alysha firstly desaturated the photo and then used Lighting Effects in Photoshop to
produce the two back panels. Using Lighting Effects she was able to move the oval
shape left, right or wherever she wanted the light to come through. This effect was
particularly useful for this type of picture, it was a quite a dull picture especially after the
desaturation process, but using the Lighting Effects we were able to give it such a better
look. The example is below.

6. Alysha used dafont.com to select the appropriate font for the digipak and the magazine
advert. Finding the correct font was an important process during the production of the
digipak, however with the use of dafont.com Alysha knew that we would find the correct
font. We wanted something that had a classical edge to it, something that you would see
in a black white film for example, this was because we thought this type of font would fit
in very well with the band itself and the style of music they play. Choosing the right font
was vitally important, after all the chosen font would be used on both ancillary tasks. In
the end we chose "You won't bring me down", we felt that this font worked very well with
the style of the music and something that would compliment the brand identity that we
were trying to achieve.