Learning From The Mini - Vid

• what makes for a good pitch? 
• Being specific about what your vision is, knowing the different shots you want to use, being organised with location, filming schedules, roles, mise-en-scene (props, costume etc) 
• what are the key steps involved in R+P?
• Researching former videos, or UGC to possibly be inspired by others productions. Making sure all of the planning is exactly what you want and everything is organised so if something were to go wrong in the process it would be dealt with efficiently. 
• if this had been the actual coursework, what would you have to add/improve (look at the assessment criteria) to get good marks for R+P?
• I would have researched similar videos and bands. I would have chosen non media students to partake in the video so that it was more organised. The costume and props would have been thought of thoroughly and with care. I would have used call sheets and storyboards to back up my coursework. I would have used the camera with a tripod, and thought about many different varieties of shots rather than the extreme close ups, close up, medium close up and other shots used in the original shoot. More time would be spent on the editing of the product, thinking more carefully about different effects and transitions. 
• what can you say now about the roles of cinematographer, director, producer? is it important to have one person taking responsibility for each of these roles?
• I think that all three roles should be covered, but who is covering them does not matter that much. For example, i think that if the director wanted to be in the film itself for some part, there is no reason why the producer couldn't take over the filming for the product. Of course, in a commercial, large project for a famous singer, this would not be the same. But for A level students i think this is perfectly acceptable, at least this way, the different people in the group get to experience the different roles in the creation of the product. 
• related to the last point, was your shoot well organised?
• I believe it was. We had planned the location, mise-en-scene and different roles. However we had not figured out the exact choreography for the film. But this did not bring an issue as Tom, who was in most of the mini vid as a protagonist, had a vision of what he thought "free" could resemble, in which the other people in the group went with. 
• what can/did go wrong on a shoot, and what steps help you overcome such problems (better still, prevent them from happening in the first place!)? 
• The main problem in which we had in the shoot is that we did not take a tripod with us, which is a mistake in which we will not make again. Although there was nothing wrong with the footage, i think that the filming would have run more smoothly with one. It may also be a good idea to have choreography before we create the film next time, just incase it turns out to be an issue (which it wasn't in our i feel free project) 
• did shoots take more/less time than you estimated?
• We thought that our shooting may take the whole of the Tuesdays hour lesson and possibly run into the Wednesday lesson. However, seeing as we were shooting for around 45 seconds of the song only, the shoot went rather quickly as we believed we had all the footage that we needed to create the mini vid. 
• what difference does working with HD as opposed to mini-DV make?
• The footage looked better, as the camera was better quality. 
• is it necessary to stick to a genre you're familiar with to have a good idea?
• No i don't believe it is. As the genre in which i am interested in is not the same as the song in which we shot for. I believe that if you listen to the song you're supposed to be creating the mini vid for, for around 4 times, an idea will emerge. 
• what issues are raised by working within a group?
• There were no major issues, apart from the different members of the group all having different ideas in which some of the others may not have agreed with or we all wanted our idea to be used, but did not have enough time in the song to fit them all in. However i think this small issue was tackled rather well as we managed to get all ideas filmed, and the main ones were added into the mini vid. 
• do you think you could manage a full music video production single-handed?
• No. I think that an official role of the producer, director and cinematographer will be needed. Perhaps the director and producer could collaborate to make the job easier, however i think a minimum of 2 people would be needed to create a mini vid. 
• what more have you learned about Final Cut Express?
• How many different effects you can use. Although imovie is quicker, i believe overall that Final Cut express will deliver a better mini vid in the end. 
• how many shots do you now think a good music vid will have for every 30 seconds of screen time?
• I think that the shots need to change rather efficiently. Perhaps every 5-7 seconds to create a post modern experience for the viewer and keep them from being bored. 
• did you shoot each planned shots repeatedly (from different angles)? did you need to shoot more sequences repeatedly to create better shot variation for editing a dynamic video?
• We did not shoot each shot from different angles as we had no choreography chosen. We did re-shoot some shots if we thought we could do them better, or to use from a different angle. 
• anything else that occurs to you (eg importance of mise-en-scene and locations; pre-preparing cast with lines + basic direction; having loud portable media player to play track when shooting, dance choreography if relevant etc etc)?
• We did not have the music with us when shooting the footage, i think that it would have been better if we had, but as we had all listened to the song before, we all knew what type of song is was and all had the same vision of what we wanted to shoot.