This is the final product of my music video, in which I have made many changes to my second draft to improve it greatly. Firstly, I have colour corrected all of the shots by adding a long adjustment layer that goes through all of the shots, which I then added an 'auto colour' effect to. I found this made all of my shots a bit brighter and more pleasing to the eye, therefore more professional. I also added a shot at the beginning that pans down to the floor to ensure I not only have a variety of camera movement, but so that I could match the shots to the beat/Ellie's voice a bit more. To make my music video better, I have really taken notice of all of the feedback I've received and improving on the aspects/criticism mentioned. A prime example of this is when someone said that on one of the shots of Georgina's feet walking across the woods ground at the start of the video, 'her feet move too slowly in comparison to the long shots of her walking a little bit faster before and after this'. So, I increased the speed of this shot of Georgina's feet walking, to about 160%, and compared it with the long shots of her walking before and after this. I found that they now matched, and the scene looked a lot more realistic. Then, I added an adjustment layer to all of the narrative shots which essentially made them all brighter, and the contrasts a lot darker. I figured that the previous effect I'd added to the narrative shots was not effective enough; when I'd asked for feedback on the second draft, people had said I needed to colour correct some shots, which made me assume that the previous effect made the narrative shots look too dull and did not have the right effect/success, so I knew I needed to change this. The new effect I've added to the narrative shots ensures that there is a strong contrast between the performance and narrative shots, so that the audience can identify what are flashbacks, and what is not. The second feature I have changed in my music video is that I have changed the pace, cut and rhythm of the shots greatly. In the second draft of my video, some narrative parts matched the beat of the song and some narrative parts didn't. However I have changed this so that all narrative shots match the exact beat and rhythm of the song, and it is pleasing and fluent to the human eye. I did this by 'matching' each beat onto the timeline of my video, and cut each shot to this. This was quite difficult because I had to get each shot at the exact right time, which meant I even had to search for some more footage in my files and add more shots to perfect this. But I found the overall image really successful, as now, it flows naturally and matches the beat perfectly. I have also added a 'sharpen' adjustment layer throughout all of my shots, to ensure that all shots look professional and as sharp as possible. I found that the footage looked a lot better after I had done this, as according to my audience feedback, some shots were blurred, and I knew I needed to fix this.
Furthermore, I've added more interesting and quirky effects to my music video in order to ensure that it stands out and looks different and enticing to the eye. Sometimes 'love stories' in music videos can come across as cliché and 'the same', so I wanted to really avoid this. Therefore, at 00:56 seconds in when there are narrative shots displayed of Georgina putting on her coat and leaving her house to go and meet Matt, there is now an overlay of a performance shot of Georgina singing the lyrics displayed at that moment in time, which is faded into the narrative shot slightly. You can see the narrative shot more than this shot which is the idea - I changed the opacity of the performance shot so that it is slightly seen. I have also done this for about three other shots throughout my music video, either to represent Georgina's emotions - for example at one stage, I added a faded shot of Georgina looking down sadly, over the top of a shot of Georgina running through the woods - or to just show different aspects of the video and like I said, keep it interesting. I also did it to remind the audience that Georgina is still performing on the outside of this narrative.
Additionally, I have tried to make use of all of the footage I have taken to make my music video more interesting and varied shot-wise. Therefore, I added a shot about 01 min 23 secs in of Georgina's eye-view of what it looks like in the woods ahead of her. The camera is moving as if she is walking and the view is of her eye sight. I found this would be effective in showing her point of view, like I do with many other shots throughout the video.
What I have also done is change the colour of the slow motion gymnastic shots in the video. Before, they were black and white, but the more I watched my video, the more I found the black and white a bit cliché and normal. I want to stay away from my music video being completely conventional and predictable as possible, so I changed the colour to a light pink colour instead. I did this ask light pink connotes love and passion, which is exactly the emotion Georgina conveys throughout my music video.
There's not a lot I changed about the climax part of my music video where all the shots fasten up, as they all originally matched the beat of the song as I tried to do this very carefully and accurately, as well as the fact that this was the specific part I got a lot of positive feedback on in my survey. I felt that if I made too many changes to this, it wouldn't be what my audience wanted, so I left this.
However, the ending part of my video I really did change. For starters, in the shots of the letter being found and then burned, I colour corrected these with a 'colour curve' effect and increased the green and red curves in the shots, as I found they looked better this way and they also conveyed a more passionate emotion. Then, after receiving the feedback that the ending of my video was too confusing with Georgina smiling happily as she sung the last lyric of the song, I completely changed this. I agree that it was contradicting as throughout the whole of my video she'd been sad and heartbroken, whereas at the end she portrayed the complete opposite of this. So I replaced one of the shots with a slow shot of the camera panning across the ashes left over on the floor from her burning the letter, and sped it up a bit, and then left the shot of Jess' gymnastics in black and white as I found it more memorable and meaningful this way, and then I added a close up shot of Georgina looking sad, so that the audience could finally empathise and identify with her. Then, on top of this I placed a shot of Georgina and Matt standing in a field cuddling together, as their last moments together. I made this black and white so it had a sentimental affect, and changed the opacity to about 30% so that it faded into the close up shot of Georgina looking sad. Therefore, the two shots were very contrasting as Georgina's hair is colourful and bright red to signify passion and pain/anger, in comparison with the sad, black and white shot of the couple's last moments together. I found that this was the perfect final shot for my music video as the merging of these two pieces of footage gave off the effect of the audience actually knowing what Georgina is thinking about in this final shot of her looking sad, because it is represented faintly on top of her - reminiscing of her and Matt happy together. I actually found this shot of Georgina and Matt right at the start of the footage I'd taken for my music video, when I was filming Jess doing her gymnastics. The purpose wasn't even to film Georgina and Matt at this stage - I was actually filming Jess practicing her gymnastics - yet I just happened to pan over to Georgina and Matt cuddling together. Therefore this was actually a natural, unplanned shot that they happened to be doing without us even organising it, which is the more touching part for me. I therefore wanted to incorporate this into my music video, because it's also a different scene; the wide field they are in represents the more happy, freedom-filled days the couple had together when they were in love.
Overall, I am pleased with the final product of my music video, however I will add changes to it in the future. For example, I know that the end of the video needs to go on for longer as it finishes quite abruptly, when really I want the sad effect to prolong for just a bit, so it can slowly fade out. I only realised this once I had published the video.
After creating the third draft of my music video, I knew that I had a lot of changes to make. So I got started on these right away. First of all, I fixed quite a lot of my shots in terms of colour correction, as I needed shots brighter and more contrasting in terms of colour. Also, I noticed that I had not placed the same adjustment layer to every single narrative stage/shot, so I fixed this by ensuring that every single narrative shot was the same in terms of colour. After watching over my third draft I also realised that there was a slight delay at the start of the music video with Georgina's miming, so I simply dragged the piece of footage along the timeline just a tad, and fixed it with what time it needed to play. Overall, I am really pleased with the final product of my music video. I feel as if it has an actual easy-to-understand love storyline, with added emotional depth to it, which I feel is a prime and crucial element in a music video.
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