2. What have you learnt from particitpating in each of the prelim tasks?

Audition Video:

At the beginning of the prelim, we were told to make an audition video. In the audition video, we had to lip sync, which I found quite hard to begin with but I was able to get used to it nearer to the end. Instead of just miming the words, we had to actually sing the song which made it look more realistic than miming. This then gave me a challenge when editing, to try to match up the visual to the audio, in the end it would be very satisfying hearing the synced video and audio, this then made it easier to edit the clips.

Lip syncing for audition video

Practicing My Performance:

One of my moves

Performance coaching

During our practice, I was not confident at all, especially with the amount of people that i saw were watching our performance. I worried that i would look awkward; but with our performance coach, she taught me how to dance and move like the character in the music video but also to still have a sense of our personality.


It was convenient having someone guiding me from a different viewpoint to mine, since i'm not able to see what i'm doing wrong and what i should do to look more convincing. Also by having a performance coach, i became more confident and more relaxed with my performance which was very useful for when it came to the shoot day.

Costume:

Bright costume(Yellow crop, pattern shorts)

Unfortunately i did not have a floral outfit, so instead to keep the bright theme of the scene going without clashing with the other two pool girls, i wore a bright yellow top with ice cream patterned shorts, still going with the pool theme as well.

I learnt that even though we had a slight problem with the costume we were still able to overcome it just by altering it slightly and it would still not look out of place.

Make up area

As for the make up, i did not think that a rehearsal makeup was needed. So for the rehearsals, the makeup artist used a smokey eye make up but since it did not fit my persona, for the actual shoot day a more natural make up was used.

The Shoot:

The shoot was a 12 hours long, this is completely different to our shoots for our previous projects. I was not used to such a long shoot, I thought since it was such a long shoot, it would be very tiring and boring, however, that was not the case since everyone had something to do during the shoot and just watching the shoot itself was entertaining enough for me.

Unfortunately we started to fall behind on schedule around 11 o'clock, but luckily we were able to finish on time. So I've learnt that the first AD is in charge of keeping to schedule is quite important but once you've fallen behind on schedule it is quite hard to come back up, but for us we were able to finish on time.

During the shoot i become more aware of the roles that come together to help the shoot be more efficient and successful. For example, the runners have to get the set ready as quickly and accurately as possibly with the help of the camera operator to guide them for a good set.

This experience on set also gave me a chance to enjoy being in front of the camera and just make the most of it.



Even when i wasn't on set, i was able to watch even do their thing through the playback on the big screen, which showed everything the camera was able to see and to help us, we had the original 'Girls' music video playing on the side screens on the walls. 

The Edit:

For the edit, i realised even though we were already given a template for our shots and not much creative choices were needed, each edit would be different from their different grading and the takes their chose.

Timeline with our template

Grading for white scenes

I was able to learn more about grading. For the white scenes, we had to make it a bit more blue to counter the orange-ness of Kayvons skin tone.

Editing this music video remake taught me many new techniques:

• Editing to lip sync - This was quite hard since in the takes, there sometimes would be background noise or you might be a bit off. However once you get it spot on, it is a very satisfying feeling.
• Flashes - Just by increasing the brightness and contrast of the shot key-frame by key-frame, i was able to artificially create a flash. Though it looks weird when doing it frame by frame, since it's quick, it isn't noticeable.