Question 2: What have you learnt from participating in each prelim tasks 1,2,3 and 5?

1 - My Audition Video

Our first task was to create an amateur remake of the video clearly displaying our lip-syncing and acting techniques, with which the staff team could cast our roles.  I produced a 3 minute video with Ela (another media student) in which we experimented with different angles and props.

Here is our final product:

This sequence was very enjoyable to film, despite some challenges; the hardest being my reluctance to act on camera with confidence, but it was a very proactive way to learn about the audition and music video processes. Overall, I think that the majority of my learning was through reflection when editing. This is because I learn about laying a performance bed and the importance of correctly syncing the footage to the track, both things I had not experienced before.  As well as this, it was also when I realized that lip-syncing convincingly is not just about knowing the lyrics well. What I learned later from the performance coaches, is that it is also about understanding the meaning behind the words and learning how to convey that. It was definitely a very crucial aspect to my steep learning curve.

2 - Learning and Practicing my Performance

My annotation on the lyrics

Filming the beauty shots

This was arguably the most beneficial and influential aspect of the whole project, primarily because of how much I learnt. We started off by working closely with the acting coaches and the director and learning about what makes a good performance. This was extremely beneficial as it help me to understand what they need from me and what in particular they were looking for. Following on from this, we then began to unpick the video and the lyrics in order to pick out key movement and character traits, as well as getting an in depth understanding of the song. I then began to closely analyse individual lyrics and I tried to connect them to particular stories I found relatable. This helped me to embody the character and her motivations.

We then began to practice the prevalent movements and actions in the video in order to implement them on the real shoot day, so to achieve a strong remake. This was important for me, as it gave me a wider context to the song and helped me to tackle my performance related nerves, through my better understanding alongside warm-up and relaxation exercises.

A clip from one of the rehearsals:

3 - Helping to Plan Out and Organize my Costume

At the beginning of this task we were given a booklet with costume references for all the characters. After having watched the video and using this guide I then brought in all my clothes that were appropriate for the roles. We were then required to pick out a costume with the help of the teachers. After our outfits had been finalized we then had our head shots sent to the make-up artist to enable us to reach a closely matched end product. This make-up was then tested on one of our rehearsal days and adaptations were made based on the test shots.

Here are some head shots compared to the real thing:

Angela's head shots

The real make-up and costume

This was all very interesting to experience, as I wasn't very familiar with the process.

5 - My Edit


Overall, I think that the edit was the hardest part of the project, primarily because it was the most time-consuming, but also because it contain a lot of experimenting with luma correctors, color-balances and general grading. In addition to this, I also felt it was a great way to become more skillful on Adobe Premiere Pro, as well as further practice on laying a performance bed. I dedicated all of my free periods for that week, as well as some early mornings and evenings after school in order to finely tune and perfect our edit. As a result of that, I feel both myself and our project benefited as I was able to gain invaluable practice framing and creating sequences and cutting together jump cuts. In conclusion, I learnt a lot from this edit especially when adding in the flashes and the highlight was
probably the long flashing and lighting changes
of the shot below, due to the detailed key-frames I created.