Holding a shot steady, where appropriate: Before filming our actual video, Kristie and I decided to film all shots using a tripod rather than using free-hand shots. The tripod ensured that all shots will be steady and that no shaking will occur, unless later added using editing tools in Final Cut. I can therefore verify that all shots used are steady and fulfill this marking aspect.
Framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate: Framing a shot is all about capturing the correct footage you need inside the lens, and excluding all the aspects that you don't need. Background factors which can spoil footage is the inclusion of dead space in the background or the lighting rig. We tried our hardest to make the center of the shot the main focus, however some shots vary which is all deliberate.
Using a variety of shot distances as appropriate: Using the same shot distance throughout the whole video would make the video seem tedious and boring for the viewer to watch. With a little bit of creativity, Kristie and I used a variety of shots to draw the audience closer and to capture the main focus points, for example a part of the video includes an extreme close-up of the males feet as he dances, and if we used a long shot to capture that dancing, we wouldn't be emphasizing his talent as much.
Shooting material appropriate to the task set: Upon scheduling and planning our time for the music video, Kristie and I performed background research in which we looked into genre conventions from other music videos of the same type, such as Jason Derulo and Ne-yo, as well as audience research into what fans of this genre expected from the music videos.
Selecting mise-en-scene including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting: Looking at other artists such as Usher, Ne-yo and Chris Brown, we realized that a lot of these artists wear casual/formal attire consisting of blazers and trilbies. The digipak and advert was promoted in black and white, in order to give a feel of nostalgia, however the females lips are spilled with red, showing lust and love, hence showing that we thought about this factor. The females lips are also spilled red in the actual video at certain points. The setting of part of the video was in a nightclub called The Showroom which is situated in Hartlepool. We chose to film in a nightclub because of the popular culture that Usher falls into in the current day, and his music would be played in a club. The exposure of the female also gives the feeling of a "night out" as she is dressed to impress the male. The other film location, which was the studio, was used to capture intimate shots, as well as take advantage of the lighting rig provided, as well as the green screen behind and highly technological camera software.
Editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer: After careful consideration before filming, Kristie and I also decided not to include any sort of narrative in our music video but base it completely on performance from the dancers. Our editing is purely down to the change in beats and in the change of music as the song progresses, therefore our editing had to be precise to make sure that the music wasn't out of sync with our own video footage.
Using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and appropriately: Not all of our shots linked in with each other, due to filming and other disturbances, therefore in order for it to flow correctly in certain places, we inputted certain transitions such as fades, dissolves and blends accordingly. We selected the location of these transitions so that they made an impact, instead of making the video just look like it was badly organized.
Using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task: We didn't use sound and still images combined much throughout our video, but we did use it for the completion of our animatic before we actually constructed the final video. Another instance where we used this combination was on most of the evaluation questions in which stills from other music videos, as well as our own, where included for evidence purposes, along with bits from the song and also a commentary from both Kristie and I.
