Evaluation Q2: What have you learnt from participating in each of the prelim tasks 1,2,3 and 5?

Task 1: Complete an Audition Video

My edit of the audition video 

Early on in the first week of our prelim task, I auditioned for the role of Jamie, the guitarist, in a video alongside my peers Tom and Ray. I wanted to be Jamie because I thought I could pull off his relaxed, cool persona, and I ended up being cast as Noah. As we were auditioning for male roles, we lip synched to 'Can't Stop The Feeling' by Justin Timberlake. I found this task scary at first, because, despite having performed on camera before, I was still slightly uncomfortable singing and dancing on camera. However, I gained more confidence from performing in this video, and learned that it looks much better to let loose and look foolish when performing than to stay reserved. It was enjoyable to shoot and edit, and I had a good time with Tom and Ray fooling about with props, hats and awful dance moves!

Task 2: Learn and Practice Your Performance

We had two weeks to practice for our main shoot. In this period, we had many timetabled rehearsals with Jasmine, our performance director, where we practiced some of the dance moves exhibited by the performers in the original music video and played drama games - for example Woo-Ha, which required lots of concentration and quick thinking. These activities helped me develop my skills of performing big which helped me prepare for the large movements and dance scenes we would need to perform on our shoot. We also had sessions in front of the camera where we used emotion memory to convey a convincing performance. We summoned sad memories in order for us to look like we were upset, for example. This helped us prepare to show the same convincing performances on screen.

Jasmine and the band observing Ray on camera, as he practices for the emotional close ups 

Observing Jasmine do her job as a performance director, I picked up some good tips from the activities she was doing with us as ways of bringing good performances out of the people on camera.



I also used this time to practice my role as Noah. This primarily involved rehearsing with the bass guitar, which I had no idea how to play. I got a lot of help from my friend Ray, who is a bass player, and taught me the basic finger movements and general chords of the song so that I looked convincing enough. This taught me to be resourceful and seek help from my peers and people I know to help better my performance both on screen and off.

Ray on drums and me on bass rehearsing with our instruments

Task 3: Help to Plan and Organise Costume

It was our responsibility to liaise with our teachers and peers to decide and collate the items of our costume. My costume was agreed to consist of:

• 1 x dark blazer
• 1 x light blue flowered shirt 
• 1 x black skinny jeans
• 1 x black boots

My completed costume - as you can see, it very closely resembles the clothes Noah wears in the original music video, which I was very pleased with

I learned the importance that costume and props have on portraying the artist's brand. For example, Echosmith are a band of young, Christian siblings and from research, I discovered that this is the image they want to convey to their audience. 

You can see the innocent, family friendly image they are promoting for their band by their adoption of smart clothes and aesthetic views being posted on their various social media, such as Noah's Instagram page.

Their costumes in the music video are similar to the ones they wear in their posts online, exemplifying the importance of upholding the band's identity in their music video.

Task 5: Complete the Remake Edit

Out of all of the tasks in the prelim, this was the one where my skills were weakest; although I have had experience using Premiere Pro as an editing software to create our film opening last year, this music video required a more advanced skill set, particularly when tackling visual challenges, such as how to create a photograph flash effect from scratch. However, with help from my partner Noa, who has a great understanding of this tool, I gained a lot more skills from participating in this editing task, and I feel like I have a better grasp of how to create certain visual effects. I have learned a lot about grading and how to create subtle yet effective changes to the hue of shots, and the importance the colour scheme has to reflecting the mood of the song.

For example, we added a slightly blue grade to the opening shot, so as to give it a moody tone.

I also learned how to improvise a lot more with Premiere Pro to create unique effects. For example, there was no photograph flash effect, so we had to come up with ways to create them ourselves. We achieved this by creating a white title card and using keyframes to spike the opacity from transparent to high. This created a successful flash effect.