Britney Spears Comparison and Evaluation

Now that we have completed our Britney reconstruction I think that it is important to see how close it was to the original and assess which areas need to be improved to help us when we create our own music video.

A Level Media Progress Check
Date	19/9/2015	Assessed by	Myself
Focus of assessment		Britney Reconstruction
Evidence of progress/ evidence of meeting criteria		As a whole, our reconstruction is very similar to the original video. Our shot types and angles have a very close resemblance to the ones in the original video and our timing is very in sync. Our mise-en-scene is mostly similar, the settings are close to the original and we used costume well in most of the video. We carried out planning of the mise-en-scene as well as creating a storyboard which helped to ensure that the video was authentic and as close to the original as possible, this also reduced risks of continuity errors. When editing the video I edited it alongside the original which helped to keep the transitions the same and in time.
Areas to work on next/ ideas to consider		One of the major limitations that we came across when filming is that we could not all learn the dance moves and keep in time. We first decided that we would just do it shot by shot and, although we thought that this would be sufficient, when we came to editing we hadn't lip synced in the correct places and it became impossible to match it to the original. We found a solution by using myself, Leanne and Sam as Britney to just simplify the dance moves to just clicking from side to side. This was a much more effective method and could be edited in time. This is important in showing me that if I were to include dancing in my music video to ensure that all actors know the dance moves well and to ensure that it is recorded with the lip syncing of where we would like it to be placed in the song. Another area that could be improved is continuity, as a result of the issue previously mentioned, we had not planned to refilm and so did not have costume which meant that there were continuity errors with us wearing different outfits as well as the fact that we filmed in a different location. This means that when creating our final product we will need to ensure that if it is necessary to refilm that it will all be carefully planned to ensure that all mies-en-scene is kept the same.
Additional comments		This reconstruction task will help me when creating my final product because it has made me realise the difficulties of continuity and it has given me more experience into the process of making a music video. I have learnt the importance of storyboarding and planning to ensure there is minimal continuity errors and that the video looks the same on screen as in your head. It has also given me the idea of filming with more than one camera at any one time to obtain a variety of angles and shots. In terms of editing, it has shown me that a large amount of short shots are used within music videos which is different to the film opening that we created last year and may be more challenging to edit.