LITTLE MIX; FRAME BY FRAME REMAKEDIARY OF A MEDIA KID.

TUESDAY 9TH OCTOBER:I watched the first minute of the Little Mix video "Wings" and compiled a word document which showed a frame by frame account. To make the task seem a little less daunting, I made a second document to show the different shot types we would need of each character, despite the fact the music video is tens and tens of shots, the list of shot types made it easier to understand what shots we would actually need and the way we put them together during editing is what made the video look difficult to re create. The shots we needed included, a mid shot from the thighs up of each character, a second but closer mid shot from the chest up, a close-up from shoulders up and an extreme close-up of just faces. We also needed a mid shot of the entire group dancing and also a long shot. There were also individual shots of characters dancing on their own.

Today, we also selected roles for each individual, as separate characters also had "solo" roles, such as Jesy Nelson, who sings "My Feet, feet can't . . . up your mouth yeah" and Jade Thrilwall, who sings "Walk, walk on over there . . . oh yeah". We matched characters closely based on appearance and if they had similar costumes to the characters. For example, Linzi was Perri Edwards due to her blonde hair, Grainne was originally Leigh-Anne Pinnock, though was swapped for Jade as she didn't have the available costume. Deanna was given the role of Jesy as she has striking red hair and I was originally the character Jade as I had the costume available and was willing to take on the extra singing role she has, I was then changed to Leigh-Anne as I was the only one who owned a yellow top.

We also began learning the lyrics (below) for the first minute of the music video. It was essential that we knew the lyrics as the quick cuts meant match on action was essential and if specific characters had lip synched out of time then match-on-action would be much more difficult.

FRIDAY 12TH OCTOBER:Today we began filming for our music video. We had only 45 minutes as setting up the green screen had take longer than anticipated, this meant we had to sacrifice costumes as this would be too time consuming and we would risk running out of time. We began filming the four different shot types for each individual, beginning with the longer shots, this meant that each character had maximum practice before close-ups (we really couldn't risk any slip ups) Due to the tight time schedule we had, every character had to get their part right the first time. We started with myself, then Linzi, then Grainne and finished with Deanna. We then moved onto our group shots. Overall shooting went better than expected, although we didn't have the preferred time scale to make use of mise-en-scene. (Though we did acquire extra time with the green screen to use a Strobe light to act as our very own Little Mix light) we managed to film everyone's individual roles and were able to import the footage onto our computer.

TUESDAY 16TH OCTOBER:Today I began editing my footage together. I began by searching for the backgrounds that we would need to replace our green screen with. We couldn’t get the exact images and certain images online were too small, so I had to compromise. Deanna’s background was the most difficult to find, as the majority of backgrounds on the internet had watermarks on them or were much too small. I opted for an image of vintage stereos found on Tumblr. However the image had to be edited, I had to crop and tint the image blue as the original had had a sepia effect added to it.The other images were much easier to find. For my character I chose a busy bow background, this was due to my hair which meant the green screen wasn’t as effective for my character and I was outlined by a green glow. Using a busy background meant this was less noticeable as the audiences eye was distracted.For Linzi’s background I chose to use purple flowers although the original uses pink, this was because the images of pink flowers I first attempted using looked cheesy and childish, which isn’t my personal aim of the frame by frame remake.Grainne’s background was the easiest to find as there was very little options on Google. For Grainne I used a brightly coloured graffiti background. I also had to find a background for the group shots. This was very simple to find as all I needed was the inside on an abandoned warehouse.

Due to the mass amounts of shots I was going to be using, and the added green screen backgrounds which would also need to be brought down onto the timeline, I decided to edit the close-up shots individually, this was due to the complex “swish” we would use, when the screen is split into four sections, each with a performer in, the panels then slide or ‘swish’. As this would have been so complicated to do and would need to be accurate and the added backgrounds would have made this much more difficult, I edited the shots needed for this by adding their green screen backgrounds in separately.

I dragged the needed clips into the time line, to add my background to the clip I selected the clip and browsed through the effects on Final Cut Pro, I used a Keyer effect so that it would remove the green background. Once I had added the effect to the clip, I then imported my background images and dragged them onto the timeline. I moved the image so it was on the track below my original clip, this was so the image would appear behind the clip and could be seen in the black space rather than above the clip hiding the performer. I did this to each individual clip and exported them.

To create the slide movement, I dragged all four clips after being exported and then re-imported with their backgrounds, into the timeline. To make the clips smaller I clicked on the small ‘transform’ button, and shrunk the image and moved it to fit in the corner. I did this for all four clips so they filled the frame.

I found the position on the clip where the “swish” or slide movement occurs. I had to apply the movement to each individual clip. I started with Deanna’s clip. Once I found the position where the movement begun I added a small blue mark by selecting the clip and pressing “M”. Then using the transform tool at the left side of the video I selected the small “diamond shape” to mark the beginning position. I then played the clip and paused at the point where the clip should have finished its movement and marked this with a blue marker. Using the transform tool again I moved the clip to its new position. In Deanna’s case she needed to move from the right hand lower corner upwards. So I moved her clip up and clicked the “diamond” again. This

Meant the image would now move. I repeated this same process

For all four images using the blue markers as a guide. The

Finished product meant that all images moved.

20th – 23rd October

I continued to edit my Frame by Frame remake. Adding in green screens using the same process as before and using a split screen effect, to do the split screen I used a similar process to splitting the screen into four. Using the transform tool I shrunk the clip down so it fit neatly on one side of the frame, and repeated the same for the background images and the other clip.

I tried to match my shots as close to the original as possible. There was little difficulty editing the rest of the footage together as the majority of the complex stuff had already been done, including a second and third “swish” or slide movement.

I was really impressed with my final product as it closely matched the original and required a great deal of skill in order to fully edit the footage at such a quick pace. I finished by exporting the video by going to “Share” and “Export”. Then using an Online Youtube Converter I downloaded the original video and imported it into Final Cut Pro along with my Exported Frame by Frame remake. Then using the split screen effect and put each video either side of the frame. I exported the video to create a Comparison between the two, as the two videos played side by side I could see how closely we had matched it. And it was pretty close!

The finished videos can be found on my blog.