Friday 30 September 2011

RS - 2010-11 A2 Video Deconstruction

Year: 1997
Genre: Pop
Audience: 15-24

Yesterday we got set the task of deconstructing a music video created by last years students who left earlier this year,  we then had to use a mark scheme to grade the coursework which would ultimately help us as we would be more familiar as to what the examiners will be looking for in our product.  We each got assigned a video to deconstuct and I got Megan Claydon and Emmie Bryett's version of "As long as you love me" by the Backstreet Boys.

For this task we had to:


1: go through each of the video product criteria (either copy/paste in, or use single words such as framing, variety, steady etc) + award either an E,P,B or M (exc, prof't, basic, min)
2: note 1 specific (with time in video) detail you think justified this choice
3: come up with an overall mark out of 40
4: what possible improvements could you make (even the best had scope to be better still!)
5: what tips/pointers/insights have you picked up from assessing this vid and applying the marking criteria?
You will find it worthwhile to look through their blogs too, an exercise we'll tackle shortly

Steady Shots (where appropriate) - Excellent. Overall excellent but let down by one or two shots where the tri-pod/camera has been nudged otherwise no faults at all. 1:20 is a perfect example of a steady ELS showing the whole band playing basketball together.

Framing a shot - Excellent. 3:16 great shot of the boy band all walking up over the bridge. Some very good framed shots of looking through the fence in the tennis courts, very good use of foreground out of focus and background in focus.

Shot Variety - Excellent. A large variety of different shot distances, ranging from ELS all the way to CU's. 3:15 is a very good shots of the band lip syncing and dancing on top of the bridge along with them in the tennis courts. Along with CU's of the characters to show their emotions showing lots of variety. 

Material appropriate to task - Excellent. The use of slow motion on the CU's of the two characters perfectly shows that the material is appropriate. 1:02 is a good example of them using slow motion when they look at each other.

Mise en scene (including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting) -Proficient. Great use of the Cow and Calf rocks within the video. Some shots get let down by having the shots lighting a bit too dark however it is only a small proportion of the shots. 1:46 is a good use of the scenery within the music video.

Editing so that meaning is appropriate to the viewer - Excellent. The video is very easy to follow as it uses black and white effects to signify that that footage is from the past which makes it easy to figure out which bits are past or present. 1:31 is an example of the slow motion also with multi layering used to show the two characters at once.

Shot transitions, captions, other effects - Proficient. 2:03 is a fantastic example! Lots of multi layering usage to show the two characters, along with use of Black and white effects and also fuzzy effects over the screen later in the video.


Overall for the music video I would award 34/40 marks which would be marked as Excellent.

To improve the music video I think they should have used more special effects from within FinalCut, they do use a few multi-layered shots but ultimatley they could be used a bit more. Overall I was really impressed with the video hence why I marked it high!

Here are links to the blogs of the people who created the music video:


Here is the music video



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