My 2 Week Short Film Project

I had two weeks to make a short film and present it to my teacher. I worked in a group of four and we all decided that we would base the short film on 'A day in the life of a sixth former'. During the two weeks, we filmed footage and edited the film on Final Cut Pro. This allowed us to explore lots of different effects to add on to the short film or change it in places by cutting some of the shots out or speeding and slowing down the film to enhance viewing performance.

I think that when filming the short film we had excellence controlled use of the camera and used a variety of shots and framing that really worked well to make the short film interesting. The editing skills we used were effective and striking to our target audience which we narrowed down to 13-18. We chose this age group as we came to the conclusion that as our short film was about 'A Day in the Life of a Sixth Former' it would potentially only appeal to a younger teenage age group.

Comparing Music Video's From Different Artists

Madonna and Lady GaGa's video's have many similarities in each of their video's when compared with each others. For example Madonna's 'Vogue' and Lady GaGa's 'Bad Romance' have very similar aspects in both music videos. Lady GaGa actually does the 'Vogue' dance in her video 'Bad Romance' and also many of the camera shots and lighting are the same. Lady GaGa also wears her hair like Madonna's as well as other aspects of mise en scene in her video. Two of their video's that are also the same are Madonna's 'Express Yourself' and Lady GaGa's 'Alejandro' they both include lots of dark lighting at the beginning of the music video with some completely black frames. They also both include a lot of fuzzy close up shots of the stars faces with 'crazy' props and out of the ordinary mise en scene . Very bright lights are also used in both videos to give a look of disorientation for the viewer. In my opinion i think that Madonna is a seminal icon for many other artists that may steal ideas from her video's to make their own video's.

An example of a homage to a particular star would be Chris Brown's 'Fine China' to Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal'. This is almost like dedicating a tribute to the other star by using their dance moves and singing in their style. Chris brown does this in his video as he sets it in the same setting as Michael Jacksons 'Smooth Criminal'. In my opinion I would not say that this is copying Michael's work but paying a tribute to what he has made in the past and respecting that it was
affective to an audience and that it still works now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-ZUuHXgQ8k   Lady GaGa- Alejandro


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsVcUzP_O_8   Madonna- Express Yourself