Dua Lipa: New Rules - ID# 457

Vernon Hills

Division: AA

Music Video

Entry Description

A storyline about a female bond through a common sentiment of wanting freedom from the chains of a toxic relationship.

Recent Teacher Comments

• 3/13 10:58 am - Cool setting. You did a great job of creating a unique location. Your special effects helped to keep the viewer engaged. Smashing pumpkins with boy’s image at the end was very creative and unique. A little confusing of having two singers. Second girl didn’t seem to fit in with main story. Again some visually interesting effects and nice drone footage with this second character but how does she relate to the other character, create some scenes to establish a relationship between the two female characters.
• 3/6 2:22 pm - A well thought out video. Nice execution of some serious special effects, including the visuals in the pumpkins and the glow effects around the singers. Nice job also on the use of stop motion for the chorus singer. Graphics at the beginning of the song looked great, and the choice of location fit very well into the storyline. The drone shots were very well done, although at times not sure how well they went with the storyline. The boat? Shots of the shore? Drone shots of the story would have been much better. Pacing of the video was good- lots of edits, lots of variety in the shots. A couple lighting issues with the sun as back lighting- make sure with that much backlight that you're supplying front light to your subject. The singer did a decent job, but could have gotten into the song a bit more. The lyrics are powerful as is the singer's voice, and sometimes the facial expressions and energy of your singer did not match that of the song. Overall, it was a good video that took lots of post production and careful editing. Nice job.

Judge 1

Positives: 1. The vfx were done well and they gave the piece an interesting aesthetic. It takes a lot of forethought to execute some of the VFX you had. Nice work. 2. I liked how you were experimental in your approach of the storyline. Its very fun and imaginative to place a storyline in an unconventional location. Check out the work of Michel Gondry. He is a prolific music video director and narrative film director. He was a big inspiration for myself, and he really embraces abstract / fantastical visuals.

Improvements: 1. The lip sync was slightly off. There are a couple potential causes of this. Usually the issue has to do with the time base of your edit sequence and of the song. If the cycle rates are not correct, then that can result in shifts and drifts. Often music files are around 48khz, but you want it to be 44.1khz when editing video. You can change the refresh rate without major shift in pitch using software like adobe audition or protools. This is usually the cause of sync issues, but it may not be the specific cause in your case. 2. You did a nice job with the post effects and I like the art direction in the forest. But I think the visual aesthetic took a little more importance over the story. Although the effects and art direction are fun to look at (and they were executed well), I think story will always win and it will always keep the audience the most engaged. On a similar note, the girl who sang the chorus felt a little out of place. I didn't quite see how she fit into the piece or storyline.

Judge 2

Positives: The visual effects work is by far the shining star of this piece. Very creative, very well executed. Nice work. The moving camera keeps things interesting. The drone added some nice production value. The variation between slow and quick motion kept the viewer engaged. Cool locations.

Improvements: There was a disconnect between the stop motion performance to camera and the rest of the narrative. Who is this girl? How does she factor into the story? It was confusing mainly because our protagonist had been performing to camera until the chorus. If the second female was supposed to represent the additional voice on the track then why wasn't the protagonist in these shots as well? It took me out of it despite the fact that it was visually interesting and creatively inspired. The lens flare shots in the woods were great except the lens was dirty and the dirt picked up additional flares ultimately taking away from the value of the shot. Make sure to clean both sides of your your lens each any every time you use it.

Judge 3

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Judge 4

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