Music Video: Professor Green "Goodnight": Opinons and Comments

To gather opinions and comments on the A2 media music video we used a range websites to distribute the video so that more people could view it. To do this we used facebook, YouTube and MSN. They allowed us to reach out to a big pool of people with a suitable diversity of opinion.

Positive Comments:

1. The most positive reaction we have received was for the performance/acting of the protagonist in the video, and the way he was used to relate to the genre of the video, for example by his clothing. One comment even read, "Good effort, the costume switching must have been annoying!".

2. The use of Locations was also mentioned in a positive manor by viewers, specifically on Facebook. Some viewers even recognised some of the locations and were very complimentary about how we had managed to utilize the space in order to film some great shots.

3. The Effects used throughout the video were also praised by viewers, for example the use of time lapse on Great Ancoats street in the centre of Manchester was frequently mentioned. Some also commented on the fact that not too many effects were used which was seen as a good thing. To add effects to our video we used Final Cut Pro as this program has a huge database of fantastic effects.

4. Lip syncing was crucial in the video because of the video being a hip-hop song as because it was a performance based piece. Due to the complicated nature of Professor Green's lyrics, and his unique 'flow', it was quite difficult at first for Kwame to master the timing of his delivery. However, after putting in some hard work, Kwame soon mastered the lyrics and the lip syncing is generally very good throughout the piece. This part of the video performance was very well received by viewers.

Negative Comments:

1. We only received minimal criticism for our production, however there were aspects and scenes that weren't favoured. For example viewers negatively fed back about the amount of scenes towards to the beginning of the video that simply depicts Kwame nodding along to the beat. Viewers obviously wanted to see less of this and we seriously considered removing these scenes from the piece. However, due to the extensive length of the beginning of the video (vocals only kick in at around 51seconds) we decided to keep these scenes in the video as we believe they fit into this space of the song appropriately.

A2 Media Music Video Professor Green: Goodnight

This is our media production of 'goodnight' as posted on youtube.com

Screen shots of our facebook page, youtube post and editing process.

This is a screen shot of our media production as posted on the website, youtube.com. So far the video has 193 views after only a week online but we expect this number to grow in the coming weeks.







This screen shot shows a shot from our video on the editing programme final cut pro. The time line took around three weeks to complete and we are very pleased with the piece we have produced.






This screen shot depicts one of the ways in which we stayed in contact outside of college. By using facebook.co.uk and establishing our own private 'group' on this website, familiar to our four members, it was a space in which we could post up ideas or arrange meeting times or generally discuss any issues to do with the project.






This is a screen shot of when Kwame posted our video, linked from youtube.com, onto his facebook page to see the public response. With eleven 'likes' and four positive comments, one reading,"Well done kwamz &co all the hard work payed off in the end :D x", i think the public have had their say.

The Creative Process

When we first assembled our group it didn’t take much discussion to decide on the style of our video. We needed a video that would fit our chosen song, ‘Goodnight’ by Professor Green and it was unanimous that our production would be a performance based. I think we took a lot of inspiration from past groups productions when we were given viewings of their works earlier in the year. We saw how they managed to create a video with an actor lip syncing the lyrics in various locations and thought, yeah that’s what we want to do, but lets see how we can do it better. As we’ve not yet begun to edit our footage whether we can better the efforts of previous groups remains to be seen, but we’re confident the editing process will leave us with a good solid video production.

However, past groups were maybe not where we took most inspiration from as their performance-based videos were to songs not from our elected genre. This is when we knew research into videos produced by artists from the urban/hip-hop genre had to be undertaken in order to gain some ideas. One of the videos we looked at to gain more an insight was ’99 Problems’ by the huge hip-hop artist, Jay Z. Despite this being a combination of performance and narrative, not the style we want to achieve, the performance elements show Jay Z lip-syncing his lyrics in various urban locations, such as a New York housing project. Having then discussed the issues with flying out to New York to shoot our video, we decided on a more realistic plan which was to find areas of Manchester and Salford that would suit the urban feel our video required.

As well as looking at US hip-hop stars for inspiration, we also looked at some smaller UK hip-hop artists who have much less of a budget and would be using similar equipment and locations to ourselves. For this purpose we watched “Hold On” by Foreign Beggars Feat. Skinnyman (URL - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31U6wKbaosQ). This was useful in showing us how an effective video can be created with not much financial backing and how to use your surroundings effectively. Music videos don’t always require foreign locations for them to be of good caliber and to obtain the right response. However, it was clear that these artists were trying to produce a much more comedic effect in their video where as we plan for ours to be much more serious as the themes dealt with in our song are very close to Professor Green's heart such as the death of his father and grandmother.

In terms of how much each member of the group has contributed to the creative process we feel that most decisions and ideas have been arrived at predominately as a group. No one individual has done more than the others, we’ve all worked as hard as each other thus far. However, certain decisions have been more personalized such as the song choice which was chosen by Kwame. He then offered to star in the video, portraying Professor Green. As the rest of the group wanted to be more involved with the production side of the project, we were all happy for Kwame to display his extrovert qualities in front of the camera.

During the planning stages we knew we wanted to utilize certain areas around the city centre and in Salford Quays. I think the most exciting locations we’ve found have been through exploring new parts of the city rather than anywhere we we’re already familiar with. These include quirky spots of graffiti sprawled across the outside of buildings in the northern quarter, as well as beautiful areas along the canal unknown to many of public’s eyes.

As for the shots we’ve filmed so far, we constructed quite a developed shot list before filming began. This gave us a good basis and structure to work with. As with most media production groups the shot list was altered and eventually we’ve come to a point where we feel comfortable to go out filming without a shot list knowing that we will still manage to execute some brilliant shots.

We still have a long way to go in completing filming, editing and aspects of the blog. However we feel confident and will be working very hard over the next few weeks to ensure that we achieve a high grade.

Differences Between AS And A2

When we were first given the task of filming and producing a music video for the song Goodnight, we knew that it wouldn’t be simple when we looked at past videos and blogs. We first noticed the locations used in the music video’s were more elaborate and ranged whereas in the AS filming we focused on filming in one place and used it to are advantage. We also discovered that in AS we had a very definite plan of how the finished piece would look considering we had a storyboard whereas in A2 even though with the privilege of having a storyboard we discovered that we could film anything considering the freedom we were given, so by the end of the piece we had a choice of a vast range of shots that would look good in the video. The original task last year required us to update the blog with are progress etc, whereas with this years task required high quality analysis of things such as, analysis of other music videos, analysis of the equipment we used.

Along with filming a music video we were also given the task of preparing a magazine advert for the single we chose. This was not required for the short film project of last year. Last years project did not require any posts on the blog regarding to influence, whereas this year considering the nature of the task is music related it required us to talk about the music genre we had chosen which is British hip hop,

there were many technical aspects of the production we found different, such as final cut pro was used more professionally, meaning when we were in the editing stages of the AS production it was a fairly simple timeline whereas in the recant A2 production we have noticed the more relevant effects etc have been. this is also the case when we used the studio to film the end sequence of the video, we used 3 studio cameras and a handheld camera on a crane, the cameras were controlled by the me behind the base computer doing live edits to the footage.

It is also true to say that the amount of work is considerably more, such as the need for more work on the blog posts, for example posts such as deeper analysis of the video

The Technology We've Used So Far

The technology we've used so far in our music video production is the Legria FS306 camcorder which uses an SD memory card and the Megax MX-475 tripod. It happens to be Canon's smallest digital camcorder ever with video snapsnot, 41x advanced zoom, dual shot and image stabilizer. This camcorder also offers users intelligent battery life & quick charge. We chose to use this camera as provided by Loreto College as we believe we can produce an excellent quality of video with it. Every time the Record button is pressed, a short four second clip is captured. By simply transfering clips to a playlist on the memory card, then selecting a soundtrack, the video can be ready for television with no need to use editing software. Four seconds is the average length of one ‘cut’ in the television world which gives the filming experience a more specialist feel. Although we will be using a computer to develop our shots this point just goes to demonstrate the high quality of equipment and technology we will be using to produce our video.


As for the tripod we've been using, the Megax MX-475, this offers stability enhanced at all heights by variable-spread leg braces. When filming you can quickly adjust the height of the tripod using the reliable quick-action leg locks. It allows you to use such shots as the tilt and dutch tilt which adds an extra variation to videos.


In the coming weeks, when we being our editing process, we will employ the use of final cut pro in studio at college. This professional editing program will allow us to chop and change through the footage we have collated selecting the best shots which will be incorporated together for our final piece.

Deciding on which font to use for magazine advert and CD case

'Goodnight' by Professor Green

'Goodnight' by Professor Green

'Goodnight' by Professor Green

'Goodnight' by Professor Green

'Goodnight' by Professor Green

'Goodnight' by Professor Green

'Goodnight' by Professor Green

This font guide will help us to make our final decision.