Lip Synch 'Never Gonna Give You Up' Rick Astley

What have you learnt from making this music video?

I learnt a lot from making this video, as we were responsible for the camerawork and everything else where as on the workshop we were not. Although Mary and I didn’t lip-synch much in the video we did have a go. I learnt that it important to actually sing the lyrics out loud as it makes it more believable and otherwise it just looks like lip-synching. Making the lip-synch video emphasized that performance is really important in making a good video. I also learnt that you should take loads of takes of the same thing as well as experiment with the camera. The more footage the better as you can end up using footage you weren’t even planning to use because music videos don’t have to follow continuity or make sense. Finally another important factor in making a music video is camera movement. This is really important like I said in my evaluation for the ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ workshop. We were conscious of this when making this video and tried to use as much camera movement in our takes as we could.

How will it help you in your coursework?

The most important thing I have learnt is the importance of performance and so I think this will help me when considering actors to use in my video as they must be believable. They should actually want to perform in the video and should be enthusiastic about it as this will make a big difference. I think this will also help when I am thinking about ideas for the video itself because the performance involved needs to be doable by actors available to us. Making this video will also help in terms of camera movement, which is something I will think about during planning and will focus on during the production stage of my coursework. I will think about filming more takes and being more experimental with the camera.

What would you do differently?

If I were to make this video again, I would definitely experiment with the camera more. I would experiment with length as well as angles and would try to film some more high and low angle shots. I would perhaps most importantly experiment with camera movement more because even though I think we did this quite well, you can never do it enough! I think I would also be more creative about the performance and perhaps use some more props or improve the costume. However this was just a test video and bearing that in mind I think we did quite well!