Meeting Ben Peters

Today we met Ben Peters. A freelance music director; he's directed many pieces for several artists such as, Skepta, Loick Essien, Alexandra Burke, Wiley, NDubz, Tulisa, Rebecca Ferguson and many more. The first thing Ben Peters introduced to us was the difference between music videos and other mediums such as film or advertisements; they are short form that lack dialogue, you only here the music with the lyrics. Ben continued to explain to us that music channels prefer MV's that stay within the 3-4minute time frame as it gives them more time to play different MVs from different artists. Through this directors are limited to their creative vision, meaning only the relevant images need to be filmed in order to get across the story you want to the given target audience of that artist. He then asked us if it's better to shoot more shots or less shots. Initially, we said that the more shots you have the more you can edit it and piece the video together of how you want it to be portrayed to the given audience, however Peters explained that a more experience director will limit the amount of shots taken as they know what they want and how to get it with out having to retake the movement several times, thus concluding hat the less you shoot the better, this is because a music video is normally shot in one day (12-14hour day shooting) depending on your budget. The best directors will have about 60minutes of footage, or 30 minutes depending on their experience to limit editing time. Ben Peters explained that amateur directors will shoot a variety of scenes several times and end up with hours and hours of footage, leaving the editors the piece the select shots together, but the less footage you have can cut down the editing time from 4 days to 2 depending on your editors abilities. Mr Peters then spoke about the various softwares used to edit music videos such as Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, he explained to us that the best editing software used by more music directors is AVID- Media Composer it is said that it is "the most proven video editing software in the industry, trusted by professional editors in every segment of movie making, television, broadcast, and steaming media." As we continued through the lesson Ben Peters discussed with us the various roles you would find on the set of a MV shooting. These roles are: Director Producer Spark-Electrician Grip-Sets up your camera for movement Stylist-Costume, hair, makeup Gaffer-Head of Electricity Editor -Pieces the shots together Grader-Go over the shots and pick the colours, tones, shades. Colourist-Go over the shots and pick the colours, tones, shades. DP/DOP- Director of Photography (focuses on the look of the shot, whether it is warm, cold, wide, moving etc) Cinematographer Art Director- Focuses on Props AD- Assistant Director PM-Production Manager Focus Puller- Keeps the shots in focus Runner-Makes tea and coffee, tedious jobs (internship, or known as your first foot in the music industry) Ben explained to us that all the roles found above are equally important to the flow of the shoot. He continued into expanding how the whole system works. Record Labels of the Artist will contact different directors with a basic idea of want they want for the artist; then the directors will send in a treatment(a 3-4page PDF document of their ideas and what they're going to shoot) it can be up to 4-5 different directors, maybe more; then it's 12-14hour day of shooting if the label picks the director; 2days to edit the shots(no longer than a week). After that we were given about 10minuted to ask Ben Peters a few questions. I asked what were his favourite MVs to shoot and he replied with 1take videos due to preference. As a class we then discussed how we can get into the industry and the types of degrees we should look at, and also the best universities to go to if we want to do media. In conclusion, it was a very informative lesson, giving us some great tips for when we begin shooting our coursework. Thank You Ben Peters.

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