Music Video Evaluation
We were challenged with filming a music video for an unsigned band or artist for this assignment. We had to find a band or artist by ourselves and come up with an idea for their song they recommend us to use. The video had to look professional and had to look good for the band or artist to use and enjoy.
Finding a band for this project was easy enough. We went onto Unsigned.com and looked at some artists and sent off to them. A band was also recommended to us to use called Shoot the Moon. Shoot the Moon was co-operative with me throughout the whole process, beginning to end. They put in some ideas but were not able to be in the video their selves. They were happy for us to continue making a music video for them that they are going to use in the future as an official music video for their song "Something Like This" and still wanted emails on our process throughout making the music video, being involved every step of the way.
The planning and research went well, the band inputting their ideas to fit their music genre. Our original idea later was scrapped from issues but we also realised that this style didn't fit the genre. We re-planned and looked at settings like Alice in Wonderland and star image for Ska Punk bands. For the final product, we managed to edit the video into the "world" we wanted the actor to enter into and to present a good star image for this band. The actor, Ensor, also applied some of the costume ideas and brought in a fitting outfit whilst I brought the hat. The hat still represented the transition into the world, which we planned to do with a door, but fitted the style of video much better than we expected.
The filming process went well with our one actor and my group. Everyone had an idea of what we wanted with our new idea and we were able to direct each others ideas to the actor. There were no problems during the filming process apart from re-filming some shots after looking at them and getting some extra shots for the editing process. It did prove difficult at times on bringing across the visionary we had to the actor when there was just the green screen behind him, but we managed to get the shots we needed. We managed to get a good amount of shots for the editing process, having more than enough for what we needed.
The team worked well together, all of us directing ideas and being involved in the shoot at all times. We were all assertive at times, getting across the visionary to the others and listening to their ideas to develop this visionary. Anna was assertive and good at setting up the lighting. She also knew what she wanted for the final edit and what shots would be needed. Ines was good at directing our actor in what actions to do and what shots to take. Meanwhile, I kept the whole process organised and helped direct the filming. I had the storyboard with me and interpreted their ideas into the storyboard which was a rough guideline for the final product.
Editing the video clips together without the backgrounds went well. The clips fitted well together and gave off the effect we wanted. The video also gives off some comedy value and the green screening proved to be slightly difficult but we got the hang of it when we did it a few more times. I managed to discover a style in the editing that made our actor looking like a drawing from my research on the Ska Punk genre. We all enjoyed this style and kept to it. It makes the video look old fashioned and is very artistic, all of the group enjoying this design and it fitting the genre in it's colour scheme and artistic look. Our original design was to make him disappear into a virtual world but this style worked better for the style of video we wanted to create; his self still going into a weird world but to a different artistic design.
We also edited the words to the song along with the video clips. We researched and downloaded some grunge fonts into premiere pro and added them around the shots. We enjoyed this style and made the words appear through the whole video, popping up when the singer says the words. We felt this fitted to the style of the song because their music is Ska Punk and this style seemed to fit very well with the effect we put over the actor. The text also fits to the style of song and made the video look much better when we finished the editing, adding some more visuals for the viewer to consume.
Anna created the backgrounds for our music video. We wanted to incorporate a street around him but still include the galaxy background that the band uses. She made the buildings in black and white so our actor would still stand out on the background she created. She created a simplistic building in the street, a ladder up against a building and perspective street. We decided not to use these as it didn't fit to the style of video we were trying to create and the green screen wasn't easily going to be edited out. From the research we made, we found another Ska Punk music video and based our style off of this. It fitted much better than our original design in style and the music genre.
I spent my weekends completing cardboard instruments, researching the actual sizes and styles. I drew them and cut them out with the help of Anna and Ines, and then painted them over the weekends. We measured out the sizes of the actual instruments onto cardboard and used that as a guideline into drawing the instruments shown in the video. I had to make sure that all of the instruments were actual size to make them look as real as possible. I googled the sizes of these instruments to make them as accurate as possible. They were painted as the video was originally going to be in colour but still looked good in the style of black and white because of the shimmer from the paint made them stand out and look like real instruments. I put skewer sticks on the back of each of the instruments to keep them straight and steady, making them look more like realistic instruments in the effect we used.
We had many problems through the making and planning of this music video. First, we started with a storyboard idea and the band wanted us to do another song. This was an easy resolve, us re-making a storyboard for the new song. Next we couldn't find any available dates to get the band involved in the video and our idea was a performance based video. After finding this out, we searched for actors and couldn't find anyone who wanted to be involved. This caused a large problem for us and we had to come up with a completely new idea to film that only included one person. This made the process of organising our music video difficult throughout but eventually we came to the conclusion of a new idea.
I learnt that working with a client can be difficult if dates don't match up and you have a deadline to work for. Working with a client is fun and exciting but a lot of work to get the visionary they wish for. I also learnt that the most difficult part is finding actors. The post we put out online got many shares but no one was willing to act for us. It made our process difficult and forced us to come up with idea after idea. I did communicate with them early on in hopes to complete by the deadline. The idea we finished with did make the deadline but the other idea we had would not of made it for the deadline because of organising a date for the band to come down would of overrun the deadline.
I also learnt that when you use a green screen it is better for the person to be stood further away from the green screen to cast less shadow which makes the screen much easier to edit it out. I will remember this in the future when using the green screen and will make the curtain flatter. This will make the editing easier once again and makes the screen all of the same colour, allowing images to be placed in easier. We had our actor to close to the screen, making large shadows that shouldn't of been there. We did three point lighting from our experimentation before this video but he should have been stood closer to the camera than the green screen. I do wish that we researched green screening a bit more before hand but this is something we all learnt and will remember in the future.
I sent the video to Shoot The Moon and they loved the concept and the video. They are going to be planning to release the video as their official one in the next few weeks and give us credit on making the music video. We are delighted with this news and it made all of the problems we had worth it. We managed to make the best of a bad situation and come out with a completely different concept than we originally had. They are happy with the video results and have said that they would be happy to work with us again in the future. By the date of 16th February 2017, it was their official music video.
Overall, this project was stressful and didn't go to our original plans. We had to keep re-doing storyboards and keep making new ideas, the final one being one of our best ideas that we came up with. We managed to end up with a good music video in the end after all of the problems we faced and the short amount of time we had left to complete this assignment. In the time we had and the problems we faced, the final product is at its best with hard work inputted to get the video we ended up with. If I could re-do this project, I would like to make the first idea we came up with and have the band in the music video but this just didn't go to plan for us this time under the amount of time we had. I am happy with the end result we came out with and am happy for creating this music video after seeing how much the band loved the video.
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