Reflective Analysis

My aim was to create an abstract promotional music video with a small narrative about two girls travelling through a wood which is situated around a mill. The mill is a landscape of my home town; I wanted to include this landmark because it means a lot to me having grown up around this scenery. Furthermore, this landmark has lots to offer to the promotional auxiliary texts with the use of signs and the picaresque landscape. This landscape is natural and appears to be in the middle of nowhere. This lack of life creates an abstract effect which was the purpose of the location choice. My audience is indie/alternative therefore I have made my music video alternative and unique with the use of costumes (Period dress and up to date hairstyles); this collaboration is bringing a postmodern conventions.  I really want to capture movement; the speed and tempo of movement. In my opinion, the movement needed to matched the tempo and speed of my chosen song. This stylistic was my bases of all ideas for the music video. I got this idea from research I found on boooooom.com of a textiles artist whom has created vibrant dresses which are made out of a large mass of material; these dresses stood out to me, also giving the conventions of movement which is crucial for my video. Movement created different light and tones within the sequence allowing different conventions to be portrayed within the music video, the dark tones express a sad, depressing emotion and the light sections highlight the happy pleasure of the song. This movement could be achieve in more ways than through clothing, I then decided that I should expand to movement of hair and natural objects such as trees and leaves. From the natural movement I decided water was a wonderful use of natural movement with the splashes and flowing drops; this asspiration of movement changed into an idea for the music video which is used to represent the beats of the song.

My research is wide spread to give me a wider knowledge of how music videos work, and how conventions are a main element to any video. I understood that there is narrative, abstract and performance; I liked the idea of narrative, the way the audience to could understand and be interested in the video more than if it was mainly performance. In my opinion performance isn’t all appealing as narrative, I like knowing if there is a story to the song and if there isn’t it should be an abstract video; I don’t understand why audiences would want to watch the same video of the same performance when you could see the band/artist live, and each time the performance being different from the last. I have decided that I would be much happier creating a narrative/abstract video, although these video stylistics don’t necessarily work well together I think it will be more exciting than if I were to make a performance video.

My video was mainly inspired by M83 - We own the sky. The enjoyment I got out of this video, inspired me to create something along those lines, with the use of bold costume and isolated location and heavy movement shots. This video is one of a few that I looked at that went along the similar conventions as I wish to go down ; with the use of narrative and abstract elements. This video is, at first, a narrative video with a group of indie/alternative dressed people who go for a picnic and fly kites. Then the whole thing changes to an abstract video with blocks flying around in air which then explode into paper. This explosion shows the country people don’t want the modern blocks of urban landscape; saying no to the modern landscape. These 'movement' shots I want to create should consist of lots of different camera angles and movement; with tracking shots, low and high angle shots and close-ups. For instance I want to use close ups for the movement of eyes blinking to show time passing slowly. Furthermore within this environment I was able to use much natural footage such as the trees, sunshine and splashes in the puddle. These natural elements challenged me and my timings - the sunshine was a big surprise in the middle of November and the strong wind which I used to my advantage with the long hair and floating dresses. This movement was related to M83 video; also the movement complimented the movement within my chosen song.

My plan took a long time to form; I first videoed a small group up at The Mill (Which was the secure part of my plan). The first video didn't work, the day light went too quickly and there wasn't enough narrative to work with. I was very disappointed in my first video; there was a large lack of rhythm and visual entertainment. This video was overall a tester to see if the scenery was perfect for the song, which I agree it is. I was very happy with the scenery as there are lots I can work with; there are symmetry and lighting possibilities – a large possibility of strong lens flare. Within this first video I used Canon MD 205E which was a basic camera, but it allowed me to learn how to use a video camera. This camera was a basic and helped me understand how to capture a good shot and how framing would work within my music video. I found the lighting was difficult to help as the filters in the camera made the shot’s darker and hard to focus. This help me learn a lot on how to use and work the camera correctly and was happy with that factor more than I was with the outcome of my first video. I then used Adobe Premiere Elements, this was a major obstacle, and in the past I had only used Adobe Photoshop which in comparison was an entirely different understanding. At this point of making the first video everything was basic and I didn’t experiment just so I’d master the basics first.

 From there I moved on to having a full narrative, with a mythical fairy/pixie, this worked far better than the first video; it had a large narrative which followed in a dance montage. Within the second video, I can see my main plan/idea coming together - with the large amount of material and long floating hair the downside to this video is the editing. The transitions aren't neat, don't match and parts seem unfinished and jumpy. My favourite part of this video; which I regret not using again in my final video (3:37 - 4:08) with the material layer with the hand breaking through the top layer. The hand is subtle and creates shadows which I like especially in slow motion. I am not very proud of the costume as there was far too much material and filming had to stop frequently to move it out of the actor’s way. This caused a lot of disruption and wasting time, therefore I re-created a new video with a different costume and more characters. This second shoot was shot with a different camera, I used HD camera which was much better to use, with its focal lens and night sight made the video overall much better. I personally can tell the difference in the first two videos. I was much happier with the footage and was more excited to start editing. I began editing on the footage and changed the contrasts of the lighting making the mill darker and the sky whiter (Hoping it would allow the sky to look lighter and more appealingly happy). I learnt many more different elements to Adobe Premiere Elements things like; dissolve and over layering and intensity. The major editing tool I used was over layering, allowing the images to collaborate with each other, with the image to be met by the same image just 2 seconds slower. This was where I began to understand how I would highlight movement; I could emphasis movement with the use of layering, I could layer as many images as I wanted. I believe this tool was most effective. Another tool I was drawn to was dissolve transition; I used dissolve to flow the sequence into the next sequence to compliment my chosen song. On the other hand I was really happy with the outcome of the second shoot, but I wanted more movement and possibly better weather; because within the second shoot the weather portrayed the location being sad and dull. This wasn’t the emotions I wanted to express so I decided that they needed to change.

After making my hand made dresses, I decided that the make-up should be more individual; standing out to the audience. This abstract make-up would not let the video look like only one period. With the make-up I started with having the hair style being long, wavy; allowing it to flow with the dresses. The theme of movement progressing. Secondly, to make the make-up futuristic I allow bright colours to flow around the face – mainly the eyes

The final shoot took over 3 hours; firstly I designed the make-up and costume. I hand made both dress from the material used in the second shoot; the material was very easy to use, creating wonderful movement within the wind. I was very happy with the dress as they looked similar to my research into Picnic at Hanging Rock; the costume design within this film inspired me to create 1900’s styled dress. This dated clothing was targeted to appeal to my audience as the alternative audience enjoy vintage and aged items. The vintage stylistic was a strong element of my music video; I was very pleased with the outcome of the vintage looking dresses.

The make-up I was very happy with; the colours used look happy and enjoyable. If I could have changed one thing it would be the have more hair pieces; in picture 3 and 5.I think if there had been more hair accessories there could have been more opportunities of movement. Overall I am still very happy with the outcome of the design.

Finally, we travel to the set, Kayleigh (My actor) practised different movements and dance moves we should do within some shots whilst I set up the camera. This was a typical activity for us as I had to play the role of everyone within this project; but I enjoyed it, I had more control and understanding and learning of how everything worked, I also got complete control of the overall outcome - there was nothing anyone else could change. I was very fortunate on set; the weather was perfect with bright sunshine and strong wind; the wind was strong enough to let many scenes seem as if the actors were flying, this wasn’t a main intention but was a great advantage to my video.  Once I started filming, we both really started to enjoy the freedom we had; everything that was shot was aimed to be natural, nothing that was choreographed.



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  This was a major advantage; even if I should have planned I was still happier than I would have been if I choreographed the entire video. I believe the chosen song shouldn’t be trapped schedules and dancing times. The natural rhythm of us was wonderful to work with. My favourite shots within my music video would have to be jumping sequences; (the aim being movement ) this scene shouts my expectations, the hair and dress material has expanded because of the wind and kinetic energy. If I could change one thing about these sequences is I would have shot more similar to these. One of my other favourite sequences is the one where the mill is in the background with me and Kayleigh in the foreground dancing, running, walking, jumping around the scenery. My other favourite element of this scene is the lighting, the light create a small lens flare emphasising the sunshine, emphasising the happiness and nature. Over layered on the top of this sequence are shots of splashes which I made within a dirty puddle around the corner from the mill. I really like the sequence as it is in time with the beats and tempos of my chosen music.

I created all my favourite sequences through the same way as I made my second video. After I had learnt a wider range of techniques and tools to edit my video the second time, by the time I got on to my third and final video             I was very experienced with Adobe Premiere Elements. I felt very confident in the way I wanted to edit my footage. I was very proud of my montage; this section took the longest out of all the music video, because I wanted to edit a different shot for each beat. In this montage I wanted shots that I found aesthetically pleasing, something that would be eye catching for my audience. Each image was sped up footage that I had used before such as jumping sequences and spinning sequences best fit with the beat. I really like the outcome of my montage but I don’t believe I could have done it if I wasn’t committed to the montage, without the time put it I don’t think it would have fitted well. I wasn’t very happy with some of the shots I used because when I and my audience saw the video it created a nauseating emotions with all the different camera angles and camera movement, audiences didn’t know what to look at. But over all I believed my chosen song needed a montage at the built up bridge at the end; I also believe that it was the best I could have done. If I could have change anything I would have had more shots to intensive the beat further creating excitement for the audience. I wasn’t very happy with the outcome of the over layered images because they became distorted and that isn’t what I wanted from my video, it brought down the quality and I am very upset about that outcome, I should have exported it to YouTube in a higher resolution. Therefore my video wasn’t the best it could be, but overall I am happy with it with everything in mind.

From my audience fed back I believe I got the correct target audience and succeeded in making a successful and enjoyable music video. My audience understood the form of my music video, understanding that it was an abstract video; this was one of the most important answers for me, if my audience didn’t see this then I had made it completely wrong and hadn’t followed any forms and conventions of an abstract video. Also the other comparisons with my thoughts and the audience fed back is that they also thought the over layered images weren’t to the best of the ability due to the lower resolution on YouTube. If I could change anything I would have edited the YouTube settings so it didn’t ruin my video and caused upset to my target audience.

My promotional items are what I am most proud of; they fit within their genre and stand out. My website design came from my research into of indie/alternative websites I looked at, their stylistics were basic but interesting. They involved simple images such as headphones or album covers some were drawings or collages, these were very popular because they fit with the alternative genre. They didn’t need to stand out; they wanted audiences to like them for who they were not what they can be. I design my website around a photograph I took near my location of the music video; this I believe tied everything in well. The design was then edited on Adobe Photoshop to look strange and different; I made it look worn and old, this I believe fit in with the period dresses creating an aged theme. This theme carried on to nature, as my image has ivy growing around the edges of the framing; I brought in nature which was also used within the music video. From this research and minor planning I had made two new themes for my promotional project; these themes helped me created the promotional items and make my project move towards the genres stylistics. This part of the project went much better than I had planned; I am very pleased. After I researched and planned into what the promotional website should look like; I began to layer up the edited version of the mill photograph. This laying up create my other theme, movement, making the promotional items fit perfectly with the music video. After I had arranged the layers into a blurry composition, I looked on dafont.com for a font to use I needed something that would fit in well with the nature theme to blend in with the ivy in the photograph.  The font was a simple font that had enlarged and emphasised ‘s’, this I believed fit in well with my nature theme. Overall I am very happy with the outcome of my website design, but I thought I should make an inside the homepage to really experiment with these themes. I made the main homepage with a drawing of a tree to compliment the nature theme. The tree in the homepage had the other pages coming out of the branches to symbolise a family tree. At the roots of the tree was the name of the band at the bottom to show the origin of the tree. I had social networking logos placed at the bottom and a membership sign up box at the top to illustrate how this band is an independent band and would possibly use a membership to distribute their music for free. Furthermore, my magazine advert was very similar to the website; the website design with reflections at the top and bottom of the main advert, this was to emphasis the advert to the audience. I created this very simply with the same image just flipped and rotated to give a mirror image style. I really liked these promotional items and enjoyed making them, I have learnt with promotional items that less is more; I believe I used less and it benefited me. I would not have changed one thing of these promotional items.