When thinking of an idea for my final major project, I initially knew that I wanted to incorporate colour theory into the video. I wanted to achieve something that used this concept to portray emotions and a narrative, as well as looking visually and cinematically appealing.
I initially struggled in the idea development process, as I knew how I wanted it to look but didn’t know what form I wanted it to be in.
When discussing my idea to a family friend, she told me about how her son Lewis is a musician. I talked to Lewis and we decided to make a music video for one of his songs named ‘Roots’.
When planning the video idea and concept, I had to analyse the songs lyrics and meaning and what I wanted to achieve from the video.
When pitching my idea to my teachers I talked about my location choices and why, along with shot inspiration, technical and contextual research and the message I wanted to portray in the video. I was also made aware of how hard it would be to film the idea and how much research I had to do.
During my final major project idea development and process, I researched various sources and forms of media to use as influences for my idea.
My initial influence came from the 1994 film ChungKing Express, directed and written by Kar-Wai. The stunning cinematography and use of colour theory was what attracted me to the film.
The colour used plays a part in portraying the characters isolation and solitude. This is paired with the use of props to develop the narrative and give the character more depth; an example of this is when we see He Qui-Wu sat in his isolated flat with over a dozen cans of pineapple, which is used to represent his obsession and heartbreak over his last relationship. I took inspiration from this as using props to portray a narrative is what I wanted to create.
Considering my final major project is a music video, I decided to find other cinematic influences in music videos. I initially analysed the video James Vincent Mcmorrow’s ‘Cavalier’. This music video also uses colour to portray the characters emotional instability and mind-set, which I defiantly took inspiration from, as I wanted colour to show Lewis’ emotions. I mainly did this in the end sequence of my video as its filmed in the night-time.
As narrative plays a big part in music videos, I decided to use music videos that I analysed with context and meaning as a narrative influence. Such as Loyle Carners ‘Aint nothing changed’. The video uses shots of old pictures of the character paired with the rest of the video in present day, where the character is seen much older. This is used the represent the narrative of getting old and life progression.
Whilst filming the music video, I encountered various last minute problems that I had to problem solve and overcome. On the first day of the production I didn’t film as many shots as I had aspired for in each scene, this was mainly due to the SD card being full.
I also ended up filming the second scene in the daytime instead of the night. This meant that I didn’t end up with the original cinematic look that I wanted to achieve and planned for however I still successfully filmed a scene there.
Another issue was that the lighting in the night-time scenes were particularly poor quality as I filmed various walking shots that went in and out of lighting which I then altered in the edit.
After receiving feedback from my initial edit and not filming enough shots on the day, it meant that I had to go out and re-film footage. This included cutaways of Lewis and his family along with shots of Liverpool city. I then added these into my next edit.
As the last scene was filmed all in dark lighting outdoors, I had to increase the brightness in certain clips to make it look better.
Also due to not having enough time to book the filming equipment out again, I had to film the new footage on my phone, meaning all shots were handheld so many appeared shaky. I had to fix this issue in the editing process by adding a stabilizer effect onto each clip to remove any obvious shakiness.
The feedback that I received on my final major project was quite mixed. My classmate who watched my video said that they liked the childhood photo aspect of the video due to the relation to the artist and how it shows the progression of the person. However they said that some of the cutaways were not as nice as the rest of the video and often looked misplaced, such as the shots of houses which I definitely agreed with.
Another classmate said that they liked the ending shots and thought that in comparison to the rest of the video they looked a lot better, in terms of colour, quality and setting. They also said that they liked the variety of cutaways but I could of taken better ones.
With the final outcome of the music video not looking exactly how I had aspired, I think that it turned out good considering the problems I had encountered and resolved.
I think I have achieved a basic standard music video which is not bad as it was my first time ever filming one. The process has been great for experimentation into different aspects of filmmaking and has helped me realise which areas I excel in and which I don’t.
If I was to re-do my final major project I would of definitely picked a different idea that matched my artistic and cinematic inspirations more. However as at the time the music video seemed the most achievable and realistic idea to film, but turned out particularly hard as it was so new to me.
Miranda's FMP Blog 