Production stages: Group Music Video

Music Video: Choosing the audio

My three songs:

Freaking out the neighbourhood by Mac DeMarco - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbYwT6TULjg

Top three songs from peers:

The cult of Dionysus by The Orion Experience - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZcqaolcjUI
I chose this song because I liked the tempo and pace it created. I believe the song would also allow my group and I to create an energetic and entertaining music video as we could experiment with effects in post-production.

Boys will be bugs by Cavetown - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uREGk0fT0GQ
I chose this song because I liked the upbeat vibe it captured. I believe my group and I could form a narrative based music video around the lyrics because of their optimistic, playful tone. Also the themes discussed in the lyrics would be easy to symbolise in our visuals. 

Wires by the Neighbourhood - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIk06SOeViY
I chose this song because I liked the slow paced and dark atmosphere it created, I also feel my could create an abstract music video using this song as its haunting tone and aesthetic would work perfectly in a gritty/urban location. 

Chosen song:

You're an Ace, Kid by DEMONDICE -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7uEhGBPtvE

After my group and I discussed possible song options we settled on You're an Ace, Kid by DEMONDICE. I personally don't love the song but it does have a fast and upbeat pace that would work as an audio for a music video. 

Initial ideas/interpretation

As I listened to the song I envisioned images of fast night life with neon colours, this is because I felt the tempo of the music echoed chaos and night-life. I also envisioned bright colours and experimental abstract visuals of eyes and faces as the song references distortion of reality and the lyrics repeat themes of freedom and individualism. The mood-board I created below reflect the initial visual ideas that appeared in my mind as I listened to the song.

Concepts

For this task I had to create two music video concepts for the song my group and I chose. I personally prefer my first idea as I think it is would be more feasible to create and feel the song would work best with a narrative style video instead of abstract. I also believe my first concept would allow my group and I to be more collaborative and creative as we could continuously evolve the storyline and characters by bounce ideas off one another, whereas my second idea I feel is too random and lacks in thought, structure and authenticity. 




Treatment - One










After my group and I pitched our treatment, our teacher felt we should either change the song or idea as they would not work together, due to the contrast between the song's upbeat tempo and the emotive themes in our idea. 

Second Treatment







As we discussed new ideas, my group and I decided to create a whole new narrative and chose a different song. The new idea we chose depicts the story of a 'house wife' who is suppressing her inner conflict and rage towards the roles and stereotypes that the world has put upon her because of her gender. We as a group will connect this idea to the time period of the 60s and 70s to make it realistic to the issues shown in the video. I personally prefer this idea as it gives us more freedom and flexibility to experiment with visuals and symbolism, I also feel the song we chose will add to the narrative idea of our music video too as it deals with similar themes. 

Revised idea

Due to the new lockdown restrictions my group and I have had to adapt our original idea in order to make the music video feasible and accessible for all members of the group to take part in. 

Music video draft

The video below is a rough blocking draft of our music video to help my team and I explore ways in which we will present the narrative and song e.g lip syncing, shot types etc. My group and I also each edited the footage separately and added our own super 8 film look to the footage in order to give it a retro aesthetic. 


Music Video Roles

Producer 

A producer must be able to manage and coordinate each stage of the music video production process, the producer has to ensure the music video is on budget and is feasible to create, while also giving creative direction, writing scripts, organising logistics and deadlines with the whole creative team. 

Skills required: Organised, Patient, Collaborative, Punctual, Logical, Motivated and Focused. 

Director 

A director must be able to collaborate with the creative team in order to oversee the whole production process and create visual concepts, direct the performers and work with the cinematographer to ensure they capture their vision of the song. The director also helps develop the script and storyboards. 

Skills required: Organised, Motivated, Passionate, Collaborative, Creative and Punctual. 

Cinematographer 

A cinematographer must be able to use the camera and lighting to capture the tone and feel of the music video. The cinematographer has to work in the pre-production to create storyboards and shoot the scenes in the production process. Lastly, they have to collaborate with the director to ensure their vision is also being conveyed through the visuals. 

Skills required: Creative, Logical, Open-minded, Collaborative, Experimental and Punctual. 

Production Designer 

A production designer must be able to design the set/sets in the music video e.g using props, lighting, costume, location etc. The production designer has to work closely alongside the director and producer in both the pre-production and production process to develop and create the overall visuals for the video. 

Skills required: Creative, Thoughtful, Collaborative, Thorough and Punctual. 

My role 

I personally believe I am most suited as the production designer as I am interested in the visual design of our music video and would love to capture the period and tone of our video through the use of props, costume, lighting etc. I also have never explored this creative role before and would like to challenge myself by taking on the responsibilities the role demands. 

Mood boards

Set Design/Location - Kitchen 

- 70s style to reflect period 
- Warm yellows, greens and oranges hues to capture the eccentric and bold era


Lighting 

- Yellow, red and orange tones to reflect the protagonist's suppressed anger and gives off the illusion of warmth and comfort, juxtaposing the reality



Costumes

- Wife: 70s dress/blouse with flared jeans to capture the time period and stereotypical clothes for a 'house wife' 

- Husband: 70s suit to reflect time period and stereotypical business 'bread winner' male 

     

Timeline & Song Lyrics

Song Lyrics - https://genius.com/The-scary-jokes-icicles-lyrics

The timeline below dissects the song into action, verses and time stamps.

Pre production worksheets

First Location Recce






Second location Recce - Adapted idea




Talent release

The talent release below prevents our group from being sued for the use of unauthorised images and song. Myself as the actor and my fellow actor Liam have both signed our names on the form to give authorisation to take part in the music video as actors/performers. 




Legal and Ethical


The form below states the legal and ethical issues we may face with the production of our music video and how we have solved/justified them.



Storyboard & Animatic 

As we created our storyboard (using photographs) we developed our idea to be more narrative based and have incorporated a concept that depicts the male protagonist imagining/longing/mourning (up for interpretation) the female protagonist. The female protagonist will be lip syncing and the male protagonist will be dancing/in thought throughout the video. A variation of five-six settings/locations will be cut up between the shots, each ranging in both performance and narrative visuals, in the style of a 2000s home video and a super 8, 70s aesthetic.

Some images in the storyboard have glitches on them as we photoshopped the female protagonist out of certain images to make the male protagonist look alone, giving the illusion that he is longing for her and was isolated all along. 

Animatic one - using storyboard images 


After reviewing the visuals of both my animatic and our storyboard we decided to capture more aesthetic shots of the forest setting e.g leaves falling, trees etc. as this allows us to fill out the music video with visuals that capture the music video's abstract tone. 

The images mentioned are shown below:









Animatic two -using new shots

For the second animatic, I added a super 8mm camera overlay to capture the 'home-made video' aesthetic. I also cut the shots up without following the storyboard, this is because I felt it was a more organic process having to cut and add scenes to the song as I went along. I also prefer this outcome of the music video animatic then the previous once because it captured more of a story and included the  abstract artsy shots of the scenery. 

Production/Shooting Schedule


Risk Assessment

The form below states the risk hazards that may occur on set and how we as a crew will solve/reduce  the hazard if it occurs. 


Costume sheets

The two images below depict the costumes my crew and I have decided for the characters and we have also created back up costumes incase we are not able to retain the initial costumes we want. 


Lip Sync - Practise/test

The video below is of me lip syncing the lyrics to the song for our music video, I created this to practise my pronunciation of the words and to make sure I was in time and prepared for production. 


Post-Production

Shot logging

My group and I shot a large amount of footage and it was hard to order and name the scenes separately so I decided to shot log them into folders. When editing I found this was an effective way in helping me be organised. 

Cutting Scenes, adding effects

To edit my music video I used the program After Effects. In the beginning of the post-production process I layered my voice over clips in time with my audio, then cut all scenes. 

After cutting my scenes I began to add visual effects. To do this I masked certain shots e.g making the characters disappear out of frame and cloned characters. I added these effects to make the music video more visually enticing and thought it would be a clever way to make the audience look deeper into the symbolism and meaning behind the effects within the storyline, and what they represent. 

After I completed my visual effects I then added a film grain effect to my footage to give it a  'home video' look as this was the style and aesthetic my group and I wanted to capture. I also added a film burn effect/overlay that I cut between scenes to transition smoothly between shots. Lastly, I added a super 8mm border to the whole footage to make it look as though it were shot on film. 

Draft One

Add the following: 
- editing process
 
Feedback:

- cut down the duration of shots
- build up to nature shots
- include close ups 
- shoot another close up shot of lip sync 
- vary shots 

Draft Two


Feedback

- Add more colour grade 

Final Cut

For my final cut I was asked to add a colour grade. As I had already added a film burn effect that enhanced the vibrancy of the colours in my shots, I didn't need to add a heavy colour grade and simply enhanced the exposure and added a yellow/green highlight to my footage. Overall I thought this draft of my music video was best as it captured the 'home video' aesthetic and the colour grade added a warm tone to the visuals, giving it a nostalgic feeling. 

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