Music Video Evaluation

 Music Video Evaluation

For the Music Video Unit, I had to start off by researching Andrew Goodwin and his theory on music videos. First I took notes of information I found and I then used this later on when I found more detailed information about him and his beliefs when it comes to music videos. I think this went quite well as I collected a fair quantity of information on him. This information would be useful for my next task which was analysing three music videos and applying elements of Goodwin's theory to them to depict them in further detail. Overall I think this part was quite successful as my previous knowledge of Andrew Goodwin helped me when analysing but I also picked three music videos that drastically varied in styles and themes giving me more of a variety of things to talk about and take into account when planning my own music video. If I was to improve on this section, upon reflection, I wish I had gone into a bit more detail. 

The next part of the unit was planning my music video so I started by picking a song and I knew Immediately I wanted to go with more of a melancholy song with an overruling tone and atmosphere that matched that melancholy feeling. So after listening to a few of my final options I decided on 4th July by Sufjan Stevens. I did research into the song and the album and from the information I had gathered I found out the album Carrie and Lowel was all about the strained relationship the artist had with his mother and him coming to terms with her death. 4th July is the very centre of that album which I think is why I was drawn to it because the sad tone of the whole album shines through while having a very soft feel to it. Since the song had no existing music video, the use of this information was very helpful for coming up with my interpretation of the song and ideas for how I would visually represent it. After listening to the song on repeat and using the information on the sings history, I decided that I wanted to take the song's core theme of death but instead of having a more personalised feel to it, I would make it more of a universal theme about how life is short and in a modern society we have become very systematic and routine ridden and don't often make time to rest and appreciate the finer things in life or come to terms with and grieve the hard and sad moments giving it the overarching message that life itself feels like its dying. So now I had my song and theme I made a mood board for ideas of shots I wanted to use which was very useful as I felt due to the shots I wanted to get being very short and a lot of them, that a storyboard wouldn't be very helpful in illustrating my ideas so having a mood board with images of my initial image of the video gave me something to go back to not only when planning my individual shots, but also when I was editing to remind my self of the finished look I wanted to achieve. With a more specific idea of what I wanted my shots to be and look like, I went through the lyrics of the song and in alignment with Andrew Goodwin's theory on lyrics being represented through visuals and created a short list of all the shots I wanted to get. This was really helpful because it was very clear and acted as a checklist so I could easily plan what days I could get specific shots as I wanted to use another person and I could group a lot of the shots into one filming period so it cut my filming time down significantly as I knew every shot I had to get and when I could get it. I didn't feel it was necessary to make an equipment list as all I needed was a camera and a tripod which I already owned so I felt it unnecessary to make a list for one item I needed. 

When filming I was surprised at how fast I became confident with the camera because production isn't my strong point in the process as I prefer the pre-production and post-production process but I think the fact I was organised die to the shot list made this less stressful and allowed me to enjoy the experience more. When I had finally gathered all my footage I uploaded it to my computer and started editing in premiere pro. I reused a lot of shots to keep on the theme as I wanted to illustrate how life is very fast-paced, systematic and repetitive. To keep in theme with the overarching melancholy and depressing tone I desaturated all the footage and upon reflection and constructive criticism of my first cut, I made it so in the more repetitive parts that the desaturation happened over time by using keyframes to keep the repetitive parts of the music video interesting and slightly different.  

To conclude I would say that overall, this Unit went quite well and while there were parts I feel I could have executed better, generally speaking, the whole process was quite organised and satisfying and enjoyable.