Music Video Evaluation

This was by far the hardest unit I have encountered during this course. From the start I was forced to deal with problem after problem. The first major problem I encountered was the original location I intended to shoot my music video at. I managed to agree to film my music video at a local bowling alley which I thought would be a great location in order for me to obtain footage; However due to staffing issues at the location, it was deemed impossible for me to shoot my video. I therefore had to create a completely different plan that would fit a different song, the only thing that remained from my original plan were the cast who agreed to star in my music video.

I decided to choose the song 'Head.Cars.Bending' by 'The 1975', which had a really nice beat and style to it which I felt I would be able to quickly create a video for. The added bonus that came with this song was that it didn't already have a music video produced for it and therefore I would not be influenced to copy a similar style that a song may have already in a video. I did view music videos that the band and similar groups had produced as part of my research (Unit 2) to gain more of an understanding for when it came to producing a music video of my own.

I encountered further problems through technical issues. Two cameras I had taken out with me to start filming the video were not working correctly, therefore my shooting dates were pushed back further. In the end, the entirety of my footage was shot in one night.

From my research I noticed that music videos that had the same sort of style music to the song i had chosen used a black and white filter on the footage to create a dramatic feel to the video. This is a convention that I decided to use for my own video. To do this I used the 'ProcAmp' feature and lowered the saturation of the shot which created a black and white look to my shots which I felt accompanied my song well. Some of the files I recorded were shot at night and therefore when i went through the same process of editing with them, it was difficult to view what was happening in the frame. I therefore had to raise the brightness which may have decreased the quality of the footage slightly, however it meant that you could see what was happening within the frame.



Also from my research of music videos (Unit 2) I realised a lot of music videos, not just the genre of song I was using, cropped the top and bottom of all the shots that were used. I decided to try this convention on my own videos and was impressed with the professional, cinematic look it gave my footage and therefore I included it throughout my music video.


For the whole duration of the time I spent filming, I had a GoPro situated on the dashboard of the car in which the cast of my music video spent the majority of their time. This allowed me to obtain large amounts of footage (Over 3 hours worth of footage) and capture the whole surroundings of the car due to the curved 'Fish eye' effect that the GoPro produces. This meant I had large amounts of footage that I did not originally plan on capturing however turned out to be extremely useful. The only negative aspect that comes along with the GoPro is the quality of the footage. The quality isn't as good as the footage I shot on the Canon 600D, however it provides a unique angle and perspective, one that is rarely used in music videos, so therefore I am pleased with it as I did wants certain parts of my footage to be experimental.