AOB5 - Evaluation

The track our group decided to create a music video for was a cover of "Feeling Good", performed by Muse. Firstly, Sophie and I decided that we'd prefer working together as a duo, as appose to a bigger group to avoid dependance on three/four people, and that problems that occurred could be corrected efficiently and quickly, therefore reducing the amount of time taken away from filming and editing - a part of the production we felt needed the most time devoted too. I felt Sophie and I developed a brilliant working relationship whilst creating our music video, choosing to have an equal input in both production, editing and direction. Exchanging contact details almost immediately, we were able to progress hastily through the pre-production stages of the video and concentrate on producing the best footage for the video. The haste also allowed us to meet deadlines or become ahead of time for further planning and experiments. Soph and I agreed on most of the main concepts in the production, but decided to create two separate videos so we could convey our original ideas and concepts in two different ways, yet allow us to both have freedom to have what we wanted in the video without dislike from the other peer.

In the planning stages, the first thing we did was choose the song and this happened almost at great speed as we developed a neat system to choose our song so we could begin pre-production immediately. We created a shortlist of three songs with our ideas and intentions and eventually the Muse track was selected, and we were able to begin with the full production. I felt what we did here was an example of how well we worked together. This reflected how well we understood each other and that we were capable of moving forward quickly and acting decisively without intervention from a teacher. In hindsight, if I could change something, I'd make this song choice/plan/initial ideas discussion last for around two lessons as appose to one so we could have had a clearer vision of what we wanted to achieve by the end of the unit.

Following on from this, we entered our pre-production stage, selecting locations suitable to our themes and ideas, booking equipment and completing the relevant risk assessments. The treatment we created for the client was to create a weird, quirky video which would suit the artist. The video represents the instability of a man's mind, and his inability to cope with the switch between reality and illusion. As a group, we decided that the music video itself didn't require story boarding or an animatic due to the nature of the video: fast cutting, instability of a human mind and querky. We agreed quickly that we wanted it to represent spontaneous mind choices. This lead to our filming. Looking back, I felt that we were rushing slightly to complete the filming and editing, although we were ahead of our deadlines. If we had performed more steadily in the group, we could have spent more time experimenting with props and videos, allowing the outcome of the video to look less rushed at parts and more controlled in terms of looking spontaneous. Throughout the shoot, we previously had a strong idea on what shots we wanted to capture, so that the majority of the shots in the video were not filmed with an idea that has just been come up with.

In comparison of the real video of Muse's "Feeling Good', I feel ours does not match the standards of the professional industry due to a number of reasons. As it's part of a college project, we had limited access to certain locations, equipment and props, therefore had to find cost effective solutions for the effects we wanted to achieve. We spent around three hours experimenting with one idea that we felt would work with the "trapped inside his mind" theme. Sophie and I thought that the idea of arms appearing to break through the floor would be a good idea with a man trapped inside them. We spent hours looking for arms of a mannequin, however, due to the amount we required and limited amount of funds we had available, we were forced to look for other alternatives. Acting upon this instantly, we felt that we could either papier-mache stuffed latex gloves, and we pushed through with an experiment. After spending an hour on the production of just one hand we felt that this could waste time which would be valuable in editing and production. One alternative to this was just stuffing the gloves with newspaper and then painting them black which allowed us to create around 10 to create the illusion of appearing through the floor and chairs and casting shadows on the projection - the affect that we desired. If we had access to industry standard tools, softwares and budgets we could have portrayed our messages in a much more desirable manner, however, I feel that Sophie and I made good use of the resources we had available.

To avoid similarities with the original video, we thought we'd come at the video from a totally different angle. Looking at my version of the video, and of Sophie's, I think our videos are original and some of the concepts and ideas that we have involved are completely new, although we have utilised techniques that have been used in the industry in terms of shots, lighting and editing. Our group was fortunate enough to have access to a track and crane to create smooth shots and transitions, which allowed us to then create contrasting shots which look as if the camera/room is shaking. This was one of the highlights for the production of the music video - able to create clear shots that capture everything we needed. I felt this sort of filming technique was appropriate for our style of music video, so we could then create the contrast. One technique I think that was applied that has been used in the original video was the use made of a spacious, one coloured room. For both videos I feel it's affective as it's a big, full song which requires a lot of imagery to be captured. However, another attribute that we used that featured in the original video was the use of smooth shots for the original verse then an added earthquake effect in the chorus. I felt my version of the video didn't quite match the standard of that in the original video due to the fact it looks over the top at times. Perhaps with more time dedicated to the editing I could have made the effect seem more dynamic as appose to a standard effect thrown over the top. To try and replicate industry standards however, we chose to use Sony HD cameras to exaggerate the quality of our music video.