Music Video 

Draft 1

think i need to upload a better quality version...

Evaluation

For this project we had to make a music video that fit the artist demographic. The artist I chose was Billie Eilish which meant the target audience is teenagers to young adults who prefer darker themed and unique music. The music video theme I decided to use was narrative based, this is a music video that features a storyline. These storylines can have deep meanings or be really simple but because Billie Eilish was my artist I wanted a deeper topic so I picked nightmares. The storyline I decided to go with involved a main character who was entering nightmares every time they slept and they couldn't escape it. Someone was also in the nightmares with her almost controlling them and you witness her running away from them countless times, but you never see this individual. Her life ends up continuing in the same manner it started in showing a full circle and no improvements. I then started filming after my research and pre production which meant I needed an actor and someone to possibly help me. Caitlin Stokes took on the role of being my main character and Heather Codd joined and helped in some of the situations by doing lighting and playing the music. I wanted the filming to be done in handheld motion as it shows a sense of fear through the shakiness and could conitate to someone watching. This all came together well to where I started my post production. I wasn't sure on what style I wanted to edit in so I tried to follow the music beats. I decided I didn't want all my clips to do that though so only one verse does. Then the rest of the verses are slowly getting less fast paced involving less cuts. This would signify the situation is getting worse since a slower pace fits with a sad and lost attitude better. Though I could argue and say the fast pace was showing how hectic and overwhelming her mind was which was better suited.

I didn't feel very confident when filming as I've never taken on a camera roll for class tasks and never knew the best way to get a shot. This meant filming took longer than it should have as I always second guessed myself as I wasn't confident in the role I was having to take on. I am also not a fan of directing as I'm not a good planner meaning it was very stressful to have to plan everything out and direct others. I made a storyboard to help with this and layed out every type of scene I will have to film in order. I relied on this when it came to filming and used it to direct and show Caitlin when she needed help understanding what to do. Caitlin is great with camera work so she really helped with offering different ways I could approach it and how to mix some different camera movements in like the tilted shot. While filming Heather would stand behind and use the college mini light box which was great at brining great lighting to the scene. The beach scene is the main scene I used the light box for as there was no natural lighting near by. Heather was really good at making sure she moved the lighting in the right direction to create less shadows. This helped with enchasing my scenes meaning I didn't have to edit the lighting in post production. I always feel more in my element editing. But this time around I didn't leave myself a lot of time to edit leading to rushing. I've made a very basic first draft that includes a couple opacity fades. But these fades are not well done as it is through Premiere Pro meaning I couldn't add my typical graphs to change the velocity. I would have added some effects or text if I had more time but I was pleased with the camera angles I used as using more makes it more impactful.

I think the idea was creative but it was very hard to film, especially the one at sea as it is winter and I didnt want Caitlin going into the sea in the cold temperature. But against all the things I couldn't really do because of factors I can't control I believe the storyline was pretty good and went well with the song choice I made. I struggle a lot with creating narratives so I'm really proud of what I came up with and how I managed to adapt to each setting. Even though I filmed multiple versions of each scene I still really struggled in editing it all together. I found nothing really followed so I had to go with a more trippy editing style for some sections. Especially the beach scene. None of my clips worked after each other as Caitlin never left the screen making it very jumpy in the camera angles. This is a mistake on my filming and directing and I wish I knew this before as we couldn't go back to the beach to film because of the distance.

My initial idea was to have a complete story and the chorus would be my main character fighting the need to sleep. These individual plots took a while to come up with and I ended up ditching it and changing the chorus into lip syncing. This was annoying because of how much time I spent on it but it worked better as it gave the storyline a rest and also allowed me to save time with filming as I was behind and couldn't afford filming loads of complicated scenes. It definitely made sense to do the lip syncing instead of a narrative for the chorus as when I was putting it together in editing it pulled the video together well and made it feel more like a music video. There would have been too much going on if I didn't ditch my original idea and no one would have been able to keep up with what's going on. Watching music videos should be a relaxing and fun thing to do so having a compact and complicated narrative wasn't going to work. Changing it meant it gave people time to consider what they have seen and to enjoy the music more.

I have learned overall that I need more work on filming so that when I get into the editing I can easily fit it all together instead of trying to fix it all. It would save me time and would make my work look more professional. Yes I may not be comfortable with a camera but I need to take up more class tasks with them instead of going with what i'm confident in. I need to challenge myself more. I could also ask people in the class who are good with cameras and filming to help me so that when it comes to class tasks I could feel more eager to take on the filming role. I've also learnt that there are so many styles of music videos and I wish I tried to adventure into one that's more unique and not used as often. It would have maybe fit my artist genre better as I went with the most traditional route which is the opposite of what Billie does.

I'm going to try and plan better for my next projects so that when I find myself in a time I'm struggling more in, I'll have a good structure to go back to and find it easier to get back onto track. This way I hopefully won't fall so far behind like I did in this project and wont find everything so stressful. This will be difficult but hopefully I'll find a method that will work and I will have better time keeping skills. I might find going into college on my days off might be a good idea as there will be less distractions and my mindset should be more productive. This way I will be able to complete more work on time. Or going even further, having one on one sessions to keep more up to date could be really helpful. Finding a new method will be the first step and then sticking to it is the next. I can trial run it through the next project which will mean I'll be more prepared for the FMP.

My music video links to my artist demographic as it portrays a dark theme that Billie Eilish shares in the majority of her music videos. The dark theme I had present was the nightmares following the main character around showing things people are scared of like snakes and drowning. Billie also tends to also have one main character to focus on in her music videos which is herself. So to replicate that I wanted to have one main focus being Caitlin. This way you don't make the music video to compact as a multi storyline would make it very complex. When sharing darker themes you want to keep the storyline direct so there is more chance of the message getting across. Billie always has a baseline of creepiness in her music videos which I achieved in my own which means it will link well to her target audience.