Music Video - Final Evaluation
For this assignment, my group - consisting of Devon, Akash, Jonathan, Kaenat, Ramalex and myself - created a music video for a mashup of the songs "Fall Apart" by Post Malone and "Changes" by xxxtentacion, chosen by Kaenat. This mashup follows the story of a youth with a broken heart, who’s struggling to come to terms with their failed relationship. Colloquialisms such as “you was my shawty I thought” emphasises not only the age of character that the vocalist portrays, but the target demographic for this song. First used in North America, “shawty” is a slang word derived from the noun “shorty”, and is typically used as a nickname by teenage males for their partners, or to refer to an attractive woman. The phonetic spelling of the term also reflects upon the standard American accent, linking to the nationality of the two singers in this mashup. This song also touches on the superficiality of the relationship. The line “all this damn jewelry I bought” suggests that the character feels as though material items are important in maintaining a relationship, perhaps more so than having an emotional connection. It hints that the character’s relationship was shallow, though despite this he’s still struggling with being dumped. This can relate to the famous American Dream - linking to the American roots of the two songs used for this mashup - and makes the listener wonder whether the character is being hit harder by losing his girlfriend, or whether he was more in love with the idea of being in a relationship and so is hurting because he no longer has this. While the American Dream tends to represent equal opportunities and chances of success for all, it is also interpreted as having a perfect family, and so perhaps the character was desperate to hold onto his relationship - despite the superficiality of it - by any means possible. Now that this is gone, his shot at achieving the American Dream has also diminished.
My music video was shot in black and white to tie into the theme of loneliness that comes alongside a recent breakup. Black and white is also an idiom for the extremes of everything - tying into the extreme feelings of loss, frustration and sadness that the characters are feeling. Some of our conventions include the closeups we shot of our actors. This is typical of music video for songs with gloomy lyrics, and helped to represent the feelings of our characters. Flash cuts were used to portray the speed at which things in life change, while the action itself was slow to create contrast. Contrasts can be used to represent confusion - an emotion that goes alongside a breakup - thus creating an effective visual representation for our song.
The production process involved gathering ideas, completing a health and safety sheet and ensuring that we had all of our equipment ready before going out to shoot. My role was working behind the scenes to ensure that the actors knew what they needed to be doing, aiding with the filming, offering new ideas and ensuring that our paperwork was filled out. An original idea was to have me in front of the camera playing my guitar for some scenes, but this idea was cut as the song doesn't feature any acoustic guitar. Because we were using our own phones for the filming of this video, we didn't need to borrow or buy any cameras. It also made it easier to capture footage, and meant that there was less time needed for setting up. We used the Coulsdon College field to film our video as not only is it accessible for every member of the group, but it fits the setting that we need for our video perfectly. The vast, empty field ties into the recurring theme of loneliness, while the tree-filled area allows for some dramatic long-shots and mid-shots.
In my opinion, our group did well with communication outside of college. I set up a group chat as well as a group email network and a google document that we all had access to so that we could easily share work, edit our video proposal and exchange ideas. This helped with our organisation, as well as allowing everyone to stay in the loop as to what was happening. As well this, the editing - mostly completed by Jonathan, who has the most experience with editing in the group - was a success. The footage was all recoloured to black and white, the footage was arranged in a way that fitted with the lyrics of our song and transitions between each shot have been made seamless. The editing ties our video together and makes it seem like a professional product. The camera work was another of my group's strengths. A combination of shots and pans allows an artistic approach to the visual narrative. We worked together to ensure that everybody got a chance to have a go with filming and supporting the video creation process, and I believe that this contributed to our success.
However, there were a few areas where our group could have improved. Our overall teamwork could have improved, as there became quite a divide between the half of our group that were working on the video creation and those who were ensuring that the written work was up to date. There was an inequality with the distribution of work as there were only two actors that got to be in front of the camera, and for the most part the filming came down to one person. The written work was left to a few individuals to complete. The group's planning could have been improved as well. For the first few days, filming was going on without any specific plan or storyboard in place. This caused a lot of confusion and clash of opinions. As well as this, not enough footage was created at first as the actors struggled to maintain serious behind the camera, so multiple filming sessions were required to ensure that we had what we needed.
When we showed our video to other people in order to gather feedback, the response was mostly positive. Our viewers liked our camera angles and pan shot, and thought that the use of greyscale was a clever touch. However, one person did say that the video was lacking in action and wasn't engaging enough. This feedback was helpful as it allows a preview of the kind of comments we would receive if this video was distributed to the wider public. Previews by members of the general target audience - which, for this video, is the teenage demographic - allows an insight into what aspects of a video need to be changed or edited to improve it before its general release.
My music video was shot in black and white to tie into the theme of loneliness that comes alongside a recent breakup. Black and white is also an idiom for the extremes of everything - tying into the extreme feelings of loss, frustration and sadness that the characters are feeling. Some of our conventions include the closeups we shot of our actors. This is typical of music video for songs with gloomy lyrics, and helped to represent the feelings of our characters. Flash cuts were used to portray the speed at which things in life change, while the action itself was slow to create contrast. Contrasts can be used to represent confusion - an emotion that goes alongside a breakup - thus creating an effective visual representation for our song.
The production process involved gathering ideas, completing a health and safety sheet and ensuring that we had all of our equipment ready before going out to shoot. My role was working behind the scenes to ensure that the actors knew what they needed to be doing, aiding with the filming, offering new ideas and ensuring that our paperwork was filled out. An original idea was to have me in front of the camera playing my guitar for some scenes, but this idea was cut as the song doesn't feature any acoustic guitar. Because we were using our own phones for the filming of this video, we didn't need to borrow or buy any cameras. It also made it easier to capture footage, and meant that there was less time needed for setting up. We used the Coulsdon College field to film our video as not only is it accessible for every member of the group, but it fits the setting that we need for our video perfectly. The vast, empty field ties into the recurring theme of loneliness, while the tree-filled area allows for some dramatic long-shots and mid-shots.
In my opinion, our group did well with communication outside of college. I set up a group chat as well as a group email network and a google document that we all had access to so that we could easily share work, edit our video proposal and exchange ideas. This helped with our organisation, as well as allowing everyone to stay in the loop as to what was happening. As well this, the editing - mostly completed by Jonathan, who has the most experience with editing in the group - was a success. The footage was all recoloured to black and white, the footage was arranged in a way that fitted with the lyrics of our song and transitions between each shot have been made seamless. The editing ties our video together and makes it seem like a professional product. The camera work was another of my group's strengths. A combination of shots and pans allows an artistic approach to the visual narrative. We worked together to ensure that everybody got a chance to have a go with filming and supporting the video creation process, and I believe that this contributed to our success.
However, there were a few areas where our group could have improved. Our overall teamwork could have improved, as there became quite a divide between the half of our group that were working on the video creation and those who were ensuring that the written work was up to date. There was an inequality with the distribution of work as there were only two actors that got to be in front of the camera, and for the most part the filming came down to one person. The written work was left to a few individuals to complete. The group's planning could have been improved as well. For the first few days, filming was going on without any specific plan or storyboard in place. This caused a lot of confusion and clash of opinions. As well as this, not enough footage was created at first as the actors struggled to maintain serious behind the camera, so multiple filming sessions were required to ensure that we had what we needed.
When we showed our video to other people in order to gather feedback, the response was mostly positive. Our viewers liked our camera angles and pan shot, and thought that the use of greyscale was a clever touch. However, one person did say that the video was lacking in action and wasn't engaging enough. This feedback was helpful as it allows a preview of the kind of comments we would receive if this video was distributed to the wider public. Previews by members of the general target audience - which, for this video, is the teenage demographic - allows an insight into what aspects of a video need to be changed or edited to improve it before its general release.
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