EVAULATION

Teacher's Comments

Abstract vs Narrative Visuals

After my focus group were shown the first draft, I had to reevaluate the direction of the music video, and this included deciding if I wanted a narrative featured in the video. My first thoughts when creating the video and choosing the song, On My Mind, were centred around sticking to the lyrics of the song, and have my video feature a narrative, following Imogen leaving some sort of relationship toxic partnership, and now being fine and free. However, after watching my first draft of the video with my focus group, it was clear that despite my intentions begin to reflect the lyrics, I was actually not really presenting them clearly through my visuals. After deciding to change my song to a more abstract, alternative and laid back song by FKJ, I decided to commit to the idea of using abstract visuals as opposed to a clear and structured narrative.

I explored and analysed both types of videos, and found some of the common conventions in abstract music videos were:
- more experimental
-more visually captivating? than a narrative?
-creates a feeling or mood that enhances the listening experience, rather than taking away their attention from it

So, by rejecting the traditional narrative idea seen in Goodwin's theory, I am conforming to the disjuncture-visuals concept, where the shots aren't used to illustrate/ explain the lyrics- they ignore the song and focus more on the mood/ atmosphere that the song provides.

Feedback from Second Draft

Feedback from Video


After showing my second draft to my focus group I asked them to feedback what they thought about the new cut.
They preferred the new song as it fitted much better with the visuals. They also liked the overlays I used as they represented the past of the couple being watched back on a VHS player or as a video, and that made the home- footage feel of some shots really come together.
However they didint like how I kept switching between two overlays for that narrative of the story, as it didn't feel like one was being committed to.
They preferred the softer one that says 'play' to the cleaner, tidier overlay that looked as though you were looking at the shots through a camera, not watching it back.
They also pointed out that song of the lip-synching was not in time with the music for the first part of the song.
They liked the shot of the girls with the iPhone overlay as it switched things up to front-camera, and gave the video an even more personal touch, so suggested that I include more of those.
The added animations went down really well, and the focus group liked how the titles were now established & defined with the animations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pARTZcWiPY

New Music Video Breakdown

My goal for the new video: take a more of an abstract design , using visuals and only having an implied narrative, as opposed to an explicit storyline.

Genre: the song does not conform to a particular genre, but the hybrid genres it at times conformed to would be Alternative/ Chill Funk

Location: I chose to use the same footage from my first draft,keeping the locations of the beach and bed, however I also added scenes in the bath, which added another dimension and lighting style in the video.

Casting : Imogen , my main model, is LUNA for this production. Her girlfriend, Lydia, is her girlfriend in the music video.


Mis-en-scene: I wanted to create a mis en scene that included contrasting warm and cool tones, and the general colours used are purple (her hair, the bath water) yellow/ orange (lanterns, titles), grey (the cliffs & the overlays used)
The lighting between the shots were quite consistent, however I purposely used different lighting for the 'flashback' scenes.;

Teaser Trailer

I also edited the footage from Imogen's music video, to make a teaser trailer for the music video. Often, artists will release teaser trailers for the release of an album or video, and it often contains similar themes and hints at what the content will be like once it is released.