Music Video Post Analysis (Blog Post Three)

 I finished filming my music video approximately a week ago, and I can confidently say that I learned a lot from the experience.

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While Filming

I think the first factor that was a learning experience was creating the script itself. I had a rough idea on what I wanted the story behind the video to be, but executing it into a video where people can understand the concept being portrayed is the hard part. 

At Starbucks planning the video

I started scoping out where I wanted the music video to be shot and started working with my drone to do test shots. This biggest problem I faced with this is the weather, and how windy it was in the everglades. This made me have to work more efficiently, and I was not able to take many retakes. I also found it very hard to hold the camera steady while trying to record from desirable angles, I think I will definitely invest in a stabilizing or tripod in the future. I think the drone was a very good use, and I love the shots I was able to get with it. I also feel like it captures more of the surroundings and puts the actor in scope of a larger area, and that apps to the interpretation of the video. 

Testing out the drone footage 

In addition to filming, I also learned a lot about editing. It is most literally the backbone of the video. No matter how good of footage you have, it all comes done to the editing. I used a lot of flashing lights to make a more interesting transition from one scene to the other. I also utilzed the use of different colors to symbolize different time. The first half of the video has a more saturated filter on it, to kind of give it a more sentimental feel. When it goes back to the normal quality it kind of feels like a snap back to reality after being in her own head. 

Saturated

Unsaturated

Things that worked

One lucky accident that was not on purpose is actually the quick black screen flash separating the saturated and unsaturated scenes (Shown Below). I was using random black screens to place where I did not yet have the footage I needed, and that one clip kept getting shorted until it perfectly transitioned the two parts completely on beat. The funeral scenes came out how I planned, and actually better because I was able to get wide angle shots, and have them be steady. The spinning part also came how I wanted to. I did not want it to be perfect, because I wanted it to feel like the viewer was spinning around, so I think the unevenness of the shot fit in correctly. 

Struggles and how I overcame

I believe my biggest problem was how long the song is, and the amount of instrumental. I found it hard to fill up the whole video with unique footage, so my solution for this was to reuse footage, but portray it in a new way. I first reused the drone footage by having the ending footage of it going backwards be a scene. In addition, I reused all the memories from the beginning in a flash back sort of way with black and white and flashing lights. This helped me finish the video, and I feel it contributes more to the story. 

Conclusion

Overall, I had a blast filming this. I learned a lot about camera angling, and how to navigate editing apps. I also was able to find the deeper meaning of the song and use the various factors of mise-en-scene, editing, and camera to display this.