First thing i did was decide what i wanted to do, I decided that I would like to do a music video. I want to make a music video because last year I got the opportunity to make one as a group and enjoyed the process even though I felt that it wasn't as good as it could've been, my hope is that with this project I'll be able to make the video I wish I could've made the first time.

 

 I spent this week attempting to find someone to work with, I had initally intended on working with an artist called dreads but this don't end up working out. After contacting different artist I knew I managed to find another artist called "Rumble MC" that would be able to make the video with me, working with her should prove to be quite easy due to the fact that she seems to be enthusiastic .

 

This week I've been focusing on research, one of the things I've been doing is looking at other music videos, and trying to analyse them so that I can pick up some techniques and some inspiration for what I might want to do. Some of the music videos I looked at include;                                                                                                                                                    Playboi Carti - Magnolia                                                                                                                    Slowthai - Jiggle                                                                                                                                    Daniel OG - Plan                                                                                                                                House Of Pharaohs - Run With Me                                                                                                     I chose to look at these music videos and some other one like them because they're all relatively low budget, the reason I wanted to only look at these types of videos is because I didn't want to bother wasting my time looking at videos that use techniques and equipment that I wouldn't be able to replicate. One of the things I think would be good to replicate is the way the videos introduce people into the frame. A good example of this can be seen in Daniel OG's video for "Plan" when Daniel is on his own rapping and then his friends enter the shot on the beat, this is enhanced by the editor using jump cuts.

 

My focus this week was on researching different techniques for filming and editing my video, I did this by looking at various different youtube videos that explained things such as what camera settings are ideal, things you should avoid doing when on a shoot and how to do certain effects in adobe premier. the videos I found on youtube will definately change my outlook on how a music video should be made and hopefully make this video come out better than my last.

 

 

I spent this week finishing up my research, the first thing I did was create a survey about music and music videos. Once finished I distributed it amongst my classmates and friends, I feel that distributing it this way would be beneficial because the majority of the people that filled it out are around my age and they'll be the target audience of the video. Another thing I did was an interview with the artist I decided to make the video with, I decided to get an interview with the artist instead of someone that makes music videos because I thought it'd be interesting to document her perspective.

 

This week was spent doing planing the video, initally after listening to the song on repeat for what felt like weeks and analysing the lyrics,  I came up with an idea that i thought would be good. After developing this idea I then decided to meet up with the artist to get her opinion on my idea and to allow her to add to it seeing as it is her song it'd be still to do otherwise. Doing so was a good idea, she was able to give me a insight into what she meant with some of the lyrics and also aided me in choosing places that'd be relevant to film in.

 

 

I used this week to get all of the pre-production done, I found this process to be rather easy due to the fact that I wasn't going to be working with a large crew or any actors. When it came to planning the video it wasn't all that difficult, this is because I was able to work with the artist to come up with what we thought would make good visuals for the video, being able to feed off of each other's creativity really helped speed things along.

 

 

This week I shot the video, the first thing I had to do was get the equipment that I was renting out from "Fatllama.com". Once I got that out of the way I then went to go meet up with everyone that would be in the video, unfortunately, everyone was running late so everything on the schedule got pushed back. This delay resulted in me deciding to pass up certain locations for ones that'd be more convenient to get to, I don't think this will affect the video in a negative way, this is because the music video is almost entirely performance, therefore, the change in location shouldn't matter due to the locations not being an integral part of the idea for the video.

Week 9 - 20/05/19

This week was the week of editing, before starting the edit I decided to take a look at some youtube videos so that I could attempt to learn some new techniques to add to the video. one of the effects I tried to reproduce was a paper unfolding transition effect, I feel like the effect makes the video look more interesting. The editing process was a rather long process. I started out by assessing all the footage I got and removing everything I wasn't going to use, then I went through all the clips and imported all the parts I wanted into the timeline so that I could order them. 

Once I'd gone through a few different iterations of the sequence I then added the effects.

 

 

After coming up with an edit I was somewhat happy with I decieded to conduct an informal focus group by showing the video to some of my friends and family so that I could get a bit of feedback that I then used to make some tweaks to the video. This was a good thing to do because it allowed me to get a different perspective and also helped me see some of the errors I failed to address.

In my opinion, I would say that I achieved my goal of making a music video that was higher quality than my last attempt at making one, although it is not perfect I am happy with the video. One of the things I like about the video is the fact that throughout the entirety of the music video everyone generally seems comfortable on camera unlike the last video that I made where you could sense the awkwardness between the actors through the camera, having the people on camera seem comfortable in a video is important because even though you wouldn't necessarily think that these people look comfortable when watching a video if they were to look uncomfortable it would be very jarring and distract you from the rest of the video. Another thing I like about my video is the smoothness of the camera movements, I'm fond of the camera movement In this video because they're smooth like butter this is thanks to the gimbal that I rented out. The camera movements in the video help up the quality of the video, this is because not only does it looks satisfying it also matches the vibe of the song, it matches the vibe of the song because although the beat isn't low energy it utilises a soft pallet of sounds which translates to the variation in the camera angles in each shot. Something else I like about the video is the transitions, I like the transitions in the video because they are an intriguing way to change from shot to shot and in my opinion are not overused. I am specifically fond of the one where you see "Rumble MC" going to kick the camera and as her foot exists the frame a different shot of her standing on a wall near the houses of parliaments is revealed beneath the frame her kicking the camera, I like this one because it is not very complex but at the same time is very visually pleasing.

Unfortunately this video did not come out perfect and definitely has many flaws within it. One of these floors is the focus, unfortunately when filming I failed to correctly adjust the focus on multiple different occasions while shooting, this is hard to miss when watching the video due to the fact that quite a few of these shots that I put in the final edit we're out of focus, this problem was mainly caused by me failing to take into account that as I moved with the gimbal I would have to constantly readjust the focus if I wanted to keep everything in focus while moving around. This problem could have been avoided if I would have looked at the footage after shooting but unfortunately I decided not to due to the fact that we were running behind schedule on the day of filming and I was attempting to make up time. One of the other problems with the video is the Framing, although I am fond of the camera movement I was able to achieve with the gimbal it did cause some problems when shooting, this was due to me not being familiar with using a gimbal and struggling to control it during some of the shots, this resulted in "Rumble MC's" head being cut off in a few of the shots. I attempted to rectify this problem while editing by adding black bars to the video and utilising keyframes to move the video according to how much of her was in shot, this definitely helped but in hindsight if I were to do this shoot over again I would definitely be sure to make sure I used a wider lens or make sure I was a little bit further back to avoid this from happening.

This article focuses on the young "emo rapper" Juice WRLD, he is a relatively new artist that has been steering away from the usual boastful subject matter of most rappers song and instead opting to explore his insecurities and shortcomings. He believes that his fans can relate to songs like this more that they can relate to the extravagant lives that some rappers lead and rap about. I believe that the idea that Juice WRLD belive's his music should be something that his fans can relate to is an idea that I'll attempt to bring over to my music video by making the video contain things that the target audience can relate to.

This article discusses the plight of female artists, some of the artists covered in the article were successful but unfortunately, the majority have been finding themselves falling victim to the box they often find themselves put in. The main message of the article is that female artists have been having a hard time getting recognition and an even harder time sustaining it once the lucky few have attained it, but recently things have started to look up for them, as artist such as "princess nokia, stef london and lady leshurr's" careers have been taking off. Viewing this article will change the way I intend on shooting the video, I intend on trying to use angles in the video that empower the artist over any other type.

The subject of this article is the subjugation of grime and drill artists, it's written by Konan from the duo "Krept & Konan" and talks about how the police choose to target artists like them and their music in a misguided attempt to reduce crime even though by suppressing them and their means for expression all they are doing is attempting to remove some of the role models that may compel some misguided young people to put down their knives and pic a mic's instead. This article has made me appreciate the positive aspects of the song I'll be creating a video for therefore I intend on attempting to work the message of the song into the video.

FETTI is a song featuring Playboi Carti, Da$h and Maxo Kream. This music video is ironically low budget when you consider the amount that money is show and referenced to in the lyrics but, as I intend on making my video very little money i thought it'd be fitting to look at a video like this. This video features pretty much no effects and yet it still is quite good, I believe this to be true because the lack of effects highlights what the subjects of the video are actually doing. one thing the is done in the video to supplement this lack of effects is b-roll, the combination of these two things makes the lack of effects throughout the majority of the video an afterthought as when watching the video your not thinking that it is bland. I hope to be able to emulate this in my own video by attempting to make a video that does need effects, instead, I hope that any effects I use merely enhance the video.

Herb Shuttles is a song off of The Underachievers' debut mixtape "Indogism" that was produced by Roca Beats, this song quickly became the duo's most popular song and lead to them getting signed to the record label Brainfeeder/Flying Lotus. The music video for their hit song features a plethora of effects ranging from on beat jump cuts to animations and other trippy visuals. Viewing this music video has proved very beneficial, I feel this way because the sheer amount of effects used in the video has given me inspiration for different types of effects I could attempt to recreate on my own project.  

YouTube. (2019). 5 MORE Tips To Make BETTER Music Videos!. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqYNkFRkiEo&list=PLivcnA3W86kM2KCP_XD2xaozuwKI7oM_w&index=3&t=0s 

YCImaging is an independent director that creates youtube videos when he is not busy creating music videos. The video of his I've chosen to look at is one that directly addresses what I should be doing when making my video, throughout the video, he discusses different techniques and ideas that a music video director should be taking into consideration when making music videos. one of the things he talks about in the video that I think I'll definitely try to take into consideration when making my video is the idea that you should shoot close up, mid shot and wide shots so that regardless of whatever else you shoot you'll have those shots as your baseline.