Evaluations and reflections

Parts of the project I enjoyed the most and least

• I really enjoyed making our own website for the entire project where we put all of the production journal in such as pre-production, storyboards and recce as well as the rest of the project, I liked the layout of the website so that the template I used looked like a film makers website, the website was made under the WIX website.

• I really enjoyed the editing of this piece, I learnt some new techniques as well as some experimentation with old, I was also able to get a lot of inspiration.

• I really enjoyed researching into the background topics for my music video, things such as works similar to mine, the broadcasting laws of drugs and alcohol and the broadcast laws of using strobe lights in broadcasting.

• I really enjoyed the concept of taking a small idea which didn’t consist of very much at the beginning and making something of it.

• I really enjoyed filming the music video in itself which was shot in 3 locations with my actor, I enjoyed the scenery of the locations I used and am glad I picked them.

• I really enjoyed the sketchbook element of the project such as story boarding, mind mapping, mood boarding and doing a production journal, this is because I am more able to be creative within the project rather than the whole thing being typed.

• One thing I didn’t enjoy as much was trying to get permission to film in locations that looked very derelict and abandoned, due to health and safety and legal consequences I had to get permission from the owner of the abandoned establishment, this was a lengthy process and in the end I used a place that was on a public field which is open to shooting films at without permission. I didn’t enjoy seeking permission because the owners of the places I was trying to film at either didn’t get back to me in time for my filming, wanted to charge me money to use the location or just said no in general which set back shoot 3 of the filming.

Self evaluation - strengths and weaknesses of project as a whole

Strengths

• The editing side of this project went really well in my opinion, I edited using the adobe creative suite which includes Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro, I used some very experimental editing techniques such as CC sphere, CC kaleida, CC mr smoothie, CC lens, CC flo motion, colorama and many more. The way I made this was by using adobe after effects for some of the compositions including the motion visuals I created and the heavily green screened parts and then imported them as well as other compositions into Premiere Pro, I also used a lot of double exposure blending modes to put the motion visuals and other clips on top of original clips to make a really trippy effect. Overall the editing worked well in my favor because it was extremely experimental and with all of the heavy effects and all of the clips at once.

• The paper work I have done for this project has gone really well, all of the elements of the pre-production in my opinion have been thoroughly researched in order to complete this project as well as some good analysis, some good visual references and mood board and overall successful detailed work.

• I feel as if the WIX website we had to create went really well, this is because I updated it whenever I had done something new to the project, the website also looked very aesthetically pleasing with the design templates, so overall I think I created a good, detailed blog.

• My research into broadcasting and strobe effects within a show or movie worked well in my favor because I knew that I had to take audiences with photosensitive epilepsy into consideration, because of this research I had to tone down the amount of strobing lights I was using in my music video to make it more suitable but so that it still had some trippy effects.

• The green screen effects that I used with my main actor flying went really well, at first I didn’t think it would due to the green screen lighting and shading being different all over the place, but when I used the key light effects in after effects I was able to use other green screen effects such as screen matte, dim white, dim black I was able to get rid of the different shadows that the footage left and then start applying other clips.

• The two presentations that I did for my project went really well, the first one was performed in front of a few people from my class and one of my teachers, the second presentation was to the whole class and it presented my final project as well as all of the production that I had to do for the music video, they both went really well in terms of having lots of information and having the presentations really visual.

• The strobe lights throughout with doing different shots as well as additional strobe lights which I applied using After Effects and Premiere Pro went really well, this made the music video very hypnotic and very visual.

• The inspirations and research into the inspirations and techniques gave me a lot of visuals to use for the final project and took my messy idea into a final project.

• The motion visuals I created using Adobe After effects went really well, they came from just storyboards and from using simple pictures and simple footage, I was able to make some really trippy visuals, I used effects such as colorama, CC flo motion, CC sphere, CC kaleida, double exposure, CC mr smoothie, CC lens and more, these were really effective and was a huge relief because the visuals I made were original and not stolen and edited really well.

• The client identification for this project was to find a client to produce a music video for their song, I found a SoundCloud producer who produces experimental and psychedelic hip hop tracks, I got permission from the artist "SFthrowed" to use the song, he said yes which was very successful, I did this early in the project as well which put me ahead of myself which was good, I had a few people I was going to use but this song was the right one for me.

Weaknesses

• One of the weaknesses was the length of some of the shots in the editing, although there was some cleverly edited shits which were shorter than 0.5 seconds at some points which is a positive thing, there were still some extremely long shots at the beginning which I could've cut down a bit more, so next time when doing a project I am going to cut it down a bit more to make it a lot more entertaining with its shorter shots.

• Because the idea at first was a very random and experimental one where the main themes were based around a journey as well as a drug trip, the idea was a bit messy and unstructured to the point where I had no inspiration to write a treatment because I didn’t know where to start and I wanted quite a lot of it to be experimental, I wrote one in the end and it took a while to think of a storyline and I overcame this weakness just by getting more and more inspiration from other work as well as intellectual thoughts.

• Although the WIX website was being updated throughout the project, towards the end of the project I haven't been updating it much because of being busy with the editing of the final piece which is a weakness, to improve this I will update it in the future.

• Another weakness is the fact that the story of the music video doesn’t make sense at all as well as I wanted to, this is because I didn’t really stick to the treatment of the piece as well as I should have, although the storyline doesn’t make sense, it works well in my favor because of the striking visuals and conceptual art that I made to count towards this music video.

• Some of the camera movements and angles that I did weren't as professional as I hoped they would be but this worked well in my favor as I applied all of the effects but in future projects I am going to do some test footage and really consider the camera movements I am going to do.

• Another weakness was that I didn’t really stick to the scheduling of my video, I planned to shoot earlier than I did and one of my shoots was very last minute, even though the music video was very successful in the end the scheduling was a bit off, to improve future projects I am going to make sure that I have a clear schedule and stick to it.

• Even though the presentations went really well in terms of being visual and having lots of different information within them my presentation skills were a bit nervous and a bit slow, to avoid this in future I will do some rehearsals before hand in front of some people to make sure I know what I'm talking about at all times.

• Some of the motion visuals that I placed over the original clips, some of the double exposure looked a bit rushed and a bit terrible on some of them, when doing double exposure projects I will need to do even more double exposure experimentation so that it looks suitable for the clips below or above the blended clips.

• Some of the shots did seem very repeated which is a weakness, especially the close up shots of my main actor laughing as well as medium shots of my actor walking, in the end it looks like that’s all my music video consisted of which gets very repetitive which is something that I see as a weakness because some of the shots break the flow of the music video, to improve this in the future I need more shots of my actor which are of different varieties to use instead of shots which constantly look repetitive, even though I see this as a weakness it did work well in my favor as I presented a lot of striking visuals over these clips.

• The location scouting for this project also didn’t work as well as I wanted it to. I set out to film in one of the very derelict and abandoned locations in and around Dorset such as The Dorchester Prison, The East Weare Battery And Distex Centre, The Holton Heath Laboratories and Tyneham, I needed one of these locations to film my third shoot in and in the end I aimed to film in Tyneham which is an abandoned D-Day village, when I got there to eventually film, the village had been closed off which was my fault for checking the opening times. After this shoot failed, my friend who was acting in the music video suggested we film at this abandoned shooting wall which was by his house, this was a really good location to film at because it gave off a very derelict feel to the music video.

Feedback from others

Here is some feedback that I was given by people in my class watching my final project, the feedback includes strength and weaknesses about my project and also helped my reflect on my work as a whole.

The list after the number is as follows, Strengths, Weaknesses and comment

1

-Good effects on footage

-Layering works well with effects

-Lighting is great in field shots

-Narrative could be stronger

I agree that the narrative could’ve been stronger, this was due to the voiceovers not being as artistic as the video and having to take them out, the narrative did fail a bit so next time I would focus a lot more on the narrative.

2

-Striking visuals

-Great effects

-Not entirely sure what the message is

The music video is experimental and conceptual so the message somewhat can be whatever you want it to be, but in future I will think about the messages I want to present.

3

-Good use of effects and film together

-Song fits the theme very well

-Some of the scenes are a bit too much, maybe less effects on a couple of parts?

I agree that in some parts the effects were extremely heavy and could’ve been toned down a bit but that was the look I was going for visually in this music video. But next time I am really going to consider how many effects that I should put in at each part

4

-Good use of layering

-Song fits well

-Sometimes it was hard to tell what was going on

Although that is the point of the whole video next time I am going to consider the narrative a bit more

5

-Awesome drug related effects

-Great use of green screen

N/A

N/A

6

-Very well presented

-Cool color scheme

-Maybe make some shots easier to see the person acting

I agree that some of the shots especially at the start, the visual blending mode I used makes it hard to see the emotion of the person and could’ve been turned down a lot so next time I will make sure that there is more focusing on the character rather than effects all the time.

7

-Felt trippy

-Lots of visuals

N/A

N/A

8

-Strong research

-Influence a lot by the research

-Very quick strobe effect

I agree that there were too many strobes and to improve it I would’ve turned them down a lot, it didn’t coincide with the research I was doing about epilepsy and broadcasting as it was maybe too heavy at some points.

9

-Video suits the song well

-Lots of technical skill shown

-Very good outdoor scenes

-Overwhelming

I agree that the effects can be overwhelming in many points of the video and next time I would turn them down a lot more

10

-Extremely interesting design

-Perhaps a bit too conceptual?

Although the point of the music video is to be extremely conceptual, next time I am really going to focus on the narrative of this piece rather than making it completely experimental

11

-I really like the whole idea behind this and think that the edit and effects you’ve used are very successful

-The only thing I can really say is to maybe have the different effects and visuals changing in time with the beat more

An edit to the beat technique would be good in the music video, this would make the music video have more of a professional edit.

12

-Good variety of styles

-Well developed idea

-Good use of shots and variety

-Edited to the beat

-Good use of effects

-More close ups could be used

Even though there is quite a lot of close ups already, this would add to the emotion of the music video that the character has.

13

-Good explanation in presentation

-Effective hallucinogenic

-Great use of color

-Nice flare finish

-No real plot

The plot could’ve been considered a bit more when making the treatment for this music video and making the music video, but I feel like this worked well in my favor as it is more experimental in the end.

This feedback I was given by my classmates has helped me realize the weaknesses of my music video as well as the strengths. The main strengths people have put is that the effects were good and that the song suits the music video well as well as striking visuals, I agree with all of these strengths as all of the visuals took a lot of time and I am happy with the feedback I have been given that other people also agree with the fact that my music video’s visuals are excellent. The improvements that I was given was mainly that there is no real plot or that the narrative could’ve been worked on a bit more, I agree with this feedback and this was a personal weakness for me because the music video didn’t make sense, even though the visuals solidified it as an experimental video, the narrative could’ve been worked on a bit more.

Comparison to industry examples

The two successful industry examples I am going to compare my media project to, are M.I.A's very visual music video Y.A.L.A which is a performance based music video which also provides elements of experimentation with the colorful effects and strobe lights which is very similar to my music video. The second industry example I am going to use to compare my work to is the music video by A$ap Rocky for his song L$D where he compares the drug to the woman that he loves and renames the abbreviation as Love, Sex, Dreams, the music video takes inspiration from Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void with its themes of Tokyo as well as using the same locations seen in Enter The Void as well as the colorful visuals seen in my music video.

The first example, M.I.A's experimental/performance video for single Y.A.L.A was released in 2013 and has racked up nearly 5 million views on YouTube so I terms of success she has done well, it is not a heavily mainstream song but is still successful. I did take quite a lot of inspirations from the video, it is a performance based video which fuses elements of strobing, laser lights and colorful visuals and in my video I have put some of this in, her visuals in a lot of her music videos have inspired me to make mine and my final project Froze compares to hers in many ways.

One of the ways which my music video compares to Y.A.L.A is the way that the strobing is done, in my music video I made strobing lights which were mainly white but also many other colors a big part of the production, it was also a big part of Y.A.L.A, although this video incorporated more colorful strobes it is still as visually enthralling as mine, another thing which was also a big part of my production was the fact that it was a very colorful and hypnotic music video and Y.A.L.A also has this concept, with the constant change of color all the time from greens, red, blues, golds and blacks, although mine doesn’t have this all the time it is still a big part of my music video especially with the green screen motion visuals. The laser effects that were in mine, for example the shots of my main character Ronnie dancing with the lasers as well as using the projection of the lasers as a double exposure for other clips is also seen in M.I.A's Y.A.L.A, she has a close up of her with lasers on her which are colored gold and red, although mine are colored green and red it still uses the same concept which makes both music videos very visual, it introduces a lot of rave culture. Although this industry example is very similar to Froze there are also things which are very different, for example, there is no performance in mine where as Y.A.L.A is heavily performed by M.I.A, another thing which is different is the storylines of each video, Froze is about a man on a drug trip where as YALA is about being reborn but it is only expressed through the lyrics and not the video. Another thing which is very similar between the two videos is the amount of close ups in both videos, I put in a lot of close ups in mine as well as the same shot but from different angles strobing every 0.3-0.6 seconds as well as using double exposure to blend it in with other footage, you see this a lot within M.I.A's YALA and this is where I took quite a lot of inspiration from to do some strobing and with it at different angles, there is also a lot of double exposure throughout the whole of YALA and the whole of Froze, I like experimenting with double exposure all the time so to see other videos that have used the same thing which has been successful is quite an achievement. The last two things which aren't a major comparison but are still very similar is the fact that the CC Mr smoothie effect or an effect similar to this has been used in some of mine and some of her music video, it is a very visual effect and makes a really trippy visual, another thing which is a small detail but still is seen in both videos is a small amount of neon paint used in about 5 seconds of my entire music video it is still a comparison.

The second successful example of a media work similar to mine is famous rapper A$ap Rocky's music video for L$D where he creates a new meaning for the abbreviation for the drug and turns it into the meaning of Love, sex, dreams, he is seen walking around Tokyo with a girl and the music video takes inspiration from Gaspar Noe's experimental film Enter The Void about a drug dealer who dies and comes back as a spirit, there is already one similarity in this statement as we both have taken inspiration from Enter the void with the colors we have used, both L$D and Froze are very colorful and contain a lot of strobe lights which is inspired from Enter The void, my music video is more based on a clear color strobe ad then colorful motion graphics which are used in green screen and double exposure where as Rocky has prevailed his strobes as only slight and so that they isolate different areas of the beautiful landscape shots the video delivers, effects such as mr smoothie, Colorama and vibrance have been used in my music video as well as some similar effects to this in L$D. Another main similarity between the two and one of my main points of inspirations is the fact that both of the videos showcase the mans story of being on a drug trip, this was a main inspiration as well as some of the range of walking shots and close ups and mediums shots that are presented in both videos, I also loved the way that the camera moves in this video so I incorporated some of the inspirations into Froze, especially the panning movements and the handheld movements, this worked successfully well i mine and now they are very similar because of it. The only real differences between mine and Rocky's video is that it has quite a lot of landscape shots and clear fast paced transitions mine doesn’t have.

Conclusion – did the project meet my expectations?

My project to start off with was to create an experimental music video about a man who is on a hallucinogenic drug trip in different locations, I wanted to portray the reasons that he was there with voiceovers and soundscapes, I also wanted to create a set of motion graphics which will be used as trippy visuals using double exposure. The music video would be created using the Adobe creative suite and would feature one mans life, it would feature things such as strobe lights and visuals as well which would add a certain trip factor to my music video.

Throughout the production of the music video I had three main shoots which went really well as well as motion visuals to create and in the end of it I feel like the project made the expectations of what I wanted it to be, the music video fit the criteria I made for this music video. The whole music video was experimental and featured shots from the man on his hallucinogenic journey, the music video also featured some striking visuals which I made using Adobe After Effects which was one of the main points of the music video, so in the visual aspect it went really well and paired up with my story boards.

Things which didn’t really meet up with the original plan was the voiceovers and the storyline as well as missing out some shots. The voiceovers that I recorded in the audio suite at college explained an insight into my main character Ronnie's life, they were supposed to go before, in the middle and after the music video which didn’t work out that well, I figured out that they didn’t sound good at all and interrupted the flow of the music video, so looked and sounded a lot better without the voiceovers. The next part which didn’t turn out the best as I expected it to was the storyline, the storyline in my music video was very different to the planned treatment, I missed out some scenes such as the scene where I have an entity that expands into another entity as well as the scene where a young Ronnie is trapped behind a sheet of glass and colored water is being poured onto the sheet, I removed these scenes because they would've been really hard to film with the technical equipment and the visual effects also when I did some test footage of these shots they didn’t really fit in with the flow of the music video so I made the executive decision to scrap those scenes.

Overall the music video went really well and I feel as if it was one of my most successful projects on this course, some things didn’t go to plan that well, and some of it went fantastically well, this project has taught me new skills on after effects and premiere pro, has taught me to always have a back up plan if it always doesn’t go right and that a project can be brilliant even if it doesn’t stick to the original plan.