Process Evaluation
For my Final Major Project, I decided to create a music video for the song “A Good Song Never Dies” by Saint Motel. I began my process by completing a project proposal form and pitching the idea for the music video to my peers and tutors. I received invaluable feedback on my pitch which allowed me to adapt my idea based on people’s recommendations and advice. I then began to plan my next steps starting with research. I planned out the topics that I wanted to research on a whiteboard in the form of a mind map, this worked well as I prefer to work visually in the form of mind maps and it allowed me to see what I still had to research and what I had finished researching. For my research, I had a look at both primary and secondary sources. For my primary research, I produced test shots for shots that I wanted to include in my final piece and I also took part in a workshop with Paddy, my tutor, in which he showed me and fellow students how to use the Syrp motion control slider. My secondary research took the form of various websites and articles which allowed me to explore various topics which I wanted to learn more about and develop my knowledge before I took on my project. My research was incredibly helpful as it allowed me to change and adapt my ideas, for example, I had initially wanted to use motion control as I thought that it would be an effective way to include an experimental visual technique in my music video, however after testing the Syrp slider with Paddy I discovered that it was much slower than I had imagined and that it would not work for what I had intended.
After I had finished researching, I moved on to the pre-production stage. I began by attempting to create a storyboard; however, I quickly began to run out of time and therefore was unable to complete it. I planned out the basic plot points that I wanted to include and decided that the best course of action was to plan out how to flow between the plot points in the edit – my plan was to get as much coverage on the shoot days as possible with the basic shots I had in mind so that I knew I would be able to cover the three minutes runtime of the song. However, in retrospect, I wish that I had had the time to properly plan it out with the storyboard and a shot list as I would have been able to aim for more visually impressive shots. In terms of other pre-production documents, I created equipment lists, call sheets, risk assessments, talent release forms and a location release. As part of my pre-production, I carried out a location recce on a location at Kingsmoor Park Enterprise Zone located in northern Carlisle. I had been put in contact with Kingsmoor Park by Paddy who had a contact there and knew of students who had used warehouses there in the past for filming. I completed a location recce checklist when I was at the location and noted down all issues with and benefits of the location. My checklist included things such as whether it was suitable for the story that I was telling; whether it would look good in a wide shot; whether there were enough/if any accessible power outlets; whether there were any bathrooms on site; and if they had signed a location release. As discussed in my production diary, the location was sourced and agreed on at very short notice meaning that we didn’t have many other options, but luckily the Kingsmoor Park location was an almost perfect fit, there were some issues, for example, it was very light with lots of roof lights letting in daylight from outside – ideally I would have liked to have shot in a completely dark warehouse as my lights would have been more effective and more impressive. As I mentioned earlier I managed to get a location release, it was signed by Lauren Campbell, the contact I had at Kingsmoor Park, the day of the location recce.
Due to a lack of equipment, I was unable to get a Lumix G7 to film with however, I actually got an upgrade in the form of Alex’s Lumix S5II this was a massive improvement as the S5 can shoot in up to 6K at 25 FPS allowing for much more freedom in the edit. On the shoot days, I also managed to take out equipment such as lenses, filming lights, gimbal and LED PAR lights. Moving on to the production stage, the first shoot on the 3rd of May was when we shot the running scenes and the scene in which the female character is brushing her teeth in the bathroom. In order to film the running shots I had to suspend the camera on a gimbal outside of a car window. The movements of the camera were pre-programmed into the gimbal as it panned down from the sky and across to reveal the female character, and it proved to be particularly difficult to time the movements correctly. On the outdoor shoot, I wasted a bit of time fiddling with the gimbal in order to program the movements, in future I will get access to the gimbal earlier and ensure that the movements are programmed in before the talent arrives on set so as not to waste their time. The second shoot day involved filming the rest of the scenes in the house, such as the cup-dropping scene and the bed scene, this shoot overall went smoothly, however in hindsight I wish I had planned out the shots more (as I alluded to previously) because a lot of time was wasted figure out which shots to do despite having a rough plan of which shots I wanted to film. My actors were only available on the weekends which meant that after they left on the Saturday I wasn’t able to film again until the following weekend. It was in this time that I put together the shots that I had already filmed in Davinci Resolve to work out what I needed to film the following weekend. That week was also when I finally confirmed the warehouse location. The following weekend we filmed all of the shots in the warehouse starting at 10:00 in the morning and finishing later than expected at 4:00 in the evening, once again, I feel it was due to poor shot planning that we overran the estimated shoot time. However, overall the shoot days went well and I filmed all the shots that I wanted to.
As I had filmed on the S5 all of my clips were in the V log colour space and were in uncompressed 10-bit, meaning they had to be transcoded into Apple Prores before they could be viewed in Davinci. For the most part, the edit was rather simple, however, the most tedious and longest part of the process was colour grading which took almost two days to complete, had I known that it would take this long I would have started the colour grade much earlier as it meant that I was now incredibly stressed about the encroaching deadline.
Overall, my research, for which I researched both primary and secondary sources including websites, magazines, articles, books, workshops and test shots, helped me massively in the formulation of ideas and allowed me to better understand what I needed to do in order to achieve certain effects such as lighting in my video. From this project, I furthered my knowledge of how to make music videos and the processes involved but I also developed new skills in storytelling in the future I want to build on this knowledge by looking to create more in-depth storylines and build interesting characters.
Generally, I feel I organised my project well, I greatly struggled with time scales, when I started the project I massively underestimated how long each process would take resulting in tasks backing up and increased stress. As I mentioned, I wish I had had more time to plan out each shot as this would have ended in a better result. The first major hurdle before I started the project was coming up with the idea, in fact, I had only finalised the idea the day before I pitched it, in future I want to start developing ideas much sooner before a project starts so that I’m ready to jump straight into the project when it’s time.
For this project, I used a Lumix S5II, a camera with which I had little experience, therefore by using it, I learned a great deal about shooting in V log and the subsequent colour grading. Colour grading is a very important part of the post-production process and therefore by developing this skill in this project, I’m developing skills that will be useful in the workplace later on.
During the pre-production process, I intended to use Avolites Titan – a lighting software, however, I almost ended up not using lighting at all as the software broke days before I was due to use it, luckily I was able to get it sorted by the company in time, however, I had in place multiple contingencies in case I was not able to get the lighting software fixed including using a different software or a physical lighting desk from the college.
Throughout the project, I remained constructive and professional when engaging with talent, locations, crew members, props suppliers and college staff.
For this project, I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone and produce a love story. I wish I had completed more research on how to story tell as I feel that the story was lost in the final piece. I also feel that attempting to produce a film that included a story, especially a love story, was perhaps a bit over-ambitious as it was something that I was not already comfortable with and I couldn’t ensure that it would result in a good product.
Technical Evaluation
In this follow-along evaluation, I will discuss the various technical elements used in the video and whether or not they were effective.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I feel that whilst I created a music video which fulfilled the majority of my stated aim in my project proposal, a slight lack of planning resulted in high levels of stress and an end product which could be improved.