Reflective Analysis

When it came to making a music video my ideas changed a few times before I settled on what I wanted to do and started planning. At first I had decided to create a music video for a local band but decided against this due to my timescale. After this I decided to produce a video for 'The Boredom is The Reason I Started Swimming, It's Also The Reason I Started Sinking' by The Front Bottoms, with the idea of a guy travelling the world whilst in some scenes a busker can be seen playing the song. I decided against this song and settled on 'Maps' by the same band and decided to combine the idea of the guy travelling and the busker by making them the same person so that it was actually the busker traveling. I settled on this idea as I felt this would be achievable within my time frame and I was only relying on two other people, which meant not as much could have gone wrong.

After I had decided on the song and the general ideas for the song, I got to work on planning specific shots and put together a shot/edit decision list, which included details of location, the shot type, camera angle and movement, shot length, a shot description and which lyric or part of the song that the shot would correspond to, this can be found here: http://kechncjakobmorrison.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/shotedit-decision-list.html
To accompany this, I also created a visual mood board and a still images music video, I believe these helped me piece together what the music video would look like in my head and I used this alongside the shot/edit decision list when I was filming, this way I could keep on top of the work I had already done and see what needed to be done, these can be found here: http://kechncjakobmorrison.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/visual-mood-board.html

When it came to actually filming, it went incredibly well and the majority of shots were done in one take, the performance shots were the hardest to film as the timing had to be perfect, I had my subject play alongside the actual song so that when it came to editing it would be easier to match the audio and the visuals. I feel like all of the shots I decided on were relevant and did a good job of illustrating the lyrics of the song whilst at the same time fitting with the band's image. The Front Bottoms take a very laissez-faire approach when it comes to their music and specifically promotion of themselves including their music videos, the majority of their videos are purely performance and are usually just them playing in their living room or garage, their own music video for the song 'Maps' is just the two band members travelling and messing about with each other, The Front Bottoms emanate the idea that they music because they like doing it, they don't care how good they are or how famous they get, they are doing this because it is what they want to do. I tried to replicate this love for music above all else by having the audience see a conflict between the busker and his girlfriend, within these few shots and a few lines we realise the busker is leaving a lot behind to pursue his dream, he has no guarantee that things will turn out well for him and yet he goes on this journey regardless.

After I had gathered all my footage, I got to work on editing, this task was a lot easier than usual as I had something specific to edit to, I knew exactly where I wanted certain pieces of footage and roughly how long each shot needed to be. I did find however that some of the dialogue within the visuals did not match up with the audio, I tried changing the timing of the visuals but could not match them up perfectly, to draw attention away from this I decided to include subtitles where the lyrics are being spoken on screen.

The subtitles I settled on were danish, and I used a very typical font with a yellow colouring, I felt they were aesthetically pleasing and very reminiscent of the french new wave. I also feel I could only get away with this because of the song and band that I had chosen to represent in the video, the song is called Maps and is all about his travelling plans so to use foreign language subtitles fits within the theme of the song, and as previously mentioned The Front Bottoms are a very playful band and I could definitely see them doing something similar themselves. One of my favourite techniques I used during the editing process was the double exposure, due to the fact that my lyrics and visuals are closely linked I wanted to do something to amplify the fact that there are multiple layers of lyrics.

Overall, I am very pleased with my final product, I put a lot of time and effort into research, analysis and planning and I think this can be seen in the final music video. If I had more time I would have added in some more shots, such as a cut in during the first shot just so the shot doesn't feel as long, I tried to deter from this by having the title still be on screen, in Danish, when this shot starts. There is also another long take of the busker travelling on the train and if I had more time I would have included some point of view shots from the busker or him on different forms of transport. I think the inclusion of just a few more shots would have made the video so much tighter but the sometimes slow feel of the video can be seen as amplifying the journey of the busker, he has a long way to go before he makes anything of himself and these shots do a good job of amplifying that. If I were to do this project again I would probably choose a more upbeat song as this would have made me gather more shots and the music video could appear so much smoother but for the song chosen I am very happy with the video produced.