Final Project Evaluation
I have created a music video to accompany the song ‘Turquoise’ by the David James Rumsey Band. This project was about researching music videos and understanding how I would be able import my knowledge to create an interesting music video.
I believe one of the strengths within the final design is the lighting. This is because the lighting enables the shots to be bright and clear. This was because the filming was done during the day time on a sunny day. Furthermore there wasn’t any clouds so the sun wasn’t obscured and the beach didn’t have many places for shade. This altogether enabled the sun to provide good lighting for filming. I additionally believe that another thing that went well was the strong relation between the narrative and the song lyrics. The song mainly focuses on the words ‘sailing away’ which gives the interpretation that the two have drifted apart and I feel that the audience can interpret my video as that. This can be seen by the way the boy looks back at the photo as if hes reminiscing and additionally the use of black and white should make the audience feel as though those particular parts are in the past. I feel that one thing that let the music video down was the relation between editing and the pace of the song. I found it increasingly difficult to match the editing to the pace of the song as the song is predominately slow with some aspects becoming more upbeat. I believe this leads some parts of the video to not match the tempo of the music correctly. For example at 2.20 the song gradually builds tension and gets a bit more intense yet the video doesn’t match the same level of intensity. Additionally more close ups could have been used to show the couples emotion more. To show the audience how in love they were and how even after that they still drifted apart. Although I did originally intend for the music video to be predominately long shots as this shows the location and their body language which can also be very helpful and aids the audience in establishing the two cast’s relationship. Furthermore I feel that some shots lingered too long which was supported by a tutors feedback upon viewing the video. Although there was ample footage to choose from, I felt that some of the footage that I had shooted wasnt relevant to the narrative of my music video which then led to some of the shots feeling long. I do feel this is a weakness of the music video and by recognising this I would be able to develop on this for another project. On the topic of weaknesses, I think that another weakness is that the shots arent completely stable. This although isnt completely obvious isquite noticeable. This could have been due to the location of filming, as the filming was done on a pebble beach the ground was shaky and this could be seen in the footage. Although we had scoped out the beach beforehand to take trial shots I do believe there wan’t a considerable amount that could have been done to solve the shaky footage ecxept holding the camera and tripod with a firm hand. I believe these strengths and weakness’s enable me to take on board feedback and then be able to apply this to my next project. For example I gained feedback from a tutor who suggested that the video could be in colour for the first and last initial parts of the video to really emphasis the idea that its gone from present to past and then back to present again (the past represented by black and white). This feedback was then taken on board and I experimented with the colour a bit before doing exactly that.
Before creating the music video I was mainly inspired by the workings of Vance Joy. As a big fan of his work, I recognised that his music videos mainly feature rural locations and this encouraged me to choose only one location; the beach as the my filming location. I also choose Vance Joy as a case study of sorts for research, featured here.
I did trial shots before the actual shoot day which enabled me to understand where exactly I wanted to film and gave me the chance to envision what I wanted to do before shooting. Furthermore this helped me develop the shots I wanted to feature in the final video. Here the trial shots taken can be seen.
Looking back at my project proposal I can see that my initial aim was to create a music video that ‘goes along with the song given‘. I believe from my interpretation of the song and the idea that sailing away is a metaphor for drifting apart that I did achieve my aim. Another aim was for the location and narrative to be ‘quite simple‘ this again I believe it is by the fact that one location is used and the narrative is quite straightforward where it isn’t abstract but it isn’t in chronological order. From reevaluating my project proposal I can see I did achieve and follow through with what I initially aimed to achieve.
After showing my work to various tutors and peers I was able to gain extensive feedback from different perspectives. One response was that the narrative really came across to the audience and that the viewer was quite responsive to the emotion within the music video which was helpful as I wanted the audience to be able to empathize with the music video. Another reaction showed that the shots sometimes lingered too long which after watching the video I agreed with and this led me to reconsider some of the shots length. Furthermore another response stated that there wasn’t much conflict within the narrative which I considered but then decided against adding conflict into the video because my initial idea was to create a video that wasn’t about conflict but about reminiscing on an old memory. A few comments were that the shots shown in the music video were nicely shot, with the beach as the background and the cast against it. Before taking the comments on board I wasn’t entirely happy with the rough music video copy. I believed that it was missing something and I couldn’t figure out what it was but after reevaluating the comments and looking back at the music video I believe I have improved it from the rough draft beforehand and am happier with the finished copy.
The rough draft can be seen here (DJR Band – Rough Copy) as well as the finished copy (DJR Band – Finished Product) for comparison.
I compared the finished product to a Taylor Swift song (“Taylor Swift – Love Story”). I found that the narrative is similar in the way I interpreted the music video. I believe that the starting when the girl see’s the boy and there’s a few flash backs references a time when they met in the past. The music video seems to similarly be set predominately in the past with the start and the end set in the present. Additionally there isn’t the contrast in colour that I used to show the past and present. In the Taylor Swift music video there are a variety of shots used which differs in the sense that in my music video I didn’t use a variety of shots, mainly sticking to long shots with a few medium shots. Both music videos start off with an establishing shot. This could be because the shot is designed to show the audience the location of the video.
I believe the final product is appropriate for my target audience (18-35) as the video itself casts 2 teenagers and the narrative of the music video is quite relatable in the way that the audience may have also experienced a breakup of some sort or knows the feeling of just drifting away from someone. I gathered feedback from my target audience to support my belief that it is target audience appropriate. This can be found here.
Overall I defintely learned from my final major project and there were some things that I would do differently next time. An example of this would be managing my time wiser, as shown in the weekly evaluations I found it hard to stay a top of everything but I believe having this experience I can develop next time by planning an extensive timetable of deadlines so I know what needs to be completed and by the final date.
DJR Band – Rough Copy. 2017. Web. 16 June 2017.
DJR Band – Finished Product. 2017. Web. 16 June 2017.
“Taylor Swift – Love Story”. YouTube. N.p., 2017. Web. 14 June 2017.
Miahamber Media Productions 