Filming production:

This post examines the journey I taken during the filming stages of my draft music video.

1. The first stage of the filming was to take the outside shots set at the start of the video. I took the footage with a camera on 30.10.12. AKA Halloween night. Therefore, I had plenty of time to take the footage as at this time of the year. There was only one of these shots to take, but it was a long one. I applied the drunken feel of the shot to the video via a certain movement. Since it was a third-person handheld shot, the camera focused on the view in front of me. With the ‘drunk man’ walk I was using to move, the video camera was producing a blurry shot, even an unintentional temporal black-out half way through the shot. While this would initially appear to be sloppy production, it actually strongly relates to that of the narrative content of the video.

2. Once the outside shot was taken and without distraction, the next stage was to execute the other 5 pre-song shots. I quickly placed dirty clothes, a spilt beer can and some newspapers on the floor to make the place appear less clean and more like a pit of degradation. Once done so, I quickly pointed the camera towards the intended shot of the room. A quick pan shot was taken, showing emphasis on the mess that has been made as part of the placed mise-en-scene of the shot. The next shot was the beer one. Originally intended to use a bottle, a beer can was all I had access to at the time, but the intended effect remains. I spilt the beer around the can and onto the table for its intended effects of portraying sloppy living and an open and unhealthy lifestyle my character is living. Then the following shots involved the shirt being dirty, which I placed stains onto for the filming, the shot of the side of my face to show depression, and finally the shot of the playing but not being watched TV to show lack of focus. Once these shots were quickly taken, I moved onto the main filming...

3. The main filming during the progression of the lyrics was probably the most simple part. At least the first half of the song was. I simply had to put on a mad face in front of the camera while displaying the appropriate facial expressions. Then keep it there for at least the time required while the first few song verses play.

4. The inbetween shots which took place in the middle of the song were the most difficult to place into the video while still conforming to my song timings. The shots I taken were not long enough even when combined, to fill up all the time in the middle of the song between the 2 sets of verses. I had to expand this part of the video by using new shots, or expanding time of the original shots, and how long they played in the music video. I had to use a substitute image instead of the one I was originally going to use. More replacement material had to be used for the next stage...

5. The second half of the filming during the lyrics had to be taken while I actually sang, thus the requirement for accurate lip sync. Due to time constraints, the quality of this that I could gather from this is limited in the editing stages. I will have to progress well to achieve getting this video to a decent level. The substitutions also continue here as well. The female performer was unable to make it and will be for the near future. I will be able to use her for filming of the final video product, but not for the draft version. Hence a few changes will be made. For instance, instead of the girl walking with me in the sunset during the last shot, the final shot will now be me walking up the stairs, followed by a quick shot of the camera zooming away from my face, both to visually represent that while the camera is moving away from me and vice versa, so is the problem for the character I portray in the video.

Draft music video:

This is my draft video, filmed and edited. Many improvements will likely be required, but here is what has been produced as of 02/11/12. This is a video that has been planned for a while now...

Production changes:

This post serves as an update for a change in Digipak production. These are some of the changes I have been making during my Digipak production as opposed to my previous plans noted beforehand. Among the changes are:

Changes to work:

As previously explained, my front cover was to have a gradient black to white background that would effectively fit in with the image content in front. The main image would be a picture of me being depressed, and half my face would appear on the left side of the cover. The black part of the background would appear over it to represent my emptiness and depression, and loneliness. Then in contrast, the upper right corner of the front cover would slowly transfer over to a white background. Over this would be my planned sketch design that would feature over the white background, as the narrative content of me and my girlfriend in the video as seen in the picture would reflect the white background, not only blending into it, but also being seen as lighter and more positive to the black background image on the other side of the page. However, when I was undergoing Digipak production, it became apparent that the gradient would make the cover appear cheap and poorly produced. I deleted my half face image and sketch design from the front cover, and instead added an alternate picture of me, enlarged it, and then set it to black and white. While this initially appeared very poor as a front cover to me, I started to realise the relation that this new cover idea had with the narrative content of my video was actually very strong. The black and white image represented dullness, boring nature, and well as old fashioned visual content. All of these qualities relate to the pause that I have undergone as a result of the girlfriend break-up my character has had in the music video storyline. The pause shows how my character’s life is a halt and how he is living in the past, a painful one. The slightly pixelated, black and white image of my depressed face really amplifies the illustration that my front cover has to relate to the narrative of my music video. Right now, my current structure of this new idea is that it will be a cover that follows the rule of thirds. AKA my face will appear on the left centre of the cover page, and the text will be separately spaced from the face, appearing in the lower right corner.

As a result of the cover change, my sketch is now no longer going to be featured on it. However, since my poster is being planned to feature the sketch as the same main image (a use of consistency) I have decided that I will still feature the sketch in my Digipak as well. This is where my 6^th panel AKA the inserted lyrics page, comes into play. My lyrics page has been arranged in such a way that there is a noticeable large space in the lower right corner featuring no content. This is where my space will be included, as it will certainly add to the visual interest of an otherwise text filled page. This sketch will then be ascended to a more significant role in the poster. It is intended to be the main image, centred in the middle of the page in terms of top to bottom scaling. The sketch may just be added into the lyrics page of the Digipak with no further editing, since the white background of the drawing in contrast to the black background of the page should help it to stand out anyway.

Originally, the title of the track list was supposed to be featured on top of the track list on the back cover, but since most back covers on album Digipak's don't actually feature the title 'track list' I have decided to remove it and just feature the actual list in the centre inbetween 2 border lines.

I previously stated that I would choose between using field images for my inside panels consistent pictures, or using suburban images instead, as both provided certain narrative relevance to the music video. However, I eventually opted to use the suburban images instead of the fields for the following reasons. 1, the suburban images have more direct relative meaning, such as the images showing my house and street, the main location of my music video. Also, the houses, while they initially look nice, were also taken in the dark, but with a flash feature on the camera. This is supposed to represent that in the house, where the man in the video will be, there is darkness, internal depression loneliness, and grief. But there is a light outside the house as aided by the camera flashlight. In terms of narrative meaning, it implies that if the man gets out of this emotional state, like he actually does in the video, then better, lighter life will be waiting ahead. Whereas while fields provide basic illustrative content, bare limited relevance to the music video I have planned.