Personal Project
AC1- Introduction
Brief and Client
For my personal project, I am working closely with an art and fashion student. We wanted to be able to display different designs and outfits selected by said client. I have known this client for a long time and we are both well-introduced to each others style, taste for music and media and other factors that would later become important for inspiration in this project. We knew we wanted out platform to be Instagram, this is because Instagram allows you to use music that they own the rights, this is unlike YouTube, who would penalise the projects success by making it unavailable in certain regions or take it down completely. With this, we knew Instagram only allow videos up to 10 minutes, meaning we had decided to plan our project around this time constraint early on. This was helpful, addressing which platform to use early on, as we weren’t wasting time deliberating ideas and segments that we wouldn’t have time for.
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The aims for this project is to display all of the clients work, or as much as we can without making the project incohesive. The idea of collaborating plays a heavy role in what we are making as the shots, locations and music is an even spread between what we like/ both of our styles. We want to entertain, that is our main focus for this project, to be able to make something that is a good reflection of our creativity and production skills that resonates with people. For me as well, this project will be released on my media account, meaning this would be a good opportunity to attract engagement there for any future projects I would like to promote/post on there.
Throughout my experiences in this course, I have brushed up my skills in directing, cinematography, camera operation, production management and my main skill, editing. These are all skills that I will be utilizing in this project. With me being the director of this project, cinematographer, camera operator, production manager alongside my client and the sole editor for this project. These are all skills I would like to keep mastering and gaining more experience in, as these are skills that I would like to apply to my future, keeping my skills and experience broad to open up more pathways to go down.
The creative brief for this project was to create a project that is for a client, as well as utilising screen skills that we would like to use for our future careers. This project utilises the screen skills that I mentioned prior, these skills will be beneficial for me for when I am doing freelance work. For me this is my plan, I would like to do freelance alongside a separate job so I am able to stabilise my income as well as building my arsenal of experience as a filmmaker.
The client is a fellow student who has experience in fashion, designing and curating outfits, garments or singular items of clothing (i.e corsets, gowns). Working with this designer will be a good opportunity for both me and him, as he is able to create a captivating video to display his work to create mor attention and hype around his work, and I am able to utilise my skills on yet another project as well as getting creative control at times, adding another project to my list of work.
For this project, the client hasn’t had a lot of experience in filmmaking and decided it would be best to let me manage and control that side of the production, with him being able to focus on shots, outfits and locations. The music used in this project was chosen in a discussion between the client and I, with the client getting the final say in what songs we use, and for what scenes, as the pieces and art works being used in this film are his own, meaning only he can fully decide if the music matches the emotion and story of the art being used.
Target Audience
The target audience for our project was decided when we considered what media we were usingthroughout, such as references and music. We are using music from alot of experimental avant-garde artists such as ‘Salvia’ known for her deconstructed beats and ‘Snow Strippers’ known for their intense Electronic Dance Music inspired music. With that we decided that fans of experimental electronic music, alongside fans of the artists music that we are using, would be our demographic. We also considered the themes throughout, with some of the shots being horror-inspired, as well as alot of pop culture elements with mainstream artists like Lil Uzi Vert featuring in this, with this we decided our target age range would be 13+.
With the chosen themes and genre’s that I have listed, we decided that our project would be better directed towards fans of Avante Garde electronic music and horror film fans. These are both genres and themes that the client and I are well versed in, meaning that we can authentically provide content that supports these genres and it would come through successfully as we wouldn’t have to force much research to learn the basic codes and conventions of this genre, without having any time constraint. Furthered researching and delving deeper into these subjects would definitely improve the overall quality of this project, but the information and history I already have within these subjects give me a lot better of a headstart.We also decided that we wanted to promote our film to people local to us in Birmingham. This is because the locations and cast would all be from Birmingham, meaning that people who are in the filmmaking scene in Birmingham would see it and hopefully engage with it for these reasons.The demographics for this projects is teens aged 13-19, any gender, and local to Birmingham. Our psychographics are people who are fans of experimental/alternative music as well as people who like dance music, as these are genres that feature a lot within our soundtrack.We determined this target audience by thinking of the type of people who would be interested in the music or the fashion within the project. We thought about people who are local to us who have alternative style that may appreciate it, with this we were able to decipher what kind of people we were trying to engage with in this project.
Representation
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This project involves positive representation I believe, the models in this project are all women, this is because majority of the designs were made for women. This is also because the message we wanted to express, we thought, would be best represented through women. I also believe that this project involves positive representation as we show a diverse array of different kind of women, with different body types, subcultures and styles, gender expression and ethnicities being represented throughout. We thought that this was important as we have seen women being given a similar platform to this, but all the women are usually white, cisgendered, women with smaller bodies. We felt as if, though alike our project, the idea and message doesn't involve the topics body diversity, transgenderism and race, it still portrays the wrong message whatever way you look at it, so to be inclusive with this project was a conscious effort throughout.Having models within the video that represent a wide demographic of women is important, as the fact that these types of features are merely irrelevant and the fact that there is no need for any specific requirements when it comes to race, size and gender expression, means that being as diverse as possible and representing on a wider range shows that none of these specific features are more supreme than others, preventing us from promoting a message we didn’t want to convey.This representation relates to our target audience as majority of the models, as well as the crew, fall under this target demographic, meaning others will be able to resonate with this. As well as there being people, specifically women, who may engage with this as they see themselves be represented with this.
Formats
The genre for this project is hard to completely categorise, as we have different emotions shown throughout. Though, with our darker music changes and locations, I think this project could be addressed as horror.
The majority of my projects prior to this have been horror, with horror being a genre that inspired me to venture into filmmaking. With the brief including that we should use our skills that we plan on using for our future careers, I decided that creating a successfully chilling and interesting piece of horror is a skill, and at that a skill I would like to apply to my future career.
Other products that I researched that are of a similar format and genre are some music videos from artists that use a lot of horror imagery, such as Semetary, a young American rapper who has been praised for his use of horror references in music videos such as ‘Wendigo’ which references the first ever slasher-horror film ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’. With one of the shots being the same shot at the end of this film, showing Semetary spinning around with a chainsaw in the air. These kinds of references and the unsettling use of dark and desolate locations to add onto this theme of horror. Semetary also uses a VHS style camera which creates a grainy vintage lowered quality feel which was a method used in horror films such as Paranormal Activity 1-3 and Blair Witch Project. This is a style of camera I have and will be using for my project.
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Our choice to use Instagram as our intended platform for this project gave us some constraints as far as it goes for formatting. We knew that as for framing Instagram does allow media from 1080px x 1080px – 1080px x 560px, meaning this was something to keep in mind but not a major set back. As far as it goes for time constraints, Instagram does only allow videos up to 10 minutes to be posted, this didn’t concern us greatly because we never intended to make our film longer than this. We decided to utilise this aspect as we didn’t want our film to be potent enough for people to have to alternate what platform they are using to watch it, this short time limit meant that we were able to provide entertainment in a bigger scale than most media on Instagram.
Brainstorming
When we were in the planning process, we had vague visions of how we wanted the final product to turn out. When it came to planning for visuals and shots, we wanted to be able to treat our shot list and storyboard as suggestions for when we are actually filming. We also wanted to allow room for spontaneous ideas for shots and ideas that we get on the day of filming. We decided that one of the locations that we want to film at was a local warehouse property. The client is in contact with the owner of this property, and we were able to get the location permission. Slip signed this way for this. The client and I spent an hour to assess the location to make a location recce, but to also see if we could gather up any inspiration whilst we were there. We looked at separate rooms within the property that could be utilized for this project as well as some mounds of scrap material we saw outback, we thought this kind of grunge and industrial feeling was something that we wanted to incorporate in our project. We did the same for each of our own properties, as we will be filming there too, we assessed the location for possible risks and also took the time to sort through props, clothing, furniture that could all be used as scenery for our filming. At my house there is a chaise longue style seat, this type of seat was prevalent in the 18th century. Gothic themes were something that we wanted to incorporate in our project as some of the fashion pieces that the client has designed align with this theme. Gothic architecture is inspired by 18th century-19th century architecture that was abandoned during the Great Depression, allowing peoples imaginations to run wild about possible eerie backstories to these abandoned homes. This kind of horror element would be beneficial to the project as a whole, as horror is the intended genre, and these gothic designs wont feel out of place in the final product.
When we finished the mixtape to play throughout the film, we decided that traditional gothic attire and locations would be hard to link with the music. With this we decided to delve deeper into goth as a subculture. I noticed a theme within all the different assets to goth, and that is the idea of ruined opulence, something that was once regal now broken and abandoned. There are ways this links to modern day too, in the 2010s on the internet, there was an uprise in a fictional world named ‘the back rooms’. The brief idea of this world is an eerie empty universe, with places such as playgrounds, shopping centres and offices all abandoned, often with a harsh yellow lighting indoors, but an ominous blue foggy hue outside. This idea of modern architecture being left desolate and abandoned has been claimed by many online, on social media platforms like Tumblr and TikTok, with many of these users finding solace and beauty, mixed with the intense nostalgia from this dreamlike world. This, to me, is a modern take on traditional gothic inspiration, with architecture and scenery that was thriving around 90s-00s being in ruin now. These types of scenery is much more achievable for us and also slots in with the music a lot more harmoniously, with the music feeling very contemporary.
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This final idea fits seamlessly alongside the purpose of this project, with the purpose being to display the designs of the client. These types of locations and ideas for scenery complement many of these designs, with the style of design being distressed, industrial and editorial.
Research
When this production was in it’s planning stage it was quite difficult to build a foundation for our ideas, the client and I were deciding which assets to our project would be the best place to start, as a base. We decided that we would start by choosing a genre and what levels of emotion would be displayed throughout. We decided that our general genres would be horror/thriller. We also decided that the film would start out quite serene, as it jumps to a more darker intensity in the middle, with a slightly unnerving and distorted type feeling towards the end. In order for us to authentically tap in to this horror element, we analysed shots from horror movies that correctly encapsulate the urban horror vibe we were going for. The movies we decided to use for inspiration were, The Terrifier, Blair Witch Project and Se7en. The Terrifier tells it’s story with ominous silence, dark and desolate locations, Blair Witch Project tells it’s story with shaky handheld cam, often filmed by the characters in the film to create a more submersive horror experience, Se7en is a dark film that doesn’t rely on visible darkness and classic horror tropes to still be scary, the gritty urban vibe it has was something we thought defined our visions pretty well. We also used the movie Trainspotting to get inspiration on how to tell a dark story in a more saturated way, with bright colour grading and childlike visual effects, even though the story at hand is quite dark within itself.
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We also decided that we should analyse a few music videos of a similar genre, as music videos have a certain quick and snappy shot list that would apply better to our project than certain shots that are used in movies. To stay true to the genre, we decided to look at some music artists who have an element of horror within their music, and look at their music videos and understand better how they translated the eerie elements in their music into visual form. We looked at artists like Ethel Cain, Nicole Dollanganger and Semetary. Ethel Cain is a pop artist who has some metal elements in her music that tells moving stories about religious trauma and family trauma. Her music videos have a certain grainy rustic feel to them, with her using cameras like VHS tape cameras, to create that vintage flare. Aswell as the rural and Floridian locations she uses throughout her music videos. These were the types of factors we considered contributing to our film. Nicole Dollanganger is an artist who makes quite eerie minimal music, with her doll-like voice complimenting the whimsicality of her sound. Her music videos, much like Ethel Cain, have religious imagery dotted throughout. Her cinematography is quite two-toned, with the main tones in all her music videos being black and white, this gives quite an old-fashioned feel to her music videos. The costume, hair and makeup in these music videos contribute to this doll like aura about her, with big white flowy gowns, porcelain looking makeup and long, shiny and pristine hair shown throughout. The colour grading and costume and makeup were assets that we wanted to include. Semetary is an artist who has taken alot of inspiration from Chicago Drill rappers like Chief Keef and King Louis. These are the types of artists that inspires his maximalist style production. The imagery that Semetary uses throughout his music is inspired by 90’s hip hop, with that campy urban horror imagery. Semetary also has a noise aspect to his music that distorts the overall sound and creates his niche within the music industry when it is tied in with every other aspect I mentioned. His music videos portray this well with the locations that are used being used
Feedback
When I did my pitch in front of my peers and teacher, I displayed a sizzle reel, showing content from media that Inspired me when planning this project, like the music videos for Crushing by Eartheater and Wendigo by Semetary. I also explained the details behind budgeting, casting, crew and equipment. One of my peers explained that my pitch could have been taken further if I were to give even more examples of what I was intending to do with this project. With a 7 minute run time, and moments of serenity and horror, there was a lot that I left up to the imagination with my pitch, but providing my peers with more context was essential when trying to convey my visions.
Another piece of feedback that I received was that a lot of my ideas were slightly to ambitious for the constraints I put in place, such as my intended platform and run time. Ideas such as minute long sequences as well as scenes that would take multiple filming days. With the essence of the film being quite experimental and something that would take a lot of trial and error as far as it goes for implementing our ideas into the final product, these high production drawn out production phases are a bad idea, as the film may evolve during post-production into something different and we need to be able to afford to cut certain aspects out without wasting a big chunk of production time, so that we can always stay true to what the client and I believe is best for the film.
Both of these pieces of feedback were very useful to me and I was able to apply them successfully during each production stage of this project. As far as it goes for conveying my ideas better to my peers and teacher, whenever the client and I would discuss a new idea for our film, I would make note of the shot type, the estimated length of the shot, which part of the mix tape that it would play over and I would also seek out an example of this type of idea within other media forms such as other local filmmakers and music video directors work. This is something that I would show to my teacher during production meetings so that she was in the know about what we were intending and how our final product would look. As for it goes for my ambitious ideas during the planning stage, as production went on, the ideas that weren’t as realistic as others were plucked out and we were able to get more of a clearer idea as to what will come of this project as we worked on it more and more.
AC2- Risks
Limitations and Issues
One of the potential risks of filming in public was the risk of bumping into objects and people when filming, either people that are involved in the film, or people who are present in the location if filming in a busy area. The best way to tackle this problem was to assess the location and note down any potential objects and public walkways we may be crossing with, also considering the movement of the shots, for talent and crew, making sure that each potential hazard is noted.
There is also the potential risk of uneven terrain when filming in areas with naturistic scenery like in fields or in the woods. Our way of tackling this problem was to minimise movement in these shots, using these locations as the place for our still, more slow-paced shots.
Another risk we had to bare in mind was unpredictable weather. Before filming outside we made sure that we were regularly checking reliable weather sources so that we could time our filming well away from any potential rain, but there is still a risk of unpredicted rain when filming. To overcome this problem, we made sure that we had umbrellas on standby, enough to be able to temporarily shelter all cast, crew and equipment until we find stable shelter. This preparation meant that we were minimising the risk of damaging any equipment as well as minimising the risk of subjecting the cast and crew to rain, possibly leading to illness.
One of the financial risks that we had when planning to film this project was the permit fees that certain locations may subject us to. Before filming in public we requested permission from the local Birmingham council to film, but some properties that we could of filmed in could have permit fees that may be out of budget, or also may be unbeknownst to us until the day of filming which can cause conflict with property owners and the council. With this we decided that it would be easier for us to research the rules and regulations of filming in the areas that we had in mind, and adapting our ideas if any of them required a permit fee as it would be out of budget.
Another financial risk that we ran into when planning this film was transportation. With the large scale of cast and crew arriving to filming and not all locations being local to each person involved in this film, we decided to set ourself a maximum transport budget that we would be able to supply, which was £46. We contacted each member of cast and crew and confirmed with each person involved as to whether they can or were comfortable with arranging their own transport, if not, we would use this budget to help
Feedback
During the three production stages, I received feedback from my teachers and my client after my pitch, after my second sizzle reel that I curated after my first day of filming. The feedback that I got from my teachers after my pitch was that I needed to make sure that I had a strong plan and vision before going into production, this was because with all the different references and styles of filming I wanted to incorporate, it gave me more initiative to conduct more research for my film. I watched more music videos and also took inspiration from urban imagery with grainy archival style footage in a film called ‘Gummo’. This movie contains imagery from a small town in Ohio and shows the gradual urban decay in that town. These were themes that I wanted to contribute to my own films so I made sure that I included some of these shots in the mood boards I created to show my teachers.
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When choosing the songs for this mixtape, I had to work closely with the client. I have prior experience in creating mixtapes but the mixtape only required simple and smooth transitions so that the shots could be the main focus of the final product. The client chose the songs and the order of which the songs would play out. It was down to me to blend the songs together, I used Audacity for this, a timeless beat making software, short of cost too. In this step of preproduction I used transitions like crossfades, low pass filters and spinbacks. These are all basic level transitions but for my skill level and the nature of the production, these basic transitions went well. I had to change assets like tempo and pitch so that the mixtape could play out well and not feel like any transitions are too harsh or any songs are out of place. I created my first draft that I sent to the client and they came back to me with a list of notes that they had written whilst listening that I applied to make a second tape which would become our final draft. The feedback consisted of requests for different transitions, tempos, and a slight rearrangement in the song order after listening to it through.
When editing I also worked closely with the client. Majority of the time when I was editing I would do it in my own home but seeing as the process of editing was gradual over a month I had frequent meetings with my client as we shared our new ideas and implemented them into the edit. I created a rough cut with just the shots that were colour graded with video transitions, these were ideas from myself but also the clients prompts laced throughout to make the project authentically ours.
AC4- Roles
My roles for this project were Director, DOP, Camera operator and Editor/VFX. These roles were all managed by me as the project has always been a personal project to me and the client, any help that I got during the production process has been my peers pledging to help out. My main role within this project was director:
My role as director meant that I, alongside my co-director, the client, had full creative control over this project. This is a big responsibility as it meant I had to always be mindful as to what would be beneficial to the project or damaging, aspects such as shot ideas and colour grading.
As a director I had to pitch the idea of this project to my peers and teacher, almost as if they were a company deciding whether they would invest in this project. The pre-production was entirely down to myself and some parts the client. I had to create shot lists, sizzle reels, an AV script and work out the analytics of budgeting and cast/crew management.
On the days of production I had to direct the cast and crew so that I could bring the shots in the shot list to fruition, I had to manage time to make sure that we were getting to each location on time and I also had to direct the cast in any spontaneous shots I wanted to get.
During post production I had full creative control of what effects and transitions would be added, as well as the placement of clips. I still had to refer to the client for these aspects, but I got to call the shots as to what ideas were initially going into it.
My role as director heavily assisted this project's workflow, as I managed the time aspect and decided when we should be filming to align with our deadline. I put my ideas and style of film into this project and made references to media that has inspired me. I furthered my skills within directing, camera operating, production management and visual effects. In visual effects furthered skills within this subject such as rotoscoping and the usage of After Effects as a software.
One of the technical limitations that we encountered was our limited choice of equipment. When we were planning the most anticipated filming day, we were going to use a Black Magic camera, a 13-35mm lens, 18-80mm cine lens, a gimbal for mobile phones and an iPhone 13. We were only going to use the iPhone for tracking shots so that the camera work could be less shaky with the gimbal and the gimbal is only compatible with phones.
Unfortunately, we had an error with the Gimbal on the day of filming that meant that we couldn’t use it. With this, we decided to adapt the shots that required a gimbal so that it could be done handheld, and for the shots that we thought specifically needed a gimbal to succeed, such as long tracking match cut shots, we came up with new ideas to replace them with shots we could accomplish.
This issue did effect our project as we did achieve shots that we were happy with, but the shots that we had to let go because of this issue were still regarded well between myself and the director and I hope to accomplish these shots in a future production.
One of the other issues we encountered was insufficient manpower when managing equipment from location to location. We were filming in parts of Birmingham which weren’t within walking distance and we had too much equipment to take onto public transport. With this, I decided to plan my day of filming incorporating me driving down to the first filming location, this was my mode of transport for filming and the equipment was moved from location to location this way.
This problem effected the production days only, as we had to arrange to meet up with crew and cast at each location rather than travel together, meaning it slowed the filming down ever so slightly, but it didn’t effect the final product overall.v
Experimentation
The first experimental factor I did in this project was camera operation on the first day of filming. I have had some experience in camera operation and practiced it alone before, but I had never operated a camera to retrieve footage for an actual project that would be shown to people. Though I had already practiced before, I decided that since I would be in temporary ownership of the equipment that we were using, that I should practice some of the shots we intended to use. My sister was the subject for these test shots and we filmed them in my garden. I believe that this precaution was beneficial to the project overall as there were some camera operating techniques such as focus pulling and dolly zoom that were going to be used in the project but I didn’t quite have them fully mastered by the time I was practicing, though these techniques were still tricky on the day, practicing them first made picking it up a lot easier.
Another experimental asset to this project was the overall production length. Although, the final edit wasn’t any longer than previous projects that I have directed, it definitely had the most shots out of any of my production stages. This is due to the fast paced editing techniques that I used to achieve the music video style filming. The project was filmed over 3 seperate days and each day of filming took around 5-6 hours. Although this wasn’t something that was frightening to me as I was only focussed on the quality of the final outcome and I knew that the project needed this amount of filming to achieve that quality, it definitely took a toll on my energy during the filming. The client and I decided that we would carefully plan the filming days separate from each other, with as much as 2 weeks to a couple months in between some of these filming days. Our reasoning for this is both of our creativity was the driving force of this project and we wanted to be able to come up with plenty of new ideas in the middle of filming, as in my opinion nothing will inspire you more for your film than filming itself as you can see with your own eyes how things are going and what the film requires. We also didn’t want to run the risk of burnout, as we didn’t want that to translate in our film.
AC3- Equipment and Set Up
On the first day of filming, one of our locations was a big white brick wall, the sun was shining down on that day and the client requested that for the more serene parts of the film, that we get some high exposure footage. We decided that the white wall would be a great place to do so as the detailing on the wall would be less apparent making our models seem like they're in a vacant dream like setting. I utilised the camera settings for these takes so that the footage would be highly exposed from the beginning, but made sure that I tweaked the colour grading so it all felt cohesive for these shots.
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On the third day of filming we used our 18-80 cinematic lens for some of our wider shots. This lens is great for wide shots as it assures that each point in the shot will be equally illuminated, making for a better quality looking shot overall. Majority of these wide shots were used as b-roll, as we didn’t have models in the shots, only objects like lampposts and wheels to accentuate our urban imagery.
For a lot of the shots where we filmed indoors, we made sure that there was lighting on our models as we didn't let much natural light in, this spotlight style lighting was achieved by me wearing a headlight on my head whilst filming, almost as if the light is coming directly from the camera, this method of lighting meant that the models in focus were heavily contrasted from their surroundings.
Editing
In the beginning of the post production process, which slightly overlapped the production process so that the client and I knew where to pick up when filming next time, the only shots that I had were the ones that were highly exposed and the only shots we got indoors. At this point, the client and I had already discussed where these shots would be implemented, some at the beginning and some at the middle. The songs that contained these shots were Little Star by Madonna and Fire Alarm by Lil Uzi Vert and Snow Strippers.
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During this stage I was experimenting with colour grading and transitions and placements of each clip. Throughout filming I added more and more clips that correspond with the timestamps of the soundtrack, such as a shot I got underwater with my GoPro during Cc by Ecco2k. I was experimenting with different effects on Premiere Pro such as colour emboss and analogue delay.
After the final day of filming was when I felt my strongest drive to edit, as I was aware of every last shot I had obtained and I knew officially what I was working with, I changed the speed, opacity and pacing of each shot so that they would all marry the music that was playing. After I had pieced together the entire string of clips that had been colour graded with heavy contrast which is becoming a staple for alot of my projects, as well as all of the tweaks I mentioned prior.
I still felt as if all the transitions, effects and splicing I had done wasn’t enough to match the energy level of the mixtape, so I decided to take the project to After Effects which was something I had only dabbled in once for my Peter Pan audio and visual project. I referred to one of my peers, Joe, who has a lot of experience in After Effects, to see if he could offer me any tips. Joe sent me his YouTube playlist which had multiple videos explaining different VFX tricks you can do in After Effects, a lot of them related to music video style visual effects too.
After watching a few of these I downloaded some plug-ins that the youtubers that made those videos put in the description, these plug ins are downloadable and you can upload them onto After Effects, sort of like an arrangement of effects you can download.
One pack I downloaded which featured heavily in the VFX was a pack called Omino, which had glitchy and distorted style effects throughout.
A skill that I had to refine during this VFX stage was rotoscoping. Rotoscoping is essentially cutting out the subject so that you can apply the effects onto layers behind it but not onto the subject itself. Using the rotoscope tool took a lot of trial and error as I had to guide the tool to sourcing out the subject frame by frame. After altering the feathering so that the lines weren't as harsh, I was able to apply effects onto the background directly.
After exporting each clip in Adobe Media Encoder to make sure that each frame was rendered correctly and in H.264, I implemented these effected clips and incorporated them in my final edit.
Responsibility
One of my responsibilities in this project was to source together inspiration to create this entire project. I got inspiration from music videos, horror films and visual effects from music videos by artists like Ken Carson, who uses a lot of the similar glitch effects that I put in this project. This ensured that the project was successful as I was able to control the narrative of this project and made sure it all made sense together, making it authentically mine and the clients in the meantime.
Another one of my responsibilities in this project was to source out cast and crew. I wanted to make sure that everybody that was involved with this project would see the vision, I chose peers that have created similar style projects like this such as Music Videos and visual effect heavy projects for my crew. For the cast, I wanted to make sure that everyone would be comfortable in the designs that the client had created, so I chose cast that are close to me who have furthered experience in fashion, one of them is a runway model who has modeled for esteemed brands such as Diesel. Ensuring this meant sure that everyone within this project ‘made sense’ in this project and was able to add their own flare to it.
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A different responsibility that I had in this project was to assemble all the clips into places where it made sense for the music. This ensured that the clips all streamed together nicely and didn’t feel out of place.
Organisation/Proffesional Ettiquette
When managing time for this project, I had to consider what needed to get done before we had a day of filming, certain assets such as location recces, AV scripts and shot lists had to be completed before we pressed record. I made sure that I only chose a day of filming when I was almost finished with this document so that I could allow myself enough time to accomplish everything that I needed to do as well as give myself contingency time to add anything new that I felt like the project required before filming. When it came to choosing a day for filming, I had to decide amongst the client which models and locations we wanted for each day. I had to be the source of contact with cast and crew and make sure there was a day where all of us could be at the set locations for filming. This was a tricky process and took a lot of trial and error. I decided that the most efficient way to do it was to ask each member of the cast and crew who’d be involved in this project at all and select a day where we had the right cast and the right crew. This proved be a slightly faulty method as time went on though, as it meant that I wasn't giving cast and crew long enough to book certain days and time off of any other commitments they may have. During post production I had to hold meetings with my client and show them how much progress I was making, this was helpful as it meant that the client and I were able to micromanage different aspects to this project and make sure we were both happy with what was getting done.
Meaning to Audience/Meeting Inentions
My chosen media format for this project was a music video. Music videos have many codes and conventions that give this style of filmmaking it’s own definition. One of the codes and conventions is the ‘style’ of music video, this music video in particular has a lot of symbolism and referencing to psychedelic drug usage. Themes of drugs and psychadelics are common within a lot of music videos and it is commonly assisted with trippy visuals and visual effects. This is a theme that I had within my project but I wanted to delve a bit deeper than just trippy visuals, I wanted to translate with mise en scene, colour grading and emotions from the cast what psychedelics feel like to a person. Camera angles within music videos tend to have a sole subject, usually the song artist but in this case it’s our models. Music videos tend to have establishing shots but fast paced moving shots to keep it entertaining and quick paced for the audience. This was something I incorporated in my project for the entertainment value of this project and to keep the viewer entertained.
Platform and Distribution
The platform that the client and I chose for this project was Instagram. The restrictions of this platform are to do with time and framing. I mentioned previously in AC1 how I adapted this project to fit these requirements and we were able to upload our project without any issues, addressing the intended platform early on was definitely beneficial as it meant that we were able to shape our project around these restrictions early on, rather than change things around last minute. I exported my project in 4k as any other time I tried to render it in any other way I wasn’t happy with the rendering and quality, I allowed myself enough time between me finishing editing and the release day so that I could play around with different export settings and ultimately choose which one was right for the film. My project can be seen as a reel on @enjoii.i
