I experimented a lot with my music videos and done things I haven't done before (dubstep sequence matching the video). I had to learn new things and tried to make everything as 'perfect' as I could. What inspired me to do such a video is various other videos on YouTube that brought games to life.
One of the videos:
My initial plan of my idea was of a teenager inside all day long and then getting told by his father to get out and go get some fresh air. The teenager will go outside and put on his shades (in contrast to the Song; Sunlight Hurts My Eyes), knocks over a glass bottle accidentally but catches it (without realising) whilst the bottle is falling. Eventually the teenager will start free running around his area and then jump off a bin. The shades will then fall off his face and he will forget everything he had done, go home and acted as if nothing happened.
Since this storyline, I've decided to tweak it a bit. I went with the storyline with the boy just randomly playing his video game (Assassin's Creed) in his dark room and being told by his father to leave. When he leaves the house he will not knock over a glass bottle and catch it unexpectedly but instead it will be as if he randomly starts running for no apparent reason which gives the general viewer the question "why is he doing that?" expression. This approach will make the viewer ponder about what's going on, which shall hopefully engage the audience; but as they continue to watch the video it will piece-together and they shall understand the narrative behind it. I then went with an approach that the main character, Alan, will bump into a random pedestrian whilst he's running. This pedestrian will start chasing after him for a few blocks before giving up at the end of the road because the main character is too fast. I had decided to add this bit in because not only does it show that the character is athletic (in contrast to how frequently he plays video games), but it also progresses the narrative.
Closer towards the end, instead of my the main character jumping off a bin, I went with another concept to make it as if he's free running and then slips into the bin... comedy! Not only that, but they way how this portrays real life. In a game, that would never happen but in real life there is a chance it could happen as humans aren't perfect.
Alan will hurt himself in the process as he has banged his arm on the side of the bin and landed incorrectly. He will then climb out the bin and onto the first floor of an estate before continuing to run again but this time, limping. As an alternative of jumping off the estate floor, he decides to take a more subtle approach... the elevator. After the elevator as arrived at his floor, he will enter the elevator only to find another random person. Now, here's the twist: As they're riding down the elevator, he will collapse. Why? Because he's not a free-runner but simply just an average gamer that finally went outside into the "real world." The person is confused about what happened so frantically tries to re-open the door again. When the elevator door does open, the pedestrian decides to run it and try to find help... though we don't see that, but that's the general fill behind it. This process is called Elliptical Editing.
I've have developed my storyline on a number of levels opposed to my original storyline. I reckon I made a good development because I also had to experiment more and find other ways of making the narrative less "boring" or not boring at all and also keep the story narrative flowing. The video above (Assassins Creed Meets Parkour in Real Life) has the style and convention that inspired me to have my video like this and made me produce the homage music video. The finished podcast compared to the original proposal is similar in some points but has a few changes. I consider it to be an 'upgraded' version compared to the original. I'd say it is appropriate for my intended audience (which are, teenagers / young adults — age demographic; male 14 - 24 years of age) because they will mostly understand the morale behind it and how frequently teenagers in todays society play a lot of video games.
I have gathered feedback from my music video and the majority of them were very positive. One student stated that it was "near/at professional standard." After reading that, I felt proud of myself because my initial goal was to make it professional and cinematic. Another person said that it lacked narrative and the narrative I had before was really good. Maybe the developed narrative didn't explain the storyline to a proper extent? In future reference, I will make sure that the narrative is easily understandable to the viewer and make them ponder not too hard. Another student said it "lacked free-running," which is true but since the previous days were wet, some of the objects and things the character would have free-runned on were still quite wet and slippery so we had to think of a new plan because of health & safety reasons (Risk Assessment). I had done a lot of problem solving because some of initial plans were going as planned.
A strength for the music video is that, as the director when we were filming, I often would check back with my fellow crew members to see if they agreed with what my idea and the plan was. This is so I could see if they had another idea that would work well with the video. As Clint Eastwood once said, "Opinions are like assholes... everyone has one." This famous quote inspired me to ask for people's feedback and suggestions because not only could it make the video better but it also shows development.
A weakness on my Music Video is working on a very tight deadline. Though I got everything done before the deadline, it's just finding the right day to shoot on seeing as the horrible English weather isn't as reliable as, for example, Spain's weather. Since I was the director of the video, I had to gather information from the production manager on whether the days were safe to shoot on. Safety was our number one concern, knowing that they'd be running and we don't want an accident to occur. On one of the filming days, the weather condition was so bad (when the weather said it wouldn't be), we couldn't shoot on that day. Unfortunately, that brought us behind schedule but we quickly caught up with that on the next filming day which was in a few days. The other day arrived and the weather said it was going to be a bad day, but we trusted our instincts and the day was quite sunny so we shot on that day. Success!
When I was editing the video, I noticed that on some parts of the video it was quite dark but that is not the camera's fault but indeed the post production done on the video's fault (too much contrast applied). I added a lot of contrast on the video and I WAS aware of it, but I thought it was because of the position I was sitting in that made it seem that dark. Only when the video was being played in front of college students and people on different computers made me realise that, in fact, it wasn't my seated position's fault.
Next time, I would pay more attention to things and keep a close look out for errors. If I were to change another thing in the video, I'd change the effects near the end because it was the same effect over-and-over again whereas at the beginning of the video, there was a variety of different effects.
Media Production Music Video Evaluation
