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At the end of second year the lectures at university gave us a heads up about next year being FMP year and start to think about what you want to make for your final big submission. Instantly i knew what i wanted to create as my final showcase piece of work and it was creating a five to ten minute music video that throughout will have a subtle storyline to accommodate the songs lyrics while still capturing the bands image and presence throughout.

For the past two years of my university course i’ve been co running a music website called ‘Still Spinning’ where the purpose of the website is to showcase music from across the world without giving individuals too much information in regards to who they are and what genre of music they represent and from this many music labels across the world now share with us exclusive music along with being able to interview bands, review live shows, listen to albums pre release etc.

(Still Spinning, 2017)

From the amount of networking we have done in the past two and a bit years we’ve become really close with the majority of United Kingdom based music record labels who’ve given us countless opportunities to collaborate with them and their artists, baring that in mind when i decided to create a music video for my final major project i knew i already had the upper hand as i’ve had multiple artists asking if we produce video content for them e.g. press packs, music videos, interviews etc.

So with that i decided to use every resource i’ve got in my music industry related contacts and reached out to upcoming (primarily independent based) artists/bands around the midlands area to step forward if they would like to have a high quality music video made for nothing*, from that sparked multiple groups and individuals replying to our call out with willingness and already major ideas on what they would like straight out of the starting blocks.

Another reason why i have decided to produce a music video for my final major project is that many others on the course are creating short films and documentaries. I’m not saying that is a bad thing on their part but from my personal view i’ve made countless short films and documentaries for over six to seven years and i’ve only ever made one music video so far as a media practitioner so for my final year at university it made sense for me to make another music video and make it my best piece of work to date.

(SNMJ Productions, 2014)

This example above is the music video i created when i was studying BTEC Media Production Level 3, looking back on the video now and how we pieced it together e.g. visuals and editing wise it still kind of blows my mind that we won an ‘best editing award’ for this piece of work considering it was only under two minutes long and i we still managed to pull win an award for it was defiently a highlight of my college days.

Moving forward with this final major project music video i’m already on the edge of my seat to get this production underway and make a piece of media that i can boast about and showcase to clients, friends and family and other music related individuals who would be looking for similar work being produced for them.

Overall i’m excited and yet nervous about this term depending on how everything goes in the first couple of weeks of pre production and production will determine for me if it will be successful or not.. only time shall tell!

When it comes to producing a music video whether it be big or small you have to understand the codes and conventions of music videos and what makes them visually stimulating to fit in with the song its creating s visuals for, this is and still is something i always pay attention to when i receive music videos from record labels/artists to post up on the website. Due to the amount of different genre based artists we hear from it has really opened my eyes in the past two and a half years of how music videos are crafted and what makes an ineffective music video and what makes an effective music video.

(Bring Me The Horizon, 2016)

When you look at the context of this music video and what content it contains and how it relates to the music itself it doesn’t but what the music video is representing visually is underlying tones of society and how people represent it in America, endless amounts of gun violence, black minorities shooting police officers.

What i really like with this music video is the way the visuals and story interconnect with each other e.g. the main character isn’t being affected by the other individuals around him but he is witnessing the actions in front.

By that it’s representing to me and others that all this violence and destruction is happening in the world but not on our door steps (depending where your from) but it’s the way society have deemed it as if it’s not effecting them then why does it matter if this particular country has become a war zone, leading us to believe in the music video that soon it will be us the public fighting against each other in a civil war/end of the world scenario.

Another reason why i find music videos engaging is that they are the visuals of the song, if the visuals can’t depict the lyrics or meaning of the song then the visuals have some way or another failed the audience watching and wanting to see how their band/artist want to visually represent the song.

(Foals, 2013)

With this particular music video by Foals, the song and the visuals being shown on screen are in connection with each other and make the audience feel engaged by whats being shown on screen with the song underneath because it’s showcasing to the audience what type of situations can occur in the night or others will believe that the story being told is life e.g. sex, birth, life and death all being under one roof. When i think about affective music videos the first thing that pops into my mind is how the visuals are affecting me, do i have goosebumps, is the pacing correct, am i invested in the story and visuals on screen.

Overall when it comes to what inspires me to create a final major project music videos is that i want the audience that want to watch it will be either emotionally or visually invested in what music video i will be creating, i believe the most affective videos out there that have millions of views is the one’s where the visuals and audio are in sync with each other creating almost a temporary atmosphere while your watching the video play out and thats something i’m going to take full advantage of when it comes to the post production side of the music video.

When it came to me piecing together what myself and the band wanted as a final outcome it was interesting on both sides how we agreed on certain elements of the music and on others their would be a disagreements between the individual band members and myself on a couple of occasions.

Baring in mind in the early stages of pre production of the music video we were establishing contact through video and voice calls on a every other day basis which gave me the opportunity to take their ideas and feedback, and experiment the next day and develop the plans in multiple different ways to see what the possible best outcome would be for that particular idea.

One of the ideas that they threw at me was a possible animation piece slotted in the video for around 20-30 seconds, although to some that might not seem like a heavy work load i’ve never created any animation on a video production scale which in this case could holding me back i do have friends who study animation and graphic design who can assist me with putting the animation segment together.

Although unfortunately at a later period they decided against the animation part of the music video and decided to keep it a traditional video of purely camera and not computer generate imagery, after a couple of weeks of throwing ideas and pre production paperwork around we decided to finally meet up and seal the deal with the production which gave myself and them any last questions that needed answering about the production side of the project.

After myself and the band met up we decided to go location scouting together to see if we could find any ideal locations for exterior shoots and we stumbles across two of these outside locations in the west midlands.

The first place we visited was Coombe Abbey park which has vast greenland and a perfectly secluded wooded area which contains different amounts of light and dark area’s within the forest itself which will give for some great natural light sequences,But also the darker area’s of the forest can be lit using on site LED’s that can be powered and controlled on location without any plug power sources needed.

The second image is Burton Dassett which is based in and around Warwickshire that has a variety of different sized hills, open land and scenery around which we all believed would be a great location for wide establishing shots of the band from a far. With those two locations in mind we also established early on that we would also be filming part of the music video indoors switching between studio and a possible live performance (if any tours were announced with them).

The last communication with the band was about a week ago, we were checking in with the bands availability this year e.g. live shows, recording new album etc, and they seem to be fairly open during the time frame i have to create and produce this FMP idea to production so that’s a worry off my shoulders.

Overall watching the production develop over the past three to four months has been gearing me up for when we get to go out and finally make these productions so i can’t wait to get my hands stuck in with the project with the majority of the shoot already planned and finalised this term should be interesting.

References

Bring Me The Horizon, (2016). Bring Me The Horizon – Follow You. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tVWt2RDsoM [Accessed 17 Jan. 2017].

Foals, (2013). Foals – Late Night. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP-HSoe7IAU [Accessed 17 Jan. 2017].

SNMJ Productions, (2014). Ohmtrix – Medicate (Music Video). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-DxrlWctxc [Accessed 17 Jan. 2017].

Still Spinning, (2017). Still Spinning Homepage. [image] Available at: https://spinninstill.wordpress.com [Accessed 17 Jan. 2017].