Music Video Evaluation

If I am completely honest, I feel that this project was doomed from the formation of our group. In our first meeting we all spoke about ideas, however it soon became obvious that none of our ideas were remotely similar and they wouldn’t work together. As a group of musicians I think that we all felt a certain amount of pressure to create something that we felt was expected of us. I think it was this that caused the major and majority of our problems.
Once we had made a unanimous decision to compose a song rather than using garage band, we all set off writing our own lyrics. It turned out that Stuart was the only one who had gone as far as to put a tune and backing track to the lyrics he wrote, so this gave him the upper hand. We naturally chose his song because it was solid, had a good tune we could all work on and to save time. It is here that the balance in the group shifted quite considerably, with Stuart having a natural affection towards his song, this made him more closed off to other peoples ideas, however through no fault but my own, the situation worsened when we started discussing ideas once more, I wanted something with more narrative than what Stuart was discussing and I spoke up about it which caused a great deal of stress not only to me and Stuart but also to Sam and Dan, the two other members in our group. At the time I thought I was contributing to ideas for the video, however, in all honesty, it might have been better if I never spoke up about what I thought as the arguments continued which brought the moral in our group to an all time low. After this my attitude to the work was very blasé and I knew if I spoke up again then all hell would break loose. As a result of this Stuart took on most of the work and it felt like me and Dan who were the only two left in the group after Sams’ ill health were simply actors who had been chosen, we gave ideas and offered help but I don’t think we tried hard enough, I think Stuart saw I had lost faith in the project and allowed me to drift away from the workload, which I don’t blame him for, it was completely understandable.
Our video as we planned would consist of the journey of two people walking down a street and as one person walked into a side road, the other walked out. This had to be timed perfectly and I thought it would have been harder for me and Dan to achieve than it was. I got a call from Dan later that night to say that none of our work that day had come out right so we would be re filming the next day, I assumed that we would still use the same idea. However when we got to location, we were told a slightly different rendition of what we would be doing, which sounded like a great idea. We filmed us walking down the street from a car window and then each had our own section to work on where we could do whatever we wanted. I am disappointed that Stuart stayed behind the camera, as I felt if he had come out then it would have felt more like a group effort, however, due to unfortunate circumstances he wasn’t able to as he had to either drive or film. It is here that I started thinking that we should have chosen something that could involve all of us, although Stuarts determination to create something amazing was enough to make him go back into college, realise that the footage we had shot was nothing but clips of people messing around on some grass, and take his bike and a camera and film on single sequence of biking round a road, and as much as I hate to admit it, it did look amazing, he did a great job despite all the struggle and I am genuinely disappointed in myself that I lost faith and therefore lacked in effort to help Stuart create something that we could all be proud of. Overall, I have decided from this project that I don’t want to make another music video out of choice, ever, and that if I did I would do the simplest thing that came to mind and stick with it.




Group Idea

Music Video Group Idea
Title of Song
‘Sing The Silence’

Target Audience
Male/Female 16-40

Duration
3 - 3.5 Minutes

Filming Location
Eagle Way area, Martlesham Heath

Cast And Crew
Daniel Lee-Harvey
Stuart Hilpert
Sam Routledge
Jessica Fawkner Simpson

Synopsis
There will be a formless narrative, and will follow the journey of 4 individuals as they walk along a road. It will be filmed from a car and will have a speed to it that fits the music and appeals the target audience.

Treatment
‘Sing The Silence’ best described as alternative rock will be an interesting piece of music to work with, as the codes and conventions for this genre of video for music relies on abstract visuals.
The video will follow the simple journey of 4 individual’s daily routine, seamlessly walking. The camera will follow only one individual at a time and as that individual’s ‘journey’ comes to an end when they leave into a side road, the next individual will walk out from the opposite side of the road and the camera will then follow them. This will go on for each individual.
The first individual is walking their dog, and then the dog will run off, and the individual will chase the dog into the side road where the second individual will then appear and walk to the bus stop, check the time and carry on walking, they will walk into another side road and then individual 3 will walk out and look forlornly at a couple kissing, following the theme, they will then walk into the side road and individual 4 will walk out, walk into a lamppost, fall over and then get up and carry on walking. As this is the last individual the car which we are using to film from will come to a stop and film the individual walking into the distance.
It will be shot in one take which we will film from a car window, using a clamp to keep the camera steady. Inspiration has been taken from video such as Bat For Lashes – What’s A Girl To Do and The Verve – Bittersweet Symphony.