Introduction
The song I have decided to work with is a song by a close friend, Harrison Powers, that's titled "Carrying On". they're so many reasons as to why I've decided to work with this song. After closely analysing the deeper contextual meanings behind the song with my friend I later discovered that the song has deeper meanings of alcoholism and moving and growing past the addiction that comes with it. I believe we are able to link many visual ideas to the song as well keeping the song fresh and creative to align with his musical persona he would like to portray to a general audience. The video we want to create is a simple yet effective that will drive the song further to an audience without mentioning the deeper meanings as we believe they're too personal and will end up making the video
Planning
After talking to my client we finally decided that it will be best to go for a rather conventional music video that establishes different stylistic traits that will ultimately catch the viewers eyes and allow them to remember him as an artist. in my opinion i believe that this is the best idea to work with as a new artist as it allows the artist to leave an impression.
even though the way we worked was very unconventional we still decided to use a gantt chart to keep in schedule with work.
Storyboarding
this stage had gone through many stages. We wrote a list of shots of what we had wanted for the music video, and we would tick off the list and place each shot accordingly in the timeline. However, the quality of the video was not at the standard we wanted.
When planning many of the new shots, my client and I had gone for a very unorthodox way of coming up with shots. We had driven for hours upon 2-3 days to see which location will be the best for the music video and represent the song in the strongest way possible. We then filmed what felt right whilst going back to the lyrics. This allowed the video to have a spontaneous feel which is what the artist wanted.
Mood board
Location recce
These locations are the main locations we had chosen at the time of looking for locations and coming up with an idea.
Shot ideas and development, and planning
When coming up with ideas for this music video we decided to make a list of shots that we wanted for certain in the music video. These shots will not be in any particular order, we only discussed that these the shot we wanted for certain. My client and I made a planning list of what we need to do when creating for the first week [gathering the equipment and heading to different locations]
the original planning and shot list looks like this,
My client and I dedicated Saturdays in the week as that was the only time we were properly free.
However, during these sessions we believe we were overly ambitious on the ideas that we were presenting forward to the video
The only shot that ended up making it from this original shot in the middle of the field where it spins, and my client follows the camera, and the rest were scrapped, and we decided to go again.
Redoing of the video stage
At this point we decided that it was best that we try not to over-complicate things by making a very ambitious shot that will ultimately come out looking mediocre. This when we decided to drive and come up with different shots whilst coming up with shots on the spot. The first shot that we decided to redo was the shot were the camera span in circles on a tripod and my client will walk around the tripod whilst he sings and raps the song. This was the first shot we did for the second version of the video.
It happened to snow on the day, so it was a bonus as it added to the clips aesthetic. As we so shocked by the snow we decided to add extra shots without the tripod and have the camera follow him as he moved through the park.
This shot was also unintended but worked well enough to make it into the final video.
The second clip we decided to get was the nighttime shot with a green light shining in front of him. The green light was originally going to be red as the single cover was going to be the colour red as well.
However, this later on changed to green to align with the cover art we ended up choosing
This green light was created by attaching green cellophane to a torch allowing the white light to become green. This work far greater than we expected, so we added it in as it only felt right and made total sense. We initially had plans to have him on a bike and ride into frame however this ended up not making the final cut as it wasn't to our standard.
When coming up with this shot my initial inspiration was not only the single cover but also this article of Rina Sawayama for King Kong Magazine
after this shot we decided to go home and shoot shots inside his bedroom (he lives alone, so we weren't breaking COVID-19 guidelines). We thought to do the spinning camera shot again but this time just in his bedroom
This contrasted well with the outdoor shot, and we decided to keep it in the video. We also did some shots in the corner of his room, but we didn't like them until we had the idea of it being on a laptop screen being zoomed out. This idea made the final cut
The next shot we did was an experimental shot that we didn't think will work that happened to work exceptionally. My client happened to have a Go-Pro Camera that had a shield that allowed it to be submerged underwater. We decided to have him dunk his into the water, and rap the lyrics.
The final shot we did was the tape the tripod around the clients body and have the camera face up at him, which allows the sky behind to show, as he spins. This shot was another one of the shots we decide to do whilst we were out driving finding locations, and overall inspiration for this image was the cover of the film "Mid 90s". This can be classed as an intertextual reference.
Editing
During the editing stage we kept things simple. The song has a longer intro than the video however this made the video very complicated to edit at the start. We didn't exactly have a plan of which clips will end up where, so we did a very unconventional way of editing. We layered each clip on top of each other and as the song went through we chose which song will end up by blinding each clip one by one seeing which one fit the best, once we did that we cut the right ones into place. Furthermore, we decided to cut down the music and have the aspect ratio go from 16:9 to 4:3 and keep the shot where he walks into frame and the camera begins to spin. This shot allowed the video to look more clean and eye catching. During the shooting phase of our production my client did action such as making his hands into a box when he said lots to watch on the TV or writing on his hand when he says writing these songs. We align these well to directly link to the song and allow it to amplify each other. Another thing we did for the nighttime shot was slow down the song and perform the song whilst it was slow down then proceeding to speed up the footage to match the speed of the song. This created a very manic effect which ties into the theme of drinking The editing was very basic as the and the quick cuts when the kick rolls in the song come in and the shift of aspect ratio are the real "experimental" qualities of the final video. The quick cuts when the song changes pace ultimately amplifies the song even further.
Conclusion
Personally i believe that my client and I were on top of everything. In the planning stage i believe that my client and i overcame an obstacle effectively by making sure that things were handled properly and effectively, for example as we felt our ideas were to forward thinking, taking ideas that other people used and adapting it into our own such as the mid 90s cover was a great idea as it proved we were able to think of ideas and achieve exceptionally. We stayed true to ideas even though a lot of our original ideas were scrapped, the final product is what we originally intended the video to be.
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