Poet by Northern Downpour

Poet by Northern Downpour from Leanne Owens on Vimeo.

Above is the finished product of the music video that I have created over the first couple of weeks of the summer holidays. I am happy with the final piece, but have picked out several negatives about it.

The most noticeable thing, for me, is the lack of continuity in the beginning scene. The wind was a problem on the day of shooting, and this problem becomes apparent when watching the beginning scene closely. Sarah's hair would obviously blow in the wind, and although we tried our best to "tame" it, we could not control which direction her hair went, resulting in it being over different shoulders for different shots.

 

The above shots are examples of this problem, and although I had shot the same scenes several different times, the same fault occured. There was no way that I could manage to crop this scene out, meaning I unfortunately had to keep the errors. To make sure that this problem does not happen in any future projects, I will have to carefully choose what days to shoot on and take the weather into consideration.

 

 

I don't like the jumpy nature of this shot. I didn't have enough footage to make the removal of the earphones seem smooth, so the continuity is off between these two shots. To some it may be hardly noticeable, but from watching it back several times it irks me to see it. To ensure that this same mistake does not happen in my final music video piece, I will make sure I shoot more footage than I necessarily need as a back up.

 

Other problems that I have identified with the video is that some of the shots are fairly shaky (I have deduced that this is most likely due to the fact that one of the legs of my tripod fell off halfway through shooting) and although I used the "Stabilisation" function on iMovie, the shots still look fairly amateurish. For the shooting of my main music video, I am going to purchase another tripod, preferably a more expensive/reliable one. I hope that the shots that I capture will then look a lot more slick and professional.



Beginning to edit

I have began to edit the footage for my music video for "Poet", and am starting to piece together the beginning scene, establishing the setting to the audience as well as introducting the audience to the protagonist Sarah. So far, these are a few of the shots that I quite like:

 

This medium close-up shot of Sarah's feet as she walks, to me, is quite compelling as the viewer does not know where she is going and is immediately drawn into the video to see where she is travelling to. 

 

 

This medium shot of Sarah is also quite nice as it allows the viewer to see the background in which she is most comfortable - her home village. Towards the end of the video when she wanders through the woods the audience will be able to recognise that the background is not what she is used to, meaning that she is out of her comfort zone and indeed out of the way of civilisation. By doing this, it gives the video quite a creepy perpective, and the viewer can then decide on their feelings of the situation.

"Requiem For Blue Jeans"

I have been coming up with several ideas for what the storyline of my final music video could be, and have been listening to the song on repeat for the last few days to ensure that I know the beats and melody thoroughly before deciding anything.

I have chosen to portray the story (which I have yet to fully create) through the female's perspective, having a female protagonist as the star of the video. The song is about a relationship breaking down and I think that it also has quite a creepy, almost supernatural feel to the song with the use of keyboards and echo-y harmonies.

Bearing this is mind, I want the storyline to be quite dark and gloomy, reflected in the colouring of the video. I am hoping to use the influences I have attained from Bastille's "Pompeii" video, and Imagine Dragons' "Radioactive" video with the landscapes being a vital factor in the storyline and underlying message of the video. I hope to use a lot of outdoor shots like they did, and will try my best not to film indoors.

So, to summarise:

- The video will be set mainly outdoors as nature is a beautifully diverse image
- The protagonist of the video will be female
- The video will be about a past relationship
- There will be supernatural elements involved

I can't wait!