Author: 4054atkinson

Overall Reflections

Research

The research that I produced in conjunction with form and style were extremely beneficial for the final products that I produced – with them both being essential in how I planned, shot and applied post production effects. However, I think that it is arguable as to whether my Audience research served me much purpose. On one hand, I developed many of the themes of my music video through the enthusiastic fan-base’s ideas of what the album was about. In contrast to this, I was already aware of the key demographics and what would be expected of my video. Because of this, this aspect of the audience research served me very little purpose.

Planning

For a music video of my variety, planning was of the upmost important. The most valuable part of my planning were the thematic PowerPoint timelines I produced to create the structure of both music videos. Without these, there was a chance that the themes may have ended up discordant or misaligned. However, I do think that my storyboards, despite their level of production, did eat up a lot of time that could have been spent producing my real video. It could also be argued that these storyboards made the eventual video I made better and more precise – which is backed up by the fact that my production did not become rushed at any point.

Production

The production side of my project ran with much more ease than I originally expected, as I gave my actors heavy prior notice before shooting began. Along with this, the actors within the piece were well informed of my creative intentions, and therefore collaboration came with ease. If I was to enter production again, I would hold meetings with the actors prior to the shoot outlining my exact vision – if the timing of the production allowed for it.

Post-Production

As I had a lengthy history of post-production work prior to this project, I found this element to be one of the easiest. However, as Premiere Pro is such a dense piece of software, I was still able to find new mechanics and effects throughout the editing process. The most influential was ‘Lumetri Color’ – which I wish I had found at an earlier point. If this were the case, I could’ve scraped about an hour from my total editing time. However, this knowledge is transferable to other projects and will be of overall benefit to my career.

Creative Critical Reflection

1. How do your products use or challenge conventions and how do they represent social groups or issues?
As a deconstruction of faith that deals heavily with historical revisionism, I decided that my music video should be deeply rooted in nostalgic, vintage Americana. To achieve this, the majority of my music video was shot to imitate both noir thrillers of the black and white era, and the amateur 1970s shooting style of 8mm. These were used extensively to contrast the difference between the original ‘incident’ of the alien invasion, and how the world surrounding this had been affected. However, in my planning process this evolved – the black and white noir film would come to represent a fictional portrayal of a real alien invasion, whilst the events of the second song would show a much darker, pagan ritual based on the same incident.
This allowed me to break convention in my opening song in regards to the acting – which is highly sensationalised and fake. This does not only reflect how poor the cultural understanding of the invasion had been, but also it is itself a criticism of the narratives that were being presented during the Motion Picture Production Code era of American cinema. This widens out into being a deconstruction of traditional hyper-capitalist commercialism through the reoccurring motif of the Coke bottles throughout both narratives. Whilst this may seem unrelated on a surface level, the idea is fundamentally rooted in the revisionist retelling of this tragic event. Not only has this alien invasion been dramatized and raised to the level of martyrdom, but the pure emotion of the piece is undercut by the inevitable forces of commercialism – which itself is a product of repeated suggestion.
In this aspect, the music video is highly subversive. The majority of themes raised within a music video will usually be explicitly present in the lyrical quality of the original composition. However, the independent nature of his music, along with his dedicated fan-base, allows me some creativity in how I expand the themes that are present both the ‘Illinois’ album and his discography as a whole.
One of these themes is Sufjan’s own experience within the LGBT community. Many of his songs on the ‘Illinois’ album presents his youthful experiences of homosexuality in a way that jar against the Americana stylings of his prose. I decided that I could integrate this representation within my own narrative, with the protagonist of the second song finding his LGBT journey to be a part of his own personal liberation. Whilst this presentation in isolation may lack depth, it contrasts against the liberation the couple eventually find within the pagan celebration of the alien worship. These dual representations of both social progression and regression serve to viscerally highlight the idea of historical revisionism through thematic dissonance. Whilst the society that is represented within my text has a sense of neo-liberal progression within its civilians – the scaffolding of the society is built upon re-appropriation and greed. This itself is a metaphor for the greater functionality of organised religion within society – and how a society that has moved past it’s ideals is still shaped by them.
My secondary products are constructed upon similar thematic strands – with the focus being explicitly on the iconography of my product. In terms of convention, we would have to consider the market of about 5 years ago to consider how my CD would be incorporated within the mass market – given the fact that digital releases or vinyl have taken over the release conventions. However, the imagery that is used within the interior of my CD harkens greatly to post-modern art movements through high distortion of the human form. Whilst this may relate to my product, it also breaks the traditional convention of presenting the artist in an organic way within an album – with Sufjan Stevens not being featured within the CD advertising. However, this creates a greater cohesion between the rerelease and the music video – as the explicit purpose of the music video is to add another level of artistic interpretation to Stevens’ music.
2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?
The styling of my secondary products is both in line with the aesthetic choices of my primary production and caters to the same audience and demographic. In terms of cohesion, each piece of promotional material harkens on the thematic links that would be most applicable to the original song – the alien invasion. This element is explicitly referenced on the cover of the single release. Because this iconography is highly linked to the musical text, it allows the rest of my cohesion to be more implicit. For example, both my website and my album exterior use explicitly high contrast lighting, which harkens back to the era of noir film making I imitate in my music video. My website aims for a minimalist aesthetic, and therefore it only requires the vintage styling established in my album cover – as opposed to the iconic imagery. This also relates to how nostalgia is used as a theme throughout my music video, in both a favourable and critical way.
3. How do your products engage with the audience and how would they be distributed as real media products?
The way in which I have engaged with the audience for this music video is fitting for the audience demographic that I have catered for. I have marketed the songs as a re-release within the context of a single – with the explicit purpose of relating to the music video. Therefore, the purpose of the single release is to promote the music video, as demonstrated through the previously mentioned brand cohesion.
I purposefully did not include a hashtag for the music video, as the audience base of the fan-base is not wide enough to creating a trending topic on Twitter, and the conceptual, artistic structure of the music video is not designed to explicitly appeal to a wider audience. Therefore, I designed the products to be a wider promotion for Steven’s record label, and the vinyl re-releases that have been released recently. This was done through promotional links on both the CD and the website, which have a heavy leaning towards advertising Sufjan Steven’s as an artist as opposed to the music video (although the music video is still given prominence).
4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?
The choice of WordPress for the presentation of my blog allowed for amazing flexibility in terms of how to best account my creative process. This came through the ability to edit blogs and their order from many different devices, both at home and within school. However, this was in some way restrictive – as WordPress does not allow for a huge amount of customisation within the timeline of my creative process, nor within the professional presentation of my writings.
In the research process, I was able to use platforms such as YouTube for not only examples of visual styles (Super 8 and Black and White Noir) but also tutorials of how to achieve these aesthetics through both digital post production and equipment. This allowed me to pre-emptively select the required hardware; including lanterns, torches, and a Steadicam.
I was also able to access further research on narrative structure within the form of a conceptual music video – both through viewing music videos that were within this genre and through watching deconstructive video essays.
The creation of a script for a mostly conceptual music video (barring any dialogue) did not seem like the optimum method for describing the narrative of my music video. To achieve this, I organised the themes I wanted to explore within a PowerPoint slide, organised the major developments/lyrics of the music linearly along the side, and thus decided which themes should take prominence at which point of each song. This method was much more efficient than if I was to use physical means, as I had high flexibility to reorganise shots once I saw the ultimate order they fell into.
An advantage to using Adobe Photoshop to produce my storyboards was that I could be very specific in terms of which colour schemes and visual stylings would be used throughout my two songs. I was also able to place these storyboards into Adobe Premiere Pro before the formal editing process, to gage how the shots would relate both to the shots and to the music. However, this process was extremely time consuming, and cost my production time before we could shoot – meaning that the shoot had to be delayed to accommodate this. In addition to this, the use of stock images as opposed to real actors/actresses was the only method that was feasible within the given time frame. Because of this, many of the poses that I desired within shots were not achieved to my exact vision, and many characters completely changed identity from shot to shot. Likewise, much of the time also had to be dedicated to finding these stock images – which was usually much more time consuming than the act of image manipulation.
The editing process became much quicker than I anticipated due to the pre-placing of these storyboards – although many shots became reorganised once the shoot had been completed. During editing, I discovered many new elements of Premiere that I could use for the specific requirements of my film. The most significant was ‘Posterize Time’ – which was advantageous in creating a convincing ‘Super 8’ look. I also discovered the ‘Lumetri Color’ panel – which allowed for subtler colour correction in comparison to my preliminary tasks and previous personal projects.
I decided to use wix.com to create my website, as a part of my secondary project. Whilst the templates and instructions on this site allowed for the creation of my own website to be brisk, it did also limit the extent to which I could personalise the layout of the homepage. Likewise, I had to create some fake tracks for the website, as it would be illegal to sell Sufjan Steven’s copyrighted music. However, to counter any accusations of mis-leading customers, a clear notice was placed at the bottom of the site.

Filming Log

14/2/2018 – Concerning the UFO Sighting Interior Shoot
Prior to the shooting day, the furniture in the room was moved to accommodate for our filming. The couches and tables were moved into the main lobby of the house so that the main space of the room was free. Likewise, I followed the 180-degree rule and moved the majority of the objects that were not part of the set into the adjacent side of the room. I then moved three dining room chairs into the empty space to imitate a theatrical look. After this had been prepared, shooting was able to begin.
The lead did not become available until the mid-afternoon, meaning that the shots that focused on the secondary characters took prominence for this part of the day. At this point of the shoot, the smoke machine was only going to be used for the portion of the video featuring the alien (Kenneth Ferrer) – meaning that the smoke machine was only going to be used in the later part of the day. However, when this part of the day arrived, we came to the realisation that there was no liquid smoke to use with the smoke machine – which ground editing to a halt. An hours break was taken for lunch for the cast, whilst I drove to a local film-maker’s house who had the required equipment. Once I returned, the rest of the shoot ran smoothly – with the only cast required being the alien and the lead actress. This allowed for my creativity to flourish – as I was not restricted by scheduling. It also happened that whilst I was shooting the B-Roll of the bible and coke bottles, I received an offer from my firm university choice – which obviously delayed filming for about 20 minutes.
The lighting set up that I decided upon worked much better than I originally anticipated. I used two torches (one large torch, one for highlights) and an LED Lantern – all from Mountain Warehouse. Kenneth was around for the majority of the day and, as he was only featured in one shot, he was able to hold lighting as according to my specification. Overall the desired effect was achieved – mostly due to the fact that the differing shades of white were not noticeable in the manipulated black and white footage.


17/2/2018 – The Black Hawk War Exterior Shoot 1 – Douglas Head
The day was divided into two sections – one with just Ash and Bailey, and the rest at the amphitheatre. The planning of the day was convenient, as the shots at the coast with the couple are located within a 10-minute walking distance from the theatre. However, as I could not drive at this point, the cast had to find their own way down to the location.
The first shoot of the day was successful – using only 45 minutes of the 2 allocated hours. However, the location was particularly cold on the day – so for the majority of the day actors were wearing more layers than are seen on screen. More than once, this lead to either focus or aperture having to be adjusted. Any hesitation that may have surrounded the shot of the two leads kissing defused quickly – as both of the actors work to a professional standard and felt comfortable with the situation. However, the attempts prior to the one seen in the finished shoot were deleted on the set – as to make the actors feel comfortable that the footage would not be seen outside of this project.
At this point we ate pre-prepared lunch and met the rest of the cast at the amphitheatre – including the child actress. I had been informed prior to the shoot that she felt extreme stage fright, so I had prepared myself for this through allocating ourselves 3 hours to shoot (especially given the absurd nature of what we were shooting). However, the child actress flourished and came into her own when we finally made it onto set – with there even being times when her enthusiasm had to be toned down! Again, this shoot was also completed in a shooter time frame than originally expected – with the shoot being completed in less than 2 hours. We centralised a hub for all of our props and equipment – which was shifted between the seats and the stage dependent on what was being shot. The organisation that we had done prior to the shoot created a relaxed environment both for me and the actors – which meant that we could complete the shoot with ease and get the desired agreed upon effect (a useful side effect of having the storyboards being created prior to shooting).


12/3/18 – Concerning the UFO Sighting/The Black Hawk War Shooting Day 2 – Interior and Exterior
The shooting on this date was kept to a strict schedule – as there was much to film with both the main male and female at different locations. Along with this, I had to attend a meeting with an unrelated film production company prior to this shooting, which highly condensed the available time for shooting. However, by this point I had passed my driving test so I was able to transport the actors between locations myself – which itself increased the amount of time we had for shooting. I began the shoot by collecting Ash from his house and moving to our first location on Finch Road. Whilst this was completed with a fair amount of haste, some time was used both in changing between the Steadicam and handheld, and in getting local permissions. After this point, I had arranged for us to shoot in and around St Georges Church at 12pm (a time selected by them as it was Mothering Sunday and the church was busy). I was able to acquire permission through my own connections with the church, and the archdeacon was on hand to supervise us throughout. This too went successfully, with Ash being dropped back at his home by 1pm. We were also able to use the same lights from the black and white shoot to illuminate Ash in his shots – which was then colour corrected in post.
I had lunch myself at this point and drove myself and the female lead (Izzie Kneale) to SBP Studios – which we were able to use through kind permissions. However, an accident at the set caused damage to the camera – which obscured my view of the shots being taken. Because of this, the shooting process at the studios took longer than I anticipated. However, the quality of the image was not affected, and there were methods of working around the damage. Likewise, I discovered the difficulty that polystyrene has with blu-tac and had to redesign the opening heads with sticky tape. However, there were no scissors at the location, so it eventually had to be replaced with masking tape. However, apart from this the shooting went very successfully, and we relocated to Ballacottier School Field to get shots for the end of Concerning the UFO Sighting. This too went well, and at this point all that was left to get were miscellaneous exterior shots – which were easy to achieve given the fact that I was now able to drive.
In conclusion the shoot went as expected – with the more difficult aspects of my piece being achievable with more ease than I originally expected.

Secondary Project: Website Research and Planning

The layout and features of an artist’s website correlates to whatever they consider the purpose of their website to be. To show this, I will explore a few examples of artist’s websites:

Snowpoet.PNG

Taylor Swift Website 1.PNG

The primary purpose of these websites are to explicitly promote new products. For the Snowpoet website, attention is drawn to this through the album cover being the focal point of the site. It contrasts against the very plain background and surrounding text, and immediately draws the reader’s eyes to it. This is also made clear through the Taylor Swift website – which uses the same principal through higher levels of aesthetic coating. Within this mindset, it would make sense for the music video to be the focal point of my website – given the fact that this is the primary new product being advertised to readers.

Ben Folds Website.PNG

To further illustrate this point, it makes sense to compare these websites to an artist who has no immediate product to promote. With Ben Folds’ website, he directly promotes the music he has already made that is not currently in the charts in a non-hostile way – which partially encourages readers to remain on the website to browse his other avenues of productivity (photography, shop etc.)

For my own website, this approach is not advisable. My website exists solely to promote my music video, and this passive approach is not compatible with my intentions.

Sufjan Website.PNG

 

Sufjan Stevens’ own aesthetic choices reflect the minimalist movement, and reflect the level of transparency he keeps with his fan-base. To make my own website too far of a diversion from this would be counter-intuitive for the maintaining of his own style. Therefore, I will find a way to keep this minimalist style, whilst introducing some of the iconography of my own music video.