Music Video is Finally Finished

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mysticjim
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Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by mysticjim »

Hi Guys,

Have mostly overcome my audio syncing issues, and after a marathon bit of editing, here is the finished video;

Quick warning, there is a smidge of colourful language in some of the captions,

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78UpJ_tYSVc[/youtube]

Hope you enjoy it, feedback welcome.

Jim
'Game over, man, game over!'
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Peter B
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Re: Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by Peter B »

Well, I have to admit that it's not my type of music, but even so I did enjoy watching the video.
I think it's easily as good as many commercially produced music vids I seen. I liked the way you cut between the band, the riot scenes and the news room. The special effects were well done, but not over done.
All in all, an excellent piece of work that you should be proud of.
My attempts at videos & AV sequences can be found on my website- http://www.dragon-sanctuary.co.uk
john ingham
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Re: Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by john ingham »

Nice one jim..i did notice at 2.49 the guys top of his head vanished (Greenscreen)..
Keep trying, for one day you will get it right
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by Dave Watterson »

I'm with Peter B on this one ... it makes a rather unlikely looking group of people (no offence intended) seem like a committed rock band with something to say about the society around them.
It works.
Well done ... even if it will make me nervous next time I visit Bristol.
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mysticjim
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Re: Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by mysticjim »

Hi Peter, John and Dave,

Many thanks for your positive and constructive feedback, I'm really glad you all like it.

Peter and Dave - Alien Stash Tin are something of a bizarre local musical phenomenon - I've known Jon, the singer, since the early 90's when I met him at college - we were even briefly in a short-lived band together before I headed off into alt rock and metal bands. He formed Stash Tin in 2002, and they've had an almost Spinal Tap-esque existence ever since. Jon is the only remaining original member of the band, they've had three lead guitarists, three bassists (plus me on about four occasions when I've been drafted in to deputise), one former keyboard player and even Jon has lost count of how many drummers they've got through (best guess is that they've had at least seven fully fledged drummers and about 6 that have been called in to deputise at some point or other. None of their former drummers have exploded, but one did go missing - turning up two weeks later, naked on a beach in Cornwall with only a vague, drunken recollection of how he got there (I'm seriously not making this up!) About 50% of their songs have some kind of political or social comment within, with the rest usually being good time rock, and they've done their fair share of fund-raisers for the Stop the War Coalition and War Child. They are quite unusual, and I quite respect them for this, in that its almost unheard of for a local unsigned band of their age range (i.e. late thirties and upwards) to be writing and gigging original music instead of simply doing covers. They've done two full length albums - I actually produced their first one, and they self produced their second, and have released a handful of EP's and live recordings. Funnily enough, I was at their first ever gig in 2002 (they opened up a local festival headlined by Bad Manners!) and I recently went to their 10th anniversary gig in the summer. As unlikely as it seems, they are pretty committed - they've managed well over 100 gigs, which frankly is remarkable for any band - most local bands seem to split up before getting into double figures.

John - well spotted about the green screen thing - yes, alas, there was so much footage I had couldn't use because of the narrow area of the green screen that chroma-keyed correctly - I've got lots of shots of Jon over extended his arms and them both disappearing (I told him to be careful but he got a bit carried away in places!) It was our own fault, we didn't have a proper stand for the screen, and the lighting wasn't ideal, so although the screen was three metres wide, the usable area was about half that. I had to bite the bullet with the shot where the top of Jon's head vanishes, it was the only viable bit of footage I had for that moment, and I feel its kind of ironic, he's literally losing his head!

Jim
'Game over, man, game over!'
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TimStannard
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Re: Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by TimStannard »

Hi Jim,

Congratulations on finally finishing this (not a criticism, I'm still editing some footage I finished filming 18 months ago). If we ignore the quality of the camera (I know the limitations you were working under), I think there is plenty about this which is encouraging - a mixture of shots and angles, a mixture of scenes, good quality audio (a given as it's a music vid), edited snapiily to the beat without becoming hypnotic and a "look" which held the piece together.

On the down side, the framing of Jon as a newsreader was off. Check out the so called "rule of thirds" - aim to get his eye line one-third of the way down the screen. Perhaps more importantly - and this is a very tricky thing with music videos - the video didn't really "develop": it contained nothin in the second half that we hadn't already seen in the first. Ideally you should try to introduce or just give the impression that you're going to introduce) new things throughout, in order to give people a reason to keep watching (rather than just rely on them wanting to hear more of the song).

Cheers,

Martin Stanford :wink:
Tim
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TimStannard
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Re: Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by TimStannard »

Hi Jim,

Congratulations on finally finishing this (not a criticism, I'm still editing some footage I finished filming 18 months ago). If we ignore the quality of the camera (I know the limitations you were working under), I think there is plenty about this which is encouraging - a mixture of shots and angles, a mixture of scenes, good quality audio (a given as it's a music vid), edited snapiily to the beat without becoming hypnotic and a "look" which held the piece together.

On the down side, the framing of Jon as a newsreader was off. Check out the so called "rule of thirds" - aim to get his eye line one-third of the way down the screen. Perhaps more importantly - and this is a very tricky thing with music videos - the video didn't really "develop": it contained nothin in the second half that we hadn't already seen in the first. Ideally you should try to introduce or just give the impression that you're going to introduce) new things throughout, in order to give people a reason to keep watching (rather than just rely on them wanting to hear more of the song).

Cheers,

Martin Stanford :wink:
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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mysticjim
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Re: Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by mysticjim »

Hi Tim, thanks for the feedback - its so concise, you had to post it twice! :lol:

Couple of fair points you make, though - the framing of the newsreader was an issue, originally, and you can see this from the test footage I previously posted, Jon was framed much better, however, two things worked against me in the final cut. Firstly, I hadn't anticipated how much movement Jon had done, most of his lateral gesticulations ended up obscuring the screen, hence he ended up in a much smaller space. Also, I made the late decision to switch the aspect ratio to 16:9 - which also seems to have given the impression that he is framed lower still. I was also aware of the gaping blank space above Jon's head and immediately to his right(our left) just below the screen.

I do understand what you're saying about the second half of the video - and I guess you're correct in that I don't introduce anything radically new. My line of thinking was thus;

There are four elements to the visuals;

The band performance footage - this is the band delivering the message as they normally would on stage. In essence, its a song criticising people who hijack legitimate protest with an agenda of violent confrontation with authority.

The Stock Footage - the song is about rioting, so its footage of rioting.

The News Reader - he represents state propaganda, he's a bit 'Big Brother' - but he's disguised as a familiar and trusted character, that of someone who delivers the news and has a lot of influence on how lots of people form their opinions.

The Activist Under Interrogation - the antithesis of the News Reader - they're delivering the same lines, but the meaning is very different.

Having introduced all of those elements early I worked on the principle that the captions in the news reader segments would get more controversial as things progressed; the first verse is like its giving the headlines whereas the second verse and chorus are more like subliminal mind control messages.

Also, I prompted Jon, as both characters, to progressively get more wacky as the song went on - both start very conservative, but by the end they both go a bit insane, and I increased the speed and intensity of the cutting between scenes and the background screen for the news reader shows wavy static and the caption goes apeshit too. I figured all these elements made for a climax that hopefully kept the viewers interest as they sort of watched the characters self destruct.

We had talked about a couple of other elements but didn't get chance to film them, and to be fair, I doubt what we had in mind would have provided the missing elements you're looking for.

On the one hand, I've been comparing my video to a few other videos on various forums - in particular there is a US based forum I'm a member of and they get a lot of homemade Hip Hop and R'n'B videos posted there - by and large, nothing happens in those, they basically show off the artist doing their thing in front of a range of backdrops, but the narrative in usually non-existent, so compared to those mine is packed with ideas and themes.

However, you've really got me thinking about this - to be fair, when i shot the scenes I didn't have any real narrative planned out, I just knew I wanted those four elements so thats what I shot. Then I built the progression of the video around Jon's performances inter-weaved with the performance footage and padded it out with the stock footage. Maybe I could/should have planned some dramatic twist for a grand finale?

The whole exercise has been a massive learning experience, I think I'll approach my next project with the full narrative worked out almost every shot planned and storyboarded(I've finally learnt an easy method for doing that.)

Well, thanks again for your opinions, Tim, you've given me much to ponder. :)

Jim
'Game over, man, game over!'
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TimStannard
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Re: Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by TimStannard »

mysticjim wrote:in particular there is a US based forum I'm a member of and they get a lot of homemade Hip Hop and R'n'B videos posted there - by and large, nothing happens in those, they basically show off the artist doing their thing in front of a range of backdrops, but the narrative in usually non-existent, so compared to those mine is packed with ideas and themes.
Indeed. Hip Hop videos are generally dreadful for the reason you state. And nothing happens in the music either :wink:
But we aim higher than that!
I can see how you've developed the character and the headlines/clips throughout now you've mentioned it. But i guess what was missing and to be fair, what is missing in a very large number of music videos, is anything which makes me want to see how the narrative develops.
Many get away with it because the artist is already established and people are mainly interested in the song or idol worship - so there's no need for a coherant plot.
I think making a music video of unheard of bands (sorry Jon!) must be one of the toughest jobs out there.
On the other hand it's one area where you can afford to have loads of fun and be as experimental as you like.
Tim
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mysticjim
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Re: Music Video is Finally Finished

Post by mysticjim »

But i guess what was missing and to be fair, what is missing in a very large number of music videos, is anything which makes me want to see how the narrative develops.
Its a valid point. As I previously admitted, when I conceived the idea for the video, I sort of knew I wanted those elements, but I certainly didn't sit down and think this is how it'll start, then this will happen in the middle, and then this will be the payoff at the end.

I guess a lot depends on what the band or artist are looking for - if they have ambitions of anything approaching mainstream success, then a promo video just showing them 'doing their thing' in as positive light as possible will be what they want, they'll be hawking it around music industry types who won't really be that fussed about the video's narrative. I've been chatting to one of the aspiring directors in the US on that forum I mentioned, although he's actually quite into the music, he does find the videos themselves a bit dull to watch, but he told me he just uses them as a way of perfecting different types of shot - he's trying to use them as a technical exercise to help broaden his skills, and hopes they'll stand him in good stead when he finally gets to work on something a bit more challenging. I do envy him a bit, though, while I'm here filming sweaty, aging, male rock bands on a wet weekend in Bristol, he's out and about in sunny LA filming beautiful women in skimpy outfits!

However, you have got me thinking about my next video - I am feeling the urge to plan it out in much more detail and have a definite conclusion.
'Game over, man, game over!'
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