Big Stink Music Video with Evaluation

Big Stink Music Video:


Here is the final evaluation of my music video project; I shall go through all the procedures, roles and tasks within the process of creating this final video. The video took two days in total to shoot and a good three days editing with a little bit of extra time here and there to get the final Re-Edit of the video.

Firstly lets talk about inspiration for the song and video, well it started when the group where discussing lyrics we knew we wanted a punk/metal feel to the song however didn’t want a cliché lyrical theme. We began brainstorming and eventually came out with something to do with the Hiroshima Bombing. Once we had our theme we did some research until finally finding the wikipedia article about Big Stink an aeroplane which was sent to take photographs of the Hiroshima attacks, after printing the pages the group discussed lyrics however it wasn’t particularly successful so we left it until we had a solid bakcing track of music.
During that night Jack created a drum track using the programme Beat craft, as well as a guitar part to go with it, me and Jack then began to debate the lyrics until coming to a final set.
Jack then sent me the backing track and I fitted lyrics to it after doing this I sent it back to Jack and also Matt to have their approval on the way I presented the lyrics they where happy so the next day we where set to record.

On the next day Jack taught Matt his bass part and we headed to the studio to record our song, it all went very smoothly and suprising didn’t take too long, it was after this that we needed a good strong idea as to what was going to happen within the video, we drew inspiration from videos such as Enter Shikari-Sorry Your Not A Winner and Cancer Bats-Hail Destroyer just to name a few.
Both of these videos are heavily performance based which was our initial idea. It was then set that we where going to do a performance in Jacks Nan’s garage and we began the storyboards and ideas, such as camera angles, shot type and various other aspects.
Although the following day bought much stress down onto the group as the garage plan fell through, we desperately needed a back up plan but there wasn’t one. Jack then enlightened me and Matt with the idea of his friend’s house and how we could do a similar performance there this began the basis of our video.
After speaking to tutors and going through pitches this idea seemed solid until it was discovered that me and Matt would not be able to get to the location as it was in Colchester and we where busy on the only night that the crowd could get in. Once again we hit another downfall but picked ourselves up soon again after deciding to add a narrative into the performance all was not lost, Me and Jack sat at a table through ideas at each other and scribbling them down on paper while Matt created a storyboard, here is where the final idea came in we would have a narrative of Jack filming at the party so we still had a good crowd concept in the video and then we would all meet up to do the performance sections of the video at Jacks house the following week.

Now we began to delegate roles Jack would be head of camerawork I would dream up the concepts for editing and Matt would do the majority of pre-production, this took all the stress away from us and we finally knew what we where doing.

It came to the first night of filming Friday night where Jack was going to film the narrative clips at the party, this all went very well however the camera was left on automatic giving a lot of fast moving shots a blurry hue, another slight disappointment was the crowd only around six people turned up however I think this gave the video a more rough underground feel which was the sort of thing we where aiming for a rough, raw and ready punk style video.

Then came the weekend where we all made arrangements to meet at Jacks house on Monday, here we filmed all the performance aspects of the video, we recorded us the band performing the sound from a wide range of angles we experimented here with lighting capturing some interesting lens flares and good shadow shots, the shots where also varying with down the neck guitar shots, extreme close ups, tracking all sorts where used to get a ensure the video was to a high standard.

Once I got home that evening I began to think more closely toward the post-production, I came up with the idea of making the colours black and white upon the performance and even came up with the plan of super imposing the Hiroshima videos over the top of us performing, these two editing techniques proved worthy in the later stages of post-production.

Our next day was a break where we all had a chat about the post-production ready for editing the next day. During the next day of cause the editing began on final cut pro, we began by fitting all of the party footage together, it seemed to flow well but we needed to decide on edit points for the performance sections in the video. The performance parts came whenever the character in the narrative left the room, the whole narrative was filmed through a first person perspective making the audience feel they are part of the video. Each performance shot was very quick paced to keep up with the timing in the song it’s a fast song therefore it requires fast edits. When all the performance sections where added they seemed too colourful compared to the narrative so we began to desaturate the performance clips one by one so they became black and white. After adding a few fades and extra audio effects the video was completed or so we though.

The editing took a good few days but soon enough it was time for evaluation, after gaining some feedback from the group it was clear we need to add more to more video the lip sync and instrument syncing was perfect however the video lack just that little bit extra, it was here where we finally decided to super impose the Hiroshima videos upon the performance, this came out tremendously but left the performance slightly in shadow.
I suggested that we add a small amount of colour to the performance sections and possible make the narrative a little more muddy to make the video flow in a more orderly fashion. Once this was completed we where set and extremely happy with the finished Re-edit of our video.

So there you have it that is how the video was created but how about things we could have change what we where happy with these are all questions that need to be answered, and now I shall answer them

Things I am personally happy with would be the overall cinematography and mise-en-scene all the locations look considerable punk/ metal they have a nice rugged edge once the effects are applied and costume all the crowd really look like the target audience would and us the band generally look like we mean business in the way we play our music with aggression and a raw style. This is a silly point but I was happy with my personal costume I felt I portrayed an extreme punk feel with the Mohawk and overall costume, I decided I should dress up as I am the front man of the band pressing a lot of attention upon me. The shots used for performance are another thing I am very pleased about as they continuously vary between fixed and tracking shots giving the video a smooth quick paced continuity and also makes sure it flows back into narrative in an orderly fashion rather than being all very picky.
As a group I was very happy there was a fantastic input from all the team members and we all had a good shot at editing and filming however in the future I would perhaps like to be more engaged in the filming side of the production, I did film a lot of performance shots however I feel the work load should have been spread as Jack was left to do the entire party sequence. Although without my shot list Jack may have been slightly stuck so I guess in some way I did input into the filming of the party sequence.

What am I not so happy with well I suppose mostly the quality, due to the camera being left on automatic a lot of shots where blurred and also the night made some clip extremely dark even on indoor shots, in the future I would probably consider shooting day for night and if I was shooting at night I would use additional lighting to give the shots more depth. Also the crowd turn out was abit of a let down in future I will make sure things are well and truly sorted before making a moving and leaving it in the hands of others perhaps a list of who is actually turning up would be an appropriate idea. Experimentation would also be a big part if I was to recreate this video I would use a variety of lens to see what kind of shots could be achieved as appose to leaving it all the basic camera lens.

Big Stink overall for me was a huge success the audience seem to have enjoyed watching and I certainly enjoyed making and working in a group of other like minded individuals, I believe our similar taste in music helped the video as we already knew what we wanted as we had all seem videos from our favourite bands before and knew exactly what we wanted. Compared to real pop promos I think our video is rather convincing it holds all the conventions of a punk video and very similar shots, but our narrative gave the video some kind of originally allowing it to stand out from ordinary performance based videos. Big Stink was a nice concept and a good overall project I am happy with the finished product and have learnt that it is better to discuss things in a groups rather than going at it alone, along with this I have learned to open my ears and listen to others ideas more closely, before the project I was rather close minded however this projected allowed me to open up and listen to others, these skills have left me very happy as with my other group members the video would not be what it is. Big Stink where certainly very enjoyable for all of us and has given me a good incite into working in a media industry, overall I am proud of my input to the video, Big Stink and generally how everything has turned out .