I think the first thing I should say is that I am very proud of the video we made. Grace and I were both complete newbies, without any experience in scripting, filming, or editing, and not to mention, we were only two in the group. Despite all of that, we made a really good music video that we are proud of and significantly increased multiple filmmaking skills along the way. No matter the grade, or the Soft Corporate’s feedback, I am personally very content with our work.

The final version of our music video was very different from what we have planned and from the pitch we presented in class. In the beginning, we were going to make a non-narrative video consisting of two sequences: a light, bright, dream-like sequence at dawn at the beach, and an unusual, intriguing and bold sequence in the green studio. It was going to be a conceptual video, designed to match the song without distracting the audience with a storyline. However, after uploading all the footage together it became obvious very soon that these two sequences don’t go together. We tried to play and combine it, to create a story of Grace’s character and mine, but the problem was mostly of colours and quality. The beach shots were all in a beautiful colour palette, pink and sky blue, and the quality was very good as well. The green screen studio footage, however, was not as promising… The light was kind of orange-ish and we couldn’t properly figure out the three-point lighting after all so I had shadows all over my face. I realise now that we overestimated our capabilities at the very start: our initial idea would work if we had time and budget for a spacious white studio, luminous lighting and a professional model. Hopefully, I will be able to properly execute a similar idea later.

So, we decided to change the storyline.

In the final video, there’s a covert storyline. The guy in the video is the only real character: the girl is only in his memories/ dreams. He stands there, thinking of her and of how she disappeared from his life, but the video doesn’t explain what happened to her. This idea came to us because of how dreamy and unreal the original beach footage looked. We also thought about making the real character an old woman, sitting in a wheelchair by the ocean remembering her better days, but it would be too difficult to find a volunteer, especially since Grace and I both only moved to Australia in June. For the same reason we had to drop a similar idea of an old man remembering his wife who passed away, so we chose the narrative with a heartbroken young man. It’s funny, right after we approved this idea we started looking for a leading male actor, and when Grace suggested asking Kenneth it just clicked: he was perfect for the role. I even went through all of my friends and acquaintances to make sure- he was the one.

I think that the best part of our video is the footage. It was getting up at 4 am and freezing at the beach just to get these shots: they are stunning. I am not even sure what made it that good, the time, the location, the camerawork, beautiful Grace, or just luck, but I definitely consider footage to be the most successful aspect of my work. I also think our editing was pretty good for beginners, we explored and applied quite a lot of different techniques and solutions. I think that one of the best editing ideas we had is changing colour palette to highlight that Grace’s and Kenneth’s characters and not in the same world. It added so much charm and mystery to the video, I think it was magical. I also especially enjoy how every cut matches the song’s rhythm, that’s always something I personally look for in music videos. As for negative aspects, I am not sure… I feel like the video could just be better all together, but I don’t know what exactly is missing. I feel bad being that person who can’t properly explain, but it’s true, I just honestly don’t know what’s wrong with it. We worked so hard, and there’s nothing else we could change at this point, but I still get this feeling that it could be better. Then again, nothing I do is ever good for me, so I just hope that I will improve it later in my studies.

All in all, we did a great job, and what’s just as important, we had a great time doing it. I don’t think that I will ever find myself building my career on music video production, but I definitely improved myself immensely during this course.